ménage á moi

[tsukinofaerii]

Advance warning: this is going to be seriously tl;dr and tmi. Something's been bugging me for a week, and I've finally come to grips with my thoughts enough to post about it.

For the people who go "oh, she's on another social justice trip, move along"... Well, move along. (I'm pretty this is all of you. Has my flist no interest in serious things?) If you're embarrassed about masturbation (especially your own if you're a girl), talking about masturbation or in any way hung up on masturbation... well, this one is about you. And me, obviously.

Ooh, wait, I said the m-word. Three times! Scary. Actually, this is embarrassing me to type, and I'm kind of positive that I'm going to have to fight not to private-lock it when I'm done. Which is kind of the problem.

Starting from the beginning, last week I ended up in Borders with spare time on my hands. This being me, I ended up in the sex section. Well, after going through the fantasy and manga areas. I took an interesting cameraphone shot of the religion signs which happen to be right next door to the sexual non-fiction. (It goes "Religion, Christianty, Religion, General Religion" -- wtf?) On search for inspiration, or possibly just to make the woman browsing the religion eyes glare at me, I started digging through the shelves.

I noticed a pattern immediately. Can we say couple-friendly? Almost every book I found was for people in relationships. How to please him/her, about a dozen different Kama Sutra variations, kink guides... I mean, whoa. Talk about writing material. But since slash has very little to do with real homosexuality (we seem to ignore that gay couples have anal sex about as much as hetero couples do--not often), I started looking at books for little ol' moi. And there was a near-complete dearth. Couples, couples, couples... But I'm very much not in a position for partnered sex right now. So I dug. And dug. And dug. Eventually I found Getting Off by Jamye Waxman and bought it.

I'm going to be completely honest here: I bought it pretty much for the shock value. It was going to be a coffee-table type of thing. My family and friends tend to regard me as a pervert because I take pride in my lack of shame about sex. They know I'm a slasher, mostly know that I'm ambisexual (there's just some things you don't discuss with your 80+ grandparents who have heart problems), and I'm known to be obnoxiously persistent about many topics. It's a long-running hobby of mine to re-enforce this view of me, at least partly because I enjoy their embarrassment and partly because I feel it makes it easier to have certain conversations. I fully intend to pull aside various younger cousins as soon as they get old enough and give them the "be safe and don't be ashamed" talk.

After I bought my book, I still had a bit of a wait, so I settled in to browse it in order to stave off the boredom. It was actually a more interesting read than I'd thought it would be! The first chapter is the author's personal story, which is a good way to get me into a book. I got a couple of chapters in before my ride/cousin was ready to go. Of course, as soon as I got in the car I started in on my new book, pointedly snuggling down in my seat to read while she drove and talked with her girlfriend. As her girlfriend is a co-worker of mine and I enjoy poking them about the couple-dom thing, I interrupted frequently and ended up promising to lend out the book when I was done.

My cousin immediately commented that it might be useful applied to her and her girlfriend. (Well, the comment was dirtier than that, but my response was hardly and better.) After a week of too-deep thoughts, I'm starting to realize that her non-sequiter has been bothering me. There's nothing wrong with solo sex, even when you're in a relationship. Why did she immediately default to a couple thing when the book is pretty pointedly about what a single girl can do to herself?

After reading through three-fourths of Getting Off over the past week, I've really been thinking. It covers the history (mostly very, very frightening) of female masturbation, the social (un)acceptablity... The works. Why is it that guys are expected to jack off, but girls are supposed to do the exact opposite? Skippy's List has an amusing story about someone caught with his pants down. I doubt a girl would even have been in that situation to start with, not out of any innate sense of propriety, but out of humiliation. But we've come a very, very long way in even just 50 years. At least women no longer have forced clitoridectomies in order to prevent them from masturbating. It's forward movement, and it made me happy that I'm able to live in such changing times.

But it also made me consider my own hang-ups. (Yes, I have them! Stop laughing!) I got the "don't touch that!" response as a little girl. For the most part, my mom's pretty liberal. For the most part I kept thinking "thank goodness for mommy" during the break-down of the Victorian era, but masturbation was definitely one of the things I learned to think of as dirty as a kid. Now I'm conscious of it, but the issue exists. I'm still dealing with it. Being in a "yay sexual liberation" frame of mind, I tried to discuss it with my mother. I mean, that's supposed to help, right? It was embarrassing and awkward, but I put on my brave face and soldiered on. The conversation went as follows:

Me: I picked up this awesome book about masturbation over the weekend.
Mom: Oh?
Me: I can't believe how uptight some people are; I feel really lucky that you taught me to value the human body.
Mom: Well, it's a thing of beauty... [ramble on grandmother and life drawing and nude sketches]
Me: Yeah, Nana was awesome. She caught me in all sorts of weird things as a kid! Speaking of--
Mom: WOW, my garden is growing really well!
Me: ....

This is another pattern I've been noticing. I start talking, and people dodge the point or say they don't care and move on without me. (Which pisses me off, a little.) NO ONE will have a straight-forward conversation about solo sex with me. Even people who normally chat with my about sex like it's wallpaper have managed to avoid the bullet. I'm not even talking nitty-gritty details. Just mentioning it gets the conversation instantly uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable right now, and it's bugging the hell out of me. I don't like having a topic that makes me squirm.

So this post? Is all about me forcing myself through being embarrassed. And I hope that anyone else reading it take a good long look in the mirror and considers her own hang-ups. (Even more hopefully, I'd like her to be able to celebrate her lack of them!) There's something wrong with a world where it's easier to discuss hardcore gay bondage than a couple of fingers and a clitoris. Why in the world has female sexuality been compressed into a strict "two or more only" zone?

Comments

[moontear.livejournal.com]

Girlie girl, I will have a conversation about solo sex with you! I mean, it still embarrasses me from time to time, and I'm not like -- in the habit of going around talking to people about it in like... every day conversation, lol, but I can talk to you about it if you need someone to. :3 *shrugs*

[blinddeciever.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's true. My only hang-up is that I'm actually a pretty shy person; talking about such things when directed to me is embarrassing because of that. I grew up with a pretty liberal family; they're all pretty religious (Although my dad is the least religious of all of them; he was the first to know I'm agnostic, not Christian like they are, and doesn't mind at all), however, and that can raise some complications.

But as I said, they're liberal. *Shrugs* I'd just rather die then discuss something personal with them, is all. XD

I'd talk about it, if you wanted. *Shrugs* It's conversation, and better yet, information as well. (Sometimes it shocks me how little my friends know about things like that. And I'm the only one who isn't interested. *Rolls eyes*) Info is info; I don't care how or who I get it from.

....*Blinks* Of course there's something majorly wrong with this world. What's your point? We already knew that. XD

[nyreak.livejournal.com]

I don't know why the world is so set on that as far as women are concerned, but it's ridiculous. If a woman isn't in a sexual relationship with someone else, they're just supposed to get no satisfaction at all until they find someone to do so with? So it's better to find a one-nighter than to do it yourself? Absurd.

And if a woman is in a sexual relationship, she's only supposed to get any sort of pleasure if she's doing it with that other person? That might would work for a man, as they almost always manage to enjoy themselves, but even if it's a pretty regular thing, not all women are even able to reach orgasm during sex. I can, and am lucky enough to have a husband that makes sure I do before he does (if TMI, my apologies :D), but... when I do it myself, it is almost always more intense, and I don't have to be all cuddly or take a lot of time if I don't want to. Yeah, I am often a 'just do it, make me happy, and go on about whatever we were doing' kind of person.

As the mother of a little girl, I need to actually look into this more so that I can figure out the best way to discuss it with her. My mom was definitely in the 'it's dirty to touch yourself' state of mind, and I don't want my little girl to grow up thinking that. Thanks for bringing that up, though, I hadn't really thought about that before now.

[lyakahime.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting. I didn't realize until I read your post that I would be embarassed to discuss masturbation. It's such a deeply personal thing that it's like sharing a part of my soul, and that makes me twitch.

As for why your cousin immediately defaulted to couple thing, I have to say that I can understand why. Disclaimer, not all couples are like this, but there's a certain stage in the relationship where everything is about being +1. Like, your brain chemistry rewires so that you go through your day asking "How does that apply to me and my S.O.? Should I tell him/her about that? What would he/she think about that issue? Is this useful to us?" One of the traditional benefits of couplehood is sex, so when sex comes up, even someone who doesn't normally live with the +1 rule will immediately start thinking about their S.O. I mean, you mention sex, and people start thinking about having it. And if you're in a relationship, you start thinking about having it with someone. And often, if you're NOT in a relationship, you just start FANTASIZING about having it with someone- say, Colin Farrell. (yow.)

It's a little odd because couples definitely still masturbate, but focus mentally on joint sex. I guess that's because joint sex is where the most room for improvement. After masturbating once a day on average for seven years straight, I've got it pretty much down to a science. Long, slow, teasing, immediate, hard, soft, however I want it, I can have it. But my S.O. isn't quite to the magic 100% results class yet. And joint sex is very different for girls- much less focus on the clitoris!- so I'm still learning the techniques there. So that's where my focus is. Maybe that's why.

The hard part about masturbation is the shame, not the mechanics. Once you sit down to do it it's pretty easy to make the sparklies happen, so the problem is shame, which compounds itself by being hard to discuss and thereby eliminate. The problem with joint sex is making sure a good time is had by all, and so that's where the discussion focuses- and there CAN be a discussion about that, so there is.

::shrugs:: My thoughts :)

[caer-swan.livejournal.com]

I was un/fortunate enough not to have to deal with any of that sex business until college, where I went to a liberal place full of lesbians! XD

But really, a lot of my comfort with the word masturbation has to do with the fact that on of my best friends actually sells sex toys, She's an Athena's Home Novelties rep. :)

I would recommend The Clitoral Truth... if I remember if it was any good. I remember stumbling across it when I was a library aide at the university. ^_^ It has nice illustrations?

Re: Clitoridectomies: Our culture may not have them any more, but they still go in in other parts of the world. :(

[caer-swan.livejournal.com]

Oh! And you may have figured out how shameless I am. I once did a poll about the uses of dominant hands in regards to masturbation... *g*