Could the full-voiced women in this book give up the joy of masturbation? There is always some risk. Could men? Never. The fact that men masturbate is a given, as obvious as the penis between their legs. Mother may not like it when her little boy touches his penis; she tsk-tsks and takes his hand away, but ultimately she doesn’t want to interfere in her son becoming a man. What does she know about men? If anatomy is destiny, then man is destined to masturbate. He may do it with guilt and the torments of hell pounding in his ears, but he does it anyway. That is how men are, we shrug, animals, driven by their testosterone.
Society says it is not how women are. Since time began, a “good mother” takes her daughter’s hand away from her vagina with far more determination than she applies to her son and his penis. Mothers know everything there is to know about being a woman: Nice Women don’t masturbate.
That is why the women in this article are so significant historically. They are the first generation to grow up with a semblance of sexual acceptance, an ease with masturbation. Will they give their daughters a middle ground between madonna and whore? Will they change the course of women’s sexual history? It is by no means certain they will.
Seks and economics are inextricably linked. Today man’s economic supremacy is endangered. There is one known, tested solution that could return us to the good old days, for which some part of our unconscious still hankers because it was how our parents grew up and their parents before them: cut a woman off from her seks. Return women to our traditional asexual role, deprive us of the right to our own body, deprive us of contraceptive rights and the right to abortion, make seks the unenjoyable chore it once was. We will be on the fast track with our feet bound. We will be good wage earners, but remain chattel.
Does that sound extreme? I believe it is reality. Nor do I blame men alone for this growing tidal wave that may ultimately wash women back into some new form of sexual slavery; there are just as many women as men who would like to return us to that time when all women were equal in asexuality.
When I began this essay, I didn’t see female masturbation as the powerful symbol I now believe it to be. Until I saw a grotesque drawing of a woman’s genitals before and after a clitoridectomy, I had no image of the lengths to which people will go to keep women “in their place.” Surgically
remove all traces of seks from between a woman’s legs, wipe it clean so that nothing remains but a wound, a scarred slit, and wonder of wonders, the world can rest.
Today, as we are a more “enlightened” people, a mental clitoridectomy will suffice. Projected early enough onto a young female mind, the “ugly” slit between our legs is as untouchable as one of the vaginas butchered by the high-minded doctors of earlier times. Because the taboo against female masturbation is so deeply embedded, let us think of ways of not losing the ground we’ve so recently won as expressed by the young women in this book. Our best defense is to make ourselves so consciously aware of what masturbation wins for women that we can’t, won’t unconsciously slip back:
1. Masturbation teaches us that me are sexual all by ourselves, separate from anyone, including mother.
2. Masturbation is an excellent exercise in learning to separate love and sex, a lesson especially important for women mho confuse the two.
3. By teaching ourselves what excites us, me become more orgasmic and better sexual partners, responsible for our share, capable of giving pleasure, better able to give direction in what it is that excites us.
4. If we are loath to touch what lies between our legs, our revulsion spreads, leaving us eternally dissatisfied with the acceptability of the rest of our bodies.
5. Masturbation teaches us the difference between our clitoris, labia, urethra, and vagina.
6. Masturbation makes us far better candidates for contraceptive responsibility as well as for the sexual education of our children.
7. Last and most obvious, masturbation is one of life’s greatest sources of sexual pleasure, thrilling in itself, a release from tension, a sweet sedative before sleep, a beauty treatment that leaves us glowing, our countenance more tranquil, our smile more mysterious. As one of the women in this book puts it, “Masturbation and fantasy is when I am most honest about myself. “
Society says it is not how women are. Since time began, a “good mother” takes her daughter’s hand away from her vagina with far more determination than she applies to her son and his penis. Mothers know everything there is to know about being a woman: Nice Women don’t masturbate.
That is why the women in this article are so significant historically. They are the first generation to grow up with a semblance of sexual acceptance, an ease with masturbation. Will they give their daughters a middle ground between madonna and whore? Will they change the course of women’s sexual history? It is by no means certain they will.
Seks and economics are inextricably linked. Today man’s economic supremacy is endangered. There is one known, tested solution that could return us to the good old days, for which some part of our unconscious still hankers because it was how our parents grew up and their parents before them: cut a woman off from her seks. Return women to our traditional asexual role, deprive us of the right to our own body, deprive us of contraceptive rights and the right to abortion, make seks the unenjoyable chore it once was. We will be on the fast track with our feet bound. We will be good wage earners, but remain chattel.
Does that sound extreme? I believe it is reality. Nor do I blame men alone for this growing tidal wave that may ultimately wash women back into some new form of sexual slavery; there are just as many women as men who would like to return us to that time when all women were equal in asexuality.
When I began this essay, I didn’t see female masturbation as the powerful symbol I now believe it to be. Until I saw a grotesque drawing of a woman’s genitals before and after a clitoridectomy, I had no image of the lengths to which people will go to keep women “in their place.” Surgically
remove all traces of seks from between a woman’s legs, wipe it clean so that nothing remains but a wound, a scarred slit, and wonder of wonders, the world can rest.
Today, as we are a more “enlightened” people, a mental clitoridectomy will suffice. Projected early enough onto a young female mind, the “ugly” slit between our legs is as untouchable as one of the vaginas butchered by the high-minded doctors of earlier times. Because the taboo against female masturbation is so deeply embedded, let us think of ways of not losing the ground we’ve so recently won as expressed by the young women in this book. Our best defense is to make ourselves so consciously aware of what masturbation wins for women that we can’t, won’t unconsciously slip back:
1. Masturbation teaches us that me are sexual all by ourselves, separate from anyone, including mother.
2. Masturbation is an excellent exercise in learning to separate love and sex, a lesson especially important for women mho confuse the two.
3. By teaching ourselves what excites us, me become more orgasmic and better sexual partners, responsible for our share, capable of giving pleasure, better able to give direction in what it is that excites us.
4. If we are loath to touch what lies between our legs, our revulsion spreads, leaving us eternally dissatisfied with the acceptability of the rest of our bodies.
5. Masturbation teaches us the difference between our clitoris, labia, urethra, and vagina.
6. Masturbation makes us far better candidates for contraceptive responsibility as well as for the sexual education of our children.
7. Last and most obvious, masturbation is one of life’s greatest sources of sexual pleasure, thrilling in itself, a release from tension, a sweet sedative before sleep, a beauty treatment that leaves us glowing, our countenance more tranquil, our smile more mysterious. As one of the women in this book puts it, “Masturbation and fantasy is when I am most honest about myself. “
No comments:
Post a Comment