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The love that dare not speak its name
The Australian ^ | October 04, 2003 | Susan Maushart

Posted on 10/06/2003 10:46:39 AM PDT by presidio9

Like many other women, I became over-excited by the recent news that masturbation can prevent prostate cancer. Finally, I thought: a way to do my bit for men’s health – and feel great about myself at the same time. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving! Some time later I actually read the full study and realised I’d sort of misunderstood the context. (I guess I should know better than to trust a story that’s been leaked from the British Journal of Urology.) Evidently, the study was actually about male masturbation. Oops! Oh, well. No harm done.

Although the link between frequency of ejaculation and lowered cancer rates seemed pretty flaccid, scientists were hailing it – predictably, if you ask me – as a suggestive finding. Now, around the time the story broke, I was asked to speak at a conference of sexual health professionals. "Think of it as a way to improve your handicap," my agent suggested. It meant breaking my rule about never appearing on a double bill with kids, animals or genital dermatologists, but in the end I accepted the gig (warts and all) and, in the rash of preparations that followed, I forgot all about the masturbation story.

Imagine my surprise when it popped up again – this time in the skilled hands of cartoonist Garry Trudeau. His Doonesbury strip last month featured a pointed reference to the prostate study and was promptly, well, yanked by 300 of the 700 US newspapers that regularly carry it. Syndication agents Universal Press offered offended editors an alternative instalment, explaining that "for some papers, the use of the m-word per se, no matter how deftly it is referenced, may cross the line".

"We felt it was something our readers would not like," confessed an editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Honestly. There’s no pleasing some people. Trudeau himself maintained that "the strip in question isn’t even about masturbation or cancer; it’s about the inability of two particular adults to find a mutual comfort zone to discuss a serious subject." To be honest, this response surprised me. I thought Trudeau was supposed to lay off the wanking.

Of course, those editors were right about one thing: the word "masturbation". It is creepy. It sounds like something involving stomach acids, or a council permit, or maybe both. Like the unpronounceable "menstruation" (try saying it without looking like a duck), masturbation is the kind of word that makes you want to brush your teeth afterwards. Woody Allen memorably defined masturbation as "sex with someone I love". Well, that’s fine for those who are ready to commit. But what about the rest of us?

Trudeau’s Zonker prefers to think of his favourite pastime as "self-dating". And why not? When it comes to the singles scene, heaven knows the Good Lord helps those who help themselves. Yet even a splendid term like "self-dating" can take us only so far. The fact is, masturbation, like the West Australian Police Force, has a fairly entrenched image problem. Although it contains no specific prohibitions, The Bible offers little in the way of Good News for self-daters. The story of Onan, who was slain by God for "spilling his seed upon the ground", is a good case in point. (The kids had a budgie once that did exactly the same thing. It was annoying, sure. But a hanging offence? Lighten up!)

As late as the 1930s, the American Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease was publishing serious research into "masturbatory insanity". Today, academics no longer feel the need to study such things. They become deans instead. It wasn’t until Alfred Kinsey’s groundbreaking 1948 and 1953 studies of human sexual behaviour that the extent of normal self-pleasuring became widely known. According to Kinsey’s data, 92 per cent of men reported that they masturbated; the remaining eight per cent were pathological liars. The real surprise was Kinsey’s finding that two-thirds of females were also self-starters.

Of course, guys do seem to grab onto the concept somewhat earlier than girls. Doctors make a big deal about male babies clutching their tiny members in utero. But let’s face it. They’d be pretty slow not to. I mean, it would be like not discovering your nose until high school. Girls are plenty curious about their bodies, too. But the slingshot game – stretch, boinnnnng! – isn’t really an option for us. We’re more the hide ’n’ seek types, especially those of us who grew up in the dank old days of the early ’60s. Our "down theres" were just one more place we girls were forbidden to play in, like the formal lounge or the empty lot behind school.

These days we are bombarded constantly with messages about how "healthy" and "natural" this all is, as if masturbation were some kind of stir-fry. The advice I found on a Canberra-based sexual health Web site is typical. "There is no set number of times that people should masturbate," I was assured. Well, there’s a relief, anyway. "Some people masturbate several times a day, while others masturbate only once or twice a year. However often you masturbate is normal for you." Really? How about a show of hands on that?


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
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1 posted on 10/06/2003 10:46:39 AM PDT by presidio9
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To: presidio9
How about a show of hands on that?

After washing please.

2 posted on 10/06/2003 10:47:49 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem.)
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To: All
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3 posted on 10/06/2003 10:48:55 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: presidio9
Victorian England didn't seem to have too much of a problem with the concept. No less a personage than the great Dickens pointedly named one of his characters "Master Bates."
4 posted on 10/06/2003 10:56:44 AM PDT by Agnes Heep
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To: presidio9

Spank Me!


5 posted on 10/06/2003 10:56:51 AM PDT by Spruce
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To: presidio9
I once heard a joke about a man who was so well endowed that he could orally gratify himself. The punchline implied that the only reason he ever left the house was to go to work and buy more food and beer. Perhaps all we really need to avoid prostate cancer is greater lower back flexibility.
6 posted on 10/06/2003 10:57:46 AM PDT by .cnI redruM ("We hang petty thieves, we elevate the great ones to public office." Aesop, 600BC)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: presidio9
"Evidently, the study was actually about male masturbation. Oops! Oh, well. No harm done."

Ewwwwwwwwwww.....

8 posted on 10/06/2003 11:02:23 AM PDT by sauropod (I love the women's movement. Especially walking behind it.)
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To: HURRICANE FORCE
you are actually willing to discuss another persons monkey? (especially in this context!)
9 posted on 10/06/2003 11:02:45 AM PDT by ctlpdad (If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.)
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To: .cnI redruM
There once was a man from Nantucket..
10 posted on 10/06/2003 11:04:10 AM PDT by Paradox (I dont believe in taglines, in fact, this tagline does not exist.)
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To: Spruce

Choke us!


11 posted on 10/06/2003 11:06:31 AM PDT by presidio9 (Countdown to 27 World Championships...)
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To: Agnes Heep
Victorian England didn't seem to have too much of a problem with the concept. No less a personage than the great Dickens pointedly named one of his characters "Master Bates."

Yeah, and 1950s TV had a character named "Beaver Cleaver".

Just goes to prove most people are neither sharp nor observant.

So9

12 posted on 10/06/2003 11:08:11 AM PDT by Servant of the 9 (A Goldwater Republican)
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To: Servant of the 9
"Gee ward, I think you were a little hard on the beaver last night. "
13 posted on 10/06/2003 11:09:43 AM PDT by ctlpdad (If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.)
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To: Servant of the 9
The author of this article agrees with you:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/995974/posts
14 posted on 10/06/2003 11:10:10 AM PDT by presidio9 (Countdown to 27 World Championships...)
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To: presidio9

"Boxin' the Clown"
15 posted on 10/06/2003 11:16:41 AM PDT by Spruce
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Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: presidio9
The story of Onan, who was slain by God for "spilling his seed upon the ground",


Onan was killed for his disobedience not for the act
he performed.
17 posted on 10/06/2003 12:56:43 PM PDT by WKB (3!~ What your children hate you for today they will love you for in a few years.)
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To: Servant of the 9

18 posted on 10/06/2003 1:18:04 PM PDT by sweetliberty ("Having the right to do a thing is not at all the same thing as being right in doing it.")
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To: .cnI redruM

Female Yoga Student #1: Oh! Oh, my God! Gross!! What is that guy doing?! Gro-o-o-o-o-osss!!

Male Yoga Student #1: [suddenly impressed] Look at him - he's limber!

Star Yoga Student: Ohhhh, yeahh!!

Male Yoga Student #2: I didn't think that was possible...

Male Yoga Student #3: You know, I read in Maxim that it wasn't.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/99qyoga.phtml

19 posted on 10/06/2003 5:20:31 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
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