Editor’s Note: This week’s sex-and-relationships guest-post comes from sex and culture writer Rachel Kramer Bussel, and was originally published on The Frisky. — Amanda
I read Eliza Jules’ essay “I Obsessively Monitor My Husband’s Lube Bottle” over at xoJane and was left with this question: Is a partner’s masturbation something we should worry about? The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more I’ve concluded that, for me, I’m at the very opposite end of the spectrum as Jules; I’d be worried if someone I was dating didn’t masturbate, all the more so if I was the cause behind them holding off in the self-love department. I also wouldn’t expect someone’s firmly entrenched patterns of masturbation and porn use, especially if I met them well into their adult life, to change just because they were with me.
I’ll even go so far as to say I would definitely not want to be the sole source of my partner’s masturbation fodder. Part of it? Sure. But imagine the pressure if every single time they jerked off, they were thinking about you. That would creep me out a bit, and while I’m not an expert, I don’t think that’s a realistic goal, especially when you’re talking about long-term relationships.
I get where that desire comes from; we all want to be respected and lusted after, and don’t want to feel threatened by, say, some “perfect”-looking model or actress or porn star, or someone closer to home. But is masturbation truly a threat, or simply something they do separate from you (and vice versa)?
I asked my friend Jamye Waxman, sex educator and author of Getting Off: A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation, who agreed with me that a lot of this hoopla is a result of an over-reliance on the myth of love conquering all. “I think women are so concerned with their boyfriends fantasizing, masturbation or porn use because we’re conditioned to believe that if they loved us, they wouldn’t need these other things. So we feel threatened in our relationship when we’re aware of their sexual ‘habits’ because we may lose them to a barely legal porn star or to their own right hand.”
It’s one thing if the person is refusing sex in favor of masturbation. But what Jules is talking about sounds like your everyday horniness. Some people might have the urge more often than others, and if it’s not detracting from what you do in bed together, I say, go at it as much as you want to. But we’ve become so locked into a wildly out-of-control devotion to monogamy that it has been extended beyond the physical; now women are demanding mental monogamy too. That’s like saying, “I don’t just want your body, but also your mind.”
Now, I probably differ from a lot of women on this point, but I actually like, to a point, hearing about who someone I’m dating finds attractive, kind of like the celebrity sex list; but even if they aren’t celebrities, I want to hear about it. I’m not necessarily talking about who they’d literally sleep with if we broke up, but who, in general, they find hot. Maybe it’s because I’m bisexual and if I’m dating a guy, I like to share which girls I think are sexy and hear their answers, but I suspect it’s more that I’m, in many ways, a voyeur. I enjoy hearing about their thought process as much as the actual fantasy, and even if it’s not a fetish I share, it’s interesting to me. One ex told me he was hot for women in sneakers when I was changing out of heels into sneakers; another told me why Katie Holmes did it for him.
That being said, I don’t expect my boyfriend to tell me every one of his fantasies, or how often he jerks off, unless he wants to. I wouldn’t hold it against him if he didn’t want to, because it’s his personal space, both virtual (mental) and the time and physical space he uses for said act. As Tracy Clark-Flory recently put it at Salon, “Want to make a man stutter in bed? Ask him to describe the peaks and valleys of his personal erotic landscape.” Of course it’s an edgy topic. It’s one of the most personal things you can ask someone, in large part because those fantasies often stem from childhood or teenage desires that have stayed with them into adulthood.
I take the fear of talking about one’s masturbation fodder partly as a nod to the idea that that there are “correct” and “incorrect” kinds of fantasies. Some people might fear that spilling the “wrong” kind might kill their partner’s lust, and in fact, that might be true; I’m not arguing that everyone should reveal everything that has ever gotten them off. Maybe keeping it in your head is a way to keep it turning you on. But I think there is value in at least broaching the topic, in acknowledging that masturbation happens, and that its frequency or intensity or fantasy fodder is something separate and apart from the mutual sexual pleasure you share.
Most of the people I’ve dated have been curious to hear what I get up to when I’m alone, both to learn about the physical sensations I enjoy and toys I use, and to get to know me better. I find it hot to watch a partner get off in front of me, precisely because it is such a private and personal act. Even if I sometimes get to watch, or listen, I know I’m just a temporary spectator; I still respect their right to have a personal sexuality.
Waxman advocates for masturbation within relationships, as a teaching tool, a way for men to maintain their erections longer, as a visual show, and because “it relaxes us, so if he comes home stressed and masturbates it can help avoid some fights.”
National Masturbation Month (May) just ended, but I’d venture to say that every month should be Masturbation Month. Jerking off isn’t just for single people or people who aren’t getting their sexual needs met in a relationship. You can be having hot hot sex with someone you love, and still want some special sexytime all your own, with no one to interfere. To that point, Jules wrote a followup post in which she told her husband what she’d written, and his response was to tell her she could watch! So maybe once we break out of the view of masturbation as separate and apart from a mutual sex life and instead see it as something that makes each of us unique and special, it can even bring a couple closer together.
I think it’s unrealistic to expect a lover to never engage in a sexual thought about someone else, ever, and I’d find it, frankly, boring, especially when contemplating a long-term relationship. Asking to be the star of my partner’s sexual fantasy world 24/7 seems like a way to quell sexual adventure, rather than foster it. So I say, if you’re dating me, please do indeed get off and fantasize about anything and anyone at your leisure. I know I will be.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of over 50 erotica anthologies, including The Big Book of Orgasms, Hungry for More, Women in Lust and Flying High: Sexy Stories from the Mile High Club. She writes widely about sex, dating, books and pop culture, conducts erotic writing workshops, and tweets @raquelita. Read more at rachelkramerbussel.com.
Here is how The Onion put it — right on time
http://www.theonion.com/articles/study-average-american-has-over-9-million-imagined,36612/
The thing that hasn’t particularly interested me in the sexuality columns, has been that they tend to focus on sex with another. It only vaguely relates to me, now,.. (although I have tremendously benefitted: through further opening my understanding to ‘multiple-individuals’).
I’m a psychic sponge, and have way too much b.s. to go fuckin’ around with anybody else, at this time. The time I spend with myself grounds me in a self-functional reality, through which I am actually capable of interacting with others in a positive manner.
I would like to comment more on this subject, and hope it expands.
Much Love,
Jere
Over time I contemplated the idea of sexual healing, and this is where I arrive every time, which is that it begins with healing our sexual relationship to ourselves. All the stuff that Sarah is describing, which is worked and understood and let go of in the inner relationship, is what I believe is causing so much stress in our one-on-one relationships. And I don’t think it can really be worked out in the context of a couple (in any conventional sense of that, since there is a kind of ‘conflict of interest’) but rather through inner focus and a conscious choice to affirm one another’s inner focus.
I’ve explored how this scenario could expand into culture, but imagine if we started with a small, devoted group of individuals who were devoted to selflove and affirming one another’s selflove; who understand the mechanisms of guilt and shame and who have some knowledge about how to work with and release those emotions; and then over time create a seed community of understanding and healing. The message of this exploration could be, “Intimacy is introspection that we share.”
Then imagine this core idea and practice ripples out, propagating an evolutionary ripple that some people pick up on just because it makes sense. Imagine that it has the clarity to dissolve the bindings of overdependency, projection and narcissism (all closely related). Imagine that this could help clear enough emotional space so that a new experience of contact, love and sharing can happen where the core idea is self-forgiveness and self-affirmation.
I am discovering that this vision is propagating many places around the planet, though you don’t hear about it much because there is not really a convenient place to talk about it. We have one here, and there is space behind the scenes available as well.
“I get where that desire comes from; we all want to be respected and lusted after, and don’t want to feel threatened by, say, some “perfect”-looking model or actress or porn star, or someone closer to home. But is masturbation truly a threat, or simply something they do separate from you (and vice versa)?”
I think this assessment of”where it comes from” is at least incomplete.
I think the religio-cultural assertion that even thinking about sex is a sin afflicts the whole population like a toxin in the water supply. Include the pollution that one’s own genitals are dirty and shameful, and most people have some dark shadows around masturbation, and a lot of ignorance about it. It is not an accident that our arms are exactly long enough for our hands to cup our genitals. Our emotional, spiritual and physical well-being requires the heart-genital brain connection, and masturbation is a big part of that… Even for people in relationship. Maybe especially for people in relationship, to remind them that they are a person first. I could keep going on this.
To return to Rachel’s specific topic, the ironclad co-dependence that is the shadow side of monogamy would police the thoughts of the partners, and the reason is the smog of religion that says that thinking about sex with another is adultery. That’s where we humans learned to think like that. There is one place at least we must all be free and innocent: inside our own thoughts.
Curious if the woman who wants to be her husbands only fantasy partner masturbates herself. Does she imagine only him?
This is important: ” and if it’s not detracting from what you do in bed together.” this could bear defining. A partner, probably the woman, who doesn’t like her boyfriend masturbating, fantasizing, or using porn, may feel emotionally unsafe and that could affect what happens in bed together. Instead of her laying down the law, and him feeling like he has to hide and lie about his masturbation, they need to talk. They need to learn about their sexuality and bust the myths that have them both feeling shame about sex. It is something to work through together rather than pretend, ignore or lie about. When masturbation and fantasy start being furtive that’s cheating.
I’ve worked with clients on variations of this theme , from teaching adults to masturbate to sharing with a client she was not required to tell her partner every single thought. She is allowed to simply enjoy her thoughts.
And thank you, Rachel, for also being a woman after my own heart 🙂
For some time, I have asked my partners to masturbate for me in our first sexual encounter — and I do so for them. I started asking this because I think it is vital for us to see what turns our partner/s on, and to create a space where all aspects of (sexual) intimacy are welcome, not just the ones that involve us bodily and directly. There is a vulnerability in being intimate with oneself in front of another, and there is healing in moving into that vulnerability consciously and openly.
Earlier this year, I embarked on my training to be a Sexological Bodyworker. One of the first components of the training was our own erotic practice — a regular act of self-love-devotion that, believe you me, brings up everything: joy, bliss, all levels of arousal, and frustration, resistance, fear. All of it. Because masturbation as a practice is a commitment to unpeeling layer upon layer of shame, and oppression, and boundary violations, and every moment we have felt and declared we aren’t good enough. It has changed my life, and I am not exaggerating when I say that. And it continues to bring up resistances too; it is a series of ongoing commitments to myself, and the forgiveness that comes with not following through even when I have the best of intentions. That’s life, after all.
And I have combined both of these practices in my work: I now am in the privileged and humbling position of working with people as a coach and witness to their masturbation practice. The circle is completed. We can all give each other a hand when we give ourselves a hand 🙂 I find it increasingly hard to understand why we would do anything else.
I would encourage you to speak up about this. When we get to a “controversial” subject where it’s possible to get defensive, we can have 100 comments on a post. Here, we have a topic that’s constructive and life-affirming, which has the power to influence how we feel about one another…a real element of respect…I would love to hear from you.
Yes. This is a wonderful, piece. “…we’ve become so locked into a wildly out-of-control devotion to monogamy that it has been extended beyond the physical; now women are demanding mental monogamy too. That’s like saying, “I don’t just want your body, but also your mind.” Great!
This is a woman after my heart. She has come out for masturbation, encouraging people to affirm and support one another’s selflove demonstrated as sex. This is imo the antidote to so much that is so neurotic about our culture-typical relationship patterns. Consider what an elemental aspect of the human experience this is affirming in our partners. We have a notion of a nonviolent expression of sex. A radical concept decrypted here is that fantasy is the ‘objectionable’ thing about masturbation. That total psychic freedom which could lead anywhere, anywhom. So much in that affirmation of the other’s freedom…which can be offered with such an erotic inner echo sometimes called compersion. this is not about tolerating something. imo it’s about a self-illuminating ability to resonate with the erotic pleasure of others.
I agree; I am not my husband’s mental police nor he mine. What he thinks about, how often or why he masturbates is his business just as mine is mine. I agree that it is based on a societal ideology of monogamy and I would add of scarcity. That mentality is a prison and just sours things for me.