Are You Cheating on Yourself with Yourself?

By Maria Padhila

Can you believe I’m going to talk about masturbation again this week? Well, I am — because this here is Planet Waves, and we can do that! Can I say one more time how much I appreciate the honesty and the bravery, not to mention the heart and humor, that comes across here, in all the different points of view? Thank you and amen.

So the view from the intersection of polyamory and masturbation is that traffic is moving steadily, but a little slowly from all the rubbernecking. This week, I’m hanging out at the crossroads thinking about the way a number of things intersect: Is masturbation cheating? (A lot of people think so.) How does a sexual relationship with yourself fit in with what you have with any other partner or partners — and how do all those relationships fit together?

It’s pretty common for people in polyamorous relationships (differentiated from those who are polyamorous but not in a relationship with anyone else) to say that they have trouble getting alone time. This is especially true for people just starting out in non-monogamy, from what I hear. On the surface, this is simply a time-management problem. It’s conceivable that it can be solved with a Google calendar: Block out time for yourself. There are also people in polyamorous relationships who simply don’t need as much alone time as others; it’s always a matter of personal preference.

There are actually many folks out there who are introverted and require more alone time who are also poly — and a lot of them write about it. Not all poly people are party people, going from Meetup to potluck to discussion group, hugging and chattering all the way. It’s quite a bit like sleeping: some like to spoon, maybe with as many other beloved humans as they can fit in the bed; others must have a room of their own, no matter how tiny that space.

Most of us fall somewhere in between, and on top of that like some variety depending on mood and what’s happening in life at that time. For the past couple years, everyone seems to be trying to fit themselves into the introvert/extrovert model; these Meyers-Briggs molds are useful, but I think people are exhausting that usefulness as they discover how unique they and their needs actually are.

This is a nice blog post that explains it in a few well-chosen words. It also tells of a person who prefers to have only one relationship at a time, but likes to have those relationships with poly people, because it means they don’t have the practical time constraints of many one-on-one relationships. It also means that they’re free of what feels like an obligation to be that other person’s everything.

Working out this issue is light years away from the traditional paradigm, in which woman gets mad and hurt because husband/boyfriend is jerking off to porn and assumes he doesn’t love her anymore. I know, it’s a cliché, but in my years I’ve seen it play out so often that it’s a truth as well. It has even happened to me a few times.

What I did was unpack that emotion, and here’s what I found: Once time I had that reaction because I was insecure and jealous. If I had been more secure that the person cared about me, I could have found it beautiful, fun or interesting, or at least not given the poor guy a hard time about it!

The other time it happened, I realized that it really was a passive-aggressive move to deny me closeness. We were able to talk about it and work it through, mostly because I got outside of judging and hurt and went instead to honesty about how I felt deprived.

But a lot of the judgmental attitude about masturbation comes from that place: the sense that it’s cheating. That the other person is taking something that belongs to you. That their sexuality and sexual expression belongs to you, and if it’s not expressed for you and with you, it’s not legitimate and they’re not entitled to it. That, in effect, you own their pleasure, and they might enjoy it alone only with your kind permission.

I realized I was taking this jealous stance only after I became fully aware of the empowering activity that having sex with myself had grown into. The seed for this was planted with the Betty Dodson article I spoke of last week and the work of early feminists. It took a while to blossom, against the force of a world that doesn’t want any of us to claim our own sexual power, or any other kind of personal power or autonomy.

When the social and cultural environment can convince you that you don’t have what you need and you must get what you need from elsewhere, whatever is dispensing what you need gets the power. In the time and place where I live, it’s profitable for many to convince others that they cannot be worth anything in and of themselves, but if they buy the right things, they will have worth.

Yes, I have to work to pay the rent and get the food. But I can own my sexuality. I can own my pleasure. Once again, we’re in that space where there’s nothing left to lose. We’re standing on that inch that truly belongs to us, the one no one can push us off of. We can give up that space any time — and there are so many pretty incentives to do so. Or we can claim it. When we believe and act as if love, or a principle, is more important, we claim it. When we assert that our sexuality belongs to ourselves first, we claim it. When we seek time for ourselves and our health, we claim it. When we choose to make a sacrifice for our own reasons, we claim it.

People do this in small ways, over and over, every day. We can laugh about the dozens of funny terms people have for masturbation; the activity, just like sex itself, is indeed comic from some perspectives. We can look at whether we’re using this sexual activity — as every other sexual activity gets used once in a while — for some emotional or communicative purpose. But even with all that going on, at the heart of things, owning your own sexuality and expressing it for and with yourself alone is an act of strength and integrity. I’ve learned that instead of being threatened by it, I can love and respect and applaud it in the people I love.

Give yourself a pat on the back. Or wherever else you’d like to.

*****

Alan is doing recaps of the Showtime polyamory series at the Polyamorous Percolations blog, recaps of show events with little bits of incisive commentary. Recent shows have been intriguing because they’re showing viewers that yes, there can be unforgivable cheating even in polyamory, and dishonesty and treating people badly is just that. It was revealed that one woman in a triad had been having a secret outside relationship, and the two in the triad got so angry that they threw her out of the house. The man in the group goes to see her, but says he can’t ever meet the man she had been having the secret relationship with — he even threatens to beat him up.

Here’s Alan’s comment, with which I agree:

“An ultimatum. A hypothetical threat of violence. Massive control. The interesting thing to me is that this is exactly any old-paradigm couple’s infidelity fight, just with three people in the couple instead of two.”

My favorite character, Jen, never disappoints. My new favorite line: I’m not ready for you, yet. I’m hugging your girlfriend.