Finally, someone has figured it out. Officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major program to encourage the unthinkable: masturbation. The region’s socialist government has launched a €14,000 ($21,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about “sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure” – or to put it less delicately: masturbation. This, according to the Guardian newspaper in the UK.
“Pleasure is in your own hands” is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.
Conservative spokespeople responded mainly with embarrassment. “This is an intimate subject that should be dealt with at home,” complained local opposition leader Hernández Carrón of the rightwing People’s party. “We have become the laughing stock of Spain.”
“They are interfering with the right of parents to educate their own children about a matter as important as their sexuality,” agreed the conservative Confederation of Fathers and Mothers of Schoolchildren.