Editor’s Note: May is Masturbation Month, which I covered in a Planet Waves article recently. My friend Dee Greene has a cool sex blog, and she posted this today. I am republishing it here. She will be able to read and respond to your comments. –efc
By Dee Greene
Self-pleasure is sacred to me. Despite early messages that what I was doing was wrong, or later experiences that taught me to keep it a closely-held secret, I have cherished masturbation for as long as I can remember.
Over many years devoted to the pressure+tension orgasm, I learned how to come while sitting up at a desk with my legs crossed. This method was handy when I was in law school. Sitting at my study carrel in the library, in broad view right next to the glass balcony, I would cross my legs and press, release, press, release, press, release, until the throbbing made my face red and splotchy, my breathing heavy, and beads of sweat graced my neckline.
When I felt frustrated or tired, the desk orgasm was a great pick-me-up. I was subtle about it; exhibitionism wasn’t my aim. But once a fellow student was in the stacks nearby. I didn’t realize this until afterward. He watched as my head involuntarily fell back, jaw slack, my sighs audible. When I opened my eyes and saw him watching me, he blushed and scuttled down the aisle. He never said a word to me about what he witnessed.
At home, I prefer my tension or pressure orgasms lying on my left side, thighs pressed together. I may use a dildo, or I may place my left middle finger in my vagina, the heel of my hand pressing against my clit through my vulva. But lying on my left side, knees clamped together, has long been the go-to position.
When Taryn and I started sexing together, I learned that her default self-pleasure position was to lie on her right side, legs clamped together. We thought this incredibly serendipitous. We like to masturbate together, and this way we could face each other, me on my left side and she on her right, breathing the other’s breath. Very sexy.
Masturbating together has become a deeply satisfying aspect of our shared sexlife. When people treat masturbation like a pathetic second-best option, I feel sorry for them. Self-pleasure is glorious, in my world. Sharing self-pleasure with a lover has helped me not only explore my own sexuality with more confidence, but has provided empathy and insight to others’ sexual responses and self-pleasure. Gone are the days when I quietly get off by myself after the “real sex” is over, hoping that my partner won’t hear me and be offended or hurt.
Taryn and I often like to end our partnersex with masturbation. For me, it reinforces that I am responsible for my own pleasure. We aren’t focused on “giving” each other orgasms. Stimulation – whether mental, audible, tactile – is fodder for pleasure, but the pleasure itself comes from within. It is mine. It is hers. Yes, it is ours, but ultimately, we give to ourselves.
I was perfectly happy with my pressure/tension masturbation method and saw no need to vary what worked. But after my adventures exploring direct clitoral stimulation, I realized that I had been depriving myself the potential smorgasbord of possibility.
In my next post, I’ll tell you how I learned to orgasm with my legs open.
thanks dee!
i spent a little time poking around a few of your other recent posts on your blog — great stuff. i’m always curious and intrigued by people with vivid memories of a lush childhood masturbation habit, since i can’t really say i had anything of the sort.
i like to think i’m making up for lost time. 🙂
Fantastic, taboo breaking stuff. Thanks Dee, thanks Eric for publishing it. Even though I now consider myself a ‘seasoned’ masturbator, couldn’t help cringing a little as I read it. It encourages me to go further where I still hold back, still judge – and helps me be a litle kinder to those who haven’t got there yet, seeing as I still have a way to go myself.
Liz xx
Dee, thanks for your amazing contribution – simple, beautiful, juicy.
Here is something I’ve written, a bit more of an essay – called Mirrorplay. I consider what you’re doing a form of mirrorplay.
http://bookofblue.com/blue/mirrorplay
@susyc: always a joy to prompt tingling in naughty and nice bits!
@Stellium in Sag: Many thanks for your comment, and you’re welcome for sharing my intimate life. I am finding that the more honest and open I can be, including about things that others prefer not to hear or think about, the more authentic and full my life experience.
Ah, yes, good point about those who don’t want to touch themselves breeding neediness and dependence in another, or others.
In general I don’t like to proclaim what others should or ought to do, but I do believe that for myself, self-care, self-love, and self-pleasure provide the healthiest platform from which I can connect and appreciate others and the multitude of pleasure available in this lifetime. That platform has also provided a basis of comfort and stability for cycles of pain and loss.
If I can share that experience, perhaps it will encourage others to build their own platforms, or at least have compassion for those of us who embrace ourselves physically.
Peace to you, as well.
How beautiful that you and Taryn get to admire each other in the throes of ecstasy! I definitely got a bit of tingling in my ‘naughty bits’ as I read your description. Think I’ll have to sign up for your blog.
I would have to say, thanks for writing and publishing this! there is a huge need in the world to keep opening up the spectrum of possibilities. although personally what you communicated was tender and beautiful, I have to remind myself that there are many who might think differently, or worse, (in my world) not think about it at all.
as someone who has participated in none of the ‘typical’ female rites of passage, starting with let’s say homecoming or prom, to marriage, children, or even something as simple (but is not, let me assure you) as Going Shopping with my Girlfriends, participating in wedding/baby showers, etc. etc. I appreciate anyone, on any topic, to widen the discussion or propose/share alternatives to the ‘norm’. especially if it involves the so-called ‘inappropriate’ which is usually thrown as a dagger of envy..
hope that made sense.
thanks for sharing your intimate life. it is amazing how many people don’t want to touch themselves-fr. my own experience. it creates a neediness or a dependence on another. in not a good way. I feel a hollowness from them.
anyway, happy Saturday to you,
peace.