Catching Up on a Month's Worth of Celebratory Masturbating

Photo by Petra Collins

May was national masturbation month. If, unlike me, your Facebook friends aren’t almost exclusively feminist bloggers and people who make vagina-based art, your feed may not have informed you of that important fact.

Now that it’s over, we need to catch you up on a month’s worth of celebratory masturbating (stressful, I know). I always thought it was implicitly understood that all months were masturbation months, yet now May has been specifically designated to observe this non-sacred pastime, seemingly to raise awareness that masturbation exists, as well as to remind those who already know it exists of its benefits—both, again, seemingly profoundly unnecessary efforts, but fuck it, let’s go with this. In honor of this month of self-love, I’ve put together some of my favorite quotations, as well as a few of my own musings, on the topic of jerking off.

“Medabation” is the combination of masturbation and meditation (just reminding you!). The term was invented by the infamous porn star and feminist Annie Sprinkle (she’s the one who did the famous performance art piece Public Cervix Announcement, in which she invited audiences to look at her cervix with a speculum and flashlight). Sprinkle once said: “I feel like I have to medabate, like it’s my spiritual duty to birth as much pleasure and ecstasy and orgasm into the world as I possibly can, because there’s so much pain and suffering and sadness. It’s my job, it’s my calling in life to medabate, and it feels really good.” That’s deep. So basically, jerking off is a philanthropic act that can help combat sadness and suffering, so if you can’t afford to donate money to charities and don’t want to adopt a third-world baby, you can just masturbate out positive vibes into the world and feel confident that you’re doing your part for humanity.

The legendary sex educator Betty Dodson, now 83, became known as the “godmother of masturbation” following her 1973 best seller, Sex for One. She recently said, “Orgasms have been very important to my life. I’ve always really depended on them. In a bad mood? Jerk off. Confused? Masturbate. Working on a painting and I’m stuck? Go lay down on the couch and have an orgasm.” This woman knows what’s up. There’s nothing that resolves my confusion like a spontaneous masturbation session. Heck, if they could make masturbation into a pill it would make millions in the pharmaceutical market as a substitute for Adderall. You’re welcome.

In honor of self-love month, Dodson has relaunched her masturbation master class in NYC, in which she basically teaches girls how to make themselves come. Dodson says her aim is to help the post–Sex and the City, post-Girls generation of women that, according to her, are not nearly as liberated as they think they are.

"Most of them haven't even seen their genitals in a mirror. You show 'em and they go 'eek!' or 'ugh!'" Honestly, I find that hard to believe. Do girls really not know what their vaginas look like? Even in the age of the iPhone? The only reason I have a password on my phone is so that if someone steals it, they don’t open it to find a stream of literally 2,000 photos of my labia from different angles. Why else would the Reverse Camera function exist? Duh.

However, if you’re having clit-functioning problems, and you don’t live in a place without easy access to masturbation master classes (which I’m guessing is everywhere in the world outside of NYC, LA, and Portland), then a vibrator is the perfect way to get your lazy clit into gear. Being a sex writer, I’m often sent sex toys in the mail (thanks, iroha!)—I usually try each toy out once before chucking it behind my bed in what I now refer to as the "vibrator graveyard." More recently, I’ve noticed that sex toy manufacturers seem to be catching on to the fact that not all women want to masturbate with deafeningly loud, oversize jackhammers (especially when we have roommates)! This means that there’s a plethora of new, discreet, elegant sex toys on the market that can help us masturbate ourselves to a brighter future.

It’s like Ms. Dodson said: “We need a population that has been raised by orgasmic mothers—that is the key. Every time you touch a baby, handle it, diaper it, clean its little genitals and body, the message goes through our hands into the child—it’s nonverbal communication, and it’s powerful.” So basically, if we all masturbate and then touch enough children, we can help to sexually liberate the babies of the world, which will make for a better tomorrow.

And masturbation doesn’t only benefit women and babies. As Dan Savage put it, “Studies show that if you don’t drain your freakin’ prostate of those seminal fluids on a regular basis, you will get prostate cancer and explode.” Fact. Men rarely have the problems figuring out how to masturbate that girls have, because boy junk is way less complicated than girl junk. However, guys can jerk off wrong. Squeezing your dick too hard during masturbation can desensitize the skin to the point that it becomes difficult, or even impossible, to cum during intercourse, because no vagina or throat or butthole can match the death grip of your fist. And if you need some gripping assistance, a good solution is using a male masturbator, like a flesh tunnel or vacuum cup—Tenga has a great one that comes packaged in Keith Haring designs, for all of you artistic masturbators out there.  There’s a ton of options out there I didn’t even know existed. Ever heard of CUP, EGG, and FLIP, anyone? And unlike a real vagina, you can just air-dry some of them on your dish rack afterward.