Increasing education of masturbation in the media
In the United States, May is National Masturbation Month. The sex-positive awareness campaign was started in 1995 by the sex toy company, Good Vibrations. They started the month in retaliation of President Bill Clinton firing Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for suggesting masturbation be taught during sexual education.
Like most aspects of sexuality, masturbation has been, and to some extent continues to be, taboo. Masturbation was considered a sin for centuries, but in the 1700s, masturbation was medicalized and seen as a disease. By the 1800s, parents were being advised by physicians to prevent their children from masturbating. One lead figurehead in the anti-masturbation movement was John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943), the inventor of corn flakes. Devices were created to curb male masturbatory habits (because at the time, society did not think that females masturbated).For example, a ring with spikes on the inside would be put on the penis. If the penis would become erect, the spikes would dig in and cause pain.
While we have come a long way from spikes, there is still a ways to go. While masturbation has become normalized for males, female masturbation is still less acceptable. Spencer Rathus and colleagues note that this is likely because we are socialized to believe that, for women, sexual pleasure is something to be ashamed of.
One area in which this is obvious is in the media. Male masturbation is portrayed in the media all the time, but seeing female masturbation in the media is rare. A study published by researchers at Simon Fraser University investigated movies produced in North America between 2005 to 2010 found that 75 per cent of movies that depicted masturbation specifically portrayed male masturbation.
While female masturbation is more stigmatized, male masturbation is not shown positively in the media. Half of the characters analyzed in the study were interrupted during masturbation and most were depicted as sexually unfulfilled. Masturbation is not seen in the media as pleasurable, which does not match reality in which masturbation is often pleasurable.For example in the movie You, Me and Dupree, the character Dupree is masturbating because of sexual frustration and is caught which leads to awkwardness and Dupree feeling like a failure. While the acceptability of masturbation is increasing— for instance,in the 2015 Ontario curriculum change in which masturbation is now discussed in the 6th grade whereas it was not discussed at all previously, further shifts in attitudes are still needed.
Masturbation can be a pleasurable sexual activity. While it may not be for everyone, those that do choose to masturbate should be able to do so without stigma or shame.
Check out next week’s column for information about who masturbates.
If you’d like a certain sex ed topic discussed, send your requests to tashafalconer@trentu.ca
Photo by Tasha Falconer