Why Masturbation Matters
How Self-Love Became A Political Thing
Dissatisfaction with modernity, in 2013, is not a fringe or a marginal thing. How many of us, for instance, have looked into or tried things like “Super Foods” or Paleo diets because Subway makes us feel like sh*t? How many of us head down to the farmers' market every weekend because Monsanto is putting fish genes in our tomatoes?
Is it different when we express these feelings in the sexual realm? Is it strange that some guys might, upon loading up their favorite porn “tube,” notice that the overall aesthetic is kind of, well… junk food?
Do we turn into Bible-thumping Jesuit schoolmasters from 1936 the instant we decide to refrain from such things? Or does it only happen when we talk about them publicly?
In this as in so many related areas, the jury of medical science is still out. Just as very few mainstream doctors will tell you that bread (for example) is carcinogenic, almost none of them will say that masturbation is, either. It’s the same with dairy, and it’s the same with crunches. Some people are saying they’re no good for you, and others are saying they’re fine. Guys are experimenting, and they’re forming online communities to both discuss their results and recommend certain favorite practices.
Nothing about this is strange or wrong. In categorizing this particular example in the tiresome ‘60s terms of “sex negativity,” we’re not expressing our modern freedom, but only inverting the terms of repression: Victorian Jesuit schoolmaster says masturbation is wrong? Then masturbation is awesome. Stereotypical fundamentalist says pornography is destructive? We’re watching pornography every night.
This helps no one. If the goal is sexual freedom, then we should expect to discuss sexual issues openly, and for lively debates (as well as differing practices) to regularly emerge.
We actually have no idea whether the NoFappers are onto something. For us, it's like the ketogenic diet: We know it’s out there, we know it’s being discussed, but our personal needs and goals have not happened to lead us there. To take what seems like a pretty earnest grouping of guys, though, and to deride their self-improvement efforts as backward, sexist and somehow even dangerous... Well, this expresses nothing more than a strange grouping of personal fears.
And the personal, really, is sometimes just that.