Rabbit Write

There is something in the past of my relationship that I’m not proud about, but I’ll go ahead and say it: I used to feel a tinge of jealousy when Ned would masturbate. It wasn’t full on anger, or conscious envy, but it was there. I could come up with a million reasons why: I just missed him, wanted to be involved, maybe it was self-esteem, comparing myself to women in the porn he consumed. But in order to understand why I felt threatened by Ned’s relationship with his right hand, I would need to look at the relationship with my own.

It wouldn’t be easy to see my problems. I considered myself pro-sex, pro-porn and I masturbated quite frequently, I talked about it openly. Yet during my masturbation sessions, I didn’t use porn and I often wouldn’t even fantasize, just holding the vibrator to my clit on high, eyes squeezed tight until I would come. It would only take about a minute and if it started to take longer I would begin to feel uncomfortable. There was a disconnect between sexuality and masturbation.

I discovered masturbation at about age nine. I was at a slumber-party. I was laying on a concrete floor when I found if I pressed and unpressed my thighs together, incredible feelings ran through me. I did feel weird, a bit guilty. It was similar to the feeling  I would later have when I first realized I was growing breasts. I was riding my bike when I went over a bump and felt a tiny jiggle in my shirt. I rode over and over the bump, feeling privately lit-up.

I didn’t realize that what I did with my thighs was masturbation, much less even linked to my vagina, until high school. When I realized this, I had still never “masturbated.” In junior high, boys started talking about jerking off and that was okay–we knew all boys did it. But when we girls talked about masturbation amongst each other it was with the idea that it was just weird and gross.

I remember at some point when I was a teenager, my mother made it her mission to let my friends and I know that everyone masturbates. I suppose this was her idea of telling me it was okay… but it proved to be more awkward than anything, as she’d proclaim her statement with a raised wine glass at the dinner-table.

I got my first vibrator when I was 17. My best friend was in town from Tennessee and while I was at school she and my 21-year-old boyfriend went to the mall to amuse themselves. “We got you a present” they said, presenting me with a retro looking  tin lunch box. “Cute!” I exclaimed and opened it to find a large pink plastic vibrator spill out, like an exclamation point dropped on the floor.  It had been stolen from Spencers and hidden in my ex’s pants.

I don’t remember really fantasizing then either, but just experimenting at night (with music turned up loud) as to how many times this thing could get me off.  I do remember having a reoccurring nightmare where the whole family would be in the kitchen having breakfast when someone would mention how they had trouble sleeping because of how loud I’d been with my lawn-mower of a vibrator.

I recently read that inside every sexual-extrovert lies a prude trying to hide their prudishness. While those who knew me in college would swear I was no prude, I know that my inner-Victorian hid in self stimulation.

I realized that masturbation held fear for me, being alone with myself and my sexuality was scary. As I began to let go and let my mind wander, enjoying my body I was shocked to find that I was really into the whole fantasy thing. The world of fantasy is like meditation or dream-scape, a place where the unconscious can uncoil It is another key to your psyche and I think it takes courage to really let that go, to not judge or become fearful of what you find.

I think of it as finally being “eyes open” to my sexuality, where I had been either blinded or refusing to see. But I still have a hard time being comfortable with slow self stimulation and exploring myself, but my eyes are open. And I am coming to that point, slowly working my way, panting  up the path.

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1. Oprah’s segment on buying your daughters vibrators
2. Women and Porn
3. Where is Our Porn?
4. Exploring Sex Toys for Men
5. Exploring Male Anorexia