Masturbation has been condemned as an immoral act throughout much
of history. As we have learned in class and specifically the text by
Garton, a common theme in medical and moral advice literature of
the Victorian era was the evil of masturbation. Medical advice
literature falsely informed the masses of Europe and America that
masturbation was harmful to one's physical and mental health and
could lead to extreme consequences such as madness and impotence.
Since this medical belief has been disproven, modern sexual liberals
have made significant attempts to normalize the act. According to
modern medical sources--and even my own public school
sex-education class--masturbation is safe, healthy and
normal. I find it noteworthy that for the general public, the act of
masturbation has been normalized greatly by modern pop-culture and
media.
In the past two decades, examples of masturbation as a non-deviant
act have been seen time and time again in movies and television. The
iconic and wildly popular film American Pie, released in
1999, famously started with the main character inserting his penis
into a warm apple pie as a method of self-stimulation. This movie was
praised as a sexual coming-of-age tale and sparked an entire genre
that is full of similar cringe-worthy anecdotes that nonetheless
normalize masturbation as a common act. A year
earlier, in a famous episode from the maiden season of Sex
and the City, Charlotte (the main cast's most sexually
conservative character) was introduced to the pleasure and
fulfillment that can be achieved from masturbation. Titled "The
Turtle and the Hare", this episode followed Charlotte's
reluctant purchase of a vibrator, which ultimately
liberated her from a dependence on men for sexual pleasure.
More recently, advocates for sexual freedom and equality such
as Miley Cyrus and Lena Dunham have expressed their desires to
normalize masturbation. In support of this, Dunham's HBO hit series
Girls has featured both male and female masturbation in ways
that are not as overtly sexual or physically revealing as
pornography, but just "normal". The music video for Cyrus's
hit "Adore You" shows the scantily-clad artist rolling
around in a bed of white sheets completely solo, holding a video
camera. The former Disney star is not afraid to show how
comfortable she is with "loving herself" and this
particular music video has been watched on YouTube over 132 million
times. Anna Kendrick, an actress who is certainly popular within
younger crowds because of her roles in the "Twilight"
series and "Pitch Perfect", released a tweet in 2013 that
speaks for itself: "Ugh - NEVER going to a Ryan Gosling movie in
a theater again. Apparently masturbating in the back row is still
considered 'inappropriate'". All of these examples have had a normalizing effect on society's view of masturbation by demonstrating that it is both natural, healthy, and most definitely very common.
These celebrities and their outlets have conveyed a message that they are not
ashamed to talk about masturbation. Comparing modern sexual
culture's view of masturbation to that of the Victorian era, it
is exponentially more accepted, and no longer marginalized as a strictly deviant act. While the act is still somewhat stigmatized by the Christian church and other moral subcultures, media and pop-culture references have made
significant progress to normalize masturbation.
https://twitter.com/AnnaKendrick47/status/290892494152028160
I really liked this post because it brought to light some examples of steps towards the normalization of masturbation that I hadn’t realized before reading. It’s interesting that even though it seems like our society is becoming more accepting of expressing sexuality, there is still such a stigma surrounding masturbation—especially female masturbation.
ReplyDeleteWe know that, according to the harsh gender roles perpetuated by society, men have long been allowed to have more freedom of sexual expression than women. This goes back to what we’ve learned about the Victorian era and other time periods when women were thought to basically be asexual. This idea is also reflected in society’s views of masturbation. Media representations of male masturbation often use it for comedic effect, which in turn normalizes it. On the other hand, much like the examples provided in this post, when female masturbation is depicted on screen, it’s usually portrayed in a way that shows the women are doing something “scandalous”.
This brings me to something else I wanted to add about this post. I think it’s interesting that it seems like our generation is really making steps towards normalizing female masturbation. Although it is not true across the board, our generation is often characterized by our progressive ideals. I think this often really comes through on social media. Just like the example provided from Anna Kendrick’s tweet, Twitter is commonly used as a platform with a lot of sexually-charged tweets and memes. The social media site that best expresses this push towards normalization is, in my opinion, Tumblr. I have seen so many posts calling for the normalization of many stigmatized issues or practices, including female masturbation. I think this is because it is a very feminist issue, and ties directly into the fight for allowing women to have the same levels of sexual expression that men have had for so long.
As both a member of this generation and as a person with a Catholic upbringing, I can see how we have made significant progress in normalizing female masturbation, and also how much more we have to go to reach full equality. As with any controversial issue involving sexuality, there are strong opinions on both sides, but I think it’s safe to say we have really moved past the days of believing masturbation is horribly sinful and will make you go blind. It will be interesting to see how this issue continues to take shape in the future, and to be able to compare that to how female sexuality in previous eras was even more harshly regulated than now.