The Bobble Head: The History and Hype of Male Masturbation

MONKEYS DO IT
And we share a lot of DNA with monkeys. This tells us three things:

1. Monkey see, monkey do

2. If monkeys have been doing it, it’s been getting done since before humans were scrabbling about this big ol’ blue ball o’ earth. In fact, it’s probably only a matter of time before some anthropologist discovers a fossilized monkey frozen in eternal jackoffery (ostensibly because he was too busy spanking his, er, little monkey while a nearby volcano went all kablooey – and for the record, if you should happen to see a pyroclastic flow rumbling your way, my advice is to put your tallywacker away and RUN)

3. Everybody likes monkeys


THE ANCIENTS DID IT
In fact, the ancients didn’t just do it – they made a big show out of it. The Egyptians celebrated masturbation as the process by which their sun-god, Atum, created the first man and woman. The Sumerians depicted their Mesopotamian god Enki creating the mighty Tigris river with his ejaculate. Now that’s a nut to be proud of.


ONANISM
The term onanism (masturbation) comes directly from the Bible, as a newly-empowered Onan the Proletarian (a distant, more fun-loving relative to Conan the Barbarian) ‘spilled his seed’ on the ground, rather than impregnate his brother’s widow. I think the moral of this story is that, from a certain point of view, masturbation really does fall under the heading of family values!


IT’S CRAZY TIME
It was around the 18th century when masturbation came to be linked with mental and physical deformities. The prevailing view of the era’s cognoscenti gave way to a flurry of pooh-poohing, from blindness, to insanity, epilepsy, and mental retardation. And somewhere, the progenitor of C. Everett Coop was most likely stoned to death for telling people that it’s okay to whack it.


IT’S CRAZY TIME, REVISITED
By the 19th century, anti-masturbatory techniques and contraptions were all the rage. With special emphasis on ‘rage’, we can safely assume. These grim gimcracks included, but were not limited to:

- The Leather Jacket-Corset: this was a corset fashioned from leather and steel for the ‘benefit’ of boys. These benefits consisted of a metal penis-prison and "a steel band riveted to the shield permanently and attached to the body with an encircling steel band in such a manner that it cannot be removed and prevented access to the testicles." Yes; I know exactly what you’re thinking – I want one too.

- Spiked Cock Rings: just in case you thought you were going to get away with those unconscious erections and nocturnal emissions while you slept, forget about it – one wet dream and your penis was reduced to cube-steak.

- The Spermatorrhea Bandage: remember The Good Earth, when Wang Lung kept wrapping his daughter’s feet tighter and tighter, so she’d have ‘properly deformed’ feet? Same principle, brand-new location!

- The Cage: yet another metal penis-prison. Strangely enough, the Cage has made a stunning comeback in recent years in the arena of CBT (cock and ball torture). But I don’t think the Victorian-era recipients were quite as thrilled with it.

The Victorians may not have approved of masturbation, but let there be no doubt as to their BDSM leanings. These people could out-kink an army of leathermen and ponygirls.


20th CENTURY OUT-FOXING: SODA-JERKING IT
The gobbledygooked doctrines of Victorian anti-wankery persisted with little resistance until Albert Kinsey released the first of his Kinsey Reports in 1948(Sexual Behavior in the Human Male). Kinsey hit upon a novel idea: it feels good, so what’s the big deal? And across the Atlantic, the post-Victorian British began calling each other wankers. Whether this is related is up for you the reader to decide.

In 1971, Goldstein, Haeberle and McBride came to the conclusion that masturbation was and is the most common form of sexual activity. To everyone’s surprise, the earth did not implode.

In 1994, U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders remarked that masturbation “is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught”. Ms. Elders was unceremoniously relieved of her duties by year’s end, and the old party line of ‘let’s just not talk about that’ continues to this day. Which just goes to illustrate that for every step forward, we take at least one monumentally large-footed step back.

But we're finally begin having male sex toys sold anywhere, everywhere - the legendary male masturbator slowly becomes a bestseller.

If we love anything, it’s a good bullshit story. And when it comes to masturbation, there’s a staggering preponderance of them floating about in the ether. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, very few of them are true.

YOU’LL GO BLIND!
Only if you stare directly into the sun while jacking it.

IT CAUSES ACNE!
Um, no.

IT CAUSES STDS!
W to the T to the ever-lovin’ F? Masturbation is the safest kind of sex there is – because you’re not coming into contact with anyone. That’s why it’s called masturbation, and not partnerbation.

IF YOU DO IT TOO MUCH, YOU’LL RUN OUT OF SPERM!
Nice try, but no. The body’s pretty handy when it comes to renewable energy; when you need saliva, it makes more saliva; when you need more T-cells, it makes more T-cells; and when you need more baby batter, it makes more baby batter. However, if you are a frequent masturbator, and you can prove that you come nothing but air, let us know, and we’ll give you a column to tell us all about it.

IT GIVES YOU HAIRY PALMS!
Coating your palms in super-glue and then petting your cat Fluffy Muffy will give you hairy palms. But it ain’t gonna grow there, no matter how much you jack it.

IT MAKES YOUR BALLS SHRINK LIKE JUJUBES!
No, no, and no. Stop worry about ball-shrinkage; you’ll be worrying about droopage soon enough. And pass the jujubes.

IT MAKES YOUR HAIR FALL OUT!
At the time of this writing, I your humble sex-scribe servant, have been on this earth for 36 years. And for most of those 36 years, I’ve been on an Atkins-like diet of steady 3-times-a-day jackoffery. And the proverbial money shot: I have a ponytail three-quarters of the way down to my ass.

IT MAKES YOU ALL GAY AND STUFF!
If by ‘gay’ you mean ‘full of vigor and vitality, and happy to be alive’, then you are absolutely correct! Now keep jackin’ it!

ONLY FILTHY TEENAGERS MASTURBATE!
Uh, no. The only difference between masturbation between adults and teens is compulsion. Having once been a teenager myself, I can assure you that masturbation is a compulsory, nearly involuntary action.

As with most things catapulted past postmodernism, masturbation, like a leaner, boomerangs somewhat toward irony. Everybody does it these days; or at least everybody says they’re doing it, with a wink, a nod, and a Costanaza-esque ‘yada, yada, yada’.

We’ve got ‘The Contest’ (Seinfeld). We’ve got mental masturbation. We’ve got oratorical masturbation (see Coulter, Ann). We’ve got ideological masturbation (again; see Coulter, Ann). We’ve got

And somewhere, between the cracks of all these newfangled masturbations lies the original brand, the one-and-only, irony-free delight of just shuttering your blinds, taking a deep breath, pulling it out, and jacking away.

So don’t settle for any of the substitutes. Because at the end of the day, you just gotta do what you gotta do. And what you’ve got to do is a damned fine thing indeed.

Just don’t tell Ann.