married couples, don’t need masturbation is puritanical. The italicized word gives it away: only teenagers, maladjusted loners, men in jail, etc., have to masturbate; it’s no more fun than taking medicine. The truth is that masturbation is simply a choice, a variation, another form of sex, not a substitute for it.
Even men who have half a dozen women available to them may choose to masturbate. Because I would never dream of masturbating with my summer lover in the next room – who needed it? – I took his behavior as a comment on my inadequacy.
Burt (below) says he masturbates in secret from his wife once or twice a week. Even though their sex life is good, “It would upset her if she thought she wasn’t taking care of me completely.” But what if left over in Burt’s imagination was desire for another woman? How could Mrs. Burt take care of that “completely”? Fantasy and masturbation often give our partners something we cannot. To demand that we be all and everything for someone else is inane.
It might be asked, “Is Burt hurting his wife?” No, he is simply doing something for himself. He has been masturbating all his life; of course he feels free to continue to masturbate now, married or not, good sex life or not. He is no more rejecting his wife than if he occasionally went to a movie alone.
In fact, isn’t Burt willing to encourage his wife in the same pleasure? If she won’t masturbate, it is not his fault. His wife resolutely repeats that he is all she needs for good sex. She is not interested in fantasy, not interested in masturbation, “only him.” Is this a genuine expression of erotic desire, or another chain of dependency?
Burt is being made to feel he should be grateful, once again, to a woman for all she has done for him. He knows that if his wife found out about his harmless pleasure, she would not be just hurt, but angry. Must not he be angry, too?
Here is the masculine conflict again: He likes the erotic charge he gets from masturbation, but his wife makes him Nancy Friday
52
feel guilty about it. In choosing not to masturbate herself, despite all Burt’s urging, Mrs. Burt is exercising her right, of course. But isn’t it self-defeating? She wants to be all the sex her husband needs. She starts out with a no. A story about how two people lose because of one mindless bit of prejudice.
In later chapters we will see that watching a woman masturbate is one of the greatest of all masculine turn-ons. By breaking the rules, the woman has joined the man in expressing unfettered desire. The gap between love and lust has been bridged, the conflict resolved, and only excitement is left.
JULIUS
I was surprised to find out that women have thoughts or fantasies running through their minds, as I do. I thought my fantasies were abnormal, perverted. This made me feel like some kind of monster. I am thirty-four years old, live alone, and never bad sex with a girl, due to twenty-two years of guilt and being ashamed of myself. Whenever I start a relationship with a girl it always ends with us being good friends.
I figured I had no sex appeal and that women could tell, some way, but I don’t know how, of my fantasies. I feel a lot more relieved knowing that some women have just about the same fantasies that I have.
Around the age of twelve I first learned how to masturbate and it was completely by accident. I was taking a bath and for some reason, I guess to wash it, I put my penis under the faucet, letting the warm water splash over it. It started to grow in size as I played with it and all of a sudden I got this great feeling, but had no idea what it was all about. At that age I read comic books a lot, and happened to buy one of a jungle nature, with a Tarzan-type woman as the heroine. Whenever she was captured by the savage natives, they tied her in some way. This gave me a hard-on and I masturbated. I just knew that there had to be something dirty about something that felt Men In
Even men who have half a dozen women available to them may choose to masturbate. Because I would never dream of masturbating with my summer lover in the next room – who needed it? – I took his behavior as a comment on my inadequacy.
Burt (below) says he masturbates in secret from his wife once or twice a week. Even though their sex life is good, “It would upset her if she thought she wasn’t taking care of me completely.” But what if left over in Burt’s imagination was desire for another woman? How could Mrs. Burt take care of that “completely”? Fantasy and masturbation often give our partners something we cannot. To demand that we be all and everything for someone else is inane.
It might be asked, “Is Burt hurting his wife?” No, he is simply doing something for himself. He has been masturbating all his life; of course he feels free to continue to masturbate now, married or not, good sex life or not. He is no more rejecting his wife than if he occasionally went to a movie alone.
In fact, isn’t Burt willing to encourage his wife in the same pleasure? If she won’t masturbate, it is not his fault. His wife resolutely repeats that he is all she needs for good sex. She is not interested in fantasy, not interested in masturbation, “only him.” Is this a genuine expression of erotic desire, or another chain of dependency?
Burt is being made to feel he should be grateful, once again, to a woman for all she has done for him. He knows that if his wife found out about his harmless pleasure, she would not be just hurt, but angry. Must not he be angry, too?
Here is the masculine conflict again: He likes the erotic charge he gets from masturbation, but his wife makes him Nancy Friday
52
feel guilty about it. In choosing not to masturbate herself, despite all Burt’s urging, Mrs. Burt is exercising her right, of course. But isn’t it self-defeating? She wants to be all the sex her husband needs. She starts out with a no. A story about how two people lose because of one mindless bit of prejudice.
In later chapters we will see that watching a woman masturbate is one of the greatest of all masculine turn-ons. By breaking the rules, the woman has joined the man in expressing unfettered desire. The gap between love and lust has been bridged, the conflict resolved, and only excitement is left.
JULIUS
I was surprised to find out that women have thoughts or fantasies running through their minds, as I do. I thought my fantasies were abnormal, perverted. This made me feel like some kind of monster. I am thirty-four years old, live alone, and never bad sex with a girl, due to twenty-two years of guilt and being ashamed of myself. Whenever I start a relationship with a girl it always ends with us being good friends.
I figured I had no sex appeal and that women could tell, some way, but I don’t know how, of my fantasies. I feel a lot more relieved knowing that some women have just about the same fantasies that I have.
Around the age of twelve I first learned how to masturbate and it was completely by accident. I was taking a bath and for some reason, I guess to wash it, I put my penis under the faucet, letting the warm water splash over it. It started to grow in size as I played with it and all of a sudden I got this great feeling, but had no idea what it was all about. At that age I read comic books a lot, and happened to buy one of a jungle nature, with a Tarzan-type woman as the heroine. Whenever she was captured by the savage natives, they tied her in some way. This gave me a hard-on and I masturbated. I just knew that there had to be something dirty about something that felt Men In
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