we alone have the power to conjure up at will erotic, orgasm-inducing scenes in our theater-like heads

June 28, 2010 6:21 PM

One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot
posted by andoatnp (97 comments total)

Oh, come now...
posted by jonmc at 6:25 PM on June 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Dude doesn't have a dog.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:25 PM on June 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

My dog enjoys his junk a lot but I have not yet seen a happy ending. Thankfully.
posted by GuyZero at 6:26 PM on June 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Dude doesn't have a dog.

Did you read the article?
posted by andoatnp at 6:28 PM on June 28, 2010

I'll be in my bunk.
posted by The otter lady at 6:30 PM on June 28, 2010 [12 favorites]

I dreamt of an encounter with a very muscular African-American centaur, an orgiastic experience with – gasp – drunken members of the opposite sex and (as if that weren’t enough) then being asked by my hostess to wear a white wedding dress while giving a scientific keynote presentation. “Does it make me look too feminine?” “Not at all,” she assured me, “it’s a man’s dress.”

Eh. This is basically a Tuesday for me.
posted by Avenger at 6:32 PM on June 28, 2010 [10 favorites]

In the land of the soon-to-be blind, the one eyed monster is king.
posted by DU at 6:36 PM on June 28, 2010 [42 favorites]

Supple monkey pleases self.
posted by pianomover at 6:37 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hellz yeah!!!
posted by pearlybob at 6:40 PM on June 28, 2010

I masturbate furiously. With all your cocks inside the (porn) theater of my mind. You can all come inside me. Again.
posted by yesster at 6:42 PM on June 28, 2010

Did the survey the monkeys with an anonymous questionnaire? Maybe they are just too shy to do it in front of researchers. I mean how often do you see humans doing it in public?
posted by dibblda at 6:43 PM on June 28, 2010

By the way, the article is actually really fascinating, so if anyone wants to talk about any of the interesting parts instead of making masturbation jokes, you're certainly welcome to.
posted by andoatnp at 6:44 PM on June 28, 2010 [14 favorites]

"...adult human males manufacture a whopping 3 million sperm per day, masturbation is an evolved strategy for shedding old sperm while making room for new, fitter sperm. It’s quality over quantity."

Unless you go to a sperm bank. In which case, it's quantity as well. The preference is about 72 hours between prior ejaculate & deposit. For maximum head count.

Which I wish they had told me the first time.
posted by Hesychia at 6:44 PM on June 28, 2010

Why do they have to go and break jacking off down to evolutionary necessity? :( Friggin' depressing. We're becoming entirely too scientific.
posted by GnomeChompsky at 6:46 PM on June 28, 2010

Intelligent Design?
posted by Postroad at 6:47 PM on June 28, 2010

fap-fap-fap...
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:49 PM on June 28, 2010

There's two kinds of human beings: masturbators and liars.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:50 PM on June 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

My God - this means that I am not just special - but the "very special episode of after school special" kind of special. Off to work my "individuality".
posted by helmutdog at 6:50 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

.
posted by Drasher at 6:53 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's interesting that bonobos aren't mentioned at all. But I think that even a lot of their copulating isn't to ejaculation.

Still, I'm surprised to hear that chimps and such don't masturbate. I thought just about anything with an opposable thumb and a penis that would respond to manual stimulation (not requiring pheremones or whatever) would do that.
posted by hippybear at 6:54 PM on June 28, 2010

Metafilter: masturbators and liars
posted by unSane at 6:54 PM on June 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

I am particularly special.
posted by Mister_A at 7:03 PM on June 28, 2010

Go 'way! 'batin'!
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:03 PM on June 28, 2010 [11 favorites]

'Baters gotta 'bate.
posted by maxwelton at 7:08 PM on June 28, 2010 [9 favorites]

There's two kinds of human beings: masturbators and liars.

you can short-form it to Masters & Baters
posted by mannequito at 7:10 PM on June 28, 2010

That reminds me...
posted by Max Power at 7:17 PM on June 28, 2010

Fpp-Fpp-Fpp
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:24 PM on June 28, 2010 [9 favorites]

Flowback...? I had no idea...
posted by the painkiller at 7:33 PM on June 28, 2010

Females are more likely to say that their first sexual fantasies were triggered by a relationship, whereas males report having theirs triggered by a visual stimulus.

Really? I'm surprised. The only relationship that triggered my first sexual fantasies was the one I imagined myself having with Quinn Mallory on Sliders.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:34 PM on June 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

Hi, I'm on MetaFilter and I could overthink a teaspoon of (microscopic) beans!
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:46 PM on June 28, 2010

I'll be in my bunk

I read that as "bank." Which, y'know, also works.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:47 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Interesting there's an Airplane! thread going on elsewhere, because man! One doe-eyed stare from Julie Haggerty and...


PS: Please excuse jerky typewriting.
posted by Trochanter at 7:48 PM on June 28, 2010

ale university students were found to masturbate to ejaculation about every 72 hours,

Er, that seems like a lot to you guys?
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:56 PM on June 28, 2010 [10 favorites]

The rest of the time, they were masturbating to porn.
posted by explosion at 8:07 PM on June 28, 2010 [30 favorites]

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties for masturbating, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action while masturbating, how like a masturbating angel in apprehension,
how like a god! (of masturbation)

posted by XMLicious at 8:07 PM on June 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

How is the guy in the photo doing it without using his hands?
posted by grumblebee at 8:16 PM on June 28, 2010

Bah. If Aveq was still alive, he'd show him what a true masturbator is made of.
posted by homunculus at 8:23 PM on June 28, 2010

Why do they have to go and break jacking off down to evolutionary necessity? :( Friggin' depressing. We're becoming entirely too scientific.

Come on, our sexual behaviors are the most important evolutionary activity we participate in. I'm not sure how this news could be surprising. We're animals, get used to it! :)
posted by knave at 8:26 PM on June 28, 2010

Er, that seems like a lot to you guys?

The editor assumed the decimal point was a typo and removed it.
posted by maxwelton at 8:28 PM on June 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

This is one of the reasons, incidentally, why I find it so hard to believe that self-proclaimed asexuals who admit to masturbating to orgasm are really and truly asexual. They must be picturing something, and whatever that something is gives away their sexuality.

Really? Nobody wants to yell and scream about how asexuals are being dismissed this way? That's a pretty offensive statement, based on nothing more than a research psychologist's rather "ammirite?" conjecture.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:32 PM on June 28, 2010

Supple monkey pleases self.

I didn't want to bring it up anywhere sooner, but ... chimp ... frog ... youtube ...
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:46 PM on June 28, 2010

Males report having sexual fantasies earlier in development (average age of onset 11.5 years) than do females (average age of onset 12.9 years). Females are more likely to say that their first sexual fantasies were triggered by a relationship, whereas males report having theirs triggered by a visual stimulus.

I know, I know, this is the fundamental issue with all such surveys, but I just don't think that reporting is very accurate. Look, it's like a big culturally accepted rite-of-passage thing for a boy to jerk off at a certain age. But meanwhile, years earlier, I suspect that I was not the only girl writing about with a pillow before I quite understood what I was trying to achieve.
posted by desuetude at 8:49 PM on June 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

Really? Nobody wants to yell and scream about how asexuals are being dismissed this way? That's a pretty offensive statement, based on nothing more than a research psychologist's rather "ammirite?" conjecture.

I found that bizarre even as a very much not-asexual person. Fantasies can be very amorphous and still "work." Maybe he should talk to some actual asexuals?
posted by desuetude at 8:51 PM on June 28, 2010

No mention of bonobos, who hump quite often, and very little of women. Because...if there's no ejaculate, it don't matter? Only spewing cocks are worthy of study?

It's like they landed on Planet Sex, but never made it past the brochures at the visitor's center.

I like the nice little digs at women's poorer fantasy life...it's all about "relationships" and they have "fewer characters" than men. Well, unless you go to the romance section, which is wall-to-wall sweaty, gleaming, muscled man-meat in every flavor you could ever want (Scottish! Native American! Tortured rich dude! Viking!). And while there are "relationships" in those books, they're just filler around the sex scenes, you know, the pages we would dogear and then pass around in class. And then go home and hump to. Because that's what it's for.

I remember the Clan of the Cave Bear series, super popular in my grade school/middle school, in particular, featured a hot dude with an epic penis whose job was to be a professional/pain-free/sexxyfuntime Virgin Deflowerer. Yeah, he ended up in a relationship, but again...that's not the part most girls in my school re-read.

Oh yeah, and there were the Playboys my friend and I found, and the kid who brought her dad's Letters to Penthouse book which we girls all stood around and read in a big circle in fifth grade, until the gym teacher caught us.
posted by emjaybee at 8:52 PM on June 28, 2010 [22 favorites]

Really? Nobody wants to yell and scream about how asexuals are being dismissed this way? That's a pretty offensive statement, based on nothing more than a research psychologist's rather "ammirite?" conjecture.

It seems like a fair point. Asexual is a pretty broad term, and he's clearly offering the hypothesis that a person cannot both be attracted to nothing and successfully masturbate to orgasm on command, which is a pretty narrow slice of the term asexual. He could do better to make this point clearer, but I'm saying that the point is fair; not that it was made tactfully. What it offers is a prediction, and thus falsifiability, for his theory. If an asexual who masturbates came to this guy and said "I can masturbate to orgasm without thinking about anything but blank canvas," then I'd bet he'd have to take a hard look at the asexual's claim and his own hypothesis.

Or he may just be a dick. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

Also you appear to have walked into the thread, not offended yourself, and pointed out something that you thought might be offensive to others. I am not of the opinion that this is conducive to good discussion in the general case.
posted by Bobicus at 8:53 PM on June 28, 2010

I came for the masturbation, but stayed for the flowback.
posted by snofoam at 8:57 PM on June 28, 2010

"I mean how often do you see humans doing it in public?"

Ride the bus much?
posted by klangklangston at 9:00 PM on June 28, 2010

By the way, the article is actually really fascinating, so if anyone wants to talk about any of the interesting parts instead of making masturbation jokes, you're certainly welcome to.

MetaFilter is much like the rest of the Internet, an orgy of self-congratulatory intellectual wankfests. Nobody really expects anyone on the Internet, let alone here, to approach anything about sex and discuss it in a mature, non-jokey way. When you're talking about something so culturally laden with guilt as masturbation, people are going to joke about it and avoid the issue as much as they can.

As for the article...

And so I’m left wondering … in a world where sexual fantasy in the form of mental representation has become obsolete, where hallucinatory images of dancing genitalia, lusty lesbians and sadomasochistic strangers have been replaced by a veritable online smorgasbord of real people doing things our grandparents couldn’t have dreamt up even in their wettest of dreams, where randy teenagers no longer close their eyes and lose themselves to the oblivion and bliss but instead crack open their thousand-dollar laptops and conjure up a real live porn actress, what, in a general sense, are the consequences of liquidating our erotic mental representational skills for our species’ sexuality? Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies that their creativity in other domains is also affected? Will their marriages be more likely to end because they lack the representational experience and masturbatory fantasy training to picture their husbands and wives during intercourse as the person or thing they really desire?

Possibly a bit of a stretch, and a conclusion we're likely never to be able to verify, but worth considering. Plus, pornography is now much more readily available, the Internet being what it is - how does that affect society in general? In a sense it's more about the game-changingness of modern communication technology than about porn.
posted by WalterMitty at 9:01 PM on June 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

I laughed out loud when I read the following:
* E.D. Starin
* monkey research center-cum-sanctuary

And then I read:
"How’d it go? Do you see the impossibility of it?"

This will forever haunt my mind, in David Attenborough's voice.
posted by hanoixan at 9:03 PM on June 28, 2010

"posted by WalterMitty"

Ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa, amirite?
posted by klangklangston at 9:03 PM on June 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

I didn't want to bring it up anywhere sooner, but ... chimp ... frog ... youtube ...

Eponysterical.
posted by WalterMitty at 9:03 PM on June 28, 2010

And if you had predicted that SA would discuss the scientific merits of the cream pie, I'd have lost that bet....
posted by hanoixan at 9:04 PM on June 28, 2010

Just one more in a long list of reasons to change my MeFi handle to "Onan the Barbarian".
posted by guybrush_threepwood at 9:09 PM on June 28, 2010 [5 favorites]

Okay, this article raises a question that calls for knowledge in urology: Do men have a mechanism to throw away old sperm other than orgasm? Or would the hypothetical male that never masturbates and never has a wet dream need to have two sexual encounters to be fertile after an extended dry spell?

Also, what does this mean for female masturbation, if we're going to get all evolutionary about this? While they aren't wasting their eggs, doesn't this mean that they are wasting calories and time that could be using for out-surviving and out-reproducing the other lifeforms?
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:15 PM on June 28, 2010

Monkeys mate up to seven times a day during mating season. It's no wonder they don't feel the need to 'come to their own conclusion' more often.

Heck, if I'd seen that much action as a young'un I'd never have worn disguises in those downtown theatres bought that raincoat read so many of the articles in Playboy.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:21 PM on June 28, 2010

chimp ... frog ... youtube ...

Eponysterical.
posted by WalterMitty

Huh?? Did you find it? If you were not deeply disturbed and turned off, then I pity you.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:30 PM on June 28, 2010

Posts like this make me wonder how humanity ever had time or the inclination to build subways and skyscrapers. But somehow, we build these symbolic monuments despite our desires towards the people around us. I agree with Hardcore Poser, we're somehow repressed, and have created all these social taboos. It is a shame really.
posted by niccolo at 9:31 PM on June 28, 2010

Also, what does this mean for female masturbation, if we're going to get all evolutionary about this? While they aren't wasting their eggs, doesn't this mean that they are wasting calories and time that could be using for out-surviving and out-reproducing the other lifeforms?

Yeaaah, apparently not "relevant" to the thesis. As usual, female masturbation, as it does not necessarily involve ejaculation and thus is subjective, is of secondary concern. (Male masturbation not involving ejaculation is of course also not interesting, but is also more rare.)

Female masturbation isn't referenced at all until halfway through the article. And at that point, the article starts focusing more on fantasy and less on masturbation...and then talks about fantasy during hetero partner-sex...and then devolves into "tidbits" about fantasy in general.
posted by desuetude at 9:31 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Or would the hypothetical male that never masturbates and never has a wet dream

That seems like a stretch, even as a hypothetical. Presumably someone who abstains from masturbation would deal with the surplus sperm via wet dreams, so it would be one or the other, but probably not neither, if all else was operating normally.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:39 PM on June 28, 2010

Also, what does this mean for female masturbation, if we're going to get all evolutionary about this? While they aren't wasting their eggs, doesn't this mean that they are wasting calories and time that could be using for out-surviving and out-reproducing the other lifeforms?

My completely uninformed guess: because human women are always, so to speak, "in heat"--that is, able to have sex thanks to their concealed ovulatory cycles--it helps if they have a high sex drive. Willing partners--that is, "sexually receptive" in all readings of the phrase--have sex more often. There are evolutionary benefits to our finding our genitals being stimulated, too--more incentive to have sex often. The side effect of all of this is that we're sometimes horny when we're by ourselves. And sometimes genital stimulation happens without any chance of procreation.

But mother nature still wants to encourage that stuff, because it does get us to do it more often than we would otherwise.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:43 PM on June 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

...from all appearances, under natural conditions, we are the only primate species that seems to have taken these seminal shedding benefits into its own lascivious hands. Unfortunately, there have been a paltry handful of studies tracking the masturbatory behaviors of nonhuman primates.

Friendly neighborhood primatologist here to share Sperm Competition and the Function of Masturbation in Japanese Macaques (Macaca fuscata) a dissertation by Ruth Thomsen, and a later article, Male Masturbation in Free-Ranging Japanese Macaques by Thomsen and Soltis. Like most studies of non-human primates, it shows we're not unique in as many ways as we think. From page 35 of the diss:

Masturbation with ejaculation was observed in 21 [non-human primate] species (40.4%).

Glad my degree's being put to good use.
posted by bergeycm at 9:56 PM on June 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

Interesting read. Thanks.
posted by joost de vries at 10:47 PM on June 28, 2010

What a load of bullsh::::fwap:::fwap::::fwap::::fwap:::
fwap:::::::fwap:::fwap::::fwap::::fwap:::fwap:::
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:53 PM on June 28, 2010

Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most.... human.
posted by heathkit at 11:11 PM on June 28, 2010

how humanity ever had time or the inclination to build subways and skyscrapers

Freud would have something to say about our inclination to build subways and skyscrapers.

posted by WalterMitty at 11:17 PM on June 28, 2010 [7 favorites]

The FPP raises several interesting points. The young-vs-old sperm has a certain amount of data to support (though not anywhere near enough to prove) it. But the key notion is that humans are the only species that can masturbate without sense stimuli, by fantasy alone. Then we have the assertion that asexuals must fantasize because otherwise the theory collapses. It seems to me that this proposition can be tested. So, self-identifying asexuals, will you weigh in on this?
(The final proposition, that easy access to porn will destroy fantasy, is just a headline for crap newspapers.)
If it is true about fantasy/masturbation, then certain critical concepts of humanity are engaged., e.g., humans are the only species that can... (as opposed to: speak, make tools, etc.)
posted by CCBC at 12:00 AM on June 29, 2010

> MetaFilter is much like the rest of the Internet, an orgy of self-congratulatory intellectual wankfests. Nobody really expects anyone on the Internet, let alone here, to approach anything about sex and discuss it in a mature, non-jokey way. When you're talking about something so culturally laden with guilt as masturbation, people are going to joke about it and avoid the issue as much as they can.

This. Note that the guilt tends to be a typically North-American thing. I never saw as much bullshit in dicussions on masturbation as when the majority of posters are living in the US of A.
posted by knz at 12:22 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Only spewing cocks are worthy of study

Coincidentally enough, this is the English translation of the motto over the doors of my alma mater.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:27 AM on June 29, 2010 [10 favorites]

I never saw as much bullshit in dicussions on masturbation as when the majority of posters are living in the US of A.

Just imagine: what if it had been a discussion about Israel vs. Palestine AND masturbation?
posted by WalterMitty at 12:28 AM on June 29, 2010

Desperately trying to bring this back to the article.. I note that I relatively recently realised I'm underevolved. I have no visual imagination, no ability to make mental representations. I can look at your face (or your ass), close my eyes and be immediately unable to pull an image up of what I just saw. I always thought that "my mind's eye" was a metaphor.

I'll leave you to decide whether this encourages me to turn to porn.
posted by imperium at 12:50 AM on June 29, 2010

Male university students were found to masturbate to ejaculation about every 72 hours,


That's all?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:50 AM on June 29, 2010

On retrospect that sounded like a joke. Seriously, either their sample is skewed or the guys I've known have been wild sex maniacs.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:52 AM on June 29, 2010

humans are special and unique

This doesn't mean that YOU are special and unique just because you can rub one out, only that we as a species may be, in theory.
posted by doctor_negative at 1:10 AM on June 29, 2010

two measly cases of masturbating mangabeys

Good alliteration.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:34 AM on June 29, 2010

Fucking wankers.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 2:39 AM on June 29, 2010

That guy's a good writer.


I know what you’re thinking: What did the monkeys do with the “product”?

Take that, Scientific American readers!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:04 AM on June 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

I like the nice little digs at women's poorer fantasy life

Based on total mischaracterisation. Such as:

In one study with 141 married women, the most frequently reported fantasies included “being overpowered or forced to surrender,” and “pretending I am doing something wicked or forbidden.” Another study with 3,030 women revealed that “sex with a celebrity ,” “seducing a younger man or boy,” and “sex with an older man” were some of the more common themes. Men’s fantasies contain more visual and explicit anatomical detail (remember the giant, pulsating penis from Lukianowicz’s study?) whereas women’s involve more story line, emotions, affection, commitment and romance.

Right. Because doing something forbidden, being overpowered or fetishing someone's age are all about affection, commitment and romance. Dude isn't reading his own data.

Sheesh.
posted by Kit W at 3:27 AM on June 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

With practice, females can recognize the sensation of the beginning of flowback and can collect the material by squatting over a 250 ml glass beaker. [And here comes a useful tip, ladies…] Once the flowback is nearly ready to emerge, it can be hastened by, for example, coughing.

Somewhere, some guy, on his knees and poised with a beaker, is experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance as he encourages his girlfriend to turn her head and cough. He shakes off the thought by pretending he's about to receive beer.
posted by hal9k at 4:05 AM on June 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Somewhere, some guy, on his knees and poised with a beaker, is experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance as he encourages his girlfriend to turn her head and cough. He shakes off the thought by pretending he's about to receive beer.

~Invokes Rule 34.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:42 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Conjure up?

I put on my robe and wizard hat.
posted by jquinby at 5:37 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Anecdotally: I have seen an orangutan masturbate. In fact, he was masturbating and, um, pleasuring a female orangutan at the same time.

It was 3 months ago, and I still can't decide how I feel about seeing that.
posted by punchtothehead at 6:02 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

follow the instructions http://www.letsmasturbate.com/
posted by moor at 6:34 AM on June 29, 2010

> Really? Nobody wants to yell and scream about how asexuals are being dismissed this way?

nope
posted by jfuller at 7:38 AM on June 29, 2010

Bobicus: Also you appear to have walked into the thread, not offended yourself, and pointed out something that you thought might be offensive to others. I am not of the opinion that this is conducive to good discussion in the general case.

No, actually, I found what I characterised as "ammirite conjecture" to be pretty offensive. There's something very discordant about a research scientist extrapolating from personal experience to dismiss an entire category of people's self-identification.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:06 AM on June 29, 2010

See, honey, I told you I was a particularly highly-evolved member of the species.
posted by Dasein at 9:50 AM on June 29, 2010

The last three paragraphs don't make any sense -- it's like he didn't read the rest of his own article. Here's the summary:

* People masturbate all the time.
* People always fantasize, when they're masturbating and when they're actually having sex.
* People need to fantasize just to do it at all, really.
* THEREFORE: Internet porn can magically replace fantasy (in some way that ACTUALLY HAVING SEX cannot, apparently) and will stunt human evolution somehow.

I'd like to suggest an alternate conclusion about internet porn: it is the best thing that ever happened to human sexuality, in the wide range and deep specificity of new fantasy material it provides to the humans who consult it. The article even reports the well-known finding that people who have a lot of sex also fantasize more, so I would suggest that people who fantasize more are more likely to get themselves laid, and thus be happier, more well-adjusted people.

And the second conclusion, which gets to the same end as the first by a different route, is that the incredible variety of internet porn demonstrates to nearly everyone that their personal kink is not "weird" or "freakish" or "unnatural" or "sick." After all, if there's porn of it, you can hardly be the only one, right? Hence, again, happier and more well-adjusted people.

The porn industry has its problems on the production side, no doubt. Exploitation and coercion are, by many accounts, rampant. But I'm fed up with this universal idea that the availability of porn is inherently bad for people. That is just bullshit.
posted by rusty at 9:54 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here are some reasons why even the title of this article is wrong.
posted by bearwife at 10:42 AM on June 29, 2010

It was 3 months ago, and I still can't decide how I feel about seeing that.

Feel happy to know the orangutans enjoy themselves?
posted by Goofyy at 12:34 PM on June 29, 2010

Supple monkey pleases self.

Doo dah, doo dah
posted by baf at 1:10 PM on June 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

I've got a special purpose!
posted by punkfloyd at 1:51 PM on June 29, 2010

I'm not entirely sure why she privileges visual stimulus over tactile. I can fantasise about how something feels as well as what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, and tastes like. Also the examples she gives of visual fantasy are not fantasies of what you see when you're having sex - does anyone fantasise about seeing a human face move up and down in the field of vision? How about staring at pubic hair? Actually having sex isn't a particularly visual experience, for me at least.

I don't know, but I think that visual fantasy is a red herring. I can kind of buy into fantasy in general linking to theory of mind.

The biological basis (newer sperm is fitter sperm) also seems a little dodgy: why should humans be unique in masturbation if we have pretty much the same apparatus as other primates?

This is interesting stuff, and an interesting article, even if I disagree with much of it. I'm loath to ask, but are there any masturbation experts on mefi who can comment?

also, cum-sanctuary: gods bless you, SciAm editors
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 1:52 PM on June 29, 2010

This is one of the reasons, incidentally, why I find it so hard to believe that self-proclaimed asexuals who admit to masturbating to orgasm are really and truly asexual. They must be picturing something, and whatever that something is gives away their sexuality.

Really? Nobody wants to yell and scream about how asexuals are being dismissed this way? That's a pretty offensive statement, based on nothing more than a research psychologist's rather "ammirite?" conjecture.

I don't know about "yell and scream", but "give him a failing grade in logical implications"? Absolutely.

If I, a self-identified straight woman, fantasize about a man and a woman having sex in the third person, does that give away my sexuality? What if I imagine two men having sex, from one man's perspective? What if I fantasize about an orgy? What if I fantasize about being raped? Now what if I do all of these in the same session? Which one "gives away my sexuality"?

Now what if this hypothetical asexual is picturing TV static? Or a lava lamp? Heck, what if I, a self-identified straight female, masturbate while thinking about a math homework problem?
posted by muddgirl at 2:00 PM on June 29, 2010

Heck, what if I, a self-identified straight female, masturbate while thinking about a math homework problem?

Great, now the mathosexuals will be demanding the right to marry numbers and equations. I'm telling you, letting a human and pi marry is irrational and must be stopped!
posted by hippybear at 3:14 PM on June 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

This. Note that the guilt tends to be a typically North-American thing. I never saw as much bullshit in dicussions on masturbation as when the majority of posters are living in the US of A.

The appropriate responce to sex is not to titter? I thought freedom to openly giggle about it was part of the joy!

Of course glial cells make me amused too. Astrocyte, astrocyte, astrocyte!
posted by Phalene at 4:42 PM on June 29, 2010

What if I, a self-identified straight female, masturbate while thinking about a math homework problem?

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter porn feed.
posted by unSane at 9:57 PM on June 29, 2010

Metafilter: are there any masturbation experts who can comment?

(It had to be done.)

(So to speak.)
posted by rusty at 12:30 PM on July 1, 2010

Jay: Yo man, tell me something about me.

Rufus: You masturbate more than anyone on the planet.

Jay: Aw fuck, everyone knows that. Tell me something nobody knows.

Rufus: When you do it, you're thinking about guys.

[a shocked Silent Bob stares at Jay]

Jay: Dude, not all the time.
posted by bwg at 11:37 PM on July 5, 2010