Self-Deluded Self-Loving?
• Sexual Health
During my Southern Baptist childhood no parent, teacher or Sunday school teacher even mentioned masturbation. I had a few friends who felt some guilt about their fantasies - they were gay during more homophobic times - but not the act.
The author of Therapy Culture talks about the Masturbate-A-Thon and the possibility that some celebrate self-love because they fear the risks of loving someone else.
The idea that talking about masturbation is a powerful taboo is a self-serving myth peddled by solo-sex crusaders who never resist the temptation to discuss their obsession. As any school child will confirm, masturbation is hardly a taboo topic. There is a veritable industry devoted to praising its virtues and ‘raising awareness’ about it.
Today’s sex education establishment is far more prescriptive. It demands that we ‘say no’ to all passionate relationships that carry risks and consequences. The new lobby of moralists are not just wary of sex but of all forms of passionate relations. Yes they talk about pleasure, but according to their ideology it must be an experience that is robbed of passionate emotions.
‘We can have those feelings for a very short time, but when reality comes crashing in, the pain and the hurt and the suffering and the breakdown follow.’ From this timid perspective towards human relationships, masturbation is celebrated because it does not disappoint.
Even happiness is discussed as a problem if its realisation depends on others. Indeed, feelings that distract individuals from the goal of self-fulfilment are often defined in negative terms. That is why in many self-help books the feeling of love, especially of the intense and passionate variety, is treated as a problem.