Who doesn’t love busting a taboo? Doesn’t it make you feel edgy and modern and
SHOCKING? Do you remember the ‘90s, when anal sex was the taboo du jour (du
decade?)? I put this in no small part down to overexposure to Sex and the
City, which definitely mentioned it at least twice in six years.
But yeah! Anal sex was cool! Because it was taboo! And nothing’s sexier than busting a taboo, yeah!
But yeah! Anal sex was cool! Because it was taboo! And nothing’s sexier than busting a taboo, yeah!
Then, after watching a bit more Sex and the City, we decided that the
use of the word c**t was a far bigger taboo, so we started saying it loads,
all the time, to show how edgy we were.
Once the naughtiest of all the naughty words, c**t is only months away from
being used on Hollyoaks Later – which means it's only a matter of
time before Corrie’s Rita start’s shouting it at Norris across the
street’s cornershop -
The Kabin when he forgets to top up the sherbet lemons.
The Kabin when he forgets to top up the sherbet lemons.
So we need another taboo to bust – but what’s left? I went to see the very
funny Book of Mormon this week, where a running joke about a man
‘f***ing a baby’ had the audience, including myself, crying with laughter
(seriously, go and see it, it really is excellent), which makes me wonder if
there’s anywhere left to go.
Obviously there are conditions attached to this: vibrators are fine – we can
discuss vibrators, go and buy them together, attend hen nights where we have
to rescue a vibrator from a stripper’s butt cheeks using only our pelvic
floor muscles (I don’t go to many hen nights – but that’s what happens when
you’ve finished glazing your own commemorative mugs, right?).
Only a prude would admit to not owning a vibrator. They’re sexy! And fun! Sexy fun! And empowering! And that one with the ears once featured in Sex and the City! So we’re fine with that.
But we never discuss female masturbation, on its own, without a purple, glittery, revolving phallus, without a man present, just for the sake of it.
I can talk about it, if someone else brings it up in conversation (which rarely happens), but I have to force myself to swallow my discomfort first, and I’d never bring it up myself – why is that? The topics of conversation I’ll cover with my closest friends know no bounds – except this one.
Is it just too personal? Because that’s how it feels. I managed to get one friend, who will discuss her bowel movements with me at the drop of a hat, to admit that she masturbates. But only when she’d drunk the best part of a bottle of wine.
But why the double standard? Men talk about wanking all the time. A male friend “knows a guy” who prides himself on the number of times he can fit a wank in during a day at work. His record is 23.
Twenty-three times in one working day? That doesn’t sound like fun. That sounds as close to self-flagellation as you can get on an industrial estate in Croydon. But nonetheless, his wanking prowess is a point of pride.
In fact The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther, known as The Beggar's Benison, was a Scottish gentlemen's club founded in 1732, devoted to "the convivial celebration of male sexuality”. It was a wanking club.
But is female masturbation actually taboo? Or am I the maiden aunt clutching her pearls while all the cool kids go off to masturbation raves in warehouses, where they take loads of ketamine and frig themselves silly?
As Telegraph Wonder Women’s agony aunt Dr Petra Boynton points out, masturbation itself isn’t taboo – it’s talked about far more in sex education and in the media than say, 50 years ago. Instead, the problem lies with how we discuss it, and the language we use.
“In the UK, the discussion focuses on products (toys) and performance/aspirational messages around spicing up your sex life. But, we don’t talk about how to masturbate or how that might be interpreted within a relationship.
“Masturbation is happening and we talk about it but the media/self help market uses language in quite a limiting way, which actually means it's not a taboo but can be difficult to talk about.”
Masturbation is fine when it’s for the purposes of male titillation. But WHY? Does female desire, on its own and without a purpose (to make babies, or to please a man) make us uncomfortable?
Are women not allowed to be horny, just because? And why do women refuse to talk about masturbating even when they are just in female company? We are the generation that talk about ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. But not this.
It’s almost like there’s a conspiracy we’re all a willing part of, a refusal to discuss female masturbation sensibly, lest all the women discover their clitorises, drop what they’re doing and start furiously wanking in the nearest cupboard. But that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
Only a prude would admit to not owning a vibrator. They’re sexy! And fun! Sexy fun! And empowering! And that one with the ears once featured in Sex and the City! So we’re fine with that.
But we never discuss female masturbation, on its own, without a purple, glittery, revolving phallus, without a man present, just for the sake of it.
I can talk about it, if someone else brings it up in conversation (which rarely happens), but I have to force myself to swallow my discomfort first, and I’d never bring it up myself – why is that? The topics of conversation I’ll cover with my closest friends know no bounds – except this one.
Is it just too personal? Because that’s how it feels. I managed to get one friend, who will discuss her bowel movements with me at the drop of a hat, to admit that she masturbates. But only when she’d drunk the best part of a bottle of wine.
But why the double standard? Men talk about wanking all the time. A male friend “knows a guy” who prides himself on the number of times he can fit a wank in during a day at work. His record is 23.
Twenty-three times in one working day? That doesn’t sound like fun. That sounds as close to self-flagellation as you can get on an industrial estate in Croydon. But nonetheless, his wanking prowess is a point of pride.
In fact The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther, known as The Beggar's Benison, was a Scottish gentlemen's club founded in 1732, devoted to "the convivial celebration of male sexuality”. It was a wanking club.
But is female masturbation actually taboo? Or am I the maiden aunt clutching her pearls while all the cool kids go off to masturbation raves in warehouses, where they take loads of ketamine and frig themselves silly?
As Telegraph Wonder Women’s agony aunt Dr Petra Boynton points out, masturbation itself isn’t taboo – it’s talked about far more in sex education and in the media than say, 50 years ago. Instead, the problem lies with how we discuss it, and the language we use.
“In the UK, the discussion focuses on products (toys) and performance/aspirational messages around spicing up your sex life. But, we don’t talk about how to masturbate or how that might be interpreted within a relationship.
“Masturbation is happening and we talk about it but the media/self help market uses language in quite a limiting way, which actually means it's not a taboo but can be difficult to talk about.”
Masturbation is fine when it’s for the purposes of male titillation. But WHY? Does female desire, on its own and without a purpose (to make babies, or to please a man) make us uncomfortable?
Are women not allowed to be horny, just because? And why do women refuse to talk about masturbating even when they are just in female company? We are the generation that talk about ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. But not this.
It’s almost like there’s a conspiracy we’re all a willing part of, a refusal to discuss female masturbation sensibly, lest all the women discover their clitorises, drop what they’re doing and start furiously wanking in the nearest cupboard. But that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
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