Another Masturbation Month is coming to an end and to provide us with a bit of closure I can think of no better Friday guest than sex educator and author Jamye Waxman. Jayme is the author of Getting Off: A Woman’s Guide to Masturbation, an excellent guide book for beginners and experts alike (and one I’d recommend not only to women, but to anyone interested in having sex with a woman). As lights dim and we furl our masturbation flags, Jamye offers her insights on how sex is like a rainbow, it’s never too late to start doing it, and how the state of female masturbation has and hasn’t changed over the past 30 years.
What's the most common question you get asked after someone finds out you wrote a 300 page book about female masturbation?
I think the most common question is, “is there that much to say about masturbation?” I think because masturbation is often this innate sexual act, one that you learn through self discovery, one that even fetuses can figure out in the womb. People don’t think there’s a lot to say on the subject. Historically, masturbation is a loaded topic. Early on people sold tinctures to stop the epidemic of masturbation; Graham crackers and Kellogg corn flakes were first created to curb self-sexual desires; and vibrators were created for doctors’ use, to calm “hysterical” women.
And of course today, the ever-growing sex toy market is driven by devices that can be used for any ménage a moi. Plus there’s loads of erotica written and directed to get people into the right state of mind to be sexual, whether by themselves or with someone else. So, there really are a lot of ways to look at masturbation, and they’re not just all about how to rub one out. There’s the historical aspects, the technical ones and even the fantasies surrounding masturbation.
Betty Dodson, rightly considered the godmother of masturbation, wrote the foreword for your book and it made me wonder about the state of female masturbation now, as opposed to thirty years ago when she started writing about it.
Betty and I had this conversation when I interviewed her for my book. It’s amazing how much things have changed (towards a positive, more sexual, more open universe) and at the same time how much they still need to change.
For every step forward, there really is someone, somewhere taking that step backwards. I think that as a society we’re more accepting, and believing, of, and in, female sexuality. That we know, and understand, and even support that women like sex and deserve to have orgasms whenever they want one too (I think the country was still waking up to this fact 30 years ago) but at the same time, in the United States at least, we’re a culture that has more negative depictions of what it means to be sexual than positive ones. I mean a little over ten years ago, the TV show Seinfeld couldn’t say the word masturbation on an episode dedicated to the art of self-love, the NBC censors wouldn’t allow it. Seinfeld was super progressive and even they had to say “master of his domain.”
Yes, things have changed, and we see masturbation depicted a lot more often on cable TV, but still on regular, broadcast television sex it’s a sticky subject. I mean we can see brutal depictions of sex, or murder, but if we see loving acts of sex, especially self-sexuality, we have somehow crossed a line. How is it that murder and rape are acceptable to show an eight year old kid on primetime TV, but loving oneself is so wrong?
I think the most radical shift in embracing female sexuality, and masturbation, comes from the Internet. Between the boost of sex positive information available online at reputable websites; women openly talking about their sex lives online, especially in blog form; to being able to buy sex toys with the click of a mouse (not to be confused with double clicking the mouse, another euphemism for masturbation), the sexual universe has been set free by the Internet.
And it’s also cool now to go into a progressive sex shop and buy a toy. I worked for almost five years at NY’s Babeland sex shop, and I watched myriads of men and women shop for aids to enhance her orgasms during sex, both solo and partnered, which is something women weren’t really doing 30 years ago. But for every woman that comes in there, I’ve met a woman who thinks that a vibrator is the devil in hard, plastic form, and so I still think that sexuality is like a rainbow. It has an arc, there are people, as Dorothy would say “somewhere over the rainbow” and all of us identify somewhere on that rainbow, with ourselves, our bodies, our sexuality, we’re all somewhere on that arc. And because a rainbow has different colors, these represent the broader variety of sexual flavors that exist too. It’s not just black and white when it comes to sex and masturbation.
Where are we heading? I always think that this sexual arc is going to exist. That there will be people who wear T-shirts saying “ask me how many orgasms I had today” and then there will be people who don’t ever want to talk about their sex lives, or don’t care if they masturbate, or even have orgasms. But I also think that future generations won’t ever have to sit and wonder how to masturbate, or where to access information, or if they’re alone in what they like sexually, because it’s all out there, for as long as the Internet is around. For as long as we’re alive on this planet, as long as we have cyberspace, we will probably have access to this information. And there will continue to be more updated information, more updated language on all subjects, especially sex, and we all go through our own personal sex journey both by ourselves, and with others, but because of the Internet we will never be made to feel alone again.
I know you travel the country giving workshops on masturbation and you must hear a lot of stories. Do you have a favorite?
I didn’t have my first orgasm until I was 21. I was having sexual intercourse by the time I was 16, and was even sexually active before that, but when it came to my first “I am so sure that I just had an orgasm” moment, that didn’t happen until years after I started having sex. I ordered my first vibrator from a mail order catalog, right after my 21st birthday, (the Internet wasn’t used much for shopping at the time) and when it arrived, in a discreet brown paper wrapper, I was so excited, but also so nervous. Vibrators don’t come with instructions most of the time, and I was alone, living in a small town in Ohio, with no idea how to use this thing. I tried a few ways, but soon realized that placing it on my clit was what made me the happiest. And in under two minutes, I came. I definitively came. No doubt about it. And it was the most beautiful orgasm I’ve ever had because I didn’t know what an orgasm felt like, and now I did. And I share this story because I was older than most people expect me to be when I had my first orgasm, and I was sexually active at the time, and still I didn’t know what an orgasm was until I did it for myself. I want to let women know that it’s never too late to get started, never, not at 50, 60, 70 or 80. I want women to know that having an orgasm is definitely an experience worth working towards, even if it’s not the goal every time, and I’ve been making up for lost time ever since.
If you could only engage in one sexual practice for the rest of your life what would it be?
Oh, that’s a tough one. That’s like if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life what would it be? It would have to be something layered so that I could actually enjoy different tastes and textures, and get a lot out of my one and only tasty morsel of food. With sex, I think it’s the same thing. I mean I could say yes, it would be masturbation, because masturbation could be so layered, and it could involve sticking things inside of you, and playing with my clit, and doing all that good stuff, but I do like touching someone else’s warm body a lot. If it could only be one sexual practice, and not like having intercourse while I get to manipulate my clit and kiss another human being (which would probably be my one act of choice) I think it might actually be kissing. I just love the way two people communicate through kissing, which of course also involves some forms of rubbing and touching. Kissing is something I’ve been doing a lot of since I was 11, and I just love getting lost in a good kiss. I could kiss for hours, if not days, without ever going further.
What do you think are the biggest obstacles for women to a satisfying masturbatory sex life?
I think the biggest obstacles for women to a satisfying masturbatory sex life are their brain and their social conditioning. I truly believe that a lot of women still think masturbation means you’re desperate and can’t get satisfaction from your partner, or that you can’t find a partner to satisfy you. And that’s so wrong. If you can’t love yourself, how can you possibly know how to honestly love somebody else?
Also certain religions have, for quite some time, tried to deter masturbation, and so I think that women feel like they’re doing a disservice to their god for wanting to touch themselves. And then of course, they may feel like they’re doing a disservice to their family. The mother who may have caught her daughter masturbating at a young age and told her never, ever to do that again, instead of encouraging them to stay in touch with their body by saying something like “it’s nice to love yourself, I know it feels good, but you should only love/touch yourself in private.”
A lot of women grow up hearing that we need to “wash down there” or “air ourselves out” at night, because vulvas are dirty, and I think that adds to the whole masturbation is a dirty act idea. It’s crazy, especially since the truth is your vagina cleans itself, and she’s not dirty, she’s beautiful and she is the reason almost all of us are here, on this earth. She is the womb, the birth canal, a sacred place that deserves respect, love and caring. I think we need to stop thinking so much about what is right and wrong in sex, and start acting on how it feels to touch ourselves. To worship our own bodies in our own time. If we cared for ourselves the way we often care for others, then we would be a happier, healthier and more orgasmic universe.
So know that you've written the definitive book on female masturbation, what's next?
I’m working on a number of exciting projects. For one, I’m planning on writing another book, this one geared towards his pleasure and his penis. I teach a lot of workshops around New York for ladies and men who like men and I think I have a fun, fresh way of looking at how to use both your hands and mouth on his member. And I’m getting more involved in the TV/video side of sexuality. I’m already a host for Cherry TV’s Fresh Advice, and I’m still promoting the Personal Touch Video Series I did for Adam and Eve. I think that the future of sex education lies in video form, both online and on television, so, I plan to do more hosting, directing and even editing of shows focused on sexy things. I’m also scheduled to teach two workshops at this years Erotica LA show in June. Basically, I love to help people feel fantastic about sex and sexuality, and so I’ll keep doing whatever it is I’m lucky enough to do in this field. People can always stay in touch at my website, www.jamyewaxman.com.
Cover image courtesy of Seal Press