by Tracy Clark-Flory It's National Masturbation Month, which feels like it should be worthy of comment -- especially given that I'm on the "sex beat." But writing in defense of masturbation is so incredibly passe; it hardly seems a practice in need of month-long activism. Most of us have left behind the pathologizing Christine O'Donnells of the world and abandoned the mythology of hairy palms and blindness.
Pornography, the No. 1 sign of solo loving, is in no short supply -- and for the very low price of free. Even the title, National Masturbation Month, sounds like a relic from a priggish past -- one before the Rabbit became a household name. Cheap vibrators are now stocked at neighborhood drug stores and diamond-encrusted numbers are available in boutique sex shops. Porn and dildos have been democratized -- power to the people!
So, now what?
Well, we could stand to work on our uneasy relationship with that thing behind masturbation: fantasy. There may be unprecedented access to pre-packaged, quick-hit titillation and expert guidance on the bodily mechanics of personal pleasure, but the American erotic imagination is still congested with political correctness and shame. Masturbation has by no means conquered all social taboos -- will it ever, really? -- but when it comes to fantasy, we could all use some loosening up.
