Go Fuck Yourself: A Response to the Myth of Female Masturbation

There were two things mentioned during our Seinfeld  discussion that I wanted to go into further.

There was a mention of "friends with benefits," a non-exclusive, non-romantic relationship based on sexual gratification that is known for almost never working out. What usually ends most FWB relationships is one partner developing feelings for the other and those feelings not being reciprocated, making casual sex awkward. In Seinfeld, they show Elaine needing more from Jerry than they had agreed upon while setting the guidelines for their relationship and, "yadda, yadda, yadda" it didn't last. I think using these tired gender roles reinforces the amount of pressure on heterosexual men to be emotionally detached from sex. Whenever we hear about these casual relationships not working out, it's because the woman needed more of a commitment or an emotional attachment (and if she doesn't then she's a slut, right?), but rarely about men acquiring feelings for their partners. A lack of this representation perpetuates the heteronormative ideas of gender.

The Seinfeld group also happened to mention the series' episode titled, "The Contest"  where the four main characters have a competition for who can go the longest without masturbating. Elaine, the only female competing, loses the bet. In our discussion, one of my classmates said something along the lines of, "women are sexual camels"(edit; I should note that this is a line from Seinfeld, but the aforementioned classmate assured us that it was accurate) and implied that women don't masturbate because, well, they're women. I'm here to school you.

To me, this opinion sounds as though it has been formed by a lifetime of watching gross-out comedies and '90s stand-up. Of course women masturbate. Unfortunately, we still live in a world where young girls are told that masturbating is inappropriate. When an actress like Taylor Momsen, 17, says that,  "her vibrator is her best friend" she's still hit with comments from a source to FOX news that says that her actions, "will result in failure in her life."

I do understand that there are a lot of health benefits to masturbation for males, like helping your immune system and maintaining prostate health. That's great. Go masturbate to your heart's content (without depleting your sperm bank). We're lucky enough to live in a time when male masturbation is widely accepted and fewer men are punished for spilling their seed on a Victoria's Secret catalogue. Females haven't been as lucky. People still long very much to control female sexuality, to make them rely on a man for sexual gratification.

To say that females don't masturbate perpetuates this unhealthy idea of female sexuality. Young girls being told that they're not supposed to masturbate while "boys will be boys," is what has lead  generations of females' unfamiliarity with their own anatomy. It's what has lead generations of females to not know how to give themselves an orgasm, and, in many cases, to not know if they've ever had an orgasm. Girls face developing stress disorders and leading unhealthy sex lives when they are told that masturbating is wrong. To say that women don't need to masturbate because they're women contributes to this machine.*

Females are also multi-orgasmic and, as my favorite person ever Dan Savage puts it, "physiologically, sexually insatiable." Frankly, I'm getting a little angry reflecting back on this fairly ignorant comment, so I'm going to let Dan take it from here:


*Also, to say that women don't masturbate doesn't even make sense outside of our Seinfeld discussion: Elaine is the one who lost the bet.

Here's another video from Dan Savage on masturbation. It strays from my original point, but it's educational nonetheless:

Judith Butler: A Person After My Own Heart

When I saw that we got to read Judith Butler's "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" I was beyond excited. I read this piece in my Queer Studies 301 class last year and it had a lasting affect on me. The copy that I printed out for class this week is highlighted to hell and the notes in the margins say things like, "my point exactly!" and "this text is the basis of my identity!"

At this point in time I think I have made it pretty clear through our class discussions that I have a passion for queer theory and gender politics. Anything having to do with gender non-conformity, binaries and dichotomies just revs my engine.

I guess now would be appropriate to come out to you, fair reader: I'm genderqueer.

The genderqueer identity can mean one of three things. It can mean that you see yourself as neither a man nor woman, as both a man and a woman, or just outside of the gender binary. I happen to see myself as all three. For a long time I did not feel comfortable referring to myself as a woman, but I did not identify as a man. I frequently saw myself as masculine, though from my outward appearance you may not be able to tell. I was also very comfortable being female. I knew I was something, but I didn't think there was a word for it. It was a similar feeling to what Betty Friedan describes in "The Feminine Mystique" as the "problem that has no name," the feeling that women felt before the women's right movement, knowing that there was something else out there than what was presented to them, but not knowing what it was.

Then the identity of genderqueer came into my life and it felt so right. I still use the feminine pronoun (English does not have a widely-accepted gender-neutral pronoun or one that is linguistically appealing) and still relate to the stories of women (trust me- there are so many Bob Dylan songs that I wish were written about me). Many genderqueer people choose to dress like an androgyne and many genderqueer choose to change their names to gender-neutral ones. I've chosen to keep my name because I do not feel that I need to change it in order to be genderqueer (which a lot of people do).

I only came to accept myself as genderqueer fairly recently, and I am slowly learning that being a genderqueer heterosexual makes me invisible. Since most people do not learn about gender politics unless that are LGBTIQQA, heterosexuals are less likely to see themselves as gender non-conforming because, hey, they don't know anything else. When I come out as genderqueer, it is usually assumed that I am a lesbian or pansexual. If I come out as heterosexual, it is assumed that I am a woman.

"First," Butler notes, "it is necessary to consider that sexuality always exceeds any given performance, presentation, or narrative which is why it is not possible to derive or read off a sexuality from any given gender presentation."

Thanks for having my back, Judy. Things we've established:

• I am genderqueer
• I am female
• I am heterosexual

I also typically present femininely, I suppose. At least this is what it seems like to other people. I, however, see myself as androgynous. It's okay, I know no one else sees me this way. But Butler explains my identity better than I could: "There are no direct expressive or causal lines between sex, gender, gender presentation." That is to say that sex, gender identity and presentation are non-exclusive. How fun is this?!

This is a video my friend is in (the "First generation Salvadoran genderqueer macho-femme") about identity politics. It's pretty funny: