I want to ask you
something personal,
but before I do,
I want you to imagine
that sitting next to you
is your mother or father
or maybe your grandparents.
Okay.
Are you ready?
Here goes.
If you have
a hard time answering,
you're not alone.
I've spent over seven years
interviewing
anyone I can get
my hands on
from educators
to porn stars
to sexual revolutionaries,
even a former
Surgeon General
on topics ranging from
history to politics
to health and education
or lack thereof.
Female reporter:
He was bullied so badly
over that video
that he committed suicide.
I've done this in order
to understand a question
that has bothered me
for years--
why is something
most everybody does
so hard to talk about?
We know that 80 to 90%
of men masturbate,
65 to 70% of women masturbate,
and the rest lie,
so what are we going
to talk about?
All: ( repeating ) Masturbation.
Masturbation. Masturbation...
( splat )
Choking your chicken.
Spanking the monkey.
Go ahead!
Double-clicking the mouse.
( vibrator buzzing )
Blasting off.
( screams )
( vibrator buzzing )
- Pet your bunny.
- Coochee coochee coo!
( vibrator buzzing )
Whacking off.
- Ow. Ha ha! Ow.
- ( vibrator buzzing )
Ow, ow, ow!
Hand-to-gland combat.
I like that one.
This is my rifle.
This is my gun.
Men: This is for fighting!
This is for fun!
Some call it self abuse.
Give me a break.
Wanking. Wanking.
Wanking.
( cheers and applause )
It's masturbation.
That is the word.
Oh, rubb-a, rubb-a,
rubb-a, rubb-a.
- Hey!
- Oh!
When people ask me
why I am making a documentary
on masturbation,
I tell them it started
as a joke.
Don't knock masturbation.
It's sex with someone I love.
We laugh at masturbation
like we laugh
when someone trips
on a banana peel.
We laugh because
it makes us uncomfortable.
I recalled a conversation
with someone.
He said that masturbation
was like hemorrhoids.
Just because it existed
doesn't mean people
want to talk about it.
Was masturbation
so disgusting and painful
that it could be compared
to hemorrhoids?
I have been obsessed
with masturbation
for as long as I can remember.
I had my first masturbation
experience when I was five.
I was playing show and tell
with several
of the neighborhood girls.
I showed them how to do it,
but for the life of me,
I couldn't figure out
how they did it.
Women's hotspots are kind
of in the little folds there
and not as easy to find.
Susie Bright
has this great line about
saying she never--
she never met a man who didn't
know where his penis was
and didn't know
how to have an orgasm, right,
whereas she's met thousands
of women who have no idea
where the clitoris is
and don't know how
to have orgasms.
I think men are more comfortable
with admitting they masturbate
because I think
it's more accepted.
Men and women are socialized
in fundamentally different ways
around masturbation.
Male genitalia
is really out there.
You sort of can't miss it.
And women are born with a vulva,
and it's internal.
So for us to actually
figure out what's going on
takes a bit more work.
The clitoris is the only organ
designed in the human body
exclusively
and only for pleasure,
and for most women,
it is their best bud.
There is no doubt about it.
Ducky Doolittle
actually once said...
The clitoris is the center
of the fucking universe.
Almost every woman can have
an orgasm through her clitoris,
and studies show
that as few as 24% of women
can orgasm
from penetration alone.
Women have a lot more
nerve endings than men,
or at least they're more
centrally focused.
Normally men have between
4,000 and 5,000 nerve endings
where women have 8,000
in their clitoris.
( moans )
( singing operatically )
Jamye Waxman:
So there's a big difference
in the sensation.
We all know the stories
of too-tight pants,
sitting on a washing machine,
riding ponies
when you're a girl
and how exciting that is.
You talk to the women
and ask them
what they humped
when they were little,
they'll be like...
- ( kisses )
- ( clears throat )
"Oh, my God, I can't believe
I humped that, too."
They hump a lot of stuff.
Female narrator:
It's wonderful being a girl.
Clits rule
in the female sexuality world,
and let's hear it
for penis tops as well.
( boisterous music plays,
applause )
( boing )
Narrator: I was never taught
about masturbation
and sex in Catholic school,
but I was taught
about lust and sin.
There are no circumstances
under which we can condone
masturbation.
It's what we call
a moral absolute.
Narrator:
I was in religion class
when I discovered
a hole in my pants pocket
that allowed me
to touch my penis
without anyone knowing.
It's a sin of Onan,
the masturbatory crime.
Feelings of guilt mixed
with feelings of pleasure,
but I couldn't resist.
The good feelings
outweighed the bad.
I wondered what other religions
had to say about masturbation
and whether they also
viewed it as a sin.
No, masturbation
is not a sin.
Masturbation has been indicated
as a deviation.
If God didn't want us
to masturbate,
he would have made
our arms shorter.
It is a sin
because it's an abuse
of what sex ought to be.
From a Buddhist perspective,
the question of masturbation
has to do
with what's our intention?
Does masturbation
bring us closer to reality
Look at the nature of desire
and see if it really brings you
the happiness you seek or not.
Muhammad:
Based on the Koran
and the sayings
of Prophet Mohammed,
masturbation is classed
as a minor deviation
because the person
is not harming anyone else.
In that case,
according to the Quranian Law,
he has chosen a lesser evil.
The lesser of two evils
principle does not apply there.
( Jewish folk music playing )
Ron: In the Jewish tradition,
not so clear-cut.
Masturbation is not listed
among the negative commandments
but mistakenly,
people believe
that masturbation
is condemned in the Torah.
That is not accurate.
It is not mentioned in the Torah
"You shall not masturbate."
- It simply doesn't make sense.
- So where did we get the idea?
It's from a story in the Torah
in "Genesis"
of a guy by the name of Onan.
When Onan's brother died,
God commanded Onan
to marry his brother's wife.
Joycelyn: He didn't want
to have children...
Maybe I can convince him.
Because they would not be
his children.
- And so he decides...
- He would pull out
- and withdraw
before he ejaculated.
- And spill his seed.
Martha: What he did do
was ejaculate not in a woman.
He ejaculated outside a woman
which is similar to the way
you ejaculate in masturbation.
That somehow morphed
into "masturbation is a sin."
It's a controversial subject.
They call masturbation Onanism.
It simply inaccurate.
( rapping ) And now I'm stuck
in a bad situation.
I'm the poster child
for masturbation.
Narrator:
If God made sex the only way
to procreate the human race,
what do all these religious
people have to be afraid of?
The fear is
that if we masturbate,
we will replace intercourse
and human connection
with masturbation.
So they had to create
all these mythologies
about the horrible dangers
of masturbation.
Sex is for procreation,
and pleasure is an incentive.
If it doesn't cause suffering,
then you can masturbate
all you want.
But that doesn't give us reason
to justify it.
Narrator:
But it can be justified,
because today
technology allows us to
procreate through masturbation.
I think I'm probably responsible
for somewhere between
75 and 100,000 children
being brought into this world.
You see, I'm a andrologist,
and I study men,
and therefore
I study their sperm,
which is acquired
through masturbation.
No, the act is still wrong.
Many people are taught
that masturbation's a sin.
Whether it be in Judaism
or Islam or any other religion,
- guilt is really intense.
- It's always wrong.
Narrator: My Catholic
upbringing influenced
the shame and guilt that I feel
about masturbation,
even to this day.
I remember the summer
before high school
being called a jerk-off for
admitting that I masturbated.
The rumors went around
that I was a pervert.
I felt like Hester Prynne
from "The Scarlet Letter,"
only my letter was a big "M."
Nobody talked about masturbation
in high school.
Most of my education
about sex
came from
whatever porn magazines
I could wrap my hands around.
Two dramatic events took place
that really impacted
my ideas about masturbation.
The first event
took place in 1991.
Paul Rubens was allegedly
caught masturbating
in an adult movie theater
in Sarasota Florida.
I remember feeling
embarrassed for Pee-Wee
and sad that
such a fun person
could be so quickly outcast
by a world
that moments
before showered him with
love and affection.
It reminded me
of those days in school
when I was made to feel bad for
admitting that I masturbated.
( rock music playing )
Man: Every year,
the biggest musical act
opens this award show.
This particular year,
masturbation did.
Man: Ladies and gentlemen,
MTV is proud to introduce...
Heard any good jokes lately?
And MTV just made
the biggest statement
to young people
- around the world.
- Ha ha!
Paul Rubens
is like the poster man
of the culture's tweaky
antipathy about masturbation.
Heard any good jokes lately?
There's a lot of things
about me
you don't know
anything about,
Dotty,
things you wouldn't
understand,
things you couldn't
understand,
things you shouldn't
understand.
Sadie Lune:
1991, July 26,
Paul Rubens on all accounts
was in Sarasota, Florida,
visiting his parents.
His hair is long.
He's got a beard.
He's not looking
like a Pee-Wee.
"Pee-Wee's Playhouse"
had actually just wrapped.
The series was actually
officially over.
Anyway,
he's in the porn theater
watching this triple feature,
- and then the cops come in.
- Man: "Freeze, scumbag!"
That's when I decided to take
the law into my own hands.
What else are people doing
in those theaters?
He's in an adult theater
touching himself,
and he should do this
somewhere else?
Isn't that what
those places are for?
And if the media hadn't made
a circus out of it,
no one would've been
the wiser.
Paul:
We were having so much fun.
After his arrest
and that photo of him
made the rounds,
his career
was basically ruined.
If the Internet
had been as big then
as it was now,
this would be
a viral phenomenon.
And of course,
the issue was
our antipathy
towards masturbation
but more importantly,
our terror
around childhood sexuality.
People really
took this seriously,
like this was really
a shameful, ridiculous thing.
Female reporter:
Paul, you got a statement?
Sadie Lune:
Nobody wanted to support
Pee-Wee products.
All of these sponsorships
got lost,
all this big thing
because he jerks off.
It was that connection,
that line that was drawn
between masturbation
as a sexual sin, quote unquote,
and the fact
that he talked to children
and was a icon
- for children.
- What?
That would've been
a great opportunity
to teach kids about something
that should be
considered healthy.
I almost think of him
as one of the first rocks
off the cliff
of the tabloidization of
well-known people's sexuality.
The media has as dysfunctional
of view of masturbation
as the general public.
Of all the wars,
all the political unrest,
all of the abuse
of human rights
that are going on
in this world
at any given moment,
and one celebrity
is caught masturbating
in a public porn theater,
that's the big headline?
( scoffs )
Life can be so unfair.
Chris: It's unfortunate
that the character is,
you know,
marred by this one incident.
If you're hosting
a kid's show on television
and you're caught
masturbating in a theater,
I mean, you can just kiss
that show good-bye.
I think we lost a beloved
children's character.
It's time to go.
Chris:
I mean, Pee-Wee Herman.
- Bye, Pee-Wee!
- Bye!
Narrator: The second event
that really influenced
my ideas about masturbation
took place three years later
in 1994.
It was the firing
of the Surgeon General,
Dr. Joycelyn Elders,
for taking a positive stance
on teaching about masturbation
in schools.
She was later forced to resign
by the same president
who made the executive decision
to play "hide the cigar"
with his intern.
We in America
can't talk about sex.
We can do it,
but we can't talk about it.
Carol: Good Vibrations started
National Masturbation Month
specifically because
of Dr. Joycelyn Elders' firing.
When I was asked a question
at the UN
at World AIDS Day if I felt
that we should teach children
about masturbation,
if I felt it would reduce
unintended pregnancy
and reduce disease,
my answer to that is yes.
And all of a sudden,
the first female
African-American Surgeon General
the country has ever had
gets canned
because she said
something sensible.
In regard to masturbation,
I think that
that is something that--
that's a part
of human sexuality,
and it is a part
of something
that perhaps
should be taught.
She got fired because
I think President Clinton
thought he was gonna lose
some of his base.
Clinton: She is a person
of great energy and conviction,
and she's devoted her life
to child health
and reducing teen pregnancy
and fighting AIDS,
but there have been
a number of things
where we just have
different positions.
It's one of the worst moments
in our country's history,
and I say that mindfully.
That just shows
some of the backward mentality
of some of the idiots
that run our country.
It really represented
the phobia
that America has
about sexuality.
We have more sexually
transmitted infections.
We have more
teenage pregnancies.
Our incidence of HIV disease
is higher
than in sub Sahara Africa.
And the fact that we can't
really have
any kind of real public
discourse about sexual education
in this country
is very, very disturbing.
It seems bizarre
that we wouldn't teach kids
about a perfectly safe way to
have sex, which is masturbation.
You know, why wouldn't you
teach them that?
Because we are afraid
if we tell them about it,
they'll do it.
I can't think of anyone
that I admire more
for taking a positive stand
that masturbation
should be taught
in the public schools.
Joycelyn: I was not the
President's Surgeon General.
I was not the Congress's
Surgeon General.
I was the people's
Surgeon General,
and I was going to do
what I felt
was the right thing
for the most people
of this country.
Narrator: The firing
of the Surgeon General
and president Clinton's
hypocrisy
and failure to back her up
infuriated me.
What's so wrong about education
around masturbation?
What do we have to fear?
The curriculum at my school
I've been told
has been the same for the past
25 years or so.
It's an abstinence-based
curriculum.
In my mind,
it's very outdated.
Masturbation, it's a natural,
normal thing,
but people try to ignore it
and avoid it.
So people say we can't talk
to young people about sex
because it...
might give them ideas.
And I have a clue for them
is that Mother Nature
has already
beat you to the punch.
There is very limited coverage
- on masturbation.
- There is no
masturbation education.
They don't talk about
female masturbation at all
in our curriculum.
That went out
with the attempt made
by our former
Surgeon General.
We can talk about abstinence.
We can talk about not doing it
or how to prevent pregnancy
or sexually transmitted
infections,
but we certainly
can't talk about pleasure.
We live in a very
anti-pleasure culture,
particularly sexual pleasure.
We're in a political agenda
that driving
sexuality education
into our very harm state
for young people.
So right now
in the United States,
it's a bad time
for sex education.
Masturbation
is still being educated
as something abnormal,
not appropriate.
It's called
abstinence only before marriage.
It highly funded
by the federal government,
and it preaches
and teaches moral messages
and not accurate, safe,
sensitive information.
The Bible says that lust in your
heart is committing adultery.
So you can't masturbate
without lust.
Still think masturbation
is wrong?
Oh, let's not even go there.
- Um, you know, um...
- Why? You went there.
Are you the pro-masturbation
talk show host?
- ( laughs )
- Uh, yes, why not? Yes.
The problem is
that there is a political will
to not talk about sex.
All it says is wait until
you get married, period.
I don't think
any intelligent person
is gonna think that if you
mention masturbation to kids,
they're gonna run wild
in the street masturbating.
That's what I thought, too,
until I discovered
in Fremont, California,
parents were actually gathering
with the hopes of having
a sex-education book
removed from
the high school curriculum.
The Fremont school district
plans to use a new book
to teach sex education,
but some say that book
is too graphic.
I think the "Your Health Today"
book is a very modern,
up-to-date, approachable book
for students.
There were people
who put together a petition,
and they had concerns
about the age-appropriateness
of this particular textbook,
things like
masturbation
or how to properly
put on a condom.
I'm gonna read from it
for a minute.
It just says, "Masturbation
is self stimulation
of the genitals
for sexual pleasure.
The stigma attached
to masturbation is left over
from a previous era
when it was considered sinful
and dangerous to one's health,
probably because
its purpose was pleasure
rather than procreation."
Sexual education begins
in the home with parents.
Children are learning
by watching their parents.
They're the role models.
If the parents
are uptight, conservative,
aren't gonna speak about it,
children are going to feel
some guilt about
their normal bodily functions.
I got a little slip of paper
from one student asking
if you masturbate too much,
could you give yourself herpes?
How can my child even think
that feels good?
He shouldn't even know
he has that thing down there.
Even worse if they're being made
to feel ashamed
about masturbation
and that masturbation
is dangerous.
I have an announcement to make.
We have discovered
why there are so many
unexplained deaths
in the world.
Each time a man masturbates,
another man dies.
So from now on,
masturbation is illegal.
Not dumping our fear
onto the child
is the first step
to not messing up young kids.
The healthiest perspective
that I think a parent can take
is that their child
is a sexual being
and that we don't
have to quash them at all.
I don't think it's our job
to encourage our children
to be sexual beings.
Oh, Ricky,
I did see what you were doing.
We let them develop,
and we let them grow.
It felt good,
didn't it?
I'm just glad you're doing this
in the privacy of your own room.
Kids should not be punished,
nor should kids
not be answered
if they want to know
a sexual question.
If you do that,
who are they gonna ask?
Anybody else but you
for the rest of their lives.
We've got to be honest.
We've got to educate them,
and we've got to teach them
to be responsible.
And you can't be responsible
if you don't know.
Narrator:
I graduated in 1996,
the same year the movie
"The People vs. Larry Flynt"
was released.
The film seemed
to speak out against
the repressive attitudes
that plagued the '90s
blackballing of Paul Rubens
and the firing
of Dr. Joycelyn Elders
and was based
on the life struggle
of "Hustler" founder
Larry Flynt,
who fought hard
against sexual repression.
We live in a free country.
But there is a price
for that freedom,
which is that sometimes,
we have to tolerate things
that we don't necessarily like.
I won on unanimous decision
in '88.
It's too bad
that they won't hear
a lot of these other cases
involving human sexuality.
My parents told me nothing
about masturbation.
The people
who oppose masturbation
don't know
what they're talking about,
or number two, they don't know
what they're missing.
This young guy
walked up to me.
When I autographed his book,
he stuck out his hand
and he said, "Mr. Flynt,
I just want to thank you
for helping me
make it through puberty."
What he's really telling me
is he spent a lot of time
jerking off to "Hustler"
over the years.
So go back in that room
where you are free to think
whatever you want
to think about Larry Flynt
- and "Hustler" magazine.
- Ooh, "Hustler" magazine.
"Hustler" is the magazine
most widely read by one hand.
In many ways, I'm contributing
to the development
of their sexuality
by giving them an outlet.
That's why "Hustler"
is so important
and such a terrific tool
to use when you masturbate.
Narrator: I saw Larry Flynt
as a revolutionary
willing to fight
against the history
of sexual repression,
a history
that seemed to contradict
our own natural instincts.
( chimp grunting )
( chimp screeches )
The history of masturbation
goes back
to when man first was created.
As an evolutionary biologist
and someone studies
the behavior of other animals,
I can say that I think
we can learn something
about our own sexuality
from studying
the behavior of our closest
living relatives.
In a wide array of primates,
they masturbate
just like humans do.
I can say that we have a very,
very long ancestral history
of the practice
of masturbation.
When we crawled out
of the primordial soup,
as soon as we were dexterous
or whatever
how many millions
or billions of years ago,
people probably started
touching themselves.
( "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
playing )
( all grunting )
It's just part
of the human condition.
Patti: It's occurred as far back
as the Egyptian hieroglyphics
were done around 1500 BC.
The Greeks and the Romans
talk about it,
but it's basically
talked about as a joke.
It's "American Pie"
kind of humor.
Then sometime around 1712,
an anonymous book was published
which was called "Onania."
The author of this book
was a man named John Marten.
Man:
That unnatural practice
by which persons
of either sex
may defile their own bodies...
Second part
of the book, that all
the medical consequences
that happen as a result
of masturbation.
Everybody that was sick
did it.
Maybe it was causing
the sickness.
If you masturbate,
you were gonna suffer
horrible effects.
- Vernon: It causes insanity.
- Ron: You will go blind.
You will deplete your body
of its life force.
So it's basically
like an article
we might write today
about crack cocaine.
- This is crack.
- It's the crack cocaine of sex.
There's certainly
a good number of Victorian
doctors who recommended
instruments
to prevent masturbation,
the cock rings with nails,
the electrified panties
that sound an alarm
at the first signs
of an erection.
( electricity crackles )
Jayme: Sylvester Graham
and John Kellogg.
Funny guys.
Kellogg and Graham were both
really about healthy diets
and a healthy lifestyle
that only included sex
once a month
if you had to do it at all.
It is my scientific conclusion
that sex
is unnecessary
and dangerous.
Jamye:
They believed
that sexual activity
was really deteriorating
to your health.
Woman:
So if you're losing semen,
you're exhausting your body,
and you're therefore
opening up
for the chance
of greater disease or death.
You cannot afford the loss
of life-giving fluids.
The core scientific idea
about masturbation
is that semen was this rare,
precious, refined fluid,
that it took 40 ounces of blood
to generate one ounce of semen.
Jayme:
Graham made graham crackers,
and Kellogg made corn flakes,
not the kind
that you eat today.
They have way too much sugar
and refined flour.
They would not approve
of the way
their foods have come out,
but they made these really
bland-tasting foods
thinking this would help
curb sexual appetite.
Kellogg even went further
than that and did perform
at least one
clitoridectomy on a young girl
whose parents thought
that if they didn't
remove her clitoris,
she would destroy their family,
and all of their siblings
would get this idea
that it was okay to masturbate.
May I have a volunteer,
please?
Oh, come on, don't be shy.
Hysteria in the 1800s,
it was like a catchall term
that if a woman
was too outspoken,
if she was irritable,
that was linked under hysteria
for women and linked
to hyster, uterus,
linked to their
reproductive system.
Women would go
to their doctors,
and the way the doctors
would treat hysteria
was to manually
stimulate their vulvas
to bring release of hysteria,
which was orgasm.
( women giggling )
That particular kind of massage
was not considered sexual
and that the paroxysm
that resulted, aka orgasm,
was not considered sex.
Dr. Jenn:
So as the story goes,
the doctor's hands
( laughs ) were getting tired
of masturbating the women,
and that's when
they developed the first
steam-powered vibrator,
like this huge device.
Jayne: Women would come
to the doctor's office.
It cost about $200
in the late 1800s,
which was a lot of money,
and have a session
where they would be blasted
with these vibrations
until they got off
and were essentially cured
of their hysterical ways.
It's a very interesting history
because doctors
had been doing it for centuries
until the advent
of the electric vibrator.
Jayne: Once they were
electrified and smaller,
women realized they didn't
have to pay their doctor
to do it for them anymore.
Over time, vibrators became
the fifth appliance
to be electrified
behind, like, the toaster,
the sewing machine
and the tea kettle.
Vibrators were found
in Sears Roebuck catalogs,
in needlecraft magazines.
And then in the late 1920s,
because the first vibrator
made an appearance
in an adult film,
all vibrator ads were quickly
removed from magazines.
Narrator: Even some of our most
Revolutionary thinkers
struggled to come to terms
with masturbation
throughout history.
Vernon:
Freud was pretty negative
about masturbation.
I mean, he saw it
as a major cause
of neurosis,
and he really felt
that the full regular sexual act
with ejaculation in the vagina
was the only thing
that was completely
natural and healthy
for males and females.
Man:
But what Freud says is,
is that, look.
Masturbation
is an important part of puberty
both for boys and girls,
but that for adults,
you quit this having sex
with yourself,
and they start having
to understand
that not what their bodies
are meant for.
( bomb whistles )
Man: Now there is a change
in the weather
There's a change
in the sea...
My first introduction
to human sexuality
and to masturbation,
for that matter,
was the Kinsey report.
Stan: I think Kinsey
was a pioneer.
I think he was the first person
who actually looked
at sexual behavior
in America.
I think that he brought
sexuality into the public media,
and I think his work
was priceless.
Patti:
I think it's very important
to understand
that when Alfred Kinsey
studied sexual behavior,
masturbation was regarded
as its own unique
and appropriate and healthy
sexual outlet.
Stan:
Kinsey was the first person
to actually go out and survey
the average person,
men and women,
about these kinds of things
and brought this taboo
out of the closet.
He normalized this behavior
for the masses
who were already doing it
but feeling somewhat
like they were alone.
Do you find my answers typical?
- Am I normal?
- Am I normal?
Kinsey, I'd say,
really is a key figure
in liberalizing things.
He writes about data that said
90-plus percent of males
masturbate
at some point in their life,
and after that,
professions claims
against masturbation
really just collapsed.
Patti:
What he did is he actually
sanctioned masturbation
going away from
the shame-based pejorative way
of viewing masturbation
as something that was sick
and shameful and dirty
and bad and wrong
to something that was a healthy
sexual outlet for expression.
Man:
Liberation is here.
No area of male-dominated
American culture is spared.
Equal rights for women.
Thomas:
In the '60s with the rise
of feminism
and books
like "Our Bodies Ourselves,"
it becomes part of the rise
of the clitoral orgasm.
One of the things we certainly
put in all of our editions
of "Our Bodies, Ourselves"
are the many varied ways
that women use
to self pleasure.
Encouraging women to learn
how to masturbate
is about encouraging women
to be their own human beings
and to feel entitled
to participate in society
in ways maybe
they hadn't felt entitled to.
It's not just the act
of pleasuring yourself
sexually.
It's about power.
Thomas:
So a lot of this early
feminist movement
is focused on clitoral orgasm,
which is focused
on masturbation,
and Betty Dodson took this
one step further
and argued, look,
this is the foundation
for female sexuality.
This is a way of expressing
our sexuality.
Everything else is an add-on.
Dodson invented masturbation!
There was no masturbation
before Dodson.
Thank you,
thank you for being here to see
an old masturbating lady,
for God's sake.
I went public
with masturbation.
I was one of the first women
on the planet who talked openly
about liking masturbation
and the importance of it.
Woman: She had groups of women
masturbating together.
For some women,
that was incredibly freeing
because it was, yes,
this is something that's mine
that I can do
and that I'm sharing it
in a circle of women.
She has really fought
like crazy for 35 years
to bring the concept
of self-love
as a perfectly valid,
equally important
aspect of a person's sexuality.
Carol: And so Betty really
recognized what masturbation
meant to women
on such a fundamental level
in terms not not only
of their own ability
to be sexually fulfilled
but also what
that meant in terms
of their relationships
and their choices
that they might make.
And it's not that people say,
"Oh, I want to thank you
for teaching me
how to masturbate."
"I want to thank you
for liberating me.
I want to thank you
for giving me
a wonderful sex life
with my husband.
Were having a renaissance.
It's fabulous."
Carol: As she got to be
the mother of masturbation,
I think she came to learn
more and more and more
that men didn't all feel good
about masturbation either,
and the fact is,
masturbation is a healthy part
of everybody's sex life,
and Betty was the first person
to really, really stand up
and say that
and not stop saying it ever.
I am a fucking pioneer.
Narrator: Despite much progress,
it seems that shame and fear
from our sordid history
with masturbation
continues to affect us today.
( applause )
My name is Giulio Sciorio.
I'm a commercial photographer,
and this is my exhibit.
It's called "Faces of Ecstasy,"
real people, real orgasms.
They are a series of photos
of people's orgasms
fully clothed
from about chest up.
I am about to be
photographed...
mid-orgasm,
and I'm gonna masturbate.
And I'm gonna call him over
when I'm ready.
G?
And he's gonna come shoot me
in the middle of it.
Giulio:
It's a study on human sexuality
and just being human.
People giggle.
Some people
walk away in disgust.
These are all normal people,
the bankers,
a teacher, the electrician.
Everybody does it.
Your grandma does it.
I've never gotten
the sense that music was sort
of anti-masturbation.
Narrator: Many songs have been
written about masturbation
or reference it in some way
with a euphemism of some sort.
Dancing with myself,
oh-oh, dancing with myself...
She bob, he bob, we bop
I bop, you Bop,
they bop...
( acoustic guitar strumming )
I love myself
I want you to love me
When I feel down
I want you above me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me
I never really set out to write
a song about masturbation.
It was really playing
with words for me
more than really playing
with myself.
Oh,
I don't want
Anybody else
Oops.
Don't use that.
I think part of the appeal
of the song "I Touch Myself"
is that certainly
it says something openly
about something
that is repressed
in our society,
no question about it.
If you want a love song,
there's, like,
hundreds of thousands
of them.
But if you want a song
about masturbation,
there aren't too many of them.
I'm Keith.
I'm the lead vocalist in
a band called The Circle Jerks.
Wild
Wild...
We came upon
the name Circle Jerks
in "The American
Slang Dictionary."
Not only did we think
that it was funny
but, like, the Beatles
could be a very catchy name.
Instead of "Come Together,"
it's masturbation
I personally have never been
involved in a circle jerk,
but we have got into a bit
of hot water over the name,
particularly in the Bible Belt.
I remember watching
on the television Madonna.
Like a virgin
the Italian police
were gonna shut Madonna down
because of her
simulated masturbation.
( pop music playing )
A month before, she released
a book where basically,
you're inside her vagina,
but she does this,
"Ooh, ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh,"
over clothing
and, oh, shut her down.
What's going on here?
Seriously.
The best results
seem to be obtained
through fantization
accompanied by masturbation
followed by ejaculation.
Narrator:
It's interesting to see how
our ambivalent attitudes
about masturbation
are also depicted
in movies and television.
( whirring )
( moaning )
Oh, my. Oh, my.
Oh, my. Oh, my.
I think almost every instance
of masturbation in movies
has been displayed
as something that's grotesque,
that's actually taboo.
In "The Exorcist,"
Linda Blair's possessed
by the devil
shoving a crucifix
in her vagina.
Let Jesus fuck you!
Let Jesus fuck you!
Kind of shocking.
I mean, it's either shocking
or the other side of it
is just to make
a big joke of it.
The movie "American Pie"
takes the icon American pie...
and fucks it.
Carol:
I got to say, I wonder
if "American Pie"
would've been
as popular as it was
without
that masturbation scene.
Copulation with a confection,
which is strange.
Carol:
And of course, it's referenced
right from the title
I think you're supposed
to pay attention to the pie.
Well, we'll just tell
your mother that, uh,
that we ate it all.
People love scenes like that,
number one is that they--
because they do acknowledge
that we all masturbate, right?
But it also carries
a certain amount of shame.
It's like you're being caught
in an extremely personal moment.
One of the best examples
is a film called
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
Everybody remembers
the image of Phoebe Cates
coming out of that pool
in slow motion and the music.
They remember that part.
What they forget
is that Judge Reinhold's
masturbating to that image...
and then gets caught.
Oh, wait just a minute.
Doesn't anybody
fucking knock anymore?
That scene is sort of about
the anxiety of masturbation
more than it is about
the pleasure of it
because most young boys
in particular
learn to masturbate
very quickly
because they're afraid
of getting caught.
I think it brings us back
to that preadolescent time
when we felt
we could be made fun of
for almost anything we did.
Me personally, I don't want
to have people see me do it.
Unfortunately, I had to do
a scene in a movie.
In "The Truth
About Cats and Dogs,"
I had to masturbate
while being on the phone.
That scene in the movie
was just something
that embarrassed me
beyond all.
( squeals and laughs )
I mean, who the hell
wants to be masturbating
with cameras rolling
and a crew around,
and then an audience sees it?
I was absolutely mortified.
I did shots of tequila
before I did it.
It's just too vulnerable.
Another instance that comes
to mind is "American Beauty."
What are you doing?
If you haven't
been caught masturbating,
you've been afraid
to be caught masturbating.
Oh, all right, so shoot me,
I was whacking off.
That's right,
I was choking the bishop,
chafing the carrot, you know,
saying hi to my monster.
It strange to see
that so many instances
in movies, um,
it's just portrayed as something
that one shouldn't be doing.
( laughs )
So disgusting.
When you read that on the page,
when you knew
you were gonna have to do that,
is it like "my God"?
It was akin to the experience
of watching the movie
with my parents
sitting next to me.
So just go clean the pipes,
and it's a go.
Chris:
"There's Something About Mary"
has to be one of those
unique comedies
that actually
has sort of a useful take
on masturbation.
Just get it out of your system
so your head's clear.
You can go on the date
and not feel
- so much pressure to get laid.
- Is that hair gel?
Chris:
It's still humiliating
in the way that it's shown.
- Yeah.
- Great, I could use some.
- No, no, no, no, don't.
- I just ran out.
Chris:
But has a real purpose to it.
TV also has
sort of a taboo view.
In particular, "Seinfeld"'s
famous episode "The Contest"
about who can hold out
the longest.
I am never doing...
that again.
- Oh, give me a break.
- Yeah, right.
- Come on.
- ( laughs ) Come on.
- You don't think I can?
- No chance.
Care to make it
interesting?
We laugh about it, but we're
talking about it publicly.
If you think about it, really,
it's kind of a healthy view.
They all admit
that they masturbate.
Sex on television
and showing masturbation
on television
was fundamentally changed
by "Sex in the City."
- Uh-huh.
- Yeah, I'm totally wiped out.
Carrie: "Wiped out"--
that was Charlotte speak for,
"I'm spending the night
with my vibrator."
And then the friends say
they'll have an intervention.
So it's very funny to think
about her becoming addicted
to her vibrator,
to masturbation.
Narrator: Regardless
of the humor and shame
depicted in the media,
there's always been
big business
in getting people off.
There are two primary industries
that make billions of dollars
off masturbation,
and that would be pornography
and the sex-toy industry.
I don't think masturbation
sells anything,
but sex certainly sells.
Sure, sex sells, yes,
but masturbation also sells.
Anywhere between
five and $13 billion
is spent each year
on pornographic material.
( cash register ringing )
Masturbation is big business.
It's just not often talked about
in polite conversation.
We are at The Adult Expo
in Las Vegas.
Titties, dicks, asses,
everything.
It's what you masturbate too,
I know it.
The porn industry
without masturbation
would be a different industry.
Certainly porn as we know it
in the last 35 years
has been primarily a medium
made by men for men.
A lot of guys love
just watching girls masturbate.
There's been adult film,
you know, lines were the girls
just masturbate, it's like,
one girl after another.
Guys love it.
At least half
of the audience are men
using it for solo
masturbatory purposes.
Probably today more than ever,
like, masturbation's rampant
in terms of, like,
the Internet and technology.
You know, how many guys
are jerking off in front
of their computers
right now as we speak?
Internet porn is a rage because
why would you want to spend $50
on a DVD when you can masturbate
to 25 different websites
for $23 a month?
A lot of people spend
a great deal of time
wanking on the Internet.
There's so much out there.
There's something for everybody.
I have two favorite porn titles.
One was "Breast Side Story,"
and the other
is "Fuck My Aching Tits."
( laughs )
I mean, just a little earlier,
we looked up alien porn,
and there are websites
that cater to people
who fantasize about aliens
having sex with women.
If you want to just see women
with large breasts
bouncing on a trampoline,
we got that movie for you.
If you want to see
nothing but a bunch of men
in a circle jerk,
we got that movie for you.
I've been in the business
of selling
sex toys or marital aids
for about 25 years.
Worldwide, sex toys account
for about 1.5
or $2 billion
in terms of revenue.
Bruce: There's quite
a demand out there
for quality sensuous products.
And as you can see,
there are loads
of different kinds of vibrators
now to choose from.
This is actually sold
as a ring-toss game.
Or like the rabbit vibrator,
and it moves around like this.
It's kind of cool, actually,
but, um...
I totally lost
my train of thought.
( laughs ) I'm like, "Vibrator."
I'm like, "Rabbit."
You know, sex toys nowadays
are very graphic.
A lot of them look terrible.
I wanted it to be camouflaged.
You know, guys are into tools.
It looks like a flashlight.
So it doesn't draw attention,
so is someone sees it,
they don't wonder what it is.
We've done this in mocha.
We call this Mini Maid.
- This is the nondescript.
- It looks at the piggy bank.
The hand is usually
the best way to go
every time, guaranteed.
Narrator: But despite
the economic boost
generated from this industry,
I was surprised to discover
that in the state of Alabama,
the sale of sex toys
is illegal.
Do Americans have the right
to life, liberty, and sex toys?
No, says a federal appeals court
in Alabama
regarding those last items.
I'm Sherri Williams,
and 15 years ago
at the age of 28, I decided
that Huntsville, Alabama,
needed a place for women
and couples to shop.
In 1998,
I get a call from a reporter,
and she proceeded to explain
that they had just passed a law
that banned the sale
of adult toys in the state
of Alabama.
The punishment for violation
includes being fined
up to 10,000 bucks
and spending a year in jail.
Sherri Williams
is the owner of Pleasures,
which sell everything from...
Just can't believe that our
politicians sit in Congress
legislating whether someone
in Alabama has the right
to have sex with
a harmless piece of fun.
The law in the state
of Alabama says
that you cannot sell
a vibrator.
Sherri Williams,
who owns Pleasures stores
in Decatur and in Huntsville
filed suit
trying to overturn
that 1998 law.
Narrator: What do the people
of Alabama passing this law
have to be afraid of?
Especially in a state
that has some
of the least restrictive
gun laws.
I really couldn't imagine
a state passing
such, what seemed to be, like,
an archaic law in 1998.
Women are clamoring for more
ways of having pleasure.
Men become often insulted
that they can't give
their girlfriends on orgasm
that only a plastic
mechanical device can.
Some of those old dudes out
there who are are freaking out
about their woman, you know,
getting off on a vibrator.
Sherri: Men are outlawing toys
that are designed
to help women achieve orgasms,
and who knows why they would do
such a crazy thing.
Viagra is always readily
accessible everywhere.
Male announcer: Viagra.
Talk to your doctor.
If we're enhancing male pleasure
and sexuality,
dude, that is a good thing,
but if we're enhancing
women's pleasure and sexuality,
ooh, that's a little
uncomfortable.
Let's prohibit
the sales of sex toys.
Over $1.2 million
has been spent of taxpayer money
to uphold
the ban on adult toys.
For nine and a half years,
we fought this law,
and, um,
unfortunately, we lost.
I'm breaking the law
every day I keep my doors open.
Well, as I've said,
I'll stop selling them
when they pry them
from my cold, dead hands.
Narrator: Could Alabama's fear
of sex toys be the result
of our media's obsession
with sex addiction?
Actor David Duchovny
has entered rehab for it.
So is this a true addiction?
My name is Charlie,
and, uh,
my maid says
I'm a sex addict.
There is no such thing
as sex addiction.
It's sexual compulsions,
not addiction.
You're not drinking anything.
You're not snorting anything.
People engage
in compulsive sexual behaviors
in order to relieve
their anxiety.
Female reporter:
Christie Brinkley accused
her ex-husband Peter Cook
of spending thousands of
dollars on Internet porn.
- He did not deserve that.
- I still really love her
and care about her.
I am deeply sorry.
Let me just reiterate
to my wife
how sorry I am
that I did these things.
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
under fire this week
for his involvement...
I am resigning
from the office of Governor.
People can be addicted
to masturbation
just as they can be addicted
to two-person sex.
With all the hype
around sex addiction,
it's easy to wonder
how much pleasuring is too much.
Masturbation like anything else
can be done in excess.
More than once a day would
concern most sex therapists.
I am cumming day and night.
I mean, it's terrific, right?
( laughs )
It's not so much
a matter of frequency
as much as it's how it's getting
in the way of one's life.
The warning signs
would be if you think of sex
all the time.
Losing weight
'cause you're not eating.
You have
to call in sick to work.
If it is a source of shame.
You go into the bathroom
at work
and masturbate 100 times
a day.
And you think about sex
to the point
where you can't think
about anything else.
And generally it's so obsessive
that it becomes all-consuming.
What they need is to get
on an antidepressant,
which brings
that sex drive down.
I actually don't agree
with that.
Antidepressants kill
your sex drive.
If they'd known about Paxil
back in the day, they would've
been giving that instead of
the anti-masturbation devices.
A lot of people don't understand
sexuality enough
to understand when
they really are in trouble.
Quoc Lam:
When I found out I was HIV
positive, actually,
I was on--
pretty much on a spiraling
out-of-control life
of crystal meth use,
and you end up masturbating
for 48 hours,
72 hours in a row.
It is a problem,
a real problem,
and those individuals
need therapy.
And before I know it,
I'm totally lubed up
from head to toe,
and it's 48 hours later,
and I'm still trying
to find that orgasm,
and I can't even get it up.
How come you haven't
gotten up yet?
- I'm wet and sticky.
- Oh.
My name's Joe Matt.
I'm an autobiographical
comic-book artist.
A recurring
subject matter for me
is masturbation
and porn addiction.
I have two books,
"The Poor Bastard" and "Spent."
"Spent" is very focused
on compulsive masturbation
and porn addiction.
I wanted to see if I could
do it 20 times in a row,
have 20 orgasms in a row
just to see if I could.
20 times a day
is taking it a bit too far.
I'm a compulsive masturbator.
I have no motivation
to keep doing it,
but I could keep doing it,
you know,
after a little rest,
you know?
Little rest, I could do it again
usually pretty soon.
It's not a big deal.
The issues I see with people
who have compulsive masturbation
are the inability
to form a relationship,
the inability
to maintain relationships,
destroying relationships
as because of lack of intimacy
and lack of sexuality.
Compulsive masturbation
is extremely isolating
and it can result
in somebody getting so lost
in their own world of trying
to get the best orgasm,
how to get off
in just the right way.
People avoid relationships,
avoid intimacy
and just masturbate because
they're too uncomfortable
being with other people,
but the masturbation
kind of keeps their fears
and their anxieties at bay.
Narrator: Maybe the real issue
is not how much
we are masturbating...
Oh, let's see.
Ooh.
...but what we're
masturbating to.
Let's get some Brazilian
fart porn in there.
- ( farting )
- Oh, that's got it! Oh!
There's a huge gray area between
unhealthy and healthy sexuality
and masturbation and fantasies.
Masturbation
generally involves fantasy,
and that can be
a really healthy thing.
Is it cheating for a married
person to masturbate
and think about someone other
than their wife or husband?
Within monogamy,
within a committed relationship,
which in our culture
presumes monogamy,
masturbation is really important
to goes monogamy is difficult.
Fantasizing about sex
with another woman
while you're masturbating
is not the same
as having sex
with another woman.
Fantasy is an essential element
of how we express ourselves
as sexual beings,
and without fantasy,
most masturbation
doesn't really work.
If a person is using fantasy
to remove him or herself
emotionally from the moment,
the fantasy's not the problem,
but there is a problem.
But if the individual says
I'm very happily married,
I have a good sex life
with my partner, but at times,
I think about a movie star
or some famous person
or even a person
who I conjure up,
I don't think there's
anything unhealthy about it.
In fact, what it can do
is stimulate that person
to enjoy
their sexual partner more.
What is SADD?
SADD is a term that I coined.
S-A-D-D,
that actually stands for
"sexual attention
deficit disorder."
A lot of it has to do
with easy access
to Internet porn
simply because men
are potentially
over masturbating.
I love to masturbate
as much as possible.
Every girl gets pissed off
when they catch their boyfriend
either masturbating
or when they find that magazine
in the back of the closet that
they never told you they bought.
No woman wants
their husband fantasizing
about somebody else
and vice versa.
Oh, come on, girls.
Oh!
Ian:
So a guy masturbates,
enjoys some
Internet pornography,
and then the one thing
that happens is he doesn't have
quite as much desire for his
actual real-life partner.
Fantasy is part of the fuel
of what makes sex delicious
and what keeps
the fire burning,
and there's so much
misunderstanding
and so much threat
and fear around masturbation,
especially in coupledom.
What the fuck are you doing?
What the fuck are you doing?
I was just reading emails.
No, you weren't.
You were watching porno.
So I created No Fap
on June 20th, 2011.
I market it more as a challenge,
something you do
to temporarily abstain
from porn and masturbation
or even orgasm altogether
temporarily
in an effort to cure
a sexual dysfunction.
I don't agree with that.
That's an impossible limit
to put on a mind.
Minds go places.
Alexander: It's grown so big
that "New York" magazine
did a story on it,
"Business Insider,"
a few other big ones,
and that just goes to show
how much of an unspoken
underlying issue
this is for so many people.
It's-- it's sticky.
It's a really sticky area.
Narrator: I wonder if much
of our fear about masturbation
comes from a fear of our own
uncontrollable sexual impulses.
( screams )
Male announcer:
Warning!
There's a plague affecting
our nation.
Symptoms may include
blindness...
weakness...
madness or worse...
Hairy palms!
Masturbation madness!
This public service
announcement has been paid for
by P.A.L.M.,
People Against
Lascivious Masturbators.
Man: He separated the skull
from their body
and masturbated
in front of it.
When we talk about masturbation,
we do know
that there's a core group
of serial killers, for example,
who really get
into the fantasy system.
Narrator:
In the book "Sexual Homicide
Patterns and Motives,"
specially trained FBI agents
examined the childhood traits
of 36 serial killers.
Although some of the listed
behaviors are disturbing,
including cruelty to children
and animals, convulsions,
and self-mutilation,
the three indicators reported
with highest frequency are...
There are some individuals
who have very, very
scary thoughts
when they masturbate,
and it's very exciting
for them,
but it's very scary thinking.
Eric: Jeffrey Dahmer started
masturbating to road kills.
He actually would take a
dead animal and eviscerate it,
and then he would take
the sexual organs of the animal
and put his penis against
the organs and masturbate.
That led him eventually
to disemboweling adults,
human beings.
Posing people who were dead
that he killed for pictures,
masturbating
all over the place.
This is Jeffrey Dahmer.
Narrator:
Was it simply a coincidence
that Pee-Wee Herman
was arrested just four days
after Dahmer
when it was discovered
that Dahmer's first offense
was masturbating in public?
It was somewhat coincidental,
but there was some overreaction
to Paul Rubens.
What he was doing is being done
in a lot of theaters
across America,
but the truth is,
masturbation for some men
is a gateway to crossing lines.
I currently am involved
with a fellow
who is very methodical
about what he's going to do,
and he's planned becoming
a serial killer.
He's very much involved
with compulsive masturbation.
I think there's some danger
that some fantasies may lead
some people
who have poor impulse control
to actually go act out
those fantasies.
Eric: But I want
to find out exactly
what are they masturbating to?
If they are becoming
sexually gratified
as they masturbate to the
suffering of other human beings,
- we have a problem.
- So fantasy is what's going on
between our two ears as opposed
to our two legs.
Narrator: But studies do link
masturbation
and violence in the brain.
Maybe that's where
we got the idea
that masturbation
could cause madness.
But does the link between
masturbation and serial killers
mean that if we embrace
our sexual impulses
that we're all going
to run around
like masturbating zombies?
( doorbell ringing )
The concerns of masturbation
go beyond the psychological.
Masturbation won't cause us
to go blind...
( screams )
...won't cause hair to grow
on our hands...
Oh, dude.
...and we know that we're having
sex with somebody we love.
It's really good for you.
It gives you good skin.
It helps you go to sleep.
For women, it can relieve PMS.
If we don't masturbate,
we actually suffer
and can cause harm to ourselves.
Shut up! Shut up!
Healthy and harmful,
it could be both.
70% of people report
an increased energy level
if they abstain
from masturbation,
and they perform better at work.
They're able exercise
more often.
I don't know,
maybe it's a placebo effect.
But I'm not gonna knock it
because it's helping people.
Masturbation
can be psychologically
and physically beneficial,
and for many people,
I think it can serve as
a substitute for sexual partner.
( sheep baas )
Narrator:
As a young martial artist,
I learned about chi
and inner energy.
I later discovered that this
comes into play in how
Asian medicine and inner-energy
arts like chi kung
view the potential dangers
of masturbation.
When a man ejaculates,
he loses his will.
It's all gone.
It's not coming back.
Yeah, you have to manage
your internal energy,
and the biggest energy leak
is masturbation.
After a man stops masturbating,
his whole life changes.
All of a sudden,
he's not dragging all the time.
He's alive.
He's happy.
He's just not always
complaining and being tired
and settling for less.
You are losing
a lot of your life force
from your organs
and your glands.
So that's why
it can be very dangerous.
There have been a number
of studies linking masturbation
to prostate cancer that have had
contrary scientific results.
A colleague of mine named
Spring Cooper and I wrote
an article for the website
The Conversation
where we highlighted the health
benefits of masturbation.
The study that we focused on
looked at about 30,000 men,
was published in
the Journal of American
Medical Association,
and what they ultimately found
and concluded
was that when men masturbate,
they flush out
cancer-causing agents
in their body,
and so it reduces
their risk of prostate cancer.
That's why I was shocked
to discover a Cambridge study
in 2009 that indicated
men in their 20s and 30s
that masturbated frequently
were more likely
to develop prostate cancer.
I wondered for the first time,
should my documentary
come with a
Surgeon General warning?
Then I remembered,
I had a former Surgeon General
in my film.
My own mother once said
that she prefers stories
that dealt with life or death.
The prostate studies
made me realize
masturbation could be
about life or death.
But nowhere did this become
more evident
than Thanksgiving night
in 2013.
A San Diego family said
video taken of their son
in a school bathroom
went viral.
They said he was bullied
so badly over that video
that he committed suicide.
Matthew Burdette,
a former Boy Scout
and San Diego
high school freshman,
committed suicide after a video
posted by another student
showed Matthew
allegedly masturbating
in his school stall.
Female reporter:
The 14-year-old teenager
committed suicide
after the release
of an embarrassing video.
The fact that the media
called it an embarrassing
bathroom video speaks volumes
to the charge
that we have as a society
about masturbation.
Female reporter:
Weeks of constant bullying
caused him...
Narrator:
Headlines from three
major newspapers
failed to mention what
he was doing in the bathroom.
The video taken at school
led to intense bullying.
- Woman: They bullied him.
- From the bullying.
Woman:
It was two weeks of bullying.
We just label things
"cyber bullying,"
we label it
an embarrassing video
because we're too afraid
to really look at this issue.
It's a real shame that children
continue to feel such guilt
and humiliation
surrounding masturbation.
A lot of this is due to adults'
discomfort with the topic.
Have you been... practicing?
Lauran:
Children are very,
very perceptive.
And if an adult
is feeling uncomfortable
that masturbation is wrong,
a child's going to feel that,
and they're going
to internalize that,
and that's how it'll
just continue to be perpetrated
throughout the generations.
I had a really hard time
getting in contact
with the Matthew Burdette
family,
teachers that knew him,
friends.
I finally got the mother
of Matthew Burdette,
but she didn't feel like
the media
was portraying him
in the right light.
She started crying,
and I started crying
on the phone,
and it was very difficult.
She just said she wanted
to keep his memory sacred.
The Burdette story brought back
all those painful memories
of when I was made fun of
as a child
for admitting
that I masturbated.
Only back then,
it was so much easier.
There was no Internet
to expose your vulnerabilities
to the world so pervasively.
I couldn't help feeling
that had this film been made
and released already that maybe
we could've done something
to help prevent this young man
from taking his life.
After seven years
making this film,
interviewing over 60
of the world's experts
on sexuality,
learning about the struggles
of Dr. Joycelyn Elders,
Paul Rubens,
Sherri Williams' fight
to overturn the sex toy ban
in Alabama,
it was like
here's a story that seems
to tie it all together.
Yet nobody
would talk to me about it,
not my alma mater
when I reached out
looking for
social media interns,
not Burdette's lawyers,
not even the media
who originally broke
the story.
Though for everyone
who refused,
thousands wrote in emails
expressing praise
and interest in wanting
to see this film.
The years that I spent
making this documentary
have taught me a lot
about myself and masturbation.
There were times when I started
to wonder if perhaps
the questions I was answering
were only leading
to more questions.
That's because at its core,
masturbation touches upon
our deepest,
most personal feelings,
our fantasies and pleasures,
our hopes and dreams,
our insecurities and fears,
our desire to be loved,
and most important,
our need to love ourselves.
But if we continue
to pass our shame down
to the future generations,
Burdette's suicide
won't be the last.
Will technology
amplify our guilt,
resulting in more such deaths?
Or will our attitudes
eventually evolve?
- I've often wondered...
- We'll use the orgasmatron.
what is the future
of masturbation?
( both grunting
and squealing )
Masturbation could bring us
together as a society
if we will accept it,
enjoy it,
let go of the guilt
and the fear,
and just know
that we're all sexual.
I think that the future
of masturbation
is actually really exciting.
I think it's here to stay,
just like sex.
The future should be
that there's some
doctor-recommended
prescription for masturbating.
As part of your treatment,
I'm going to ask
that you masturbate
five times a week.
Now that something
we can come together on.
I can't even guess
what the future is going to be.
I hope that its future
is one that is less shameful.
Technology will help people
to feel more close
to one another
and to their own sexuality.
The next evolution of Internet,
there'll be masturbation there,
too, I feel certain of it.
Masturbation and the Internet
are gonna continue
to go hand in glove,
so to speak,
for a very long time
in the future.
I don't imagine
that's gonna change.
The future of masturbation
in terms of technology
is a little... scary.
We probably will have
masturbatory robots
who pleasure us on command.
Sex with robots?
I can't wait, personally.
The future for masturbation
hopefully will be a dialog
that opens up as a result
of documentaries like this one.
I am hoping
that it does get discussed more
in the curriculums
in the future
because I think there are a lot
of confused kids out there.
I don't see it endangered,
like polar bears.
I think the future looks
really good
for information
about masturbation.
I think masturbation might
be the answer to world peace.
The Internet's the future
of masturbation.
I don't really know.
I have to say
I don't have a lot of hopes
in my lifetime
that there'll
be a fundamental shift.
I would like to think
that masturbation could help us
as a culture come together
literally and figuratively.
We can make this world
all about self-love
because if we loved ourselves,
I think that we might be able
to get out of some other
pretty sticky situations.
The future masturbation is...
exactly what it is right now.
Whatever you want to make of it.
The future of masturbation
is it's here to stay.
It's whether we accept it
or deny it
or pretend it doesn't exist,
but believe me,
we're not gonna ever
do away with it.
Narrator:
Do you masturbate?
- What?
- Sure.
I can keep my hands off myself.
Of course.
I masturbate
whenever I get the chance.
I have.
I'm sure I will.
I invented masturbation,
as a matter of fact.
( laughs )
You'd like to know
if I masturbate?
Sometimes I do.
You know, if you walk by
a bathroom
and there's water running
and you don't hear any plopping,
I'm jerking off probably.
No.
( laughs )
Yes.
I do.
I do masturbate.
Oh, I masturbate
as often as I can.
( laughs )
- On occasion.
- Sure.
Occasionally.
I'm an old man now, you know.
( laughs )
I masturbate at least
a couple of times a week.
And I'm quite proud
of the fact.
Yes.
Mostly in the shower on the road
doing stand-up comedy.
It's very difficult
to masturbate
when you've got a baby Bjorn.
Every chance I get.
I gotta figure that out.
As soon as I do, I will,
though, as much as possible.
All the time.
Sometimes far too often.
Do I masturbate?
Absolutely.
Unequivocally,
as much as possible.
90% of men masturbate.
And I'm a man.
I will let you draw
your own conclusions.
- Absolutely.
- I do masturbate.
- Do you masturbate?
- That's a silly question.
That's disgusting!
I'm shocked at you, young man.
You come here to my house,
and here I am a mature woman,
and you ask me
if I masturbate?
Fucking-A, buddy.
Well, now,
I didn't say we were gonna
tell everything
on TV, did I?
So any other questions?
Woman: Um, why don't you want
to put yourself on camera?
( chuckles )
All right, cut.
So ask me what you wanted
to ask me.
Do you masturbate?
( chuckles )
( sighs )
I think I said everything
I want to say.
( upbeat music plays )
Man: Susie had a big problem
that Johnny didn't know
She was horny
and she wanted him
Inside her making love
But Johnny
rarely wanted it
To her,
that was a crime
One day
Susie told Johnny
You spend
far too much time
Man and Woman:
Beating your meat
and tugging your chain
Bopping your baloney,
walking the snake
Cleaning the pipe,
diddling your dong
Choking the sheriff
so the posse will come
Polishing your rocket,
pounding your pud
Spanking the monkey,
oiling the glove
Squeezing your lemon,
buttering your biscuit
Tuning your antenna
Mangling the midget
Man: Johnny had
a big problem
That Susie didn't get
He was just as horny
as any guy
And liked his women,
yeah
Susie always nagged him
and loved to pick a fight
So Johnny told her, Susie
Maybe it's best
you spend your nights
Man and Woman:
Greasing your hips
or fanning your fur
Polishing the peanut,
playing poker
Tickling the kitty,
checking for squirrels
Buffing the weasel,
polishing the pearl
Flipping the bean
or pushing the button
Chucking the heavy
going spelunking
Strumming the banjo,
testing the plumbing
Stroking tulips
Or buffing the muffin
Man: When Susie
heard Johnny complain
It started a big fight
They planned
to leave each other
And just masturbate
at night
But it turned her on
to watch him
He liked her
getting wetter
Now they agree
when they make love
To masturbate together
Man and Woman:
Pulling the pink punk,
clubbing the puppy
Airing the orchid,
brushing her bunny
Peeling the carrot,
rubbing his knob
Groping the grotto,
feeding her slot
Pulling the wire,
snapping the whip
Taunting the turtle,
toggling the bit
Fondling the fig
on hand-to-glad combat
Parting the red sea
Wrestling her wombat
Man:
This song won't make you
go blind
or grow hair on your palms,
but it might make you mad.
So if it does, take matters
into your own hands
Maybe you can start strumming
along making your own song,
or maybe if you don't wanna
play with me,
try playing with yourself.
( song ends, splat )
All:
We love masturbation!
- Whoo-hoo!
- ( laughs )