[…and if you’re in high school and you don’t think you’re a kid, tell me this? Are you old enough to vote? Can you drink legally? Then graduate, already! Sheesh! I haven’t started writing the OP and already I’ve hijacked my own thread. But I digress. The following is written largely from a male perspective. Hey, I’ve got a “Y” chromosome, so that’s my perspective. If any females can explain why (if) female teens think mastubation is weird, please contribute.]
I think that teenage boys think masturbation is weird because of several factors:[list=1][li]Until you reach puberty, everything “down there” has to do with waste elimination.[/li]
“Hey! I pee out of that thing! That can’t be sanitary!”
I’m sure there are a lot of mysogynists who never severed the genitalia/dirty connection and that’s why they don’t respect women. If they let him put that filthy thing in them, they must be bad – or so I presume the ‘logic’ runs.
[li]The male organ, right as everything gets exciting, spits a substance that resembles (in texture, anyway) thick snot.[/li]
“Omyg-d this is GREAT!” (Dramatic pause) “EEEEEeeeeeeeeewwwwww!”
I’m sure many guys discovered this property of their organ without first having considered the advisability of having some Kleenex™ handy.[/list=1]
I suspect, however, that the most likely reason admitting to masturbation is met with derision by teens is that if you have to do it, it’s “proof” you aren’t getting laid.
Like many teen attitudes, this one is not particularly logical. After all, although many teen males boast of getting laid, the vast majority of them are just making up war stories. The ones that aren’t are being foolish.
Baloo, I think it’s immaturity and ignorance about what it’s all about. I agree that the conception seems to be if you masturbate, you aren’t getting laid, which means you’re a nerd. I found in high school, that was pretty much the attitude, but by the time I was in the Air Force, the attitudes were more open about it as the older you get, the less ignorant you are about sex and things associated with sex. No one in my squadron was ashamed to admit masturbation (we got bored easily and often in the office and talked about EVERYTHING). I think it’s mostly a maturity issue.
The other reason may be that in the US, there is still a strong disapproval about sex. (OMG, they showed that guy’s butt on NYPD Blue! How shocking!) Then there’s movies like There’s Something About Mary which showed masturbation as a big joke, so it’s not something that’s normally done, but something to be made fun of.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that a LOT of people are taught their whole childhood lives that touching themselves and, indeed, “down there” in general, is dirty. For guys, I don’t know if the “getting laid” thing is true or not. I know that a lot of girls don’t know HOW. I have been masturbating since I was 9 or 10, and didn’t give a rat’s ass whether I was supposed to or not; I just did it. I knew what and where my clitoris was already, too. I had friends in high school who both did not know what the clitoris was OR where it was located. Also, the first time one actually finds one’s clitoris and touches it…well, when I was younger (you know, 9 or 10) and discovered that it existed, I poked about a bit and the way it felt scared me. I couldn’t tell for sure whether it felt good or hurt like hell. Obviously it didn’t take me long to figure out that it felt good, but if I hadn’t found it until high school I would have been even MORE confused.
One other thing: I had a friend in HS who had BO. It was awful. Eventually I found out that the reason she smelled bad all the time is that she NEVER WASHED HER CROTCH. She was terrified to touch it. it was “gross” and “dirty” and any number of other negative adjectived you can think of. I’m sure she wasn’t the only one.
The day we demystify the mechanics of sex and sexuality, and stop making everyone believe it’s BAD, is the day folks stop obsessing about it…including admitting to masturbating. Which I do, frequently.
Hey, I KNEW there was a reason I said Hamadryad was the woman I’d most like to wrestle in butter with.
My childhood sexual learning process was rather unusual. At age 6 I found my mother’s old, forgotten copies of “The Sensuous Woman,” “The Joy of Sex,” and various nursing textbooks. So well before junior high I knew what fellatio and cunnilingus were, as well as the names and functions of both male and female parts. Unfortunately, as I got older I had precious few opportunities to take advantage of this knowledge. I had also developed a rather matter-of-fact attitude about the whole thing, which is NOT GOOD if you grow up in a rural, conservative area. I remember casually admitting that I masturbated my sophomore year of high school. It took me the rest of the year before I stopped hearing about it. No one really gave me a hard time, I think they were just incredulous that I would admit to it.
Alas, even my relaxed attitude couldn’t get me laid in the HS years. But that’s another story.
I too figure it had to do with the idea that if you masturbated, you were some geek down in your basement spanking the monkey to your mother’s issues of Cosmopolitan because you couldn’t get laid. Obviously you had to be having sex all the time if you were to be cool (not that having sex all the time isn’t cool – I’m all for it. But it’s not the single factor) so if you actually had to resort to your hand… man, what a loser.
[small hijack]I don’t want to make it sound like I’m making light of your friend’s problems, but that sounded like a Norm MacDonald exclamation (I just saw Dirty Work again).[/small hijack]
That’s pretty nasty, alright. But it’s pretty obvious with all of the taboos around, a lot of people are uncomfortable with their bodies. I remember a quote that goes something like, “For a free society, we certainly do have a lot of taboos.” You’ve got people trying to get rid of the nudes in art museums, for crying out loud. I think a lot of people get like this when they’re younger, but many continue this into adulthood.
Actually, my friends and I were very open in high school. Anytime we went out to coffee it was like a Seinfeld episode. But that was probably just us.
I, for one, never gave the idea of masturbation as being an odd thing to do, and most [I have a few who think it’s gross] have no problem with it at all. I also find people who think nudity and things of a sexual nature are dirty a bit strange and unreal in their ideas. It’s a shame what people are taught to think, especially since this side of the world is gradually becoming more open minded of things that were taboos.
I think a large part of it is because of what is talked about in high school health classes. A lot of them teach only abstinence, for starters.
In health class you learn about “normal, healthy relationships.” The one I took never mentioned masturbation, and only mentioned homosexuality when we covered AIDS.
Once at this conference I was rooming with four other girls. Every night we would talk about whatever came to our minds, and one night two of the girls revealed that they’d never had orgams. I know a lot of women have never had one; that, to me, is quite sad.
What do kids in high school learn about sex? That it’s that nasty, dirty thing that can kill you… that you should only share with someone you love.
Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.
I would just like to give everyone my imput being that I am in high school currently. Guys don’t seem to have a problem admitting that they do it, girls however if we’re asked will usually say ewwwwwww!! however, i guess Ill be the first high school girl to admit this, yes, i do it, get over it. Anyhow, thats the way it goes, guys are “allowed” girls are not. It bites, but whatcha gonna do?
