A Valentine Of One’s Own

In the course of an interesting Unfogged thread about literary representations of male and female sexuality, Charlie Whitaker quoted a bit from a Nicholson Baker novel including the following:

Any woman masturbates anywhere, I want to know about it. No woman is anything but beautiful when she is masturbating

This caused m. leblanc to ask if anyone thought it rang true (it’s apparently not entirely serious), and no one responded that it did, although the actual responses seem to focus more on the form than on the content.  I, however, find the idea resonates very strongly with me, to the extent that I can definitely imagine myself saying something very similar.

I find it hard to express the intensity of the hold female masturbation has on my erotic imagination.  I suspect it’s tied up with a lot of other stuff about gender and bodies, but there’s a fascination there that seems to defy my best efforts to explain it.  It may well be one of those things about (certain kinds of) male sexuality that women find totally alien.

I had a friend in high school who once said that if he were a woman he would do nothing but masturbate in front of a mirror all day.  The girls who heard him say that were, quite understandably, a little weirded out, and it was definitely inappropriate (though totally in character) for him to say it, but I understood what he was getting at.  It seems so graceful and elegant, especially compared to the awkward jerking we have to do.  If I had the opportunity to do that, of course I’d take it as often as possible.

I try not to think about this stuff too much these days, because it’s kind of depressing, but seeing that Baker quote and the response to it inspired me to mention it.  It’s a data point for the discussion of ways to express the experience of sexuality, at least.