Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall, What’s the Safest Sex of All?
By: Danika Bloom
Tags: Self, Health, Sex, Ideas, Sexuality

Back in 1994, the Surgeon General of the United States of America was forced to resign over a comment she made while speaking at the United Nations conference on AIDS.

She was asked if it would be appropriate to promote masturbation as a way to keep young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity. And she said,

“I think that (masturbation) is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.”

To be clear, Dr. Elders was not suggesting teachers have children practice dropping their drawers and touching their Wee Willies and Wet Wandas in the classrooms. All she said was that masturbation perhaps should be added to the sex ed and wellness curriculum.

Ironically, the president who fired Dr. Elders might have saved a young intern’s reputation had he been more comfortable relieving the pressures of the Oval Office himself. Yes, it was Bill Clinton who first hired then fired the good doctor.

I was 28-years-old when that mess blew up in Elders’ face. I’d been working with an international development organization that had programs around the world, including in Africa and what Dr. Elders said made all the sense in the world to me.

But, if you’d asked me then how I felt about dropping my hands below my waist to spend a little time self-loving, I’d have made my scrunch-face (not attractive), shaken my head, and said,

“It’s great for other people, perfect sex to reduce the transmission of HIV, but mastur — you know, it’s not for me.”

My feelings about self-love have shifted slightly over the last 25 years, but not much. Certainly, not enough to make me happy.

However, over the last several months, I’ve been pushing myself to talk and write about sex and my sexual hang-ups. All this talk — mostly with my husband — has had the benefit of pushing me to try new things, too. Like mutual masturbation. Turns out that’s quite enjoyable.

But I draw a mysterious line with the lube when it comes to masturbating on my own. Why, oh, why? I wanted to break free of this phobia so, on May 20th, I signed up for an online masturbation course that I suspect Dr. Elders would be proud to endorse.

The course was two-thirds finished, but I figured ten days of learning how to self-love would be a good start. The emails landed day-after-day, and I immediately filed them for later… I’ll start tomorrow, I promised myself.

Neither I nor tomorrow ever came.

On Day 30, ashamed that I’d failed so dramatically at overcoming the shame I felt touching myself, I sent the course-creator an email and asked if she planned to make her course evergreen. The next day, she shared a link that allowed me to try-try again, from Day 1. I signed up immediately. That was June 1st.

On June 2nd, I wrote, with naïve optimism, about my plan to do the course right this time in Ladies: Start Your Vibrators! Embracing the power of becoming a self-lust goddess.

And now here we are at the end of August and how many times in the past 57 days have I followed the prompts in Eleanor’s emails? Twice. And even then, I broke her rule about not using a vibrator. If I was being graded, I’d get a solid 0/30 in this course. I imagine Dr. Elders shaking her 86-year-old head in disappointment.

But I really, really want to be an A+ self-love student.

I am neither too old nor too proud to admit that I need help. Having a course at my fingertips is clearly not enough to motivate me to move those fingertips to the places they’re being encouraged to explore.

I need accountability. I need to take this journey into lubricating my libido with another gentleperson’s genitals at my side. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Obviously, it would make the most sense to ask my partner to do this with me, but I know that this won’t work. For one, he’ll want to have sex if we masturbate together. Second, we have wildly different sleep schedules and for the few hours we are together awake, we’re never alone. We would never feel comfortable excusing ourselves to the bedroom every day immediately after dinner. Third, I’ll want to have sex if we masturbate together.

And the point is to learn how to self-love. If mutual masturbation became foreplay, I think that would void the purpose of pleasuring my pleasure points… right?

I considered placing a Craigslist ad.

Sexually repressed dame seeks masturbation buddy

But as soon as I wrote the headline I realized I’d be spending more time reading emails from men about their masturbatory fantasies than authentically loving myself if I used this approach. And, I would run a high risk of being sent a dick pic. <Shudder>.

And that’s when my creative, erotic imagination spoke up. It said, Ask your friends on Medium. All you need is one person to take this challenge with you, to check-in with once-a-day, to ensure that neither of you is ignoring your nethers.

I’m also considering emailing Dr. Elders, to ask if she’d be willing to be the person who holds me accountable. I’m not expecting an “I’d be delighted to” response, but the reply might be amusing. And since laughing is one of the things that turns me on… well, in this case a fail might be a win for my masturbation efforts.

Finally, to make sure failure is not an option, I’ve promised myself an expensive gift at the end of thirty days of successful self-loving — but only if I get that A+. It’s a hands-free vibrator meant for couples that promises to be a thing of orgasmic beauty.

I am so ready to receive the benefits of masturbation — better sleep, higher self-esteem, decreased muscle tension, and increased libido. I’m counting on the whambam combination of accountability and a special reward to help me finally overcome the illogical shame and irrational fears I hold about making my sacral chakra shake.

Postscript — teaching masturbation 25 years later

And the postscript on the status of Dr Elders’ idea of teaching masturbation as a safe sex alternative to penetration: it’s still not widely done.

In fact, masturbation was finally added to the curriculum in one Canadian province three years ago only to be removed again in 2018 with the leader of that province threatening to fire any teacher who used the updated curriculum that spoke of masturbation.

Safest sex or not, talking about masturbation is still a topic that can get some people fired. So let’s give those conservative political leaders the finger by taking courses about how to shamelessly finger ourselves.