It's Masturbation May!
In late 1994 Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the first Black woman to serve as Surgeon General, lost her position because she had made a simple and truthful statement about masturbation. Asked whether it should be part of sex education curricula, in light of the pressing need for safer sex information (and no kind of sex is safer than masturbation!), she said that it was something “that perhaps should be taught” about in the context of sexual health information. President Bill Clinton fired her for that. Furious Good Vibes staff could NOT believe what we were hearing! We were selling vibrators to those who needed and wanted them and trying to help those customers adopt an attitude of self-love and masturbation-positivity!
We still adore Dr. Elders today. Back then, we put on our official Sexual Health & Pleasure activist hats and held a historic meeting at Good Vibrations: We declared that henceforth, May would be known as National Masturbation Month. (Hey, when you can take charge of your own sexual pleasure, it's no sweat to invent a holiday.) The first NMM was celebrated in May of 1995.
Since then, masturbation has become a less-taboo subject—though there is still work to be done to erase this form of sexual shame for everyone, and in these times, when putting on a real big wig is suspect (maybe even illegal in some states), who can predict the next huge controversy? Kitty-petting? Monkey-spanking? Pocket-pool-playing? This foundational element of human sexuality should not be a source of distress or a topic we can’t talk about, because when this is the way a culture thinks about solo pleasure, it sends a message that the important positive elements of masturbation don’t matter. It says, in fact, that our pleasure and agency do not matter.
Via masturbation we learn more about our sexuality and arousal; we learn how to have orgasms; we experience the stress- and pain-relieving elements of solo sex; we sleep better. We more easily get through times we don't have a partner (if we even want one to begin with), and research has shown it is often an expression of our heightened sexuality even when we do have someone in our lives. Masturbation may be the most significant sexual building block there is—so when people are denigrated for masturbating, it has negative effects on many aspects of sexuality. We need to talk about all this and make masturbation completely acceptable for anyone who chooses it—and that’s what Masturbation Month has always been about!
So to all you past, present and future solo sex practitioners, regardless of gender and identity: Give yourself a hand! You deserve these pleasures without shame. Whether you prefer to go hands-on with some hot erotica, or regularly rotate in new vibe and dildo friends or penis-pleasing toys, we've got all the pleasure products you need to keep you going--just don't forget the lube! Feel yourself—and help us spread the National Masturbation Month message--all year long.
