The Organ of Tactility: Fantasy, Image and Male Masturbation Jaco J. Hamman1 Abstract This article explores the interplay of fantasy and image in male solitary masturbation in the virtual age. Online pornography drastically changed the intimate relationship between the hand and the penis. The case of a seventeen-year-old boy and his excessive use of Internet pornography is used to highlight pornography’s impact on a person’s well-being and neurology. A brief exploration of three histories of masturbation shows how discussion of masturbation often serves political agendas and the central role of sexual fantasy in the practice. Sexual fantasy is explored through the research of British psychoanalyst Brett Kahr. To examine the prevalence of the eye in pornography, philosopher Michael Taussig’s concept of “the eye as the organ of tactility” is discussed. The essay concludes by offering a framework to discern whether masturbating to images might be disordered or not. Fantasy, as nonvisual sexual arousal, with mindfulness can relieve a person from the tyranny of the eye and compulsive masturbation. Keywords Boys, Brett Kahr, Erotic Fantasy, Internet, Mark Twain, Masturbation, Men, Onanism, Pornography, Samuel-August Tissot, Sex, Sexuality, Michael Taussig, Technology 1J. J. Hamman (Contact) Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture Vanderbilt Divinity School, 411 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37240 USA E-mail:
[email protected] Telephone: 615-343-5404 Introduction Masturbation is widely practiced, though rarely discussed. It has eclipsed what has been called the coital imperative, as an estimated 98% of men (and 87% of women) masturbate (Kahr, 2007, p. 75).