Masturbation: a Silent Sexual Practice
Carolien Saathof 10885927 [email protected] Master in Sociology, track Gender, Sexuality in Society Supervisors: dr. M.L. Janssen and dr. D. Weenink Graduate School of Social Sciences – University of Amsterdam Thesis 30-06-2016 24.971 words Preface
This thesis would not have been possible without the help of my respondents. I want to thank the respondents who have filled in the survey of the research project Let’s Talk About Sex. I want to thank the respondents who have participated in the interviews specifically for their openness about my (sometimes) uncomfortable questions. I want to thank the research team of Let’s Talk About Sex for all their insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. I wish to thank dr. Stephanie Steinmetz for helping me with the quantitative data, dr. Don Weenink for his support and advice, and in particular dr. Marie-Louise Janssen for her patience, advice, insights, and support. I want to thank my parents for always believing in me and giving me the opportunity to do a masters at the University of Amsterdam. Many thanks to my brother, my friends and fellow students who have read my proposals, first, second, and 16th drafts, for your feedback and your support. Last but not least, thanks to my soon-to-be husband Robin for all his patience, pride, love, and never ending support.
2 Index
Chapter 1: Introduction...... 6
Chapter 2: Methodology ...... 9 2.1 Introduction ...... 9 2.2 Research group ...... 9 2.3 Qualitative approach...... 10 2.4 Quantitative approach...... 13
Chapter 3: Theoretical framework...... 15 3.1 Introduction ...... 15 3.2 Sexual script theory ...... 15 3.3 Christian beliefs ...... 17 3.4 Medical ideas ...... 17 3.5 Theory of sexuality by Freud ...... 18 3.6 Sexual revolution ...... 19 3.7 The civilisation process ...... 20 3.8 Gender ...... 22 3.9 Feelings of shame and guilt ...... 23
Chapter 4: Practices of masturbation...... 24 4.1 Introduction ...... 24 4.2 Start of masturbation ...... 24 4.3 Masturbation frequency ...... 25 4.4 Gender ...... 27 4.5 Having a relationship...... 28 4.6 Place of masturbation ...... 28 4.7 Masturbation as part of partnered sex ...... 29 4.8 Motives for masturbation ...... 30 4.9 Masturbation as a preference ...... 32
Chapter 5: Social ideas on masturbation ...... 34 5.1 Introduction ...... 34 5.2 Attitude towards masturbation ...... 34
3 5.3 Masturbation as a sexual act ...... 36 5.4 Gender ...... 37 5.5 Sexual education...... 39 5.6 Talking about masturbation ...... 40
Chapter 6: Feelings of shame and guilt ...... 42 6.1 Introduction ...... 42 6.2 Shame ...... 42 6.3 Guilt ...... 45 6.4 Consequences of shame...... 47 6.5 Self-constraint...... 48 6.6 Gender ...... 50 6.7 Positive feelings...... 51
Chapter 7: Sexual autonomy ...... 52 7.1 Introduction ...... 52 7.2 Choice to masturbate ...... 52 7.3 Confidence...... 52 7.4 Gender ...... 53 7.5 Control ...... 55 7.6 Script...... 56
Chapter 8: Discussion ...... 59 8.1 Introduction ...... 59 8.2 Script...... 59 8.3 Traditional ideas ...... 60 8.3 Practices...... 60 8.4 Shame and guilt ...... 62 8.5 Male sexual script ...... 63 8.6 Female sexual script ...... 64 8.7 Limitations qualitative research ...... 66 8.8 Limitations quantitative research ...... 67
Conclusion ...... 69
4 Appendix 1: Interview guide ...... 81 Appendix 2: Summary...... 85
5 Chapter 1: Introduction
Within Western societies, masturbation has been perceived in many different ways through different times. Although masturbation is a form of sexual conduct that within Western society “has been most harshly treated throughout the centuries by society, religion, and the field of medicine” (Davidson and Darling, 1993: 291), research has indicated that masturbation is a widespread phenomenon that happens in almost every culture or society (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 984). The biologist Kinsey has shown us that masturbation is a common sexual practice in almost all men and women in America by conducting a study in the 1950’s where he found that 96% of the males and 63% of the females of a college educated sample (had) masturbated in their lifetime (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, 1953). In Western societies today, masturbation is discussed on television, in magazines and on the Internet. The United States even celebrates International Masturbation Month in May since 1995, which is sponsored by a commercial organization that produces and sells sex toys.1 However, people who masturbate are mostly portrayed as ‘pathetic’, not practicing a ‘real’ sexual experience, as having ‘low morals’ and as giving into animalistic urges, for instance in popular films such as American Pie.2 These are all social ideas that have been around for decades (Langston, 1975), which makes the contemporary idea of masturbation as an appropriate form of sexual behaviour questionable. The subject of this research is to study contemporary ideas on masturbation in Amsterdam, in order to see how highly educated students from a university in Amsterdam perceive masturbation in relation to their ideas, feelings and practices. The key concept of this thesis is masturbation. Masturbation will be defined by using the term of the sociologist Gagnon (1977), namely: “self-induced sexual pleasure without another person being actively involved physically” or “autoeroticism” (1977: 141). It’s questionable if masturbation today is viewed as fully acceptable and appropriate sexual behaviour among highly educated students. Rather, masturbation may be perceived as less or more appropriate according to what, who, where, when, and why, conforming to the facets of a sexual script (Gagnon, 1973; 1977; 1990; Simon and Gagnon, 1986). For my research, I have chosen students of the University of Applied Sciences (HvA), the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Free University (VU), all universities in
1 Good Vibrations: http://www.goodvibes.com/content.jhtml?id=masturbation-month-facts 2 Scene of the film ‘American Pie’ on masturbation with an apple pie: https://youtu.be/NCAOKR1jpp0 Scene of the film ‘American Pie’ on tantric discipline: https://youtu.be/O812LeWuReE
6 Amsterdam. By questioning students’ beliefs, norms, values and behaviour, I have challenged students’ contemporary ideas on masturbation and asked respondents to reflect upon these ideas. I want to know what kind of meaning students give to their own sexual behaviour.
With girlfriends it’s quite easy to talk about [partnered] sex and the stuff you do, for example with a guy, or where you’ve had [partnered] sex, and so on. But with masturbation, that’s something that we never talk about, or at least that’s my experience. It’s not that it’s taboo, but it’s just that no one talks about it (Jill, 2016: 1).
Jill’s quote represents that masturbation is a silenced topic and shows that it’s not necessarily a taboo, although the lack of talking about it underlines that this form of sexual behaviour is a subject of taboo. Highly educated students have my interest because several scholars have argued that a high education is associated with more liberal sexual attitudes (Abramson, 1973; Fischtein, Herold and Desmarais, 2007; Gagnon, 1985; Gerressu, Mercer, Graham, Wellings and Johnson, 2007; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995; Peplau, 2003, Straver, 1969). Moreover, the Netherlands is seen as a front runner when it comes to expressing free sexuality (Hekma, 2009), because of its role in the sexual revolution during the 1960’s. Young people in particular, such as students, advocated for the right to express sexual freedom and choice (Hekma and Duyvendak, 2011: 411-412). Additionally, I have chosen schools in Amsterdam because Amsterdam is perceived as a liberal city regarding sexual norms. It was Amsterdam who hosted the first ‘naked’ shows and the famous Red Light District still defines Amsterdam as a city of sexual freedom (Hekma, 1990; 2013). I wish to establish whether young, Dutch, highly educated university students in Amsterdam have liberal ideas concerning the sexual act of masturbation. My aim of this thesis is to establish whether or not masturbation today is perceived as an appropriate and accepted form of sexual behaviour among highly educated students in Amsterdam. There might be differences or even discrepancies between ideas and practices of male and female students, therefore I want to conduct my research on ideas on masturbation, practices of masturbation and feelings of shame and guilt concerning masturbation. My research question is: How do male and female students in Amsterdam practice and perceive the sexual act of masturbation? The first chapter focuses on practices of masturbation. Masturbation practices might only be appropriate under particular circumstances and relate to who, why, when, where and what. The practices of masturbation are set out into several sub questions: 1. Is there a difference in masturbation frequency from childhood to adolescence?
7 2. When do students masturbate in daily life? 3. Where do students masturbate in daily life? 4. What are students’ motives for masturbating? 5. Does the frequency of masturbation change because of the relationship status of the student? The second chapter focuses on social norms and ideas on masturbation. The ideas on masturbation are also described into sub questions: 1. Do students perceive masturbation as appropriate sexual behaviour? 2. When is masturbation considered to be inappropriate sexual behaviour? 3. Do ideas about gender-appropriate sexual behaviour influence ideas on masturbation? 4. In what manner do students talk about masturbation with others? The third chapter refers to if and when students experience feelings of shame and guilt concerning masturbation. My sub questions for this section are: 1. When do feelings of shame occur regarding masturbation practices? 2. When do feelings of guilt occur regarding masturbation practices? The final chapter relates to sexual autonomy and discusses how masturbation influences the sexual autonomy of the students. My sub questions for this section are: 1. Is masturbation an important sexual practice for students? 2. How do students choose to engage in masturbation practices? 3. How does masturbation relate to students’ other sexual behaviours?
8 Chapter 2: Methodology
2.1 Introduction I have conducted a mixed methods approach in my research. The purpose of this study is to explore the practices on and ideas of masturbation of highly educated students in Amsterdam. The qualitative part is more in-depth and tries to understand how respondents practice and perceive masturbation. The quantitative part will test general ideas, focuses on the practices of masturbation and how masturbation is perceived on a wider scale of male and female students (Bryman, 2012). I believe that the approach of combining two methods can complement and amplify each other (Bryman, 2012). The research question of this thesis is explorative, therefore my thesis entails mostly qualitative research results, with an additional part of quantitative data. Through qualitative research an in-depth description of the phenomenon will be developed, next to finding key categories. Through quantitative research I’ll compare research results of the qualitative study. The advantage of a mixed methods study is the opportunity to enhance research results by comparing and confirming qualitative data with quantitative data (Bryman, 2012: 633-634).
2.2 Research group The research group consists of students in Amsterdam of the University of Applied Sciences (HvA), the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Free University (VU). I have chosen this research group because several scholars have argued that highly educated college students have liberal sexual attitudes and ideas (Abramson, 1973; Fischtein et al, 2007; Gagnon, 1985; Gerressu et al, 2007; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995; Peplau, 2003, Straver, 1969). Furthermore, the sexual revolution in the 1960’s and 1970’s in the Netherlands has induced change in perceptions on sexual behaviour (Hekma, 1994; Schnabel, 1973). During this time, changes in “beliefs [on sexuality emerged] that led to greater freedom and extended agency for individuals” (Hekma and Giami, 2014: 2). By advocating sexual freedom for all, including women, the sexual revolution has made masturbation a form of liberation, among many more sexual varieties. Masturbation became a form of expressing sexual feelings and autonomy, instead of being viewed as egoistic, narcissistic, immature, and damaging relationships (Davidson and Moore, 1994; Gagnon, 1977; Laqueur, 2003). The generation raised by people that have experienced the sexual revolution might have a different view on sexuality compared to their parents or grandparents. Furthermore, individuals that have been
9 more highly educated are more open to and gain more knowledge about sexual diversities and preferences. My expectation is that liberal sexual ideas of highly educated students relate to not feeling ashamed of masturbation, and instead perceive it as normal and common sexual behaviour. I want to explore the extent of ideas of students concerning the topic of masturbation. Young people are associated with a progressive attitude when it comes to exploring sexuality (Horne and Zimmer-Gembeck, 2005; Straver, 1969). Besides, psychologists Hogarth and Ingham (2009) argue that masturbation is the most significant source of pleasure for young people. Therefore, I want to find out how a young, sexually progressive, and highly educated group of students perceives and practices masturbation. Additionally, I want to establish differences concerning gender in masturbation ideas and practices, therefore I have decided to study both male and female students.
2.3 Qualitative approach The main priority of this thesis is qualitative with an added quantitative component, which indicates that I will follow a “sequential exploratory strategy” in my research (Creswell, 2003: 215; Bryman, 2012: 632). This strategy is characterised by a primary phase of collecting and analysing interviews, which will be followed by a secondary phase of collecting and analysing survey data. The results of the interviews are the central and main part of this thesis, whereas the results of the survey will provide additional, descriptive information on a greater scale. The main focus of this strategy is to explore the social phenomenon of masturbation, and by using interviews, I try to grasp the subjective meanings, motives and practices of masturbation. The sampling approach I have used for my interviews has the form of a convenience sample, in which I have used certain individual contacts in order to get more contacts (Bryman, 2012: 202). By using this kind of sampling approach, I got in touch with most of my respondents through fellow students or through initial respondents who asked other students to participate as well. I have eventually interviewed seven male students and seven female students. Students determined where the interview took place, either at students’ dorms or at the University of Amsterdam, where I booked a room in order to have some privacy. All students were Dutch, in their early or late twenties, and identified as heterosexual.
10 Name (pseudonym) Gender Age Relationship status Tim Male 26 In a relationship Kevin Male 29 Single Sophie Female 26 In a relationship Jeffrey Male 24 In a relationship Nicole Female 24 Single Emily Female 23 In a relationship Walter Male 31 In a relationship Lisa Female 23 Single Emma Female 24 Single Julian Male 27 Single Lucas Male 22 In a relationship Tess Female 25 Single Jill Female 24 In a relationship Simon Male 25 Single Table 1. An overview of the respondents’ characteristics that have participated in the interviews.
The interviews I’ve conducted are semi-structured, which entails that I have created a topic list with focused questions to guide the interview. Whilst conducting the interview, I have given the respondents the opportunity to address certain questions or subjects that came up during the interview. Thus, the interview has a flexible and open form (Bryman, 2012: 471). The interview questions related to the topics of my research, namely it revolved around the practices of masturbation, the ideas on masturbation, the feelings regarding masturbation and the role of masturbation on sexual autonomy of students. The interview questions have been tested on a friend after the questions were created. The duration of an interview has been approximately 45 minutes to one hour. Every interview has been in Dutch, except one that was in English, it has been recorded with my own telephone and then transferred to my computer. I have prefaced every interview by asking the respondent if I could record the interview and additionally explained that the interview is anonymous by using pseudonyms. The only social demographics I used were students’ gender, age, sexual orientation, relationship status and at which university they study in Amsterdam. At the start of each
11 interview I explained how the interview was constructed, to give respondents an idea of what they could expect. Additionally, I explained that the questions were of a personal nature and asked respondents to notify me whenever they felt uncomfortable or unwilling to answer a question, so I could consider a respondent’s wellbeing during the interview. However, none of the respondents indicated that they felt unwilling or uncomfortable to answer any of the questions. In order to determine respondent’s feelings during the interview, I asked how they felt at the beginning and at the end of each interview. While collecting my data, I simultaneously transcribed the interviews. I decided to transcribe and collect data at the same time, because it gave me the chance to listen back to and reflect on my interview skills and interview questions. By reflecting on each interview, I have made some changes to my interview guide. After the fourth interview I realised that it was important to me to explicitly ask about a person’s sexual education. All of the respondents so far mentioned it in response to the question: how did you learn about masturbation/what was your first experience with masturbation? I thought it was important because it may give me an answer to why masturbation was viewed as something awkward or shameful. I added two questions on sexual education, namely: Did you receive sexual education? From whom and when? and Did your sexual education include masturbation? In what way? I also decided to add another question to the question form, namely: Do you have to be alone in order to masturbate? I realised I already asked this question, therefore I find it important to include it within the question format. My transcriptions of the interviews consist solely of the words and terms used by the respondents. Thirteen of the fourteen interviews were in Dutch, therefore I have transcribed them in Dutch. I have translated the excerpts from the interviews that I have used in my results section into English. However, in order to maintain readability of the transcriptions, I have not transcribed the ‘uhms’ of the respondents, or transcribed a sentence in a different order due to grammar or correct word order. By using the qualitative analysis program Atlas.ti I have done a content analysis to analyse the interviews. Content analysis refers to a method of analysing data by categorising what respondents say about the research topic. During the study I have made comparisons between theory and concepts by going back and forth from data to theory. In this way, codes within each category are related to each other and are different from the codes in other categories. The result is that there are different themes that emerge from the data (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003: 705). This form of content analysis focuses on what is being said by the respondents in the interviews. Within Atlas.ti I have made group codes that are linked to the
12 interview guide as well as to the chapter of my results section. Every code group had several codes that related to the group code. The content of these code groups are subdivided into four chapter results of my thesis: (1) practices of masturbation; (2) ideas on masturbation; (3) feelings of shame and/or guilt, and (4) sexual autonomy.
2.4 Quantitative approach In order to gain statistical data, I have co-designed a survey within the context of the research project Let’s Talk About Sex.3 This research is conducted by a team from the University of Amsterdam from the department of Sociology, which consists of two lecturers and five research students. This research focuses on the sexual diversity of students in Amsterdam by asking about practices, ideas, fantasies and desires, and in particular on ideas and attitudes on sex work, the prevalence of sex work and the motives on sex work of students. In order to come up with the questions, I have used an existing scale on questions about attitudes toward masturbation by Abramson and Mosher (1975). I have created the questions concerning practices and feelings of masturbation myself. These questions are integrated in the survey that is conducted by the research team of the Let’s talk about Sex study. The survey questions are in the form of a self-completion questionnaire on an online survey website called Survey Monkey.4 This means that respondents will answer the questions by completing the questionnaire themselves and anonymously, in order to avoid socially desirable answers of respondents (Bryman, 2012: 232). The questions are variously framed: closed, open, positive or negative and some with a horizontal format on a Likert scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is either totally not agree or never and 5 is totally agree or very often (Bryman, 2012: 238-239, 258). The duration of the survey was approximately 15-20 minutes. The survey has been distributed among students of the HvA, the UvA and the VU through study associations, social media such as Twitter and Facebook, by using television screens in the University of Amsterdam and through various newsletters. The survey has been online from middle April until the end of June 2016. Students who have participated in the interviews also have done the survey, either after or before the interview. Regarding my thesis topic, the survey covers questions about the practices of masturbation, attitudes on masturbation and feelings concerning masturbation of students in Amsterdam. In consultation with my supervisor, I have decided to only use three questions of the survey due to absence of
3 See the website for more information on the research project Let’s Talk About Sex: www.researchletstalk.com 4 See the website for more information about Survey Monkey: https://nl.surveymonkey.com/
13 time. I wanted to show the descriptives of some research results in order to compare them to the research results of the interviews. The survey questions are analysed through the statistical program Stata. I ‘ve used the descriptives of several questions by looking at the prevalence and analysed the results by looking at relations between variables (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003: 254-255). My topics of interest were the differences between male and female students in masturbation frequency and to what extent male and female students feel shame or guilt concerning masturbation. The variable I have used is gender. The data has been downloaded and recoded from the online survey website Survey Monkey by Stephanie Steinmetz, one of the lecturers of the research project, who has helped me to analyse the data. The survey is available until the end of June, but due to the deadline of this thesis at the end of June, a temporary record of data has been used for this thesis. The data set had a total number of 632 respondents at the moment of analysis. However, because students were able to skip questions when the survey was just online, each question shows a different number of respondents. In order to analyse the descriptives I have used the statistical program Stata to make crosstabs and Excel to generate the data into bar graphs. Within the variable gender there were seven deviant cases; five identified as ‘other’ and two identified as ‘transgender’ next to the categories male and female. This thesis doesn’t focus on transgenders or other categories of gender, therefore I have decided to remove these cases from this particular data set and recode the variable gender into gender2 by using (1=1 men) and (2=2 women) and (else=missing), which brings the data set on a number of 625 respondents. I have made three crosstabs using percentages of the results of the variable gender2 crossed with three survey questions, namely: (1) On average, how frequently do you masturbate in the last 12 months? which had the answer categories: daily, more than three times a week, one to two times a week, less than once a week, less than once a month and once; (2) Have you ever felt ashamed of your masturbation practices?; and (3) Have you ever felt guilty of your masturbation practices? which both had the answer categories never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always. The survey results are converted into bar charts and integrated within the central qualitative research results in chapter four on masturbation practices and chapter six on feelings of shame or guilt concerning masturbation, in order to further test social ideas and practices of masturbation among students on a larger scale. Additionally, I have studied whether or not there are any discrepancies or similarities by analysing the survey data compared to the interview data.
14 Chapter 3: Theoretical framework
3.1 Introduction Human sexual behaviour has been viewed in different ways. At first, I want to explain two approaches to sexuality, an essentialist approach and a constructionist approach. The essentialist view perceives sexuality as something that’s ‘innate’ or ‘natural’, whereas the constructionist view perceives sexuality as being socially constructed. Essentialism argues that sexuality resides with the individual and is biologically determined by personality traits and hormones (DeLamater and Hyde, 1998: 13). For instance, women are assumed to be naturally (sexually) passive and receptive, whereas men are assumed to be more naturally active or assertive (Gagnon, 1977: 18). Essentialism is an approach often adopted by evolutionary theorists, biologists, and psychologists. Social constructionism however, explains sexuality as a phenomenon that’s “external to the individual, defined by social understandings and discourse” (DeLamater and Hyde, 1998: 13). The meaning of sexual behaviour, sexual desire, and sexual expression determines social norms and values, discourses, and language. According to social constructionists, this also holds for gender, which is constructed within interactions between people (DeLamater and Hyde, 1998: 13-16). Sexuality is often seen as something that’s biologically different in origin, for instance by presuming that men have a higher sex drive than women (Baumeister, Catanese and Vohs, 2001), which implies that men act more on sexual feelings and thus masturbate more than women. However, this thesis will follow a constructionist approach by establishing what’s more or less appropriate sexual behaviour through indicating what meaning students give to sexual feelings and behaviours. As is stated by the psychologists Clark and Wiederman: “sexual appropriate behaviour is created by culture” (2000: 133), therefore social ideas on sexual behaviour such as masturbation, are socially constructed.
3.2 Sexual script theory I want to use the sociological approach of ‘script theory’ that falls within the larger theoretical framework of dramaturgical theories. Dramaturgical theories are theories that “emphasize that individuals make dramatic presentations and engage in strategic action directed by a cultural script” (Turner and Stets, 2006: 26). This entails that actions of individuals are guided by a script of norms, rules, social expectations and ‘feeling and display rules’, even when they’re alone.
15 Drawing from this large theoretical framework, I want to use script theory in analysing my data. Script theory comprehends the belief that every individual has internalised certain cultural scripts that guide our actions. I will focus on a subscript namely the sexual script, described by sociologists Simon and Gagnon (1986) and Gagnon (1973; 1977; 1990). There are five assumptions that form the basis of sexual script theory. Gagnon (1990) describes them as:
(a) that sexual conduct is entirely historically and culturally determined, (b) that the meaning of sexual conduct does reside in a reading of the bodily activity of individuals, (c) that sexual science is historically and culturally determined in equal measure, (d) that sexuality is acquired, maintained, and unlearned in all of its aspects and is organized by social structure and culture, and (e) that gender and sexuality are both learned forms of conduct and linked differently in different cultures (Gagnon, 1990: 5-6).
A sexual script is defined as a cognitive scheme for guiding and organising sexual action and expression. It’s summarised by Gagnon as: “appropriate patterns of reproductive, gender and sexual conduct [that] are all products of specific cultures and all can be viewed as examples of socially scripted conduct” (1990: 5). In line with Clark and Wiederman (2000), Gagnon (1990) describes how all sexual conduct is created by culture, thus, although masturbation is presumed to be solitary, it’s a complete social form of behaviour (1990: 4, 12). Sexual script theory tells us the who, when, what, where and why of our sexual behaviour. ‘Who’ tells us who or with whom one does sexual activities. ‘When’ tells us the appropriate time (such as private times or at night) for sexual acts. ‘What’ tells us what kind of sexual acts are considered to be appropriate. ‘Where’ gives us information about the place of sexual acts, such as behind closed doors or in your own living environment. Lastly, ‘why’ gives meaning to the motive behind sexual acts (Gagnon, 1977: 5-9). These scripts are learned and cultural forms of behaviour, and therefore sexual behaviour is “elicited by context rather than driven by internal states” (Gagnon, 1990: 6). The practice of masturbation and ideas on masturbation might have the form of a sexual script, which additionally can differ between male and female students. According to Gagnon (1990), the sexual script exists on different levels, namely the cultural, interpsychic and the intrapsychic level. The cultural level consists of norms and ideas on what kind of sexual behaviour are appropriate. The intrapsychic level contains erotic desires and feelings that are organised in schemes. Erotic desires are part of mental schemes that are coordinated into a social script. Within the interpsychic level, the social script
16 connects cultural meaning and social interaction and guides social interactions between individuals (Gagnon, 1990: 7-10). When it comes to sexuality, these scripts embody what culture treats as sexuality and sexual conduct (Laumann and Gagnon, 1995: 188), next to designating what is appropriate and ‘normal’ sexual conduct, and under what particular circumstances. Societies tend to categorise diverse sexual behaviour either as appropriate, acceptable, and normal or as abnormal, unacceptable, and deviant (Seidman, 2003). Scripts concerning the normality and appropriateness of masturbation have been differently perceived according to prevailing norms and values through different times in society. I will now look at the norms and values on sexuality through Christian beliefs and medical ideas.
3.3 Christian beliefs Until the 19th Century, sexuality had been infused by sexual values within Christian morality. Sexual acts were supposed to be performed with the aim of reproduction and not because of sexual pleasure. Therefore, every sexual act that could not result in procreation, was seen as unnatural and as a threat to “the survival of human race” (Patton, 1985: 133). The Bible describes how Onan wastes his sperm on the ground instead of giving it to a woman. As a consequence, God kills Onan for performing this sinful and immoral act (Genesis 38: 9-10). Masturbation is thus also referred to as onanism. This tale goes to show that masturbation was seen as highly immoral, because it meant ‘wasting’ your sperm instead of using it in a reproductive manner (Gagnon, 1977; 1985; Laqueur, 2003). Giving in to sexual impulses such as masturbation was seen as weak and animalistic, whereas a respectable, religious and civilized man would be strong enough to resist such urges and conform to Christian values, such as sexual restraint and chastity. Constraining such sexual urges as masturbation, was seen as a manner of mind over body: the heavenly soul versus the sinful body (Davidson and Moore, 1994). Female masturbation was getting less attention because women were considered to be asexual or passive beings within Christian beliefs (Hogarth and Ingham, 2009).
3.4 Medical ideas Moving from the 18th Century into the 19th Century, masturbation was not only seen as highly immoral, but also seen as the cause of various physical and mental diseases that could not be otherwise explained (Davidson and Moore, 1994; Fahs and Frank, 2014; Gagnon, 1977; Hodges, 2005; Laqueur, 2003; Levin, 2007; Lipsith, McCann and Goldmeier, 2003; Patton,
17 1985; 1986; Slosarz, 1992). The first physician to publish on masturbation causing mental and physical diseases, was Samuel Tissot, who lived until the end of the 18th Century (Patton, 1985: 141). His book Onania (1767) is seen as the starting point for several medical writings on the dangers of masturbation. The main argument that Tissot (1767) tried to make was that masturbation leads to insanity, because for every ounce of semen, you additionally lose 40 ounces of blood which consequently damaged the nervous system (Tissot, 1767; Hodges, 2005; Levin, 2007; Patton, 1985). Several other medical practitioners of that time picked up on this view (Hodges, 2005, Patton, 1985; 1986). The belief that masturbation caused insanity has most likely been the dominant belief from 1758 until 1885. Around that time, medical studies started to explain several ‘mysterious’ diseases due to the discovery of bacteria. Consequently, physicians and medical practitioners adopted another view in the years 1885 until 1940 which consisted of the belief of masturbation causing neurosis instead of insanity (Patton, 1986: 291-292).
3.5 Theory of sexuality by Freud The ideas of the psychologist Freud greatly influenced beliefs of masturbation in the 19th and the 20th Century. According to Freud, masturbation caused neurosis and neurasthenia, since it was observed as a frequent sexual practice among psychiatric patients. However, it also was part of a particular phase in life in order to develop “proper psychosexual” behaviour (Patton, 1986: 292). Freud argued that, in order to understand perverse sexual behaviour, one first needs to understand normal sexual behaviour (Freud, 2005: 299). This argument led Freud to investigating and grasping human sexuality from a very young age. Freud was the first to ever dispute that children were sexual beings that have sexual desires and sexual conduct. Even today, this idea is still seen as highly controversial. According to Freud’s theory, sexual perversions originated within the sexuality of a child (Freud, 2005: 302-303). Repression of memories or experiences that occurred in childhood will lead to adult sexual dysfunctions or perversions. Every child goes through five stages regarding their sexuality: oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. In the final genital stage, boys have a desire to become sexually active and “acting insertive”, whereas girls move their clitoral sensitivity or orgasms, that conforms to infantilism, to vaginal sensitivity or orgasms in order to conform to adulthood and therefore become “active for being inserted” (Freud, 1905; Freud, 2005; Groneman, 1994; Lavie-Ajayi & Joffe, 2009; Koedt, 1970). To Freud, the final stage marked the turning point towards ‘normal’ adult sexuality. All other forms of sexual behaviour were childlike, primitive and perverse. This belief is due
18 to the fact that Freud considered procreation as the function of sexuality and therefore vaginal intercourse, hence penis-in-vagina sex, as the ‘normal form’ of adult sexuality (Freud, 2005: 320). In order to develop ‘normal’ sexuality, Freud states that autoeroticism needs to disappear by replacing the object one liked to touch or suck on one’s own body by objects on another one’s body, and by replacing the different objects with one particular object (Freud, 2005: 321). It seems to me as if Freud is referring to substituting several desires into only one desire, namely the desire for another person’s vagina or penis. Freud determines that perversions have in common that they’re not directed towards reproduction. Thus, everything that’s aimed towards lust instead of procreation is identified as perverse. Freud claims that it’s ‘normal’ for the child to have perversions, since the child is not yet aware of the function of sexuality as procreation. However, if adult sexual behaviour aims towards desires instead of directing towards procreation, it means that these behaviours have extracted themselves from the function of sexuality and are therefore defined as perversions (Freud, 2005: 308). Perversions such as masturbation, became addressed as: “an unnatural substitute for normal adult sexuality and sexual pleasure” (Laqueur, 2003: 380). Masturbation practices were part of a stage in childhood within sexual development that “normal people transcend through the processes of civilization” (Laqueur, 2003: 22). In determining masturbation as growing into ‘adult sexuality’, masturbation is perceived as juvenile and immature sexual behaviour and has the sole aim to convert sexual desires into appropriate (heterosexual) partnered sexual activities (Freud, 1905). Therefore, the sexual act of masturbation became perceived as: “the training ground for heterosexuality” (Laqueur, 2003: 392).
3.6 Sexual revolution The biologist Kinsey was the first to study sexual practices and motivations of men and women on a large scale in the United States (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, 1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, 1953). Within a sample of college educated males and females, he found that 96% of the males (had) masturbated in their lifetime, along with 63% of the females. This had a huge impact, because it goes to show that a large group of people practice masturbation and because it seemed impossible for all these people to be mentally ill, the belief of masturbation causing neurosis and disorders vanished. Over the years, other researchers have found similar data on prevalence and frequency, including a difference in frequency between men and women, which indicates that it remains a frequently expressed sexual act by both men and women (Abramson, 1973; Abramson and Mosher, 1975; Arafat &
19 Cotton, 1974; Das, 2007; Davidson and Moore, 1994; Greenberg and Archambault, 1973; Robbins, Schick, Reece, Herbenick, Sanders, Dodge and Fortenberry, 2011). In the 1960’s a new discourse emerged due to influences of the feminist movements and the sexual revolution; people advocated for the right for sexual freedom and the ideas of freely practicing sexuality became a widespread phenomenon. Individuals drew away from church influence and the idea that sex should only happen within marriage and with the aim of reproduction. Masturbation became a form of liberation, of expressing sexual desires and autonomy, instead of being viewed as egoistic, narcissistic, immature, and damaging relationships (Davidson and Moore, 1994; Gagnon, 1977; Laqueur, 2003). The 1960’s and 1970’s in the Netherlands are known for the years of the sexual revolution. According to Hekma (1990; 1994), this meant a change in ideas and attitudes toward sexuality, rather than a change in sexual behaviour itself. Media platforms such as television, Internet, magazines and newspapers started to address sexual varieties and supported the right to freely express sexuality. This has induced a change in society’s norms and values concerning sexuality and sexual conduct. Together with a change in ideas on sexuality, the research by Kinsey has changed attitudes on masturbation. It is now considered to be common, normal and healthy sexual behaviour that is practiced by everyone and we might argue that it has changed our attitudes and perceptions on sexuality. However, the psychologist Langston (1975) argues that ideas and attitudes on sexuality have not changed at all since the sexual revolution.
3.7 The civilisation process The sociologist Elias (2011) explains how throughout history there has been an ongoing process of changes in manners of conduct. Social structural changes (sociogenesis) induced change in personal structural changes (psychogenesis). This is a process of increasing external control to internal control in which individuals learn to control and restraint their urges in a more differentiated and stable manner. This is called the civilisation process (Elias, 2011). The social structural changes entail how from the Middle ages until now, society has changed and still continues to change through division of labour, an increased web of interdependencies, and a state monopoly on violence. These structural social changes lead to individuals working more together and being more independent on one another, which means that individuals need to account for more people and their own and future actions in daily life. Changes in networks of interdependency (on a macro level) indicates changes in daily manners of conduct (on a micro level). More individuals living together and depending on
20 each other creates an increasing web of interdependencies between individuals. This leads to rationalising behaviour through social (external) constraints of restricting rules and norms on manners of conduct, which leads to changes on a psychological and personal level. This refers to internalising rules and norms, and consequently to internal constraints of regulating our emotions and behaviour. This way, the monitoring of behaviour becomes an internal and individual restraint (Elias, 2011). Elias bases his psychogenesis theory on the personality theory of Freud. According to Freud, our behaviour is determined by three individual personality structures, namely: the id, the ego and the superego (Freud, 1988; van Vliet, 2006; Verstraten, 2006). The id is present at birth, it is the primitive and unconscious structure of the personality and is steered by urges, impulses and lusts. The id is not conscious, so it cannot make a distinction between appropriate or inappropriate behaviour (Freud, 1988; van Vliet, 2006; Verstraten, 2006). The superego can be perceived as the moralist and idealistic structure. This structure consists of learned and internalised social norms and values and tries to achieve an idealistic form of behaviour based on these norms and values (Freud, 1988; Verstraten, 2006). These norms and values decide which urges are appropriate or inappropriate within particular contexts. This structure is produced due to civilisation. Within modern societies, more and more individuals tend to live closer together. As a consequence, individuals need to account for each other and adapt their behaviour (Elias, 2011; Freud, 1988). The third structure, the ego, is the rational structure and mediates between the id and the superego. This structure manages urges from the id in socially desirable ways (Freud, 1988; Verstraten, 2006:). The civilisation process has had a lot of implications on ‘animalistic’ urges from the id, such as feelings and urges. Elias calls this a “’civilising’ change of behaviour: the fluctuations in behaviour and effects don’t disappear, but are moderated (…) in keeping with the social structure” (Elias, 1937 in Calhoun, Gerteis, Moody, Pfaff, Virk, 2012: 503-506). Within the civilising process, sexuality or violence were seen as animalistic urges, therefore, they needed to be “removed behind the scenes of social life” (Elias, 1978 in Scheff, 2003: 249), making it invisible to others. Feelings of shame or guilt can emerge whenever people express particular behaviour that’s not linked to the social norm or moral, such as sexual urges (Elias, 2011). Because norms and values are created by culture, these feelings are socialised and internalised by individuals (van Vliet, 2006: 87-89). This relates to Gagnon’s term of the sexual script that indicates where, when, what, and with whom sexual conduct is appropriate (1977: 8). So, nudity and sexuality became ‘private’ and due to the fear of feeling ashamed or embarrassed, individuals restrained,
21 regulated, and controlled their urges and lusts. Therefore, feelings of shame emerge from transgressing these urges that are considered to be forbidden or taboo behaviour (Elias, 2011). Feelings of shame will withhold individuals of breaking social norms (Turner and Stets, 2006).
3.8 Gender Within this thesis I will focus on the gender theory by West and Zimmerman (1987). They perceive gender as an activity or a role that an individual performs through interaction, either with a “virtual or real presence of others who are presumed to be oriented to its production” (Ibid, 1987: 126). Therefore, it’s designated as a “situated doing” (Ibid, 1987: 126). In social action, every form of behaviour is assessed and considered to be gender-appropriate or gender-inappropriate (Ibid, 1987: 135). Lucal (1999) refers to this performance of gender by describing it as a ‘gender display’ (Goffman, 1976 in Lucal, 1999): “culturally established sets of behaviors, appearances, mannerisms, and other cues that we have learned to associate with members of a particular gender” (1999: 783-784). A ‘display’ indicates that gender is enacted, performed, and presented by individuals. Certain cultural traits and performances are expected to be enacted by women, whereas other cultural traits and performances are expected to be enacted by men. This leads to the construction of cultural practices that entail properties and characteristics which ‘fit in’ with a particular gender. These cultural practices are then “used to reinforce the ‘essentialness’ of gender” (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 135). Sociologists Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) explain ‘masculinity’ as a male pattern of behaviour. Masculinity is seen as the hegemonic ideal of ‘manhood’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). The hegemonic masculine man is a white, hetero- and hypersexual, middle class, aggressive, courageous, authoritative, technical, and risk taking man. His participation in social behaviour and social practices show off these kinds of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987: 186-187). Emphasized femininity is described by Connell (1987) as a pattern that’s given most cultural and ideological support, such as “adaptive [to men’s power], compliance, sociability, empathy, nurturance, fragility, and being sexual receptive” (Connell, 1987: 187-188). Connell’s theory has a more macro approach, focusing on the patterns of masculinity practices of exerting structural and institutional control over women and other men. However, I will use a micro approach of interactions between individuals by employing the theory of masculinity by Schrock and Schwalbe (2009) in which they define ‘manhood acts’ as “aimed at claiming privilege, eliciting deference, and resisting exploitation” (2009: 281). Manhood
22 acts demonstrate a masculine self and the dominant gender position. The implications of a manhood act are to validate the performance as masculine. Masculine and feminine practices are perceived as appropriate and acceptable social practices of behaviour that are performed by individuals (Ibid, 2009). In this way, one ‘does gender’ in a masculine or feminine manner.
3.9 Feelings of shame and guilt A key concept of this thesis is the role of shame or guilt concerning masturbation. Although masturbation is acknowledged by the biologist Kinsey as a common sexual practice, it still appears to be accompanied by shame, guilt, secrecy, and taboo, as is demonstrated by other studies (Abramson, 1973; Arafat and Cotton, 1974; Bensman, Hatfield and Leonidas, n.d.; Davidson and Moore, 1994; Fahs and Frank, 2014; Gagnon, 1977; Greenberg and Archambault, 1973; Hogarth and Ingham, 2009, Kaestle and Allen, 2011). The feelings shame and guilt are often interrelated. According to the clinical psychologists Tangney and Dearing, they’re considered to be “’self-conscious’ and ‘moral’ emotions: self-conscious in that they involve the self-evaluating of the self, and moral in that they presumably play a key role in fostering [what is supposed to be] moral behaviour” (2002: 2). Shame is considered to be “an extremely painful and ugly feeling that has a negative impact on interpersonal behaviour” (Ibid, 2002: 3). Langston (1975) sees guilt as the feeling that emerges because men or women don’t conform to certain social expectations. Not following sexual appropriate scripts means one is challenging social expectations, which might lead to feelings of shame or guilt. Our sexual scripts are related to the social ideas and beliefs about sexuality and masturbation. While analysing the data, I will try to grasp the normative attitudes towards masturbation, the sexual behaviour of masturbation of students, and the way students experience their masturbation practices.
23 Chapter 4: Practices of masturbation
4.1 Introduction The general research question of this study is how masturbation is practiced and perceived by highly educated students. The practice of masturbation might have the form of a sexual script, by perceiving it as less or more appropriate according to what, who, where, when, and why, (Gagnon, 1973; 1977; 1990; Simon and Gagnon, 1986). In this way, masturbation practices might only be appropriate under particular circumstances. This chapter will focus on the start of masturbation, masturbation frequency and the difference in childhood and adolescence, the difference in masturbation frequency between male and female students, describe where, when, and why students masturbate in daily life, and whether or not the relationship status of students influences masturbation practices.
4.2 Start of masturbation Male and female students described starting to masturbate when they hit puberty, so at age 12 or 13 or when they started high school. Most of them had trouble remembering how or when they first learned about masturbation. The most common remark was: “I just started doing it and it felt nice”. One of the students describes:
It [masturbation] happened very young, in primary school. I don’t remember exactly in which grade I was. Let’s say second grade [groep 4]. At that time, I didn’t know that it was called masturbation. A friend of mine did it and it was nice or something. When I think back to it now, as an adult, I think that it might be weird. (…) Because you have a certain idea… this happened long before I hit puberty, and because of the general idea I have that you start doing it when you hit puberty (Walter, 2016: 1).
This remark tells us that there’s a particular stage in life in which it’s socially acceptable for you to start exploring sexuality through masturbation, namely puberty. Several other students remembered that they started masturbating before puberty, which also led to remarks such as: “I think I was quite young”. This indicates that the social script determines when masturbation practices are appropriate in relation to age. Although Freud (1905) defines the stage of autoeroticism at the youngest stage in life namely as an infant, this is an idea that’s not generally expressed by students. It seems that it’s not socially expected or acceptable for children to explore their sexuality before puberty, although research has shown that most children do (Arafat and Cotton, 1974; Gagnon, 1977; 1985). Another thing that strikes here is that Walter illustrates how he already masturbated before knowing what it was. Other students
24 made similar remarks. This relates to script theory, where Gagnon and Simon explain how the social-psychological meaning of sexual events is learned after you already do it (1973: 23). This indicates that students learn which behaviour is considered to be ‘sexual’ and, additionally, which sexual behaviour is labelled normal, good, and appropriate compared to bad, deviant, and inappropriate (Seidman, 2003). However, most male students described that they masturbate less frequently compared to during puberty. Jeffrey (2016) illustrates this by saying that masturbation is less ‘needed’ when you’re older: “compared to when I was 14, 15 or 16 years old, I think now I’m doing it less. I think you become more mature or something. It’s no longer necessary.” This relates to the idea of Freud (2005) that masturbation is immature and part of a particular stage in life, namely childhood or puberty. Jeffrey indicates that you’ve to direct your sexual desires towards partnered sexual activities when you’re older. Thus, the idea that adolescent sexual behaviour is directed at socio-sexual contacts (Freud, 2005; Laqueur, 2003), seems to continue to exist.
4.3 Masturbation frequency Male students explain that the frequency of masturbation decreased because they started having partnered sex. Opposed to male students’ experiences, for female students the frequency of masturbation increased with age. According to the psychologist Abramson (1973) this is because older female students develop a more positive attitude regarding sexuality due to sexual experiences. Consequently, this makes up for a “disposition to use masturbation as a form of sexual outlet [that] signifies a positive interest and attitude toward a wide range of expressions of sexuality” (Abramson, 1973: 140). This implies that women’s sexual behaviour is strongly associated with their sexual attitude. Sociologists Arafat and Cotton describe a similar research result by stating that increased openness in sexuality can change behaviour and perceptions of men and women, but emphasise that this applies more to women than to men (1974: 293). This phenomenon might be due to the fact that in general, men are expected to be sexual beings and women are not (Clark and Wiederman, 2000). This issue will be further addressed in the next paragraph. Additionally, I have asked students about their current frequency of masturbation. Within the interviews, female students reported that they masturbated two to four times a week, whereas male students reported four to seven times a week or more. The survey results show similar results of masturbation frequency; here there’s also a discrepancy to be found between male and female students. However, the difference in frequency between male and
25 female students is much higher opposed to the difference within the interviews. The results from the survey show that most male students masturbate three or more times a week, whereas most female students participate one to two times a week, as is shown in bar graph 1.
Male students n=99 100% 80% 60% 41% 40% 27% 23% 20% 8% 0% Daily < 3 Week 1-2 Week > 1 Week
Bar graph 1. Masturbation frequency of the last 12 months among male students in percentages.
It’s remarkable to see that there are no male students at all who masturbate once a month or less, opposed to 16% of female students in bar graph 2. Within bar graph 2 we see a larger range of masturbation frequency of female students. A small percentage of female students reported masturbating once, namely 0,40% which translates to 1 female student.
Female students n=265 100% 80% 60% 33% 40% 28% 19% 16% 20% 3% 0.40% 0% Daily < 3 1-2 > 1 > 1 Once Week Week Week Month
Bar graph 2. Masturbation frequency of the last 12 months among female students in percentages.
Bar graph 3 shows the masturbation frequency of male and female students compared to each other. Male students masturbate 77% more daily than female students. On the contrary, there are no male students who masturbate less than once a month, as opposed to 16% of female students, as we can see in bar graph 2. Although it’s a low percentage, it’s still 100% more than male students, as seen in bar graph 3. Within bar graph 3, I have considered
26 the one female student who masturbated once an outlier, because it gives the data a distorted view. Therefore, I have removed her data from bar graph 3.
Masturbation frequency 100% 100% 90% 90% 77% 79% 80% 70% 60% 55% 50% 45% Male students n=99 40% Female students n=264 30% 23% 21% 20% 10% 10% 0% 0% Daily < 3 Week 1-2 Week > 1 Week > 1 Month
Bar graph 3. Masturbation frequency of the last 12 months among male and female students in percentages.
The difference in masturbation frequency between the interviews and the survey results may be due to the fact that students who participated in an interview about masturbation practices and ideas have a more open attitude towards sexuality. An open attitude can correlate with being more sexually active, which means I possibly talked to a specific group of female students who have a positive attitude about their own sexual feelings and consequently masturbate more.
4.4 Gender The report of a higher frequency by male students can be due to several reasons. By ‘acting out’ or ‘performing’ sexual behaviour that fits one’s gender, one complies with a social script. Because of the relation between masculinity and hyper sexuality, men are presumed to be more ‘naturally into sex’ than women. This ‘innate’ or ‘natural’ characteristic of being a man relates to having a high sex drive (Baumeister et al, 2001; Fahs and Frank, 2014; Gagnon, 1977; 1990; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995; Oliver and Hyde, 1993; Peplau, 2003; Waterink, 2014). Sociologists Laumann and Gagnon relate sex drive to “felt states of desire which appear (…) to be coming from inside (…), from a felt state of need” (1995: 187). It’s not clear what they mean by this feeling of ‘desire’. As described above, this research has also found a difference in masturbation frequency between male and female students. When asked what students meant by ‘desires’ or ‘urges’ they said that it related to feeling ‘horny’.
27 The male social script emphasises hyper- and heterosexuality as key features of masculinity (Allen, 2003; Bem, 1981; McCabe, Tanner and Heiman, 2010; Schrock and Schwalbe, 2009). Hence, within the sexual script for men, it’s more expected and socially appropriate for men to masturbate, which may lead to men over reporting and women under reporting masturbation frequency in order to conform to social norms (Petersen and Hyde, 2010; Robbins et al, 2011). This will be further addressed in the next chapter on social norms regarding masturbation and in chapter seven on sexual autonomy.
4.5 Having a relationship Having a relationship was one of the reasons not to masturbate listed by male and female students. Lucas explains how having a relationship strongly influences his masturbation practices:
I once talked about it with my girlfriend, and told her, hey, I still masturbate sometimes, and she thinks that’s very weird. Because she thinks, you’re together, so you don’t have to masturbate. You don’t need to be turned on by pornographic images. So I think that’s one of the reasons why I masturbate less (Lucas, 2016: 6).
The example of Lucas strongly illustrates the appropriate sexual script within a relationship. According to the historian and sexologist Laqueur, masturbation is considered to be wrong “because it fails to integrate sexuality into the service of love” (2003: 395) which, according to Lucas’ girlfriend, is where his sexual behaviour should be aimed at. Other male students also reported that watching porn and masturbating to it caused problems within previous relationships. This resulted in fights and eventually led to insecurities; some students even started questioning the normality of their own sexuality, such as Julian: “I’ve doubted myself for a long time, whether I was oversexed or something” (2016: 13). Julian’s comment indicates that masturbation is considered inappropriate while being in a relationship (Clark and Wiederman, 2000: 134).
4.6 Place of masturbation Overall, male and female students masturbated in the same place: in their own bedrooms, in bed. Some students masturbated in the shower. Students mostly explained that they masturbated in bed because it of comfort, because that’s where they simmer down or because that’s where they have privacy. Students stated that they masturbate in the evening, at night or
28 in the morning because then they’re in bed. Another reason for masturbating in bed was because it helped students to fall asleep. The most common remark made by students is that masturbation is private and only happens when you’re alone. This relates to Elias’ theory about the civilisation process, which characterises a more intensive control and constraint of human urges. As a result, the personal and affective parts of life are moved to the private sphere, or behind closed doors (Elias, 2011). Students described masturbating in public as something that’s ‘not done’. Some even started laughing just thinking of the idea of masturbating in a public space, implying that it’s ridiculous to even think about it. Here we can see that practices and ideas have an overlap: students consider masturbation as private and something you do alone, therefore they masturbate alone in bed or in the shower, behind closed doors. Thus, masturbation is perceived as socially unaccepted behaviour in public spheres or within the presence of others. This complies to the sexual script of where, when, and how masturbation is considered to be an appropriate sexual act (Gagnon, 1977).
4.7 Masturbation as part of partnered sex Although all students express a desire to be alone in order to masturbate, there are several students who have masturbated in front of others. However, students designate this as ‘part of partnered sex’, and therefore label it as something completely different to solitary sex:
I think masturbating in front of someone else is part of [partnered] sex. So I consider it to be very different from masturbating, although it’s the same movement and the same action, I think it’s part of our sexual ritual, instead of my personal masturbation ritual (Tim, 2016: 5).
The difference in the way students report this is remarkable. On the one hand masturbation has been defined by students as something private and personal which is done completely alone; even the thought of doing it in a more public sphere was laughable. On the other hand, several students describe how they have masturbated in front of their sexual partner. Yet some students do mention that it made them or their partner feel uncomfortable or awkward. Others say that this kind of apprehensiveness can make partnered sex more exciting because of the increase in sexual tension. Some male students say they masturbate during partnered sex for practical reasons, for example in order to stay hard. Others masturbate because they like to climax over a partner’s face.
29 Female students said they saw masturbation as part of foreplay or some sort of ‘after play’, in which they masturbated to a climax because the climax didn’t happen during sex. Tess describes how masturbating during sex can even be a game of power:
It’s something very personal. You become an object and he doesn’t do anything for you. And then you just lie there as a woman. On the one hand it’s kind of like a game of power, because you know you’re turning him on and he’s not allowed to touch you. But on the other hand you’re also an object… it’s very interesting (Tess, 2016: 6).
Tess describes how she feels like an object and a subject at the same time, which consequently gives her a feeling of power. By saying that ‘he doesn’t do anything for you’, she refers to the fact that she’s the one who induces sexual pleasure to herself. Tess may feel as an object because she’s masturbating for the pleasure of her male sexual partner. Women feeling or acting as an object to please men, is explained by the philosopher Young as:
An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the ever present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape and flesh that presents itself as the potential object of another subject's intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention (Young, 1980: 154).
According to Young (1980), women are more likely than men to view themselves as an object and seeing themselves through the eyes of others as an object. This is part of the patriarchal ‘male gaze’ which means that women feel as if they have to be constantly aware of their appearance and looks, in order to be feminine and make men happy (Holland, Ramazanoglu, Sharpe, Thomson, 1998). However, Tess also describes that she’s the one who can decide what she does to her body, if she speeds up or slows down, if she stops or if she comes to a climax. This makes her feel in control.
4.8 Motives for masturbation Tools for masturbation, such as sex toys or pornographic material, also determine the location of masturbation. Almost all the male students designated the use of pornographic materials for masturbation and most of the female students also reported watching porn while masturbating. Yet solely female students expressed using sex toys, such as a vibrator or a dildo for masturbation.
30 Besides listing masturbation as something that helps to fall asleep, students acknowledged several reasons for masturbating. The most important reason to masturbate for both male and female students was to reach a climax. Other reasons were relaxation, pleasure, excitement, exploring your body, releasing stress or tension, taking your mind of things, out of curiosity, perceiving masturbation as a form of ‘me-time’, as a reward after studying, as being soothing, or as a way to safely enact fantasies. Female students also construed how it can relief menstrual pain and listed masturbation as an alternative for sexual satisfaction. Almost all female students said that masturbation was important to them because they were not always able to reach a climax during sexual encounters, and stated that it was difficult for them to come during sex. That’s why some of them preferred masturbation, although it was also not possible for some females to achieve a climax during masturbation.
In my case it’s harder to climax at all, so sometimes I struggle with that. Sometimes I don’t like that it’s so hard for me to come. And then I find it unfortunate for myself, but also for the one who’s with me. But I also kind of have the idea that it’s a lesser deal to men. That they realise to a lesser extent that for women, it’s just as nice and just as important to come to a climax as it is for men. Sometimes I think that’s stupid. I can have the idea that men are not aware of this. Because it’s sort of a tradition, that the man usually always comes to a climax, whereby it [the female’s orgasm] is simply forgotten. That’s also something I do, it’s also in my head. Certainly. But when I look at it in an objective manner, then I think like, huh, that’s actually very weird? That it’s super normal that we always work up to the orgasm of the man, but not the orgasm of me, then I think like, what!? Realising it now and then makes me dislike it, you know? But that’s not only because we both are not aware of it, but also because it’s harder for me to climax. Thus, sometimes I consciously choose not to aim for that, but to let it be. And I don’t mind that, you know. It also differs each time, one time I really want to have an orgasm and the other time I don’t. Then it doesn’t really matter to me (Emma, 2016: 6).
The issue Emma addresses is also acknowledged by other female students, by saying that coming to a climax within partnered sex is ‘hard’ or ‘difficult’ for them. Within the interview, Emma said it could even make her angry. She thinks that men should recognise female’s sexual desires by acknowledging the importance of the female orgasm. However, within the same quote, Emma herself trivialises the importance of the female orgasm by saying that she doesn’t always aim for it herself and that she doesn’t really mind when a climax doesn’t happen. This goes to show that it’s not solely men who don’t acknowledge the importance of female sexual desires, women tend not to prioritise it either. None of the male students mentioned problems with achieving a climax during partnered sex or masturbation. This goes to show that achieving an orgasm during partnered
31 sexual activities or alone is experienced as more difficult for women than for men. Acting assertively or even aggressively on sexual desires and aim for an orgasm is presumed to be part of male sexuality. Due to the presumed female sexual passiveness, women don’t act assertive during partnered sexual activities in order to achieve an orgasm. Complying with the female sexual script, female students conform to this by ‘letting it be’, ‘forgetting about it’ or saying that it’s ‘not necessary’. By trivialising the importance of the female orgasm, female students like Emma reinforce the idea that women don’t have sexual feelings that need to be addressed within heterosexual contacts. This way, they reinforce the ‘essentialness’ of gender (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 135) and confirm to the expectation that female sexuality is more responsive to male sexuality. On the contrary, male students described using masturbation as a way to ‘get the pressure off’ in order to ‘last longer’ during partnered sex:
I think that’s how you’re able to enjoy it more and longer. Of course you can also do it [partnered sex] again, that’s also possible. Or I would masturbate if you have a date where you know something might happen tonight, and you haven’t been on dates for a while or haven’t had any [partnered] sexual action. In order to be more confident, because you might not have [partnered] sex for a month and a half, and then ‘ploop’ all of the sudden it’s over (Jeffrey, 2016: 12).
Jeffrey expresses the expectation of ‘male performance’ within socio-sexual contacts. In most sexual encounters the male climax designates the end of the sexual encounter. This also relates to a sexual script, in which individuals follow a certain sequence of sexual events. Sociologists Muehlenhard and Shippee found that women and men both follow the sexual script in which ultimately the male orgasm indicates the end of partnered sex (2010: 564). Because of this general script, male students might feel pressured to ‘last longer’, hence, perform during sex, and masturbation can help them ‘to get the pressure off’ beforehand.
4.9 Masturbation as a preference Some students expressed that masturbation can be preferred over partnered sexual activities in particular circumstances. The main reason for students to prefer masturbation over partnered sex is because masturbation tends to give quicker and easier orgasms. Students said that they themselves know best what they enjoy and how to do it. Especially female students said they relied on masturbation when feeling unsatisfied after sexual encounters. Jill said she prefers masturbation because then there’s no need to consider her partner:
32 Also, sometimes I think it’s very nice to do something with yourself instead of with a partner who… you don’t have to explain what you like every time, you do it with yourself, so whenever you know that something is nog working out, you can easily switch. It’s kind of lousy every time to say to your partner: ‘okay, normally this works, but could you please do something else this time?’, then the other person might think, what do you want. He can only hear you and see how your body reacts, but by doing it yourself it’s just quicker (Jill, 2016: 13).
Several other students described how masturbation can be ‘selfish’ in that manner: you don’t have to account for anyone, you’re able to focus solely on yourself and your own sexual urges. The next chapter will focus on social ideas and social norms regarding masturbation.
33 Chapter 5: Social ideas on masturbation
5.1 Introduction Practices of masturbation might only be appropriate within particular circumstances and can relate to social ideas on masturbation. This chapter will look into student’s attitudes and thoughts on masturbation according to social expectations and social norms of sexual behaviour, hence, the sexual script. Additionally, the difference in ideas about gender- appropriate sexual behaviour is addressed. Furthermore, this chapter focuses on the way students talk about masturbation with others.
5.2 Attitude towards masturbation Most students perceive masturbation as a replacement for sex, although some argue that masturbation is supplemental to partnered sex. Students who were in a relationship explained how they used masturbation as a sexual outlet when their partner was not around or partnered sex was not an option. Male students stated that the frequency of masturbation decreased because of sexual encounters with others, implying that masturbation is only a substitute of partnered sex. Male students illustrated several stages of their sexual behaviour that follow a track from autoerotic to heterosexual forms of behaviour: “phase I: masturbation, phase II: heterosexual contacts accompanied by masturbation and phase III: heterosexual contacts with or without sporadic masturbation” (Slosarz, 1992). All students said they preferred partnered sex over masturbation because partnered sex is of more value to them. When students were asked why they preferred partnered sex over masturbation, they listed several reasons, such as more fun, more exciting, more variation, more of a dynamic, more of a game. Some students saw it more as matter of ‘convenience’: “I don’t know, when you’re with someone it’s easier to opt for [partnered] sex because that person is already there” (Nicole, 2016: 5), or related partnered sex to social expectations: “(…) [partnered] sex is more credited. It’s easier to brag about [partnered] sex, it’s a more important act” (Julian, 2016: 5). Emma says she prefers partnered sex, even though this doesn’t always result in a climax for her:
Yes, I prefer [partnered] sex. But I think when I’ll only have [partnered] sex and wouldn’t be able to masturbate, I would miss that bodily need because I know it’s hard for me to come with a sex partner, and I know that I like to come. So I wouldn’t want to miss out on that. But yeah, I prefer partnered sex (Emma, 2016: 10).
34
This indicates that socio-sexual contacts are seen as more appropriate and should always be preferred, even when masturbation can lead to quicker and easier orgasms. Students designated partnered sex as something that involves more interaction and social contact, and therefore it’s perceived as something that’s more special:
Look, [partnered sex] is more special. (…) It’s not that you choose one over the other, because the other [masturbation] is also valued, because you are able to do it whenever you want and whenever you feel like it. But the other thing [partnered sex] is more special, because you have to put in effort (Tess, 2016: 8).
Tess suggests that sexual activities that take ‘more effort’ means they’re more special and thus more valued. Tess’s statement is shared with other students who describe similar ideas on how masturbation is more the ‘easy choice’. Yet some students addressed this as a positive thing by highlighting that it’s reassuring to know that masturbation as a safe sexual outlet is always accessible. Almost all students labelled masturbation as an important part of their sexual lives. They consider it important to be able to explore your own body, to release stress or tension, to relax, to stimulate fantasies and because it’s a ‘perfect and easy solution’ to feeling horny. Students say masturbation is a normal sexual act and expect everyone to do it. However, during the interview, students describe thoughts of confusion or insecurity when they were younger about whether or not masturbation was ‘okay’ or ‘normal’ sexual behaviour. When asked where these ideas came from, students usually described that masturbation was a silenced topic when they were young, and often still is. This could also be due to socialisation; parents may disapprove or punish certain behaviours of children that seem sexual, such as touching or exposing their genitals (Gagnon, 1977; 1985; Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995; Patton, 1986). Children may not know it could be associated with sexuality, yet they’re learned that the area around the genitals is not to be touched or exposed. Sophie describes a feeling of ‘wrongdoing’, which made her reluctant to engage in masturbation while living at home: “[just] the fear of getting caught, and being labelled as if I’m doing something wrong” (2016: 3). Parent’s disapproval or embarrassment for this behaviour can cause feelings of shame and anxiety in children (Gagnon and Simon, 1973: 27-41). However, students didn’t address this, yet this could be because students simply don’t remember.
35 5.3 Masturbation as a sexual act Students outline that masturbation can be very different from other sexual activities. The most important difference is that students perceive masturbation as something that you keep entirely to yourself. Most students said this sexual act is more personal and private than partnered sex. While talking about getting caught in a sexual act, students make a very clear distinction between what it’s like getting caught masturbating and getting caught having partnered sex. Jeffrey illustrates:
I think that when your father sees you masturbating, catches you, he’ll think ‘ugh’ [sound of disgust], whereas when he would walk in and see that you’re having sex with a girl, he would think: ‘oh yeah, great man’. You know? Maybe that’s the difference. (…) It’s more cool to get caught having sex with a girl than to get caught masturbating, I think. I think no one would think it’s cool to get caught [masturbating]. When you get caught having sex with a girl you are able to give a thumbs up like: ‘hey, look what I pulled off’. But masturbation is something anyone can do (Jeffrey, 2016: 5).
Jeffrey’s quote about masturbation being ‘less cool’ relates to Tess’s statement about masturbation as ‘less valued’. Both quotes show that masturbation has a more negative connotation than partnered sexual activities. The fact that masturbation is ‘easy’ and that ‘everyone can do it’ indicates that it’s not something that needs to be appreciated. Students who had experiences with getting caught while masturbating made similar remarks by describing feelings of awkwardness or shame. Almost none of the students found getting caught having sex with someone more shameful or more awkward than getting caught masturbating. When asked why partnered sex was less shameful, students designated masturbation is portrayed as ‘sad’, ‘desperate’ or ‘pathetic’. This illustrates that partnered sex is not only more accepted, but also more desirable than masturbation:
I think that [partnered sex] is where it’s ultimately all about. That’s where people act tough about, like: ‘yeah, have you had sex lately?’ You’re not going to tell someone, well, I’ve jerked off today. Then it’s really like, okay, why are you telling me this? There’s no honour to be gained, you know? (Julian, 2016: 5).
The fact that Julian says that there’s ‘no honour to be gained’, confirms the view of masturbation as less valuable and as a type of sexual behaviour that doesn’t need to be appreciated. Other research has contributed to this idea, such as an influential research on sexuality by sexologists Masters and Johnson (1966), that shows a male and female sexual response
36 model. Masters and Johnson stated that a normal (hetero)sexual partnership is represented by the shared need to provide pleasure; the norm of “give to get” (Masters and Johnson, 1970 in Slosarz, 1992: 278). It designates that masturbation is seen as anti-social because it ignores socio-sexual contacts (Gagnon, 1977; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995: 202), which should always be preferred. This is comparable to Jeffrey’s statement. It’s more ‘cool’ to achieve partnered sex, because it’s a social act that’s more desirable which suggests that masturbation is only a lesser substitute for partnered sex. Lisa describes how she currently has casual sexual contacts, but hesitantly says she prefers masturbation:
Lately I think I may be better off doing it by myself. Very crude to say it this way, but… no. (…) (…) Because I have the idea that you should aspire to have a loving relationship in which that kind of things [orgasms] happen. And that you have a man that can fully fulfil your needs. That that is kind of the ideal way (Lisa, 2016: 8).
Lisa feels as if her preference for masturbation is wrong, because she feels as if she should live up to social expectations that signify her acting out sexual feelings within socio-sexual contacts. At this point in the interview, almost all male and female students get confused with their own answers. They explicitly say that masturbation is a normal sexual act, but in the context of getting caught, masturbation is suddenly labelled as very negative. When this discrepancy is pointed out to them, most students realise that they don’t exactly know why they think masturbation is more awkward or more shameful. They cannot think of something that has caused this belief or report a social norm that has influenced them, yet they’re very certain of their statements. This goes to show that although it seems as if masturbation is presumed as ‘normal’ sexual behaviour, students have internalised certain social norms that partnered sexual activities are more desirable and appropriate, and that therefore masturbation is perceived as more negative compared to partnered sex.
5.4 Gender Students were asked about their ideas on the experiences of masturbation for men and women. Yet during the interview most students started talking about gender differences without me explicitly asking about it. Both male and female students expected that men masturbated more than women and related this to biological differences, such as describing women as ‘caring for others’ and men as ‘self-centred’, something that’s also recognised in
37 research (Bensman et al, n.d.). Male students expected women to read romantic love novels, whereas female students expected men to watch pornographic material. This idea of a gender gap in masturbation frequency and use of sexually stimulating materials indicates that traditional ideas on gender are persistent; the idea of men who want sex and women who want love (Leitenberg et al, 1993; Weinberg, Swensson and Hammersmith, 1983). Furthermore, the belief that men masturbate more than women implies that men are still more presumed to initiate sex for physical pleasure, which designates men as sexual beings. Associating these kind of social meanings to internal states, relates to the sexual scripts of men and women (Gagnon and Simon, 1973). Nevertheless, there are also similarities: male and female students expected that men and women masturbate for the same reason, namely (sexual) pleasure. Female students reported more restrictive normative ideas about masturbation than male students. Emily says: “I think that women are only allowed to enjoy sex with a man. That’s how I see it” (2016: 8). Moreover, several female students described that they used to think of masturbation as a ‘guy thing’ and that it was abnormal for them as a woman to engage in it. According to Emma, this is due to the idea that men are presumed to have “more sexual needs” than women (2016: 11). This affects women’s sexual behaviour and makes it hard for them to allow themselves to act on sexual desires. Tess makes a similar comment by stating that it’s expected of women to be “well-behaved”, “nice”, and “pure” and that men are more “allowed to act beastly” (2016: 8). Several female students saw themselves as having more sexual feelings than other women because they masturbated three to four times a week and expected most other women to masturbate less, implying that most women don’t have a lot of sexual feelings. Some female students even thought for a long time that they were the only one in their milieu to practice masturbation:
During my second year [in university] I found out that there was something called feminist pornography. And that it turned out that most women masturbate. At first I really thought that I was the 1%. Also because of the idea that masturbation was gross and that vaginas were filthy (Nicole, 2016: 4).
When asked where these ideas come from, most female students say it’s because masturbation is not talked about in their milieu, as is also quoted by Nicole who says that female sexual desires were never discussed. According to all students, but female students in particular,
38 masturbation is an undiscussed topic that consequently leads to feelings of confusion whether or not it’s okay or normal.
I think it has something to do with the difference between men and women. For men, masturbation is much more part of their culture. When you look at women, it’s much less of a topic. It’s much more secretive. And I think because of this secrecy, you don’t have any knowledge about it at all, for instance percentages you know? How much percent of Dutch women masturbate. If you don’t even know that, then you’re not able to compare your own personal situation with the rest of the Netherlands. So you don’t know where you’re at. You don’t know if that’s what you’re doing is weird or not. (…) No one pays any attention to it. There’s no talk about it whatsoever. Also not on television or in the media. Or in newspapers or something. Nowadays there are a lot of articles about sex, also in a more serious matter, like an opinion or an academic article. But I think that masturbation is still a bridge too far (Emma, 2016: 5).
Emma explains that not acknowledging female sexual desires creates a sphere of mysteriousness and secrecy regarding female sexuality. Other researchers also agree with Emma’s statement. According to the researchers Fahs and Frank, the hiddenness of masturbation among women defiles how women talk and think about, and additionally engage in masturbation practices (2014: 241). A study by scientist Shelton explains that the general taboo against even talking about it fortifies the idea that there’s something wrong with masturbation (2010: 157), something that is also expressed by Emma in the quote above.
5.5 Sexual education Students express a change in attitude towards masturbation from childhood or puberty into adolescence, because they started to consider masturbation as more normal sexual behaviour. This change in attitude is caused by learning more about sexuality from others, such as friends or classmates, or via television, magazines, or the Internet. Only three students said their mothers talked to them about masturbation. Mothers told students that having sexual feelings is common and that masturbation is a normal way of dealing with sexual desires. Students themselves say they generally found these type of conversations awkward and unnecessary. Other research also reports the mother as the main sex educator (Gagnon, 1985), yet several students didn’t receive any sexual education from their parents. Those who did, remembered that it was mostly about practicing safe partnered sex in order to avoid pregnancy’s and sexual transmitted diseases.
39 All students received sexual education at school, most did in primary school as well as in high school. Sexual education at school mostly entailed the development of the male and female body, how reproduction works, and how to use a condom. Other research has found similar results that indicates that sexual education from school or parents revolves mainly around risk avoidance and doesn’t include positive facets of sexuality (Hogarth and Ingham, 2009: 558; Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 986). Only two students said that masturbation was part of their sexual education program at school, unfortunately they didn’t remember in which manner. Several students mentioned learning a lot from Spuiten en Slikken, a Dutch television program about sexuality and drugs.5
I used to watch a lot of Spuiten en Slikken and in that program everything about sexuality and drugs is being covered. Masturbation has also been a topic, and when you see people talking about it without any shame, then you think to yourself, yeah, it’s normal. To have the recurrent validation that it’s normal, causes it to be more neutral for yourself as well (Emma, 2016: 8).
Emma explains how the television program Spuiten en Slikken has helped her to understand and make sense of her own sexuality and sexual feelings. Most students described learning mainly about different forms of sexuality, including masturbation, by looking it up on the Internet, by watching television shows about sexuality or looking at teen magazines. Students said they preferred it this way, because talking about sexuality with their parents made them uncomfortable.
5.6 Talking about masturbation Male students illustrate that masturbation is much more of a conversation topic among their peers, even when they’re younger. Most male students described talking about masturbation with their (mostly male) friends. Female students generally don’t talk about masturbation with their female friends, yet they tend to talk about it with their male friends. Female students said they feel ‘less judged’ by their male friends. Other research shows that women tend to have a more negative attitude towards masturbation than men (Fahs and Frank, 2014). This might explain why female students with a positive attitude towards masturbation rather talk to men, because of the expectation or experience of women having a more negative attitude. Emma says she rather talks to men about masturbation because sex in general is less of a taboo for
5 See the website for more information about Spuiten en Slikken: http://spuitenenslikken.bnn.nl/
40 men: “because they [men] are sexual themselves and that’s socially accepted, so they’ll understand more that this also holds for women” (2016: 7). However, all students say that the topic causes awkwardness and shame, which indicates that the topic of masturbation is still one of secrecy and silence. A lot of female students reported (almost) never talking about masturbation with others. Other research has found similar results that indicated that women don’t generally talk about masturbation (Davidson and Moore, 1994: 192; Hogarth and Ingham, 2009: 562; Mosher, 1979: 326). Nevertheless, most students do emphasise the importance of a discussion about masturbation, because it has a ‘normalising effect’ which additionally reassures and validates students’ own sexual behaviour. More male students than female students reported such a statement. Male students also indicate that joking or talking about it can legitimise masturbation as a sexual act:
It has a normalising effect. Because you hear: ‘I do it too’ and jokes are being made about it. It becomes casual in that way. And I’ve noticed that everyone around me perceives it as something normal, as something healthy, as something that’s fun (Julian, 2016: 7).
All students make an explicit distinction between talking about partnered sex and talking about masturbation. Partnered sex is a regular conversation topic in students’ lives, conversely, masturbation isn’t. A common and very intriguing remark is: ‘it’s not a subject of taboo, it’s just that no one talks about it’, whereas the lack of discussion of this particular sexual behaviour underlines that masturbation is in fact a subject of taboo. The next chapter will focus on feelings of shame and guilt concerning masturbation.
41 Chapter 6: Feelings of shame and guilt
6.1 Introduction Although students acknowledge masturbation as a common and widely practiced sexual act, students still report feelings of shame, awkwardness, secrecy, taboos and even concerns about masturbation. This chapter focuses on whether or not students experience shame or guilt, and additionally, when exactly shame or guilt develops regarding the ideas on and practices of masturbation. Not enacting sexual appropriate scripts might lead to feeling ashamed, because one is challenging social expectations (Elias, 2011; Gagnon, 1990; 1977).
6.2 Shame As described in the previous chapter, students who have been caught masturbating describe intense feelings of shame, because masturbation then becomes part of the public sphere. In order to prevent this, students describe an atmosphere of secrecy and ‘being sneaky’ while engaging in masturbation. Walter illustrates feelings of shame about his masturbation practices towards his girlfriend:
Maybe I do feel a bit of shame towards my girlfriend, when I lie in bed at night and masturbate. That it’s sort of a thing, that I have the feeling that she wouldn’t be comfortable with it, and that’s why you do it less (Walter, 2016: 9).
Walter’s comment illustrates that masturbation can also be shameful because he feels as if it’s inappropriate to do within the context of a relationship. Partnered sexual activities are more appropriate and desirable, therefore students who are in a relationship should always prefer partnered sex over masturbation. Walter challenges social expectations by choosing to engage in masturbation although he can opt for partnered sex with his girlfriend, which causes feelings of ‘deviant’ behaviour and thus shame. During the interview, single students validated their masturbating behaviour by stating that they’re not in a relationship at the moment, therefore they masturbate more:
Sometimes you talk about it with friends, and they react surprised when I say I do it every day. Their reaction is: “huh, what!” But yeah, most of those friends all have girlfriends, so that makes up for a different situation. I don’t know if shame is the right word, but it’s uncomfortable (Kevin, 2016: 8-9).
42 In his statement Kevin legitimises his current masturbation frequency by implying that masturbation is perceived as more normal and appropriate sexual behaviour when you’re not in a relationship. Thus, masturbation is a more appropriate part of the sexual script outside of a relationship, and therefore less shameful. Feelings of shame also arise when students talk about masturbation. They emphasise the personal and private context of masturbation, and stress that this makes it hard to talk about it. None of the students reported weird or awkward feelings while talking about partnered sexual activities. Because talking about masturbation is seen as more personal and intimate than talking about partnered sex, students reported a feeling of apprehension during the interview. Most students said they never talked this extensively about their own practices of and ideas about masturbation before. Emily said she would like to talk more about masturbation, but doesn’t dare to because of social expectations: “yeah, I think it’s very interesting and I would very much like to talk about it, but it feels as if that’s not okay. Then when people find out that you’re doing it a lot, they may disapprove of it or something” (2016: 6). Thus, feelings of shame mainly occurred when masturbation became something public, such as while talking about it or when one gets caught masturbating. This relates to the civilisation theory of Elias (2011) that states that within the civilisation process individuals learn to control and monitor their behaviour to comply with social norms. The self-constraint of urges becomes a mutual shared expectation among individuals. It relates to socialisation of the body, which means that natural functions are socially regulated and managed (Shilling, 2012: 167) and were only supposed to appear within private spheres (Elias, 2011). This means that shame of masturbation appears whenever it becomes visible or talked about, and thus no longer remains behind closed doors in the private or personal sphere. According to Freud, feelings of shame arise as a reaction to “publicly [calling] attention to oneself sexually” (Tangney and Dearing, 2002: 12), which is exactly what happens when students talk about masturbation practices or get caught masturbating. Male and female students that filled in the survey also reported feelings of shame. Bar graph 4 shows that only 10% of male students often and only 16% has sometimes felt ashamed of their masturbation practices. Over a third (39%) of male students reported never feeling ashamed of masturbation practices.
43 Male students n=101 100% 80% 60% 39% 40% 32% 16% 10% 20% 4% 0% Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always
Bar graph 4. To what extent male students have (ever) felt ashamed of their masturbation practices in percentages.
Bar graph 5 shows that female students generally don’t feel shame: 34% of female students state that they never feel shame, next to 42% reporting rarely feeling ashamed of their masturbation practices.
Female students n=283 100% 80% 60% 42% 34% 40% 13% 20% 7% 3% 0% Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always
Bar graph 5. To what extent female students have (ever) felt ashamed of their masturbation practices in percentages.
This is extraordinary, because most students in the interviews did report feelings of shame concerning masturbation. The data from the survey shows that male and female students don’t differ that much regarding feelings of shame of masturbation practices, which is also an inconsistency between the results of the interviews and the results of the survey. Within the interviews female students generally talked more about feeling ashamed, because they thought that masturbation was more of a ‘guy thing’ and thus not appropriate for women. However, female students who have filled in the survey generally didn’t report feelings of shame. It’s puzzling to me why the qualitative and the quantitative data are so inconsistent. It could be that students who have filled in the survey didn’t report feelings of shame because they designated negative feelings revolving around masturbation as feelings of guilt.
44 6.3 Guilt Although most students in the interviews reported shame as one of the feelings that emerges when talking about masturbation or getting caught masturbating, almost none of the students who participated in the interviews reported feelings of guilt. Jill reported feeling guilty towards her boyfriend while masturbating because she sometimes fantasises about someone else (2016: 11). However, her guilty feelings seem to mainly revolve around her fantasies instead of her masturbation practices. Sophie describes feeling guilty, but also uses the word shame:
When I was younger, during puberty, I occasionally touched myself and then felt sincerely guilty for what I was doing. And also guilty about the fact that I liked it. But when I got older, wiser, that shameful feeling has lessened. And now I rarely feel that way (Sophie, 2016: 7).
Sophie started masturbating after she had her first sexual experience with a partner, which gave her confidence to explore her sexual desires on her own. This goes to show that women generally don’t express their sexual feelings without a partner, and that women feel a lesser allowance to pursue pleasure out of the context of a relationship (Kaestle and Allen, 2011). Within the interviews of this study, students generally didn’t address feelings of guilt. However, the results of the survey show a great amount of guilt concerning masturbation practices by male and female students. Bar graph 6 shows that 58% of male students signified always feeling guilty of masturbation practices. This is an unexpected research result, because none of the male students in the interviews talked about feeling guilty of masturbation.
Male students n=102 100% 80% 58% 60% 40% 16% 20% 13% 13% 0% Rarely Sometimes Often Always
Bar graph 6. To what extent male students have (ever) felt guilty of their masturbation practices in percentages.
Bar graph 7 shows similar results for female students who have participated in the survey. The percentage for female students who often feel quilt is a little higher than for male
45 students, namely 23%. The percentage for always feeling guilty about masturbation practices is the same for female students as for male students, namely 58%. This is a remarkable result, next to a very high percentage. It seems that students who have participated in the survey signified feelings of guilt rather than feelings of shame of masturbation practices.
Female students n=282 100% 80% 58% 60% 40% 23% 20% 12% 7% 0% Rarely Sometimes Often Always
Bar graph 7. To what extent female students have (ever) felt guilty of their masturbation practices in percentages.
It’s interesting to see that male and female students feel equally guilty about their masturbation practices, though most female students in the interviews have said that masturbation is less appropriate for women, which evidently made them feel more ashamed of their masturbation practices. Yet a great amount of other studies also argue that feelings of guilt are associated with practices of masturbation (Abramson and Mosher, 1975; Arafat and Cotton, 1974; Greenberg and Archambault, 1973; Langston, 1975; Mosher, 1979; Robbins et al, 2011), and additionally state that feelings of guilt are more common among women than men (Davidson and Darling, 1993; Davidson and Moore, 1994; Fahs and Frank, 2014; Kaestle and Allen, 2011; Laqueur, 2003; Mosher and Vonderheide, 1985). These studies state that challenging social expectations by deviating from the gendered sexual script rather causes guilt instead of shame, because it relates to ‘wrongdoing’ of sexual behaviour. According to Laqueur, feelings of guilt about masturbation practices emerges because it conflicts with the “social principle” (2003: 393). However, no former study has argued that men feel just as guilty as women about masturbation. An explanation for this surprising research result is that male and female students in the interviews stress the importance of sexuality as a shared, intimate activity. Engaging in masturbation means drawing away from these socio-sexual contacts, which can lead to feelings of guilt, because one feels as if he or she is doing something ‘wrong’.
46 The reason for inconsistency between the report of feelings of guilt between students who participated in the interviews and students who filled in the survey, is a difference in attitude; students who were willing to do an interview identified as having an open sexual attitude, which indicates lesser feelings of guilt about sexual practices. Furthermore, the feelings shame and guilt are often interrelated. Designating the difference between ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’ is part of a greater discussion that has also been addressed in other research (Tangney and Dearing, 2002). Subsequently, students may have different interpretations of the concepts shame and guilt, which might have led to different responses.
6.4 Consequences of shame Within the interviews, several students addressed that feelings of shame affected their masturbation practices. Feeling shameful caused students not being able to enjoy masturbation, even when it occurs within the private sphere:
It really takes the pleasure out of it. You’re doing something pleasant, but you think that it’s not allowed, and that makes it less pleasant. And pleasure surely is the goal of masturbation, feeling pleasant (Sophie, 2016: 7).
This quote shows that Sophie’s ego tries to compromise between the id and the superego. Whenever an individual’s behaviour (the ego) doesn’t match idealistic or moralistic behaviour (the superego), feelings of shame or guilt can emerge, which is what Sophie’s quote displays. The sociologist Elias uses Freud’s personality theory in relation to his own civilisation theory (2011). According to Elias, the id consists of natural behaviour, whereas the ego and the superego entail self-constraint equipment. The ego and superego refer to the rationalisation of urges (the id) in order to account for others and for long term purposes. Thus, it’s of greater importance to constrain and regulate urges and emotions, such as sexual feelings. Giving in to urges will not only lead to a moral conflict between the ego and the superego, but additionally to breaking social rules and getting socially ostracised by others. The fear of doing something sexually that could be wrongly assessed by others results in the consequence that Sophie is unable to fully enjoy her masturbation practices. Moreover, some students reported concerns about their masturbation practices. Several male and female students worried whether or not their masturbation frequency was of a ‘normal’ amount and looked for validation during or after the interview, by asking how often
47 I myself masturbate, what other students had reported and whether or not their masturbation frequency was similar to others. Kevin even wondered if there were special guidelines for masturbation frequency (2016: 11). Some students worry that masturbation can become an addiction because of engaging in it too much. Other students expressed using masturbation in order to keep up their sex drive. The concern was that their sex drive would decrease when they wouldn’t engage in masturbation or in other sexual activities for a long time. However, students said they didn’t worry about the amount of partnered sexual activities they engaged in. This goes to show that due to silencing the sexual act of masturbation, there’s a lot of ambiguity about the ‘normality’ of this practice. Likewise, other research has found that respondents report insecurity, concerns, and even anxiety regarding masturbation (Arafat and Cotton, 1974; Kaestle and Allen, 2011; Laqueur, 2003). Sophie thinks this is because of a lot of ignorance concerning masturbation: “(…) if your parents never told you anything about it, then you’ve to find out about it all on your own, and then you don’t know if what you’re doing is right or wrong” (2016: 8). By hardly or not at all discussing the topic, it strengthens the idea that masturbation has to be done in secret and that there’s something wrong with it (Shelton, 2010: 157).
6.5 Self-constraint Because of the general idea on where and when masturbation is appropriate, students report an amount of self-constraint when it comes to masturbation. Whenever students feel like masturbating, they illustrated how they waited until they were at home and in their own bedrooms. They said they needed to be able to constrain this urge because: ‘masturbation is not that important’, or ‘it’s not like I’m always doing it in an excessive manner’ or ‘it is nice, but it’s not like a necessary urge’. Thus, students wanted to represent that although they frequently masturbate, they’re still civilised individuals that are able to resist animalistic urges. This is associated with Christian beliefs, because giving in to sexual impulses such as masturbation was seen as weak and animalistic, whereas a respectable, religious and civilised individual would be strong enough to resist such urges and conform to Christian values, such as sexual restraint and chastity (Gagnon, 1977; 1985; Fine, 1988; Laqueur, 2003). However, one student described how he once was not able to control his desire to masturbate:
48 I was on vacation with my parents and my brother and we slept in a tent. And I felt the urge. Now I would never do that or have that urge at all, or I would be able to postpone that urge. But apparently then it [the urge to masturbate] was very acute (Julian, 2016: 6).
Julian says his own lack of self-constraint which led him to masturbate in a space with his family nearby is something he would never do now. He implies with his comment that it’s not appropriate to give into urges at all times, but that there’s a time and a place such as in private and behind closed doors (Elias, 2011). Kevin explains that masturbation in public is different opposed to having sex in public:
For instance, when someone is jerking off somewhere in an alley, then you think: ‘yuck, that’s dirty’. And when you see two people having sex then you’ll have a different feeling. Then I think it’s also the kick, because you’re doing it together and it’s something you share. When you’re alone, then you think I can also do it [masturbate] when I’m home in half an hour (Kevin, 2016: 4).
Other students have made similar remarks by saying that people who are not able to control their urges are ‘sad’, ‘pathetic’, or even ‘dirty’. This goes to show that students not only believe that others will disapprove of their masturbation practices in public, they also disapprove of this themselves. Moreover, Elias (2011) doesn’t make a distinction between which bodily urges should remain behind closed doors and which should not. According to him, all bodily urges are supposed to be “removed behind the scenes of social life” (Elias, 1978 in Scheff, 2003: 249), thus making it invisible to others. Students however make a very clear distinction between masturbation and partnered sexual activities. Masturbation is solely done within your own private sphere, such as your bedroom. On the contrary, partnered sexual activities in public are ‘fun’, ‘exciting’ and ‘gives a kick’, something that is also described by the sociologist Hekma, who explains that sexuality not only remains within the private spheres of life, but can also become public in cruising areas and sex clubs, and by people who buy or sell sexual acts on the street, for instance at the Red Light District in Amsterdam (1994: 12-13). Thus, students regulate and monitor their behaviour and state that it’s not civilised to masturbate at public places or in a shared living room where other roommates could walk in. Lucas illustrates this by saying: “when I walk around in the UvA and something or someone turns me on, I don’t immediately dive into the bathroom to masturbate” (2016: 9). Conversely, Lucas says he waits until he gets home to masturbate. So, students learn to
49 internalise social ideas on what is appropriate behaviour and it results in an internal constraint of monitoring one’s own behaviour. Furthermore, the internalisation of socialised ideas relates to the construction of a gendered sexual script, in which the cultural level represents how a woman or a man should or should not behave sexually. This cultural script becomes internalised by the individual on an intrapsychic level that refers to individual’s thoughts and desires. Accordingly, the sexual conduct eventually expressed by individuals is socially dictated (Gagnon, 1973; 1977; 1990; Simon and Gagnon, 1986).
6.6 Gender Students reported that they expected women to be more ashamed of masturbation. Some male students described how an experience with an (ex-)girlfriend caused this idea or because of situations in which the topic of masturbation has come up within a group of friends and the women started to act shameful, by giggling, turning red or refusing to talk about it. Furthermore, male students reported joking about masturbation with other male friends. They didn’t expect women to make jokes, and comparably, female students didn’t report making jokes or comments about masturbation among their peers. This complies with other research about men having access to a shared language of sexuality, which is presumed as inappropriate for women (Fahs and Frank, 2014; Hogarth and Ingham, 2009: 565). Because of the male sexual script as the man being sexually active and assertive it’s up to men to establish socio-sexual contacts (Abramson, 1973). According to Abramson, this indicates that it’s more shameful for men to masturbate because it means they failed in establishing a socio-sexual contact, which is something a man should always aim at (1973: 141). Several male students have touched upon this social expectation for men. One female student also says:
(…) with a dude it’s more fun entertainment, something everyone grants you. (…) I used to think I thought enough about sex, but this is difficult. Let me think. [Partnered sex] is a kind of trophy? (…) Like, look I hooked up with someone, that’s great, but you can’t say, look I finger myself, isn’t that nice? (Tess, 2016: 4).
Tess illustrates that it’s just as important for women to establish sexual contacts instead of engaging in masturbation, although Abramson (1973) argues that masturbation is more shameful for men because of the social expectation that men should be the ones to initiate and
50 establish sexual contact. Overall, this goes to show that partnered sexual activities are more ‘granted’ and therefore more appropriate than masturbation practices for both genders. However, other research argues that masturbation is more shameful for women because women are not expected to have sexual behaviour which is not responsive to a sexual partner (Bensman et al, n.d.; Hartley and Drew, 2002; Kaestle and Allen, 2011; Mosher, 1979). This is due to the general social idea that women are less ‘into sex’ than men, thus, having low sexual desires and therefore a lesser or no need to masturbate. By engaging in masturbation, women don’t conform to this sexual script of passive and responsive sexual behaviour (Clark and Wiederman, 2000). Consequently, this may create feelings of shame because women challenge social expectations by acting independently on their own sexual desires (Gagnon, 1977; 1990). Emily illustrates this by saying:
I always thought that others were not that into it [masturbation] as I was. As if it was absurd that I thought it was that interesting. That made me feel ashamed. (…) I think masturbation is more a common thing among men. And I think with women it’s still more of an undiscussed topic. Like, women don’t like sex. That’s still the idea (Emily, 2016: 8).
Female students like Emily generally designate masturbation as part of the male sexual script. The female sexual script refers to passive and responsive female sexual behaviour, and female students are not expected to act on their own sexual feelings. This means that they’re expected to masturbate either to a lesser extent or not at all. Most female students referred to this by indicating that acting on sexual desires through masturbation was more of a ‘guy thing’.
6.7 Positive feelings Next to negative feelings such as shame and guilt, or ambivalent feelings such as confusion and uncertainty, students also reported positive feelings about masturbation. They say masturbation makes you happy, relaxed, fun and pleasurable. Additionally, other research has also found the report of positive feelings regarding masturbation, such as pleasure, enjoyment and sexual stimulation (Mosher, 1979). Students say that masturbation is something they see as a reward, for instance after a period of hard studying. This way, masturbation for students can even be something they look forward to. The next chapter focuses on how masturbation practices influences the sexual autonomy of students.
51 Chapter 7: Sexual autonomy
7.1 Introduction Conducting sexuality through a sexual script indicates conforming to social expectations of how men or women should behave sexually. By not acknowledging or acting on one’s own sexual desires, especially female students might feel less sexual autonomous. Sexual autonomy indicates an “inner consistency between one’s desires and choices” (Sanchez, Crocker and Boike, 2005: 1447). Masturbation can give students a feeling of empowerment, with an emphasis on female empowerment: particularly female students can feel more active instead of responsive in sexual behaviour. Students who engage in masturbation can feel more sexually autonomous because they choose to act on their sexual desires. This chapter will explore the importance of masturbation for students, how students decide to masturbate, and to what extent masturbation can generate confidence in expressing sexuality and additionally provide more pleasure during partnered sex.
7.2 Choice to masturbate Students generally say they decide to masturbate when they feel horny and when they have the possibility to do it, which means being alone and on a private location. For all students, masturbation was a first way of getting in touch with their own sexuality. Students mostly explained they masturbated out of curiosity and in order to explore their own bodies.
[Masturbation] has been important to discover what I like. Now it’s important because it’s really a moment just for me. It can also be a reward to myself, when I’ve had a long day of work (Emily, 2016: 10).
Emily said masturbation has been important to discover what she finds sexually pleasurable. Other students have made comparable remarks by saying that they use masturbation as a way to gain and discover sexual pleasure. Other research has found similar results that describe how young people engage in masturbation practices in order to explore and get to know their own sexual feelings (Gerressu et al, 2007).
7.3 Confidence Almost all students described that masturbation taught them what feels pleasurable to them. Consequently, students feel confident about their own sexual desires, as Emma (2016)
52 describes: “when you masturbate, it indicates that having sexual desires is supernormal and okay to you personally, otherwise you wouldn’t do it.” This description of a uniformity between an individual’s desires and choices relates to the definition of sexual autonomy by Sanchez et al (2005), and other research on sexual autonomy that signify masturbation as a way to get in touch with your own sexual desires and conduct sexuality through choice instead of proscribed social expectations (Gagnon, 1977; Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Laqueur, 2003). According to the sociologist Gagnon, “masturbation can offer women an opportunity for private sexual expression, the opportunity to explore their own bodies sexually without another person conditioning how they feel or what they will do” (1977: 161). By ‘another person’ Gagnon refers to socio-sexual contacts between men and women, in which women learn to be responsive to male sexuality (1977: 161). Furthermore, students explain a confident feeling in expressing their sexual feelings within socio-sexual contacts:
Because I’m more aware of my own body, I can denote it in sex with someone else. I have more and better knowledge of what I like and what I don’t like, and that’s something I’ve discovered through masturbation (Emily, 2016: 11).
Emily says that masturbation gives her the opportunity to explore her own body and her own sexual desires, which accordingly helps to enjoy partnered sex as well. Male students also referred to the importance of masturbation in order to denote what they find pleasurable, yet to a lesser extent than female students. In this way, masturbation seems to play a greater role within female sexuality because it gives women a chance to express their sexuality in an active and assertive way, instead of a passive and responsive manner. Female students are able to explore their own sexual preferences and additionally, “communicate those preferences to partners” (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 992).
7.4 Gender When it comes to sexuality, men are perceived as sexual agents, acting on desire and being sexually active. Because of feminine traits as ‘passive’ and having a ‘low sex drive’, women are perceived as sexual objects rather than subjects (Allen, 2003; Bem, 1981; Campbell, 1995). The psychologist Tolman (1991) describes how women are to be seen as sexually arousing (objective), but never to actually be sexually aroused (subjective). Especially female
53 students who decide to engage in masturbation can feel more like a subject, and thus sexual autonomous, than women who don’t. Other female students have touched upon this belief:
There are girls who don’t masturbate, that never started to engage in it. But because of that, their experiences with a sex partner are more apprehensive. And they are afraid to be honest about what they like and what they don’t like. Because it has to do with self-acceptance, that’s why I can be honest with a partner about what I like and what I don’t like. And because you’re honest, the quality of sex increases and that makes it more fun of course (Emma, 2016: 7-8).
According to Emma, by masturbating as a woman, you can point out what you find pleasurable. Subsequently, this makes partnered sex also ‘more fun’. Additionally, some male students describe how they have encountered difficulties with former girlfriends who didn’t masturbate:
She never wanted to do it, she didn’t feel the urge. (…) I don’t know if it’s true, maybe that’s how I interpreted it. But I said to her, like: ‘if you don’t know your own body, how am I supposed to handle it well?’ I think that’s where it comes down to. Because you have to know something in order to g ive someone feedback (Julian, 2016: 14).
Julian’s statement goes to show that both male and female students think masturbation is important to explore your sexuality, in particular female sexuality. Furthermore, other research states that media sources about masturbation such as television, the Internet and lifestyle magazines determine masturbation solely as something where you learn what turns you on in order to enhance your sex life with a steady (heterosexual) partner (Frith, 2015; Gill, 2009; Ménard and Kleinplatz, 2007). This refers to masturbation being the “training-ground for heterosexuality” (Laqueur, 2003), which is in line with the ideas of Freud and other research that illustrates that masturbation is a process that is used to acquire knowledge and skills necessary for socio-sexual contacts (Horne and Zimmer- Gembeck, 2005; Leitenberg et al, 1993). This implies that self-understanding of your sexuality due to self-exploring is meant to be used for partnered sexual activities. Women need to know what they find pleasurable in order to use this information within partnered sex and to ultimately constitute satisfying relationships, instead of simply enjoying their female sexuality.
54 Although several students have emphasised the importance of masturbation as a means with the goal of establishing ‘good’ and ‘pleasurable’ partnered sex, male and female students also stressed practicing masturbation as a way to satisfy one’s own sexual desires.
Masturbation is pleasurable to do. And also part of relaxation or something. Especially after a long day it’s nice to have such a tool on your hands, without having to go somewhere, that you need to go work out or whatever. It’s something you can operate yourself which gives you a feeling of relaxation (Kevin, 2016: 6).
I’m more aware of my own body and my own desires. I know better what I like and that I also only need myself to do it. I don’t have to depend on anyone (Emily, 2016: 11).
These quotes by Kevin and Emily show that acting autonomously and independently on your sexual desires without having to account for someone else is valued by male and female students. Especially female students can develop an increase of “levels of comfort with their own bodies and sexual responses” (Davidson and Moore, 1994: 180). All students determine masturbation as an independent and obtainable sexual outlet for their sexual feelings.
7.5 Control Both male and female students reported feeling more ‘in control’ while masturbating. One of the factors that make up for sexual self-esteem determines a notion of control: “the control one feels one has over the sexual environment is likely to be an important (…) component of the sexual self” (Buzwell and Rosenthal, 1996: 492). This feeling of control relates to engaging in masturbation whenever you want, without accounting for anyone else, doing whatever feels good, or to hold off or speed up an orgasm.
With a partner it’s different. When you’re not doing it yourself, in that way receiving is odd, because then you don’t have any control anymore. Normally you have somewhat control over when you come, so you can speed it up and then you are able to come. But when you do it with a partner, then the partner has that control. Then that partner does the motion that feels pleasurable, so to say (Walter, 2016: 8).
Mostly female students described being able to solely focus on yourself during masturbation, rather than thinking about how the other sees you, as one of the perks of masturbation. Both male and female students said because sex is something that you do together, it means you’re
55 depending on someone else and have to account for someone else. That way, Lisa describes partnered sex as more of a ‘performance’:
I’m not super confident with these kind of things, so I always think: ‘am I doing it right’ and ‘is this okay’. I think men are generally more quiet, so you don’t really know what’s okay and what’s not. You’re more in your head thinking about other things instead of giving into the moment itself. That’s what happens to me. When you’re alone, you only have to think about that. So you can completely focus on yourself. Then you can let go of the other ideas (Lisa, 2016: 5).
The notion of an aspiration to feel independent was generally expressed by female students, who illustrated having difficulties climaxing during partnered sex. Therefore, they rated masturbation as highly important to them, because it was an ‘easy’, ‘uncomplicated’ and ‘independent’ way of achieving a climax. Additionally, female students felt as if masturbation was “freeing them from dependency on men for sexual gratification” and therefore made them feel more “in control of their sexual needs” (Davidson and Moore, 1994: 179).
7.6 Script Beliefs and social expectations of sexuality on a social level become internalised by individuals in the form of a sexual script. According to the sociologists Gagnon and Simon, the origins of masturbation practices are “located in gender-role training and with its outcomes linked to a wide range of sexual performances” (1973: 66). Regarding sexual behaviour, it’s assumed that men and women ‘naturally’ differ. There’s an ongoing discourse that perceives men as active and willing and women as passive and reluctant (Allen, 2003; Bem, 1981; Campbell, 1995). This discourse complies to the sexual script of male and female students. Being ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ means acting male or female. Certain social traits construct the categories ‘male’ and ‘female’ (Schrock and Schwalbe, 2009: 278). It’s a performance that needs to be legitimised by society: “to be credited as a man [or a woman], is to put on a convincing manhood [or womanhood] act” (Ibid, 2009: 279). It doesn’t suggest that individuals have no agency at all in whether or not to conform to a sexual script. It does however mean that it becomes more difficult to challenge existing social norms and expectations regarding sexuality. Because people’s “self-worth is contingent on meeting the norms” (Sanchez et al, 2005: 1451), it will give individuals a motivation to conform to social expectations, and therefore to gender-appropriate behaviour. For male students, the frequency of masturbation seemed to be something of a balance board; it should not be too much, but it also definitely should not be too little. Jeffrey
56 describes it is something that should be part of your masculinity: “I used to be part of a group of guys that would act somewhat tough about it. Like shaving your balls, you know? Like: ‘you don’t do that either?!’” (2016: 2). Thus according to Jeffrey, enacting masculinity means masturbating and shaving your balls. However, conforming to gender norms means conforming to the sexual script with particular behaviours that are not necessarily your own, which can evidently lead to low sexual autonomy. Julian explains how he’s ‘careful’ in handling ‘casual’ sexual contacts, but feels as if he should not be:
It’s as if that should be my role as a man. That’s something I think. And apparently, I can’t comply with that. As a man, you feel, yeah, that you should be very sexually configured. I play rugby and there it’s also always about sex (Julian, 2016: 12).
Julian demonstrates how he feels pressured to be ‘into sex’ all the time, because he’s a man and needs to conform to the “manhood act” of being hyper sexual (Schrock and Schwalbe, 2009). Evidently, this also holds for women who have sexual desires but feel as if they’re not supposed to act on these feelings because of social expectations of women as sexually passive. According to the psychologist Fine, this is because women are always a potential victim of male sexuality and therefore are educated through “protective discourses” (Holland et al, 1998). It means that women are always perceived as a sexual object instead of a sexual subject. These discourses consist of victimisation, (unwanted) pregnancies, sexual transmitted diseases, and expected moral, hence, ‘good girl’, behaviour. ‘Good girl’ behaviour conforms to the sexual script of female sexuality, and the persistence of this existing social script for women is expressed by Tess:
Interviewer: If I were a man, would it be easier or more difficult to talk to me about masturbation? Tess: More difficult. (…) Because of gender. (…) I’m not going to say to everyone: ‘yeah, I’ve had sex with this many men’ and ‘I have been fucked’. Men do do that. That’s something I also believe, I want to be more chaste, and as a woman you tend to be reluctant to engage in sex, because if you do, well, then you’re more of a whore, then you’re easy (2016: 10-11).
Tess explains she doesn’t want to be a ‘deviant case’ and therefore conforms to the social expectations of being a woman, for instance by being sexually chaste. This means complying with the sexual script of female sexuality: girls and women are perceived as sexually passive
57 and reluctant, vulnerable, or even asexual, instead of aggressive or assertive, go-getting, and sexually active (Tolman, 1991: 59). Within mainly protective discourses, women are missing a “discourse of desire” (Fine, 1988). This entails that women are not perceived as and are not able to present themselves with having sexual desires and an aspiration to act on those desires. As described in chapter five, this is also due to the fact that masturbation is a silenced topic, especially for women.
During my puberty in high school, it was really not done to talk about masturbation. well, you could talk about it, but it was seen as something more for boys and not something that girls might do. And I did do it. But it was something that I didn’t like to talk about. So I was ashamed of it (Nicole, 2016: 4).
The silence around female masturbation caused women to worry about their sexual behaviour and consequently made them feel ashamed to admit to their masturbation practices. Fine advocates for the right of women to express their own desires not only by saying yes or no, but by initiating sexual acts and exploring what they find desirable (1988: 33-35). This kind of discourse can give women more empowerment and autonomy in expressing their own sexuality than solely through protective discourses (Fine, 1988: 50). The next chapter will give an overview of the main research results and discuss these in relation to the theory.
58 Chapter 8: Discussion
8.1 Introduction Throughout centuries, masturbation is the form of sexual behaviour that has been most negatively perceived and assessed (Davidson and Darling, 1993: 291). The contribution of this research to the field of sexuality is that it has confirmed that the sexual act of masturbation is still underappreciated and silenced, which indicates that it remains a subject a taboo. Moreover, this thesis has found a continuity of the double standard between male and female sexuality. The general research question of this thesis is descriptive and focuses on how students practice and perceive the sexual act of masturbation. To know what kind of meaning students give to masturbation, I’ve conducted a content analysis on 14 interviews of male and female students. The interview results comprehend the main part of this thesis. Furthermore, I’ve used quantitative data results to compare the interviews to a greater data set of how often students masturbate and to what extent students feel guilt or shame about their masturbation practices. In this chapter I will give an answer to the main research question and a summary of the main research results, by using sexual script theory as an analytic tool.
8.2 Script According to the sociologist Seidman, societies determine what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ sexuality by “[classifying] sexuality as normal, respectable, good or abnormal, sinful, immoral by supporting and privileging some and punishing others” (2003: 23). This means that individuals act out sexuality that is appropriate in order to conform to social norms. Simon and Gagnon (1986) and Gagnon (1973; 1977; 1990) argue that sexual action of individuals is guided by certain internalised cultural scripts. This refers to particular “feeling and display” rules (Turner and Stets, 2006: 26). Cultural scripts determine what is appropriate behaviour and when particular behaviour should be expressed (Gagnon, 1990). Whenever certain feeling and display rules are broken, negative feelings such as shame and guilt are experienced by individuals. In order to avoid these negative feelings, individuals internalise and employ cultural scripts on an interpsychic and intrapsychic level (Gagnon, 1990). All sexual conduct is created by culture, thus, although masturbation is presumed to be solitary, it’s a complete social form of behaviour (Gagnon, 1990: 4, 12). This means that students talk about masturbation and possibly also engage in masturbation with an internalised set of gendered cultural schemes about sexuality.
59 8.3 Traditional ideas Kinsey has shown us that masturbation is a wide and common sexual act among men and women (Kinsey et al, 1948; Kinsey et al, 1953). However, social norms dictate that masturbation is only appropriate within particular circumstances. Traditional ideas on masturbation such as Christian or Freudian ideas were still expressed by students. Students said it was important to be able to withhold from masturbation, which refers to Christian values of being a civilised individual who can constrain animalistic urges. This directly relates to the civilisation theory of Elias, that explains how changes in the social structure leads to the changes in rationalisation and regulation of individual behaviour, which means that, in order to present civilised behaviour, you need to be able to constrain desires and feelings (2011). Freud (1905; 2005) determined masturbation as part of a particular stage in life that ‘trained’ one for partnered (hetero)sex. In order to develop a normal and healthy sexuality, one had to direct all of his or her sexual feelings towards partnered sex. This is also expressed by students, who determine masturbation as a lesser substitute for partnered sex and emphasise the higher value and appreciation of partnered sex by claiming that this should always be preferred.
8.3 Practices Masturbation is considered to be appropriate sexual behaviour, but only when it complies with facets of a sexual script, namely who, why, when, where and what (Gagnon, 1977: 5-9). Individuals express their sexual behaviour according to scripts that comply with certain social norms. ‘Who’ tells us who expresses the sexual conduct. The results show that most students started masturbation at the beginning of puberty, at age 12 or 13. Male students reported a decrease in masturbation frequency with age, saying that after puberty they gained more access to socio-sexual contacts, whereas most female students reported an increase by stating that they masturbated more as they got older. The increase of masturbation frequency by women is associated with a more positive attitude regarding female sexual desires. Furthermore, students still reported masturbation while in a relationship, yet to a lesser degree. Most male students say that a relationship causes a decrease in masturbation frequency, whereas most female students didn’t. None of them reported entirely giving up on it. It indicates that although partnered sex is more desirable in a relationship, the need or desire to masturbate doesn’t disappear. Additionally, the fact that most female students still
60 frequently engage in masturbation within the context of a relationship shows that masturbation provides an alternative sexual outlet for them, more so than for men. The difference in frequency between male and female students who participated in the interviews are not as high as the masturbation frequency of the students who have filled in the survey. An explanation is that students who participated in the interviews have a more open attitude regarding their sexuality. This is conceivably associated with more engagement in sexual practices, such as masturbation. Students also addressed this during the interviews by identifying as ‘sexually open’ individuals. The respondents of the survey consist of a more heterogeneous research group that demonstrates a wider gap of masturbation frequency between male and female students. The fact that female students who participated in an interview masturbated more compared to female students who participated in the survey is possibly correlated with their perceptions and attitudes toward sexuality. It would be interesting to study this to a larger extent in future research. ‘When’ tells us the appropriate time for sexual acts and relates to ‘where’, which gives us information about the place of sexual acts, such as behind closed doors or in your own living environment. The fact that most students masturbate in bed in their bedrooms at night, indicates that it remains a practice that is done behind closed doors. This is emphasised by students who express feeling ashamed or deviant when masturbation becomes public, for instance when they get caught masturbating or talk about masturbation with others. It indicates that there’s a generally shared idea on when and where masturbation is acceptable sexual behaviour. Compared to other sexual activities, only masturbation has to conform to such restrictions. Students say talking about other sexual activities such as partnered sex, is acceptable and even considered a common conversation topic among friends and peers, whereas masturbation is not. Furthermore, doing partnered sex outside or in a public place where one can get caught is considered as fresh and exciting, whereas masturbating in public is perceived as deviant, sad and desperate. ‘What’ tells us what kind of sexual acts are considered to be appropriate. Students perceive masturbation as a lesser substitute of partnered sex. Partnered sexual activities are more preferred and more appreciated. Masturbation is therefore more appropriate outside of the context of a relationship, although single students also stress the preference to act on sexual feelings within socio-sexual contacts instead of through solitary sex. According to Hekma, within Western societies there are four general dispositions concerning sexuality, namely: (1) it’s a male privilege; (2) it’s an expression of love; (3) sexual desires are innate and natural; and (4) sexuality is private (1994: 8). All four dispositions have played a role
61 within this study. Men are naturally presumed to have more sexual desires; thus they masturbate more than women. Sexual behaviour is mainly expressed within the context of a relationship, therefore sexual acts with another person are more appropriate opposed to masturbation. Also, sexual conduct should take place behind closed doors because it’s private. Likewise, sexual acts, especially the ones that are done solitary, should not be discussed because they’re private. Highly educated Dutch students seem to determine sexuality and sexual conduct as part of relationships, by emphasising that partnered sex is always preferred, even when climaxes are difficult to achieve within partnered sex, which goes especially for women. Thus, sexual acts that aim solely for the purpose of sexual pleasure such as solitary sex are more negatively assessed because they’re perceived as ‘anti-social’. Lastly, ‘why’ gives meaning to the motive behind sexual acts. Overall, masturbation is perceived as an appropriate sexual outlet when partnered sex is not an option. Furthermore, masturbation is referred to as fun and relaxing, and mostly done to gain sexual pleasure and release (sexual) tension or stress. Students refer to masturbation as an easy obtainable sexual outlet that provides sexual pleasure and helps you to explore your own body. All the students perceived masturbation as something personal, something ‘just for you’ that you’re able to enjoy without thinking or accounting for someone else. This gives students a feeling of autonomy and independence.
8.4 Shame and guilt Overall, masturbation is perceived as normal sexual behaviour because students expect it as a wide and common sexual practice. Feelings of shame emerge whenever students deviate from the sexual script, for instance when masturbation becomes public, or when masturbation is chosen over the option of partnered sex. Female students depict feelings of shame when they express and act on their sexual feelings due to fear of not representing themselves as ‘feminine’, hence, as sexually chaste. Shame among male students generally arises when they feel threatened in their masculinity. In order to comply with the male sexual script, male students should direct their sexual feelings toward socio-sexual contacts: “the macho lore teaches that a ‘real man’ has women, hates homosexuals, and has no need to masturbate” (Mosher, 1979: 325). This suggests that male students who masturbate have failed to establish sexual relationships, and therefore failed their masculinity. Because masturbation is a silenced topic, it’s designated by students as more private and personal sexual behaviour than partnered sex. Most students see masturbation as a subject
62 of taboo, because it’s not discussed in public or with others, whereas partnered sex is considered a regular conversation topic among students. This silence around masturbation reinforces the idea that something is wrong with it (Shelton, 2015), and consequently leads to concerns and insecurities about masturbation practices among students. Because of the lack of discourse about masturbation practices, male and female students don’t know what is ‘normal’ and report more feelings of shame due to the fear of being ‘abnormal’. The quantitative research shows that female and male students generally report less shame and rather report guilt, although almost none of the students that participated in the interviews reported feelings of guilt. Students who were willing to be interviewed probably had a more open attitude towards sexuality, which evidently makes them feel less guilty of their sexual behaviour. Consequently, students who felt guilty about masturbation could be willing to filling in a survey, but probably unwilling to talk about masturbation with an interviewer, because the survey guarantees privacy and anonymity and an interview doesn’t. Although there are several studies who identify a correlation between feelings of guilt and masturbation (Abramson and Mosher, 1975; Arafat and Cotton, 1974; Greenberg and Archambault, 1973; Langston, 1975; Mosher, 1979; Robbins et al, 2011), most studies find that guilt is more common among women than men (Davidson and Darling, 1993; Davidson and Moore, 1994; Fahs and Frank, 2014; Kaestle and Allen, 2011; Laqueur, 2003; Mosher and Vonderheide, 1985). However, this research shows that feelings of guilt were reported to an equal amount by male and female students (see bar graph 6 and 7, page 50). This is a surprising research result, because masturbation is signified as more part of the sexual script of men, and therefore men tend to feel less ashamed or guilty for it. Still, engaging in masturbation means drawing away from socio-sexual contacts and thus from the “social principle” (Laqueur, 2003: 393), which can lead to feeling as if one is doing something ‘wrong’, either male or female.
8.5 Male sexual script Many other studies have found that men report a higher frequency of masturbation compared to women (Baumeister et al, 2001; Gerressu et al, 2007; Greenberg and Archambault, 1973; Hogarth and Ingham, 2009; Kaestle and Allen, 2011; Leitenberg et al, 1993; Miller and Lief, 1976; Oliver and Hyde, 1993; Peplau, 2003; Robbins et al, 2011), which is also the result of this thesis. It goes to show that the dissimilarity of masturbation frequency between men and women is a common phenomenon. This research result could indicate that men have more sexual desires to which they accordingly respond to. Sociologists Laumann and Gagnon relate
63 ‘desires’ to sex drive, and explain it as: “people who have a lot of sex or express constant interest in sex” (1995: 187). This refers to the social idea of men as hyper sexual, a trait that has been defined as one of the core components of masculinity (Allen, 2003; Bem, 1981; McCabe et al, 2010; Schrock and Schwalbe, 2009). In order to be credited as masculine, male students have to comply with the male sexual script, which means that male students will express the masculine expectation of being ‘into sex’ all the time. Because it’s more socially appropriate and expected for men to masturbate than for women, male students internalise this social idea on an intrapsychic level (Gagnon, 1990) that either results in a higher frequency or the report of a higher frequency of masturbation in order to comply with social expectations (Petersen and Hyde, 2010; Robbins et al, 2011). Although male students outline masturbation as part of the male sexual script, they also describe how feelings of shame accompany their masturbation practices. Especially male students who are in a relationship opt for partnered sex, because it’s less appropriate to choose masturbation when socio-sexual contacts are present. According to Gagnon, “people who masturbate in adulthood, when there are appropriate sexual partners around, seem to us to be withdrawing from social responsibility” (1977: 153), which means that masturbation can be perceived as ‘anti-social’ or ‘selfish’. The social belief that socio-sexual contacts are more important and that masturbating is no longer appropriate within the context of a relationship is associated with certain ideas on sexuality which argue that all sexual behaviour should be aimed towards (hetero)sexual intercourse (Freud, 1905; 2005). Therefore, heterosexual intercourse is expected to be preferred over solitary sexual behaviour and masturbation can be perceived as ‘unmanly’ because achieving socio-sexual contacts complies more with the sexual script of masculinity (Holland et al, 1998).
8.6 Female sexual script Female sexual desires are presented as actually “desiring relationships, affection, or attention” (Hartley and Drew, 2002: 142) instead of sex. On a cultural level, women are socialised in associating sex with emotional intimacy and love by emphasising romance and silencing women’s sexual desires (Fine, 1988; Gagnon, 1990). Women internalise these ideas on an intrapsychic level and express their sexual behaviour accordingly on an interpsychic and cultural level (Gagnon, 1990). Conforming to the female sexual script requires acting passively on sexual feelings, which leads to having a lower frequency of masturbation. The physician Basson, who developed the human sexual response cycle in order to explain sexual desires of men and women, says that: “the motivation [for women] to seek useful sexual
64 stimuli is not primarily sexual” (2001: 34, emphasis in original), implying that for men, it is. Perceiving emotional satisfaction as one of the main goals of sex for women implies that women are still not seen as sexually active beings on their own. Their sexual behaviour is always responsive and doesn’t relate to sex for sexual feelings (Allen, 2003; Clark and Wiederman, 2000; Leitenberg et al, 1993). It seems that “females are denied the freedoms [of sexual expression] enjoyed by males” (Poole, 2013: 222). So, when female students express or act on their sexual desires, feelings of shame arise because of the fear of acting too “slutty” (Tangney and Dearing, 2002: 166), which refers to ‘slut-shaming’. Slut-shaming means shaming or attacking a woman for expressing or acting on sexual feelings (Poole, 2013). Therefore, masturbation is wrong because it suggests that women engage in sexual activities because of independent sexual desires. This means that female students either masturbate less or report a lower frequency of masturbation than male students because they want to represent themselves as ‘feminine’, which means complying with the female sexual script of passive sexual behaviour, out of fear of being labelled ‘slut’. Female students further describe female sexuality as permeated with silence and secrecy, which evidently creates insecurities and concerns about whether or not their own sexual feelings are ‘normal’. Talking, hearing or reading about masturbation can enhance normalisation about masturbation, in particular for female students. Thus, social beliefs and expectations of sexuality regarding gender norms on the level of a cultural script become internalised by individuals on the level of an intrapsychic script. Masturbation is considered to be more acceptable for male than for female students, because of women’s presumed sexual passiveness. Men are expected to be more ‘into sex’ and thus presumed to have more sexual desires. This relates to the double standard of where sexually active women are censured, and men are required to be sexually active (Muehlenhard, 1988: 98). Although one may feel that it’s socially expected to conform to gender norms, this can lead to both male and female students experiencing less sexual autonomy by expressing their sexuality through sexual scripts instead of choosing to act on their own sexual desires (Sanchez et al, 2005). Masturbation can contribute to students’ sexual autonomy, by giving students an opportunity to autonomously and independently act on sexual feelings. Additionally, students gain more confidence to denote what they like within socio-sexual contacts. Furthermore, female students perceive masturbation as a way to reach orgasm when partnered sex doesn’t fulfil this need. Yet female students seem to trivialise their own sexual pleasure during partnered sex by describing it as ‘not important’. Female students who are single as well as
65 those in a relationship emphasise the preference to engage in partnered sex, even though they report having trouble climaxing during partnered sex, thus belittling their own sexual pleasure. In this way, masturbation seems to play a greater role within female sexuality because it gives women a chance to express their sexuality in an active and assertive way, and consequently gain sexual pleasure. Masturbation gives female students the ability to explore their own sexual preferences and additionally “communicate those preferences to partners” (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 992).
8.7 Limitations qualitative research Students who were open to talk to me about masturbation probably did so because they already have an open attitude towards sexuality and sexual conduct. Students who perceive masturbation as inappropriate behaviour, which additionally might lead to more feelings of shame or guilt were probably not willing to do an interview on masturbation. This open attitude towards sexuality may have led to a bias, and therefore a limitation, in this research. When asking about respondents’ sexual orientation, all students identified as heterosexual. However, although I didn’t ask any additional questions about students’ sexual orientation, all female respondents except one added that they would be open to having a sexual experience with a woman. None of the male respondents made such an additional comment to this question. I have wondered what this means and why female students spontaneously addressed to this. It might be interesting to investigate this further in another research. What is also remarkable, is that more male than female students were willing to do an interview with me. This surprised me, because I’m a female researcher I expected it to be the other way around. The reluctance of female students to engage in an interview about masturbation, might be because of the fact that female sexuality is less acknowledged, less talked about, and consequently causes more feelings of shame. As the data has shown, ideas on the passiveness or asexuality of women still continue to exist. Female students might not want to portray themselves as sexual beings by talking about their masturbation practices, because acknowledging and acting on female sexual desires is not part of the script of female sexuality. Therefore, they might be afraid of being labelled as a ‘slut’ for expressing sexual feelings. A limitation of this research is that I have interviewed only Dutch, highly educated, heterosexual students. It would be interesting to conduct a research about masturbation practices, ideas and feelings of older respondents, respondents with a different ethnicity,
66 respondents with a different sexual preference, or respondents of a lower class. Conducting this study within a different research group and comparing these groups may lead to different research results. This has already been shown by the research results of the survey, which indicated a difference in feeling ashamed or guilty concerning masturbation practices. The research group of the quantitative part of the study is more heterogeneous, for instance with people from different cultural backgrounds and sexual orientations. However, the main focus of this thesis has been qualitative and thus has emphasised the results gained from the qualitative research group. It would be interesting to conduct a further, more quantitative research with the rest of the survey data and a more heterogeneous sample.
8.8 Limitations quantitative research Students who decided to fill in our survey might already have an open attitude towards sexuality and sexual conduct. Students who don’t feel comfortable addressing their sexuality might have decided to ignore the survey. This can lead to biased research results. Furthermore, the students who have completed the survey are not a representative sample because the individuals that have participated are only highly educated students of universities in Amsterdam. Plus, the population (n) of the survey questions show that a majority of the students who have filled in the survey are female. This leads to a distorted view on the quantitative results. The quantitative research has shown discrepancies between both the qualitative and the quantitative study. A limitation of the survey is that it’s not clear why male and female students have reported feeling guilty about their masturbation practices, especially since the qualitative research has shown different results opposed to the quantitative results. Because feelings of shame and guilt are often interrelated, students can have different interpretations of these concepts. It would be beneficial to first study how students define and interpret ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’. Furthermore, it would be interesting to conduct a greater research revolving around feelings of shame or guilt concerning sexual behaviour, in particular masturbation, to find out why students feel shame or guilt and why there's a discrepancy between the qualitative and the quantitative research results. A limitation of this research is that students were able to skip questions within the survey. This has led to a different population (n) for each question. While the survey was online, we as a research team have noticed this and decided to add a feature in Survey Monkey which didn’t allow respondents to skip any questions. However, the survey was already online and respondents who had already filled it in were able to skip questions. This explains
67 why the results per question generate a different population number (n), as is seen in the bar graphs on pages 25, 43, 44, and 45. This research has shown that highly educated students express more traditional ideas on sexual conduct, that suggests a correlation between traditional ideas and high education. This indicates an opposite result compared to other research that has found a correlation between liberal ideas and sexuality. It would be interesting to conduct further and wider research on masturbation in order to gain more insight in the practices of and perceptions on male and female sexuality. Furthermore, further research can tackle the discrepancies between the qualitative and the quantitative part on frequency of masturbation between male and female students, and the dissimilarities between the report of shame and guilt by students who participated in the interviews and the respondents of the survey.
68 Conclusion
This thesis has focused on how the sexual act of masturbation is practiced and perceived by highly educated male and female students in Amsterdam. Societies determine what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ sexuality on a cultural level. The sexual revolution changed perceptions on sexuality, and masturbation became perceived as a normal habit and as a “sexual learning practice” (Hekma and Giami, 2014: 11) – an idea that originally stems from Freud (1905; 2005). This research has shown that ideas on assumed passiveness or asexuality of women and sexually activeness or hyper sexuality of men still continue to exist, and that a person who masturbates instead of opting his or her sexual desires towards socio-sexual contacts is still perceived as anti-social, all social ideas that have been around for decades (Langston, 1975). This makes the contemporary idea of masturbation as a normal and acceptable form of sexual behavior questionable, and indicates that liberal views on sexuality of students are limited. This thesis has followed script theory by sociologists Simon and Gagnon (1986) and Gagnon (1973; 1977; 1990) and the results show that masturbation is only acceptable if it complies with the facets of the sexual script. The puzzle with masturbation is that students consider it as common sexual behaviour, but still associate it with feelings of shame. Students have trouble identifying where these feelings of shame come from, I believe that it’s due to internalisation on an intrapsychic level of social beliefs on a cultural level that sexual behaviour should predominantly take place within socio-sexual contacts. This leads to students designating masturbation as an ‘inferior’ form of sexual conduct compared to partnered sexual activities and evidently feel ashamed or guilty for engaging in it. Feelings of shame emerge whenever one is deviating from the sexual script, for example by opting for masturbation when socio-sexual contacts are present or when masturbation becomes part of the public sphere through getting caught or talking about it with others. Female students who masturbate illustrate feelings of shame because they feel as if they’re challenging social expectations of a woman as sexually passive and responsive. Male students who masturbate say they feel ashamed because they feel as if they have failed in establishing preferable socio-sexual contacts. Because of these proscribed social expectations, students seem to follow gendered sexual scripts instead of engaging in masturbation through choice (Gagnon, 1977; Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Laqueur, 2003). Following Hekma’s line of argument in which he states that there are four general dispositions concerning sexuality within Western societies (1994), Dutch male and female
69 students within this study usually designated sexual conduct as part of a (romantic) relationship, indicating that sexuality is more appreciated and valued when it’s a shared activity. The sexual revolution caused a change in the social belief that made sexual conduct no longer central to marriage, but to love (Hekma and Giami, 2014: 12). Presumably, highly educated students have the idea that acting on sexual desires is an expression of love. Therefore, masturbation is more negatively perceived because it solely aims at sexual pleasure and the sexual act of masturbation is not shared or seen as part of a relationship: “it fails to integrate sexuality into the service of love” (Laqueur, 2003: 395). Overall, the fact that masturbation is permeated with social ideas on how male sexuality is perceived as normal and acceptable and female sexuality is perceived as deviant and silenced (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 989), shows that it’s an entire social form of sexual behaviour. This causes sexual pleasure to be more silenced for women than for men, which induces the double standard of male and female sexuality. Furthermore, highly educated students still stress the preference to express and act on sexual desires within partnered sex instead of through solitary sex, even if it causes difficulty gaining sexual pleasure for women. In conclusion, students seem to perceive masturbation as a tool to explore their body and sexual feelings in order to enhance the ultimate goal namely partnered sex. Additionally, the silence around the subject of masturbation reinforces the idea that masturbation is a sexual practice that remains taboo.
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80 Appendix 1: Interview guide
General interview questions:
1. Hoe oud ben je? (How old are you?)
2. Waar studeer je? (Where do you study?) 3. Hoe zou je je seksuele oriëntatie/geaardheid beschrijven? (How would you describe your sexual orientation?) 4. Zie je jezelf als man/vrouw/of anders? Met welk geslacht identificeer je je? (Do you consider yourself male/female/or else? What gender do you identify with?) 5. Heb je een relatie? (Are you in a relationship?) 6. Je weet dat dit interview over masturbatie gaat. Wat voor gevoel heb je bij dit gesprek? (You already know the subject of this interview is masturbation. How does it make you feel?)
Interview questions on practices of masturbation: 1. Wanneer en hoe ben je voor het eerst in aanraking gekomen met masturbatie? Was het je eerste ervaring met masturbatie en hoe was dat? Wat voor gevoel/beleving had je erbij? (When did you first learn about masturbation and how (was it your first masturbation practice and what was it like)? How did it make you feel?) 2. Masturbeer je? (Do you masturbate?) 3. Hoe vaak masturbeer je per week? (How often do you masturbate per week?) 4. Is de frequentie van masturbatie verandert in de loop van je leven (van je kindertijd tot je adolescentie/de eerste keer tot nu)? Waarom wel/niet? (Has your masturbation frequency changed, for instance from childhood into adolescence? Why/why not?) 5. Is klaarkomen altijd het doel van masturbatie/kom je altijd klaar als je masturbeert? Waarom wel/niet? (Is a climax always the purpose of masturbation/do you always come while masturbating? Why/why not?) 6. Is klaarkomen altijd het doel van seks met een partner/kom je altijd klaar als je seks hebt met een partner? Waarom wel/niet? Is er een verschil? Hoe komt dat?
81 (Is a climax always the purpose of partnered sexual activities/do you always come during sex? Why/why not? Is there a difference? How come?) 7. Wanneer masturbeer je (heb je eenbepaalde tijd en plek)? Waarom dan/daar? (When do you practice masturbation (is there a particular time and place)? Why then/there?) 8. Ben je ooit betrapt terwijl je masturbeerde? Wat voor gevoel had je daarbij? (Have you ever been caught masturbating? How did it make you feel?) 9. Is het meer of minder schaamtevol om betrapt te worden op masturbatie dan betrapt te worden op sex met een partner? Waarom wel/niet? (Is it more or less shameful to get caught masturbating as getting caught having sex with a partner? Why/why not?) 10. Kun je een masturbatieritueel/praktijk voor me beschrijven? Hoe verloopt dat meestal? (Could you walk me through a masturbation practice/ritual of yours? How does it usually go?) 11. Heb je weleens in het bijzijn van iemand anders gemasturbeerd, bijvoorbeeld tijdens seks? Waarom wel/niet? Wat voor gevoel/beleving had je daarbij? (Have you ever masturbated in the presence of someone else, for instance during sex? Why/why not? How did it make you feel?)
Interview questions on ideas of masturbation: 1. Wat voor betekenis geef jij aan masturbatie? (What does masturbation mean to/for you/how do you see masturbation?) 2. Is je houding ten opzichte van masturbatie verandert gedurende je leven (bijvoorbeeld
van je kindertijd tot je adolescentie)? Hoe? (Did your attitude on masturbation change throughout your lifetime (for example from childhood to adolescence)? How?) 3. Ben je gelovig of gelovig opgevoed? Zo ja, welk geloof? (Are you religious or have you been raised religiously? If so, which religion?) 4. Heeft het geloof uitwerking/effect op je seksuele gedrag aangaande masturbatie? Hoe? (Has religion affected your sexual behaviour concerning masturbation? How?) 5. Heb je seksuele voorlichting gehad? Van wie en wanneer? (Did you receive sexual education? From whom and when?) 6. Was masturbatie onderdeel van deze seksuele voorlichting? Op welke manier? Wat vond je hiervan? (Did your sexual education include masturbation? In what way? What did you think of that?) 7. Wat zouden redenen kunnen zijn waarom je niet zou (willen) masturberen (tijd, plaats, relatie)? Hoe komt dat? (Why would you not (want to) masturbate (time, place, relationship)? How come?) 8. Moet je alleen zijn om te kunnen masturberen?
82 (Do you have to be alone in order to masturbate?) 9. Heeft een seksuele activiteit met een partner voor jou een andere betekenis dan masturbatie? Waarom wel/niet? (How do you perceive a partnered sexual activity compared to solitary sexual activity? Why/why not?) 10. Welke seksuele activitieit (seks met een partner of masturbatie) heeft jouw voorkeur? Waarom? (Are partnered sexual activities always preferred over solitary masturbation? Why?) 11. Wat voor beleving geeft masturbatie je (ervoor, tijdens, erna)? Kun je uitleggen waarom je die gevoelens hebt/waar ze vandaan komen? (How does masturbation make you feel (before, during, after)? Can you explain why you have these feelings/where they come from?) 12. Ervaar je wel eens schuld- of schaamtegevoelens ten aanzien van masturbatie? Voorbeelden? (Do you experience feelings of shame or guilt concerning masturbation? Examples?) 13. Wat voor effect hebben schuld- of schaamtegevoelens op je seksuele gedrag aangaande masturbatie? (How do feelings of guilt or shame affect your masturbation practices/behaviour?) 14. Denk je dat mannen en vrouwen masturbatie anders ervaren (bijvoorbeeld motieven, schaamte of stigma)? Hoe/hoe komt dat? Waarom wel/niet? Wat zijn je eigen ervaringen? (Do you think masturbation is different for women than for men (in terms of motives, shame and stigma)? How/how come? Why/why not? What are your own experiences?) 15. Praat je over masturbatie met anderen? Met wie? Hoe reageren anderen hierop? Waarom wel/niet? (Do you talk about masturbation with others? With whom? How do others react Why/why not?) 16. Praat je over ander seksueel gedrag? Waarom wel/niet? Zit er verschil tussen, waarom? (Do you talk about other sexual behaviours? Why/why not? Is there a difference, why?) 17. Als ik een man zou zijn, zou het dan makkelijker of moeilijker zijn om met mij over dit onderwerp te praten? Waarom wel/niet? (Would it be easier or more difficult to have a conversation with me about the subject of masturbation if I were a man? Why/why not?)
Interview questions on sexual autonomy: 1. Is masturbatie belangrijk voor je? Waarom wel/niet? (Is masturbation important to you? Why/why not?)
83 2. Waarom masturbeer je? (Why do you masturbate?) 3. Hoe kom je tot de keuze of de beslissing om te gaan masturberen? Alternatieve vraag: Hoe kwam je de eerste keer in je leven tot de keuze of de beslissing om te gaan masturberen? (How do you arrive at a conscious choice to masturbate? How do you arrive at a conscious choice to masturbate?) 4. Wat is er anders aan masturbatiegedrag in verhouding tot seksueel gedrag met een partner? (How are masturbation practices different from practicing partnered sexual activities?) 5. Is masturbatie voor jou een alternatieve bron van seksuele voldoening? Hoe? Waarom wel/niet? (Is masturbation an alternative source of sexual satisfaction for you? How? Why/why not?) 6. Draagt masturbatie bij aan een gevoel van zelfvertrouwen in het uiten van je seksuele voorkeuren? Hoe? (Does masturbation help develop you a confident feeling in expressing your sexual preferences? How?) 7. Zorgt masturbatie voor meer plezier/genot in seks met een partner? Hoe? (Does masturbation help you to enjoy partnered sex more? How?) 8. Is er iets waar je nog over wilt praten dat we nog niet hebben besproken? (Is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven’t talked about yet?) 9. Krijg je een ongemakkelijk gevoel bij dit onderwerp? Hoe komt dat? Kun je me vertellen waar deze gevoelens vandaan komen? (Is this subject making you feel uncomfortable? How come? Can you explain why you have these feelings/where they come from?)
84 Appendix 2: Summary
Throughout centuries, masturbation is the form of sexual behaviour that has been most negatively perceived and assessed (Davidson and Darling, 1993: 291). The subject of this research is to study contemporary ideas on masturbation in Amsterdam, in order to see how highly educated students from a university in Amsterdam perceive masturbation in relation to their ideas, feelings and practices. The key concept of this thesis is masturbation. Masturbation will be defined by using the term of the sociologist Gagnon (1977), namely: “self-induced sexual pleasure without another person being actively involved physically” or “autoeroticism” (1977: 141). It’s questionable if masturbation today is viewed as fully acceptable and appropriate sexual behaviour among highly educated students. Rather, masturbation may be perceived as less or more appropriate according to what, who, where, when, and why, conforming to the facets of a sexual script (Gagnon, 1973; 1977; 1990; Simon and Gagnon, 1986). Highly educated students have my interest because several scholars have argued that a high education is associated with more liberal sexual attitudes (Abramson, 1973; Fischtein, Herold and Desmarais, 2007; Gagnon, 1985; Gerressu, Mercer, Graham, Wellings and Johnson, 2007; Laumann and Gagnon, 1995; Peplau, 2003, Straver, 1969). Moreover, the Netherlands is seen as a front runner when it comes to expressing free sexuality (Hekma, 2009), because of its role in the sexual revolution during the 1960’s. Young people in particular, such as students, advocated for the right to express sexual freedom and choice (Hekma and Duyvendak, 2011: 411-412). Additionally, I have chosen schools in Amsterdam because Amsterdam is perceived as a liberal city regarding sexual norms. It was Amsterdam who hosted the first ‘naked’ shows and the famous Red Light District still defines Amsterdam as a city of sexual freedom (Hekma, 1990; 2013). I wish to establish whether young, Dutch, highly educated university students in Amsterdam have liberal ideas concerning the sexual act of masturbation. According to the sociologist Seidman, societies determine what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ sexuality by “[classifying] sexuality as normal, respectable, good or abnormal, sinful, immoral by supporting and privileging some and punishing others” (2003: 23). This means that individuals act out sexuality that is appropriate in order to conform to social norms. Simon and Gagnon (1986) and Gagnon (1973; 1977; 1990) argue that sexual action of individuals is guided by certain internalised cultural scripts. This refers to particular “feeling and display” rules (Turner and Stets, 2006: 26). Cultural scripts determine what is appropriate
85 behaviour and when particular behaviour should be expressed (Gagnon, 1990). Whenever certain feeling and display rules are broken, negative feelings such as shame and guilt are experienced by individuals. In order to avoid these negative feelings, individuals internalise and employ cultural scripts on an interpsychic and intrapsychic level (Gagnon, 1990). The biologist Kinsey has shown us that masturbation is a wide and common sexual act among men and women (Kinsey et al, 1948; Kinsey et al, 1953). However, social norms dictate that masturbation is only appropriate within particular circumstances. Traditional ideas on masturbation such as Christian or Freudian ideas were still expressed by students. Students said it was important to be able to withhold from masturbation, which refers to Christian values of being a civilised individual who can constrain animalistic urges. This directly relates to the civilisation theory of Elias, that explains how changes in the social structure leads to the changes in how individuals rationalise and regulate behaviour, which means that you need to be able to constrain desires and feelings (2011). Freud (1905; 2005) determined masturbation as part of a particular stage in life that ‘trained’ one for heterosexuality. In order to develop a normal and healthy sexuality, one had to direct all of his or her sexual feelings towards partnered sex. This is also expressed by students, who determine masturbation as a lesser substitute for partnered sex and emphasise the higher value and appreciation of partnered sex by claiming that it should always be preferred. Masturbation is considered to be appropriate sexual behaviour, but only when it complies with facets of a sexual script, namely who, why, when, where and what (Gagnon, 1977: 5-9). Individuals express their sexual behaviour according to scripts that comply with certain social norms. Overall, masturbation is perceived as normal sexual behaviour because students expect it as a wide and common sexual practice. Feelings of shame emerge whenever students deviate from the sexual script, for instance when masturbation becomes public, or when masturbation is chosen over the option of partnered sex. Because masturbation is a silenced topic, it is designated by students as more private and personal sexual behaviour than partnered sex. Most students see masturbation as a subject of taboo, because it’s not discussed in public or with others, whereas partnered sex is considered a regular conversation topic among students. This silence around masturbation reinforces the idea that something is wrong with it (Shelton, 2015), and consequently leads to concerns and insecurities about masturbation practices among students. Because of the lack of discourse about masturbation practices, male and female students don’t know what is ‘normal’ and report more feelings of shame due to the fear of being ‘abnormal’.
86 Social beliefs and expectations of sexuality regarding gender norms on the level of a cultural script become internalised by individuals on the level of an intrapsychic script. Masturbation is considered to be more acceptable for male than for female students, because of women’s presumed sexual passiveness. Men are expected to be more ‘into sex’ and thus presumed to have more sexual desires. This relates to the double standard of where sexually active women are censured, and men are required to be sexually active (Muehlenhard, 1988: 98). Although one may feel that it’s socially expected to conform to gender norms, this can lead to both male and female students experiencing less sexual autonomy by expressing their sexuality through sexual scripts instead of choosing to act on their own sexual desires (Sanchez et al, 2005). Masturbation can contribute to students’ sexual autonomy, by giving students an opportunity to autonomously and independently act on sexual feelings. Additionally, students gain more confidence to denote what they like within socio-sexual contacts. Furthermore, female students perceive masturbation as a way to reach orgasm when partnered sex doesn’t fulfil this need. Yet female students seem to trivialise their own sexual pleasure during partnered sex by describing it as ‘not important’. Female students who are single as well as those in a relationship emphasise the preference to engage in partnered sex, even though they report having trouble climaxing during partnered sex, thus belittling their own sexual pleasure. In this way, masturbation seems to play a greater role within female sexuality because it gives women a chance to express their sexuality in an active and assertive way, instead of a passive and responsive manner. Female students are able to explore their own sexual preferences and additionally, “communicate those preferences to partners” (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 992). Overall, the fact that masturbation is permeated with social ideas on how male sexuality is perceived as normal and acceptable and female sexuality is perceived as deviant and silenced (Kaestle and Allen, 2011: 989), shows that it’s an entire social form of sexual behaviour. This causes sexual pleasure to be more silenced for women than for men, which induces the double standard of male and female sexuality. Furthermore, highly educated students still stress the preference to express and act on sexual desires within partnered sex instead of through solitary sex, even if it causes difficulty gaining sexual pleasure for women. In conclusion, students seem to perceive masturbation as a tool to explore their body and sexual feelings in order to enhance the ultimate goal namely partnered sex, plus the silence around the subject of masturbation reinforces the idea that masturbation is a sexual practice that remains taboo.
87