Go Fuck Yourself
By Jackie Boom Boom Mancino    
Illustration by Clay Rodery  

In joining Working Class in its celebration of smut, I decided to celebrate the jelly to smut’s peanut butter—the ancient pastime of autoeroticism. Masturbation is an essential. We know this  because it is one of the only recreational rituals that we share with the rest of the animal kingdom. The fact that virtually all mammals have some form of self-gratification shows that “having a wank” is not an unnatural frivolity. It is a biological method for curing what ails us, whether insomnia, anxiety or an image of David Beckham’s Armani underwear ad burned into our brains.

W.H. Auden once misguidedly called masturbation the “hermit’s carnal ecstasy.” However, Mr. Auden failed to recognize the fantastic world that he has so patronizingly alienated. Masturbation is not just a recreation for the lonely, unfulfilled and pathetic. It is, as Mason Cooley once put it, a “democratic pleasure,” practiced by rich and poor, young and old, married and single. One cannot always have access to everything that they desire. And most of the time, what we desire is never actually what we want to have. For those whose fantasies borderline and often surpass crude, self-debasing and illegal, masturbation is the perfect way to alleviate these subconscious urges we all have without ending up on the cover of the New York Post.

Masturbation is not just a sexual thing. It’s the perfect cure for hyperactivity, irritability, nervousness and boredom and has proven to have numerous reproductive benefits. Masturbation prior to intercourse increases fertility for both men and women (most of you probably don’t see this as a benefit) during the act. Also, studies have shown that in women, masturbation provides protection against cervical infection by flushing out the cervix and increasing its acidity.

Beyond medical perks, the introduction of the orgasm may be one of the most significant players in the women’s lib movement. There is no doubt that the social evolution of women in Western culture is directly correlated with the vibrational evolution of our clitorises. The female orgasm was obviously discovered before the 20th Century but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the female messing of the junk was considered normal, or at least not vulgar, by mainstream culture. If you look at cultures that do value female self-stimulation, like Pacific Island nations such as Samoa, you will also see a more egalitarian social existence among the sexes. Mainstream American society has only in the past 50 years realized that, even though it isn’t necessary for reproduction, the female orgasm is necessary and valuable. Furthermore, a woman's ability to have control over of WHEN and how often she climaxes is priceless.

But enough with the academic stuff. Not forgetting that smut was the primary focus, I did a private survey of my friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances on how, why, where and when they got their rocks off. To insure full disclosure and truthfulness, I set up a dummy email account enabling my participants to tell me everything without fear of ridicule. From the almost 200 contacted, I received only 42 responses. And though 42 people picked from my personal address book is not an accurate sample of the world, it is nonetheless in my humble opinion, groundbreaking and intriguing. Out of the 42 emails, an astounding 31 of the testimonials revealed that they enjoyed to be degraded at some level. The spectrum of degradation ranged from being tied up by a co-worker to being beat up by a lover to being gangbanged by Nazis.

Surprisingly, only four involved being the one doing the degrading—two of which involved pre-teen girls, one involved feces. In sum, the majority of feedback I received contained socially deviant musings and I’m sure that among the remaining 6.7 billion people on Earth who did not send me feedback, there is sure to be even more interesting sexual subject matter. 

Though I cannot be 100% sure, I can safely assume that one out of five of the people in my life do not frequent S&M dungeons. And as of yet, I am not aware that any of my friends are on a sex offenders list. Yet I know five people who get off on the idea of being raped, two people who want to get urinated on, and one who lusts about the idea of watching his girlfriend getting gangbanged by his friends. The moral of this story (pun intended) is that masturbation is awesome. So watch some dirty porn, daydream about your cousin peeing on your face, and go fuck yourself.