Day 12: Masturbation for the win

Now that All the Sex Monologues are over, I thought I'd share one of the monologues I wrote for the show. We held a couple of writing workshops in between our two shows, and at one of them we brainstormed ideas for monologues we'd like to see. Someone said they'd like to see one about teaching kids about masturbation. I decided I had enough experience to write that one, unflattering as it is.

After I submitted it, and it was accepted for the show, I sent it to my son to get his approval. He said it was OK, but it wasn't really how it went from his perspective. He was pretty angry with me the day in question, but he decided he'd better just take control. But he said I should go ahead and perform it, because it absolutely was true from my perspective. So here it is. One of my "bad mommy" stories that I turned into a triumph, in my own head and on the stage.

Note: I wrote this to be performed, and I don't think it's nearly as entertaining as a written piece. But a number of people who couldn't come to the show wanted to read it, so I decided to share it anyway. And with no more excuses .... 

Masturbation for the Win!

When they were 12 years old, each of my kids took a comprehensive and somewhat controversial sex education class through our UU church called Our Whole Lives (OWL). When I say comprehensive, I mean they learned more about sex than I know every today. When I say controversial, I mean Jeraldo Rivera did an expose on OWL, and he told the entire country what perverts we were for giving our kids all the information we could about human sexuality.

One snowy night as I was driving my son home from his Sunday session of OWL, I asked, as I always did, if anything had come up that he wanted to talk with me about. He said the topic that night had been about masturbation.

Easy peasy, I thought. Not nearly as scary as oral sex night.

“OK, tell me about masturbation, if you want to,” I said. I knew he was already doing it. Nobody needs to shower for that long.

“They said most people do it. And it can’t hurt you …”

“True,” I said. “Otherwise why do it, huh?”

“And they said it’s OK in some families to do it, but not in others. So they didn’t really say it was OK to do it. It depends on your family.”

Like that’s ever stopped anybody, I thought. “At least you don’t have to wonder about that,” I said aloud.

“Well …. yeah, but I do,” he said. “I’m not really sure if it’s OK in our family or not. We’ve never talked about it, so … I’m just not sure.”

“I guess you’re right. We haven’t talked about it.” I couldn’t believe I’d missed that one. We talked about everything else. Sometimes my kids begged me not to talk about topics of a delicate nature. I had just assumed he’d know masturbation was OK.

“Not only is it OK,” I said. “I’d worry about you if you didn’t do it. It’s a pretty basic human need.”

“They said some parents might get mad if they caught their kids doing that,” he said.

“That’s true, I said. “But it probably won’t stop their kid from doing it. Anyway, in our family it’s OK as long as it’s done in private.”

“Mooommm! I knew that. Jeez.” We laughed.

“It’s not just that it feels good though,” I said. “When you get older, and you’re more interested in girls, masturbation can also help take the edge off. So you aren’t so eager to have sex that you make mistakes that have adult consequences. Like babies.”

“Yeah, OK,” he said. “Can we stop at McDonalds?”

I knew the conversation had gone far enough for now. “Sure,” I said. “I could eat some fries.”

Masturbation wasn’t a topic that came up often in our family. I probably only reminded him one more time, when he started to show an interest in dating, that masturbating could make being with a girl -- and by that I meant simply sitting next to her at a movie -- more comfortable. And it could help him make better decisions about whether he was even ready for sex with another person. I hoped I might raise a son who wasn’t as desperate for sex as most of the boys I dated in high school.

I wish I’d gone further and told him to vary his grip when he masturbates, like sex advisor Dan Savage recommends. Savage advises men to use a light touch when they masturbate instead of what he calls “the death grip,” so they won’t ruin their ability to orgasm under gentler circumstances, like in a vagina. It’s good advice, and if I could go back in time, I’d tell my son that too.

Fast forward about three years from our conversation in the car. I’m talking with my sister on the phone. My son is suppose to be mowing the yard, but he’s been in the bathroom for at least half an hour. At least. It’s a common problem, his hiding out in the bathroom instead of doing his chores. I’d already yelled up the stairs a couple of times.

“Hold on,” I said to my sister. “I’m going up there. He’s probably in there reading a book, and the yard will never get mowed.”

I stomped up the stairs and stopped at the bathroom door. “I’m coming in,” I warned as I opened the door and stuck my head in.

He wasn’t holding a book in his hand.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I closed the door and ran. I mean I literally ran down the stairs and through several rooms to the sunroom furthest from that bathroom.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered into the phone. “Oh my god. I should not have done that.”

“Why?What happened?” she asked.

“He wasn’t reading a book,” I said. I was pacing the floor, my stomach churning with embarrassment.

“What was he doing?”

“What the hell do you think he was doing? He was whacking off!” I whisper-shouted. “He was sitting on the toilet …. whacking off.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to hide here in the sunroom just like I’m already doing until he grows up and moves away. Then I’m going to offer to pay for his years and years of therapy.”

“You’ll have to come out someday. What are you going to say to him? Is he horribly embarrassed?”

“I would assume so. I know I am! How could I have been so stupid and rude? I’ve probably scarred him for life,” I whispered. (BEAT) I didn’t hear my son until he was in the room.

“What did you want, Mom?” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if I walked in on him masturbating every day.

I scanned him for signs of crippling psychological damage. “Did you remember you said you’d mow the yard before dinner?” I decided to follow his lead.

“Yeah, and I will. Was that all?”

“Ummm, no. No, Yes. No …. Yes, that was all I wanted.”

“OK, I’m going to go do it then.”

“OK. Thanks.” He left the room and I let out the breath I’d been holding since he’d walked in.

“Did you hear that?” I asked my sister.

“I did,” she said. “Did he look really embarrassed? Poor kid.”

“No, he didn’t look a bit embarrassed. He didn’t even care that I caught him beating off. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“No, I’m not really sure, and I don’t want to guess,” she said.

“It means I win. It means I raised a son who’s not ashamed to do something that is natural and feels good and should never have been stigmatized. I’m embarrassed and freaking out, but he’s not! I win the parenting award for masturbation!”

Later …. quite some time later, when we …. OK, when I was able to talk about it, he said, “Of course I wasn’t embarrassed. You told me it was OK to do it. Should I have been embarrassed?”

“No,” I said. “You should not have been embarrassed at all.”

And, I thought. Neither should I.