This chapter focuses on voyeurism: the audience voyeurism whereby the viewer is positioned to watch an erotic display of self-stimulation, and the voyeurism that occurs within the narrative whereby a character is presented as observing—in varying degrees of enthusiasm—the masturbation of another. Autoeroticism is, above all, sexual behavior, and this chapter focuses on screen presentations that eschew the demonizing, embarrassment and loneliness examined in other chapters and instead prioritizes the inherent sexiness of the display.
The Spanish comedy-thriller La ley del deseo (Law of Desire) (1987) opened with a masturbation scene being filmed as part of a gay porn movie. This scene aptly illustrates that not only is porn used as an accoutrement to stimulate masturbation (chapter 4), but that masturbation itself is often an inclusion in porn[1] and can be an erotic display of its own right and one that frequently motivates copycat self-stimulation.
On screen and the sexiness of masturbation—primarily but not exclusively female masturbation—is presented in a variety of ways: in this section two masturbation displays are examined including surreptitious peeps and sex industry displays.
In a scene from the Swiss horror film Frauengefängnis (Barbed Wire Dolls) (1976)—set in a woman’s prison—Bertha (Martine Stedil) masturbated. A guard saw her and encouraged, “Don’t stop, don’t stop. . . . Keep it up.” In the teen-comedy Animal House (1978), John (John Belushi) was on a ladder watching a woman caress her bare breasts and then masturbate. In the romantic-comedy Meet Monica Velour (2010), party-goers used binoculars to peep at Amanda (Jee Young Han) masturbating with a vibrator. In the comedy 18 Year Old Virgin (2009), while Katie (Olivia Alaina May) scratched her genitals in a closet, a classmate secretly filmed her assuming that he was capturing masturbation.[2] In the horror film Seed of Chucky (2004) the masturbation of the doll protagonist was photographed by a paparazzo. In the mystery The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976), Anne (Sarah Miles) masturbated while her adolescent son (Jonathan Kahn) watched her through a hole in the wall. In the thriller Mata Hara (1985), a man watched Mata (Sylvia Kristel) self-stimulate through the keyhole of her hotel room. In the thriller The Temp (1993), Peter (Timothy Hutton) peeped through an open window at Kris (Lara Flynn Boyle) masturbating. In the Norwegian crime-drama Hodejegerne (Headhunters) (2011) a man had installed secret cameras in his house so that he and his colleagues could watch footage of his sex worker girlfriend; in one scene they watched her masturbate. In several scenes from the television series Magic City (2012–), Lily (Jessica Marais) lay on her bed masturbating; her husband Ben (Danny Huston) had a two-sided mirror that he used to watch her. In the British sex-drama 9 Songs (2004), Matt (Kieran O’Brien) stood at the bedroom door and watched his partner Lisa (Margo Stilley) self-stimulate on the bed, naked with a vibrator.
While the voyeurs in these scenes weren’t masturbating themselves, the scenes nevertheless establish that masturbation—notably and predictably, female masturbation—is something worth looking at; that the display is enticing enough for a man to stop, watch and possibly even risk getting caught, if not arrested. In some scenes, the sexiness of the display is not merely something to look at however, but worth actually masturbating to: that the sexy nature of an autoerotic display stimulates copycat behavior.
In American Horror Story (2011–), Ben (Dylan McDermott), spotted his young maid, Moira (Alexandra Breckenridge) masturbating in full maid attire; he then retreated to his bedroom to do the same. In the French drama Un jeu brutal (Brutal Game) (1983), Isabelle (Emmanuelle Debever) spied her governess Annie (María Luisa García) masturbating and returned to her room to follow suit. In chapter 2, I discussed group masturbation scenes in scenes such as Amarcord (I Remember) (1973), Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Cinema Paradiso) (1988), Y Tu Mamá También (And Your Mother Too!) (2001), and Angela’s Ashes (1999). Equally, in chapter 8 I discuss coupled masturbation scenes in Paris, France (1993), Down to the Bone (2004), The L Word (2004–2009), Tell Me You Love Me (2007), Crash (2008–2009) and Misfits (2009–). Undoubtedly the self-stimulation of other people—something identifiable in each of these scenes—aroused and encouraged the stimulation of the self. In these scenes, more than just a display that is vaguely enjoyable to watch, it is arousing enough to actually masturbate to.
The presentation of women as objects to look at raises a number of issues for analysis. The first explored in this chapter is female masturbation depicted as worth paying to see.
In an episode of the British series Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007–2011), Belle (Billie Piper) was in a hotel room with a client who couldn’t manage to orgasm. She sat down on the floor and said, “why don’t you watch me have a play?” Belle then used a vibrator on herself. It didn’t work. When the client left, Belle remarked, “well that’s a first!” In this scene, the character alluded to the taken-for-granted norm that men want to watch women masturbate; that apparently it is universally considered erotic. While masturbation scenes are ubiquitous in porn,[3] and scenes of strippers running their hands up and down their bodies as nods to masturbation are commonplace in mainstream screen narratives,[4] much rarer are sex worker characters actually shown masturbating themselves.
Perhaps the most obvious demonstration of sexualized female masturbation is when it is presented as something paid for. In a scene from the drama About Cherry (2012) for example, Angelina (Ashley Hinshaw) was a young girl beginning her porn career. In one scene—while dressed in a school uniform and positioned on top of a desk—Margaret (Heather Graham) coached her and said, “A little birdie told me you liked to be watched.” Margaret then encouraged Angelina to touch herself. Angelina’s masturbation was not about her own pleasure but rather was being done for the imagined audience. This scene is indicative of presentations whereby autoeroticism is less an act of self-pleasure and more so an erotic exhibition. In a scene from the mystery Desert Winds (1995) for example, Eugene (Michael A. Nickles) watched a woman masturbate in a peep show scene. The same thing transpired in the Irish drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005): in one scene, the transsexual character Kitten (Cilian Murphy) starred in a peepshow and masturbated while positioned on a swing. In the drama Requiem for a Dream (2000), Marion (Jennifer Connelly) participated in sex act with a dildo in front of a room of men in suits. In the French film Choses secrètes (Secret Things) (2002), Nathalie (Coralie Revel) masturbated as part of her strip show. Akin to the About Cherry scene, in the drama King Kelly (2012), Kelly (Louisa Krause) sucked on her vibrator and then masturbated with it on her webcam site. In the drama Shame (2011), a webcam woman was similarly shown masturbating. In the drama The Girlfriend Experience (2009), Chelsea (Sasha Grey) recounted one of her experiences with a client, detailing: “After he got off the phone, we made out for a while and then he asked me to masturbate, which I did. Then he masturbated while watching me.” In the romantic-drama The Center of the World (2001) a stripper masturbated for a client who had hired her for the weekend.[5]
These scenes each tap into an idea at the center of this chapter—that female masturbation is something men like to watch—but more so, that they like it enough to pay for it. In each of the above examples, the autoerotic presentation was sold as a product of the sex industry: porn production in About Cherry, King Kelly and Shame, prostitution in The Girlfriend Experience, Secret Diary of a Call Girl and The Centre of the World and peepshows in Desert Winds, Breakfast on Pluto, Choses secrètes and Requiem for a Dream.
The idea of female masturbation as something worth paying for of course, is not new. Art historian Kelly Dennis discussed nude artworks from the Renaissance noting that autoeroticism was often a theme in private commissions.[6] Thomas Laqueur, in his cultural history of masturbation, similarly argued that after the 1930s (and after the demise of the belief that autoeroticism was a health problem), it came to be included as “a subject of painting and performance art [as] a deeply interesting part of the human erotic experience as a sign of abjection or of triumph.”[7]
The idea of women in art existing primarily to be looked has long been analyzed. Art historian John Berger for example, produced seminal work in this area, his central contention being that in art “men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at.”[8] In the specific context of cinema, feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey mounted a similar case, contending that, “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.”[9] On the most basic level, art in general—but particularly cinema—has long included women as objects of titillation; that that they are included for aesthetics: to draw attention to a scene and to provide erotic interest. Unquestionably the inclusion of attractive women masturbating is an exaggeration of this. While the above examples were illustrations of the to-be-looked-at-ness of female masturbation on screen, this issue—and the politics underpinning it—was actually explicitly referenced in dialogue in the Australian thriller Alexandra’s Project (2003). In a video message that Alexandra (Helen Buday) left for her husband Steve (Gary Sweet), she held up a vibrator and said:
Nice birthday present, Steve, I really appreciated it . . . Do you know what this is, Steve? I’ll tell you what this is. This is a machine. It’s a machine you bought to go inside me so that you can get your rocks off. Don’t say it was for me, because it wasn’t. If I wanted one I would have bought myself one long ago.
Alexandra construed Steve’s vibrator present not as a gift, but rather as coercion for her to perform masturbation for him.
While the sexiness of masturbation for audiences is addressed later in this chapter, worth discussing here is the appeal of masturbation for the onlookers within the scenes beyond just the general scopophilic—love of looking—pleasure derived. Masturbation is about stimulation of genitals. For an observer, part of the appeal is the pleasure of looking at genitals. Just as porn showcases body parts that are normally concealed, for the character watching masturbation within a narrative, presumably part of the attraction lies in witnessing something unusual and invariably something involving someone found attractive. This idea is compounded of course, when the display is occurring in a character’s real life: that rather than just seeing printed or filmed genitals in porn, that a character is getting the thrill of real life genital exposure within their proximity. More so, not only are genitals being observed, but the stimulation of them in conjunction with the sexiness of a character’s pleasure. While culturally we might be growing more comfortable with masturbation, it is still routinely thought of as a taboo so having real life access to someone masturbating can be titillating. In line with this taboo, masturbation is frequently construed of as something done in private. Just as other normally private practices—urination, defecation, menstruation—are often fetishized in porn by virtue of it being something normally done alone and in secret,[10] the appeal of displays of masturbation can be interpreted as equally grounded in “naughtiness.”[11]
Throughout this chapter I have noted that female masturbation is often filmed in a way that showcases the pleasure of the participant. The idea that arousal is worth looking at has a long history. Introduced in chapter 4 was the presence of images of women masturbating in eighteenth century art. The Japanese shunga—or erotic art—of the Edo period (1603–1868) also frequently showed women self-stimulating.[12] Sexologist Mels van Driel in his cultural history of masturbation similarly discussed centuries of literature, poetry and fine arts also including depictions of autoeroticism. The website BeautifulAgony.com is a modern day example, providing an online collection of masturbation videos—mostly of women—cropped around their faces, capturing sexual pleasure at orgasm:
Beautiful Agony began as an experiment, to test a theory that eroticism in human imagery lies not in the body, but in the face; that film of a genuine, unscripted, natural orgasm can succeed where the most visceral mainstream pornography fails, and that is, to actually turn us on.[13]
Espoused through BeautifulAgony’s videos is the simple idea that it is sexually stimulating for audiences to see the sexual responses of masturbators. van Driel describes BeautifulAgony as “prudish, since as we said no genitalia are in view—not so much as a nipple,”[14] and while indeed, genitals and nipples can indeed make a scene sexier, such exposure is not essential to this: in fact, sometimes the focus on the face, on the bitten lips and the moans of pleasure can be just as arousing (as in much of the art discussed above). In many of the masturbation scenes analyzed throughout this book—notably female vibrator-use scenes such as those in the comedy Not Another Teen Movie (2001), How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (2005) or Lee’s (Maggie Gyllenhaal) masturbation in Secretary (2002)—the scenes were filmed in a way that mirrors the stylings apparent on BeautifulAgony.com whereby the women lay on their backs, the eroticism of pleasure depicted on their face rather than through genital exposure.[15]
In some examples, the cinematography makes the eroticism of women’s masturbation particularly noteworthy: the erotic-drama 9½ Weeks (1986) and the horror film Alyce (2011) both illustrate this well. In 9½ Weeks, Elizabeth (Kim Basinger) masturbated to a slideshow while thinking about her lover John (Mickey Rourke). The mise en scène of the masturbation scene—with the slideshow running in the background and the projector’s light on Elizabeth’s body—is a very explicit presentation of masturbation consciously and self-referentially presented as voyeuristic. Elizabeth appeared as though she was starring in a sexual spectacle within the narrative; as though she was being filmed. A very similar staging transpired in Alyce: while watching a large TV screen in a darkened room, the title character (Jade Dornfeld) masturbated; the flickering lights of the television flashed against her body and as in 9½ Weeks, it appeared as though Alyce’s self-stimulation was being recorded; mirroring the audience’s experience of watching masturbation as a performance (and of the female masturbator being objectified). In media theorist Michele Aaron’s discussion of the erotic-thriller Body of Evidence (1993), she discussed a scene where Rebecca (Madonna) masturbated in front of Frank (Willem Dafoe) and contended that “masturbation is constructed as an invitation to the male’s participation.”[16] While this is certainly a viable interpretation of the Body of Evidence scene, more broadly, it provides a way to think about all female masturbation scenes which appear, primarily included to titillate; to arouse characters within the narrative as well as the audience.
Thus far I have discussed female masturbation being watched by men. It is worthwhile noting that on rare occasions women are also presented as enjoying watching the display.
In chapter 5, I discussed the Married With Children (1987–1997) episode when Miss Hardaway (Beverly Archer), the school librarian, spied on Bud (David Faustino) masturbating in a private study room. Also mentioned was the Argentinian drama La mirada invisible (The Invisible Eye) (2010), where María Teresa (Julieta Zylberberg)—working as a teaching assistant at a boy’s school–masturbated while spying on boys in the bathroom. In these outlier examples, women watched men masturbate. Worth spotlighting however, there are also a small number of examples where women watch other women. In television shows such as The L Word and Drop Dead Diva (2009–), female characters were shown in attendance at female strip shows. While the female audience members didn’t masturbate in response, such scenes nevertheless allude to the idea that women can partake of the same kind of scopophilic pleasures as men, although it is a much rarer display. While examples of women watching heterosexual porn illustrate women’s scopophilic tendencies (chapter 4), an episode of Six Feet Under (2001–2005) provides an outlier example more akin to men watching live-action masturbation. Edie (Mena Suvari) alluded to her horniness and her friend Claire (Lauren Ambrose) responded, “you really want to get off, huh?” Edie replied that it would “be nice,” so Claire suggested Edie “go ahead . . . I want to watch.” Claire then watched Edie masturbate.
Such a scene, of course, is rare. Rare because heteronormativity dictates that if women are permitted to ogle (e.g. in films such as Magic Mike (2012)) that they will do so only at men. Rare also because women might ogle at men but are expected to experience their sexual pleasure within relationships; that this is what is normal. Worth spotlighting, while images of men masturbating have a role in homosexual porn, such a display is substantially rarer in heterosexual material. It is predominantly female masturbation that is presented as sexy and it the male audience who is presented as the prime beneficiary: both within the narrative—as discussed in the above examples—or in the audience as addressed later.
In an episode of the British series Coupling (2000–2004), Steve (Jack Davenport) was asked to ejaculate into a cup at the fertility clinic. He complained about this to his wife, Susan (Sarah Alexander), arguing:
Masturbation is supposed to be a bad thing. It’s a stealth activity. You do it on your own, in secret, and you lie about it afterwards. You feel guilt! It’s one of the last forms of entirely safe guilt left available to a man.
While Steve was being hyperbolic to exaggerate the burden of having to masturbate on command–not to mention his fears about performance (issues both returned to in chapter 10)–nevertheless, the idea of appeal lying in masturbation as a stealth activity is certainly worth exploring. While the naughtiness might explain the desirability of participation, it is also worth considering that this in fact, also underpins the appeal of the display, for characters watching within narratives and also for the audience. The appeal of the stealth nature of masturbation, as well as the layers of taboo attached, was discussed by philosopher Alan Soble:
Masturbation uncannily mocks the concepts of our sexual discourse. Masturbation is sex with someone about whom I care, to whose satisfaction and welfare I am devoted. If I’m married, it is sex with someone who is not my spouse and hence adulterous. It is homosexual, incestuous, and often pedophilic . . .[17]
In Martha Cornog’s work on masturbation, she also addressed this issue, noting, “While increasingly fewer people consider it wrong or dangerous many do not want to talk about it or hear it talked about openly . . .”[18] In van Driel’s work, he discussed research noting that “as regards sexual taboos, masturbation is indisputably in first place for both men and women.”[19] Of particular interest, he noted that only 8 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men felt that the taboo of masturbation should be lifted.[20] Considered together, these ideas hint to the idea that if masturbation were to rid itself of the sinful connotations, then some of the stealth appeal of participation, as well as spectatorship, may dissipate; that the turn-on is at least partly predicated on the naughtiness. Masturbation scenes in film and television therefore retain appeal because they remain a little bit taboo and thus the audience gets to partake of that.[21]
In the commercial masturbation scenes discussed earlier, men pay to watch women masturbate because the display is deemed arousing. In other screen examples, rather than the spectacle being paid for, instead, it is orchestrated through force, that pleasure is sourced from a coerced autoerotic display.
A comic example of this transpired in the romantic-comedy The Ugly Truth (2009). Abby (Katherine Heigl) put on a pair of vibrating briefs in preparation for a date. The date was abruptly cancelled because Abby had to attend a work dinner; she didn’t have time to remove the briefs. At the restaurant, the remote control for the garment fell out of Abby’s handbag and was seized by a young boy at another table who proceeded to play with the buttons. Abby ended up having to give her work presentation while climaxing. In this scene, the comedy centered on Abby’s orgasm occurring in such an unlikely, public place location and notably in front of her colleagues. Worth noting, the humor in this scene was also premised on the cruel as well as voyeuristic appeal of Abby’s predicament as experienced by her colleague Mike (Gerard Butler), who had surreptitiously given her the briefs. Almost the same narrative transpired in an episode of the sitcom The Drew Carey Show (1995–2004): Mimi (Kathy Kinney) was wearing a pair of vibrating panties; her colleague Drew (Drew Carey) found the remote control and turned them on while she was in a meeting with her boss. More commonly however, forced masturbation is presented much less humorously.
In the thriller Black Swan (2010), company director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) suggested that dancer Nina (Natalie Portman) find her sexiness: “Go home and touch yourself. Live a little.” Later, Nina lay in bed masturbating. While Thomas was only making a suggestion—and while their certainly wasn’t any compulsion in his remark—in other scenes, the masturbation instruction is much more direct. In American Horror Story, as part of Lana’s (Sarah Paulson) aversion therapy treatment for her homosexuality, she was instructed by Dr. Thredson (Zachary Quinto) to masturbate while staring at a naked man. Lana cried throughout the scene and ended up vomiting. While resistance for Lana was technically possible, there was a clear doctor/patient power imbalance. Forced masturbation as “treatment” also transpired in an episode of the mystery series Perception (2012–), when a gay man was given a sexual stimulant drug by a doctor who then encouraged him to watch heterosexual porn and masturbate to cure his homosexuality. A more overtly sexualized version of this occurred in the German drama Die Wunde (The Wound) (2001): a secretary (Mareike Fell) masturbated—fully clothed—facing out against a large window overlooking a city; a man positioned off screen instructed her on how she should touch herself. While this can be construed as exhibitionism within the narrative, there is also an element of voyeurism for the man and the audience. In La ley del deseo, the off-screen voice of the porn director instructed the young boy to masturbate for the camera: “Do it for real. You’ve got to get turned on.” The same thing transpired in the About Cherry porn production scene discussed earlier. Forced masturbation was presented as much more sinister in the thriller Tattoo (1981). Karl (Bruce Dern) was a mentally ill tattoo artist who became obsessed with model Maddy (Maud Adams). In one scene he forced her to masturbate, ordering her to, “touch it, Maddy, touch it.” In the Italian drama Interno di un convento (Behind Convent Walls) (1977), the abbess (Gabriella Giacobbe) caught a nun masturbating and forced her to repeat the act in her presence and then confiscated her dildo. In the Japanese erotic-thriller Rokugatsu no hebi (A Snake of June) (2002), Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa) was blackmailed by an anonymous caller Iguchi (Shinya Tsukamoto) who insisted that she follow his orders, else he would reveal her chronic masturbation to her husband. Iguchi’s instructions included Rinko buying phallic shaped vegetables and in one scene—recalling the scenes from The Ugly Truth and The Drew Carey Show—ordered her to insert a remote-controlled vibrator into her vagina which he would operate to control her orgasms. While in these scenes female masturbation was forced, there are also examples where men are similarly coerced. In the British period-drama The Dreamers (2003), American student Matthew (Michael Pitt) and two French siblings—brother Théo (Louis Garrel) and sister Isabelle (Eva Green)—played a cinema trivia game: questions answered incorrectly resulted in sexual acts having to be performed. At one point, Théo was forced to masturbate in front of Matthew and Isabelle to a picture of Marlene Dietrich. In the romantic-comedy Outside Providence (1999), Irving (Jack Ferver) told a story of being a freshman and joining a “secret club.” As part of the initiation ritual, he was instructed to “drop trou and commence to jack off til each of us hath come.” In a scene from the drama Skin and Bone (1996), Dean (Alan Boyce)—a male sex worker—was hired by two women. They turned out to be scientists who forced him to repeatedly begin and halt masturbating without explanation. A more violent take on this transpired in the Australian mystery Book of Revelation (2006): Daniel (Tom Long), a ballet dancer, was drugged and kidnapped by three hooded women. While they held him prisoner, they forced him into a variety of sexual acts including forced masturbation. In scene from the crime drama Criminal Minds (2005–), a teenager (Cody Kasch) was forced to masturbate by members of his school’s wrestling team while they filmed it.
While an obvious appeal for those ordering masturbation is the power that comes from controlling someone else’s sexuality, these scenes again allude to the arousal found in having immediate-vicinity exposure to an act that is normally private. Even in American Horror story when Lana was crying and vomiting—and thus it might seem like such visceral responses might dull the appeal of her masturbation—Dr. Thredson was a psychopath and thus Lana’s response in fact likely heightened his excitement. This American Horror Story scene alludes to another appeal for the dominant figures in forced masturbation scenarios: that pleasure can be found in someone else’s humiliation. In an episode of Rectify (2013–) this idea was actually explored within the narrative. Ted Jr. (Clayne Crawford) asked his recently-released step-brother Daniel (Aden Young) about rape in prison. Throughout Daniel’s explanation, Ted Jr. subtly, and repeatedly, adjusted his pants. While it was not obvious that Daniel had noticed Ted Jr.’s physical reaction to his story, Daniel described the stares from other prisoners as he walked back to his cell after his rape and identified, “then there are the ones who, when you pass by their cells, they look at you with the basest form of curiosity, Ted . . . because more than anything they’re aroused by another’s shame, you know?” While Daniel was discussing prison life, his description appeared as though it were narrating Ted Jr.’s prurient request to hear about Daniel’s humiliating sexual experiences as well as Ted’s own arousal. Similar motivations and arousal stemming from the sexual humiliation of others underpins some of the appeal of forced masturbation scenes.
In accounts of torture and humiliation in Abu Ghraib, forced masturbation was discussed as a technique used by the guards against prisoners.[22] Historian Stephen Eisenman explained the rationale for this method:
The purpose . . . according to the report of General George P. Fay, was what Military Intelligence called ‘ego down,’ a form of sexual humiliation—especially aimed at Muslim men—intended to help establish ‘favourable conditions’ for interrogation. Other forms of sexual abuse in the prison were clearly intended to gratify the hatred and homophobia of the guards, and at the same time allow them to believe that the victim might actually enjoy the violation.[23]
Discussed throughout this book is masturbation being thought of as disgusting at the extreme end of the spectrum, but more generally as simply a private act and one that is embarrassing to be caught doing. When forced masturbation appears in screen narratives such scenes can be interpreted—akin to the situation in Abu Ghraib—as circumstances where the act is used to embarrass as well as even break characters.
While sometimes forced humiliation is interpreted as cruel and distressing, it needs to be acknowledged that in other contexts it can actually be construed as erotic for the person forced; something Eisenman alluded to when he discussed some of the reactions from the right-wing in the United States following the exposure of the Abu Ghraib photos:
This idea, that the prisoners actually welcomed sexual humiliation and violation was expressed as well by various American, right-wing commentators about Abu Ghraib, including Rush Limbaugh, who was quoted as saying on his radio show. . . . . ‘We have these pictures of homoeroticism that look like standard good-old American pornography.’[24]
While Limbaugh’s comments were inflammatory and offensive—clearly the detainees at Abu Ghraib had not been given the opportunity to consent for the abuse inflicted on them to be felt as erotic—for some participants in similar acts within narratives, there is actually the possibility for arousal to be sourced. In chapter 5, I discussed prison masturbation scenes and quoted literature scholar Stephen Cox who wrote that on screen prisons are often presented “as a screen for the projection of sexual conflicts and fantasies. . . . Here fantasies both of sexual humiliation and of sexual dominance and fulfilment can be cultivated. . . . .”[25] One interpretation for forced masturbation scenes is that such a presentation taps into a prurient interest in sadomasochism and humiliation on the part of the audience (and potentially also an unarticulated interest on the part of the “victim”): that the character—who might be uptight like Abby in The Ugly Truth or Nina in Black Swan, or same-sex attracted such as Lana in American Horror Story—can experience pleasures that are not only unusual for them but which might in fact only be able to be enjoyed when their individual responsibility is taken away and such an act is imposed on him (much like the devil narratives discussed in chapter 1 where possession provided women an “excuse” to masturbate). A similar interpretation can be applied to the Skin and Bone and Book of Revelation scenes where women forced men to masturbate. As noted throughout this book, male masturbation is often assumed to be disgusting and shameful. Some women however, might actually find the display arousing—particularly so if they are the orchestrators and can draw pleasure from control more so than the simple hand-on-penis display—as in these scenes.
Worth noting, forced masturbation indeed has a role in real life sexual violence,[26] but also in sex play such as sadomasochism and porn.[27] (The role of masturbation on screen as functioning as a kind of sexual assault is discussed in chapter 10.)
While arguably the characters in the sex industry masturbation scenes discussed earlier—for example, About Cherry, Desert Winds, Breakfast on Pluto, Choses secrètes, King Kelly, Shame, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Requiem for a Dream and The Girlfriend Experience—were each masturbating as part of a seduction ritual, nonetheless their seduction was primarily commercial; masturbation was only happening because a customer was paying for it. This of course, does not preclude pleasure on the part of the masturbator, but nevertheless establishes that self-stimulation was not the primary objective. There are however, many examples where characters do use masturbation to seduce in non-commercial, intimate settings. In the British series Love in the 21st Century (1999) for example, Amanda (Natasha Little) walked in on her boyfriend Jack (Ioan Gruffudd) masturbating. Jack had been startled by Amanda’s unexpected appearance, but he soon relaxed against the pillows and said, “don’t just stand there, give us a hand.” He then smiled cheekily. Something similar transpired in an episode of the historic-drama series Masters of Sex (2013–). Libby (Caitlin FitzGerald) began to masturbate for her husband, Dr. Masters (Michael Sheen), in an attempt to seduce him. While in both examples, the seduction failed—Amanda was angry and left the room and Dr. Masters promptly stopped his wife—the scenes do introduce the idea of masturbation often being used on screen as a way for one character to sexually tempt another, and on the occasions when it is successful, invariably it is the female masturbator as the seductress.
In the mystery Fatal Error (2006), Tanya (Anne Heche) made a video of herself masturbating for her long-distance lover Joe (Eric Roberts). In the comedy The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), Beth (Elizabeth Banks) masturbated with a showerhead to orgasm in front of Andy (Steve Carell) before their date, explaining: “This is how I’m going to warm up for you.” In Body of Evidence, Rebecca’s masturbation appeared to entice Frank into having sex with her. In the thriller We Own the Night (2007), Amada (Eva Mendes) started to masturbate: Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix)—upon seeing the display—kissed her and initiated sex. In the French drama La femme qui pleure (The Crying Woman) (1979), Dominique (Dominique Laffin) attempted to seduce her husband Jacques (Jacques Doillon), but he rebuffed her advances. Dominique began to masturbate which quickly inspired Jacques to change his mind. While less explicit, masturbation and seduction were also linked in the drama Antichrist (2009): The Wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) was naked and masturbating in the forest; her husband (Willem Dafoe) caught her, slapped her and then initiated sex. In an episode of Sex and the City (1998–2004), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) cured her husband Trey’s (Kyle MacLachlan) impotency problems by masturbating in front of him. In the Spanish comedy Días de cine (Movie Days) (2007), Silvia (Nathalie Poza) and Federico (Alberto San Juan) entered a room kissing. Silvia then stopped Federico making further moves and masturbated for him. The masturbation of another person also served as a turn-on in a variety of coupled scenes, as well as in phone-sex masturbation scenes as discussed in chapter 8.
Much like the autoeroticism performed on stage or on webcams discussed earlier, in the scenes explored above, masturbation was performed in intimate scenarios with the knowledge that it is something that serves double duty by arousing the woman at the same time as seducing a man.
While the examples discussed in this section largely involved women masturbating to seduce men, there are some variations that disrupt the standard heteronormative presentation. In the comedy-drama Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) for example, Tommy (Michael Pitt) was masturbating in the bathtub. He was caught by Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell), who finished the task for him. This same scenario transpired in John From Cincinnati (2007) when Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay) walked in on her son Butchie (Brian Van Holt) masturbating and finished things for him. Similarly, in a scene from the thriller In The Cut (2003), Giovanni (Mark Ruffalo) used a masturbation-themed story to seduce Frannie (Meg Ryan), telling a tale of delivering chickens to housewives as a young man for a butcher. One of the housewives apparently seduced him through masturbation, “She wets her fingers and touches herself real soft, she touches herself and tells me to lick there.” While it was a story about female masturbation—apparently universally considered sexy—it was Giovanni telling it that aroused Frannie. Akin to the examples where characters are turned-on by peeping at other characters masturbating, these scenes function exactly the same way: that female masturbation is, by its nature, erotic, and is a device able to arouse the self and others.
In chapter 1, I referred to a scene from the drama An American Affair (1997) where Barbara (Jayne Heitmeyer) phoned her lover Sam (Corbin Bernsen)—who was at home with his partner—speaking seductively to him while she masturbated. The scene was discussed as an example of female sexuality presented as dangerous. While in this example Sam was unable to see Barbara’s masturbation—and thus the presentation was visual stimulation for the audience (if only aural for him)—as in this example, masturbation can be used to portray a character, invariably a female character, as sexually aggressive. While the end goal might be seduction, it may also serve as a flattering sex-based power trip.
Discussed earlier was the scene from American Horror Story: in it, Moira’s masturbation seemed a deliberately orchestrated attempt to taunt Ben; her smile and her continued masturbation even after being sprung, seemed to bolster this. A similar narrative played out in the Australian heist film The Hard Word (2002). Carol (Rachel Griffiths) visited her husband Dale (Guy Pearce) in prison and greeted him by rubbing her hand between her legs and then wiping her secretions on the partition glass. Dale knew that Carol had been cheating on him: her masturbatory display in this scene was teasing and served as a clue to the audience of the complexity of their relationship. While Dale might be angry at Carol, her masturbation was still subtly arousing for him and reiterates the supposed universal sexiness of female autoerotic displays (which arguably override other sentiments). The same ideas transpired in the Italian drama La gabbia (The Trap) (1985). Marie (Laura Antonelli) was a rejected mistress still holding the proverbial candle for her ex-lover, Michael (Tony Musante), fifteen years on. In one scene, Marie tied Michael up against his will and, while elegantly dressed, masturbated for him. This dynamic similarly occurred in The Book of Revelation when, in one scene, a woman in a balaclava visited the imprisoned Tom and masturbated—almost aggressively—to orgasm in front of him. Less aggressively, but the same configuration transpired in the thriller Only God Forgives (2013), when Mai (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam) tied Julian (Ryan Gosling) to a chair and masturbated in front of him. Such scenes are, of course, complicated because like Dale in The Hard Word, Michael, Tom and Julian were in imprisoned but their “resentment” about their circumstances was a sentiment existing alongside the truism of female masturbation being a highly erotic display.[28] Something similar was identifiable in the crime-drama Havoc (2005): Allison (Anne Hathaway) masturbated in front of the documentary film maker Eric (Matt O’Leary). Unlike scenes where women masturbated to tempt a lover, Allison wasn’t interested in sex with Eric, but self-stimulated to be provocative, to be bratty, as well as to disconcert him. Such scenes exist as a substantial contrast to those where men masturbate at women without any element of eroticism (chapter 10).
While the pleasure for voyeurs is an obvious reading of the masturbation scenes discussed in this section, this doesn’t tell the full story. Discussed in chapter 5 was the idea of the exhibitionist appeal for the public masturbators who self-stimulate in locations where there is an increased chance of interruption. It would be negligent to overlook that in some of these examples, part of the fuel for the masturbator’s arousal was having an audience, something Kath (Tina Benko) alluded to in an episode of Brotherhood (2006–2008), when—while masturbating in front of her ex Michael (Jason Isaacs)—said “I like to be watched.” While this is certainly a viable interpretation for the scenes discussed above, there are others where the idea of being watched is presented as explicitly arousing.
Discussed in chapter 2 were young men masturbating in front of each other; being in a sexually charged environment was something that seemingly heightened their arousal. In chapter 5 I also explored that for some characters—notably those who masturbated in public—there is an element of sexiness in the thrill of perhaps getting caught. These two themes set the scene for the presentation of a character’s pleasure in fact centering on masturbating in front of another person; that having an audience is essential to arousal.
In some narratives, exhibitionism is scarcely coded. When the title character (Harvey Keitel) in the crime-drama Bad Lieutenant (1992) masturbated in front of the two women in the car, such a presentation is perfectly in line with the behavior of a flasher whereby arousal directly stems from exposing genitals to an unsuspecting audience.[29] More common on screen, however, is exhibitionism as something that happens in comparatively private situations.
In American Horror Story, when Moira was caught masturbating by Ben, she smirked at him and kept masturbating: her arousal was clearly propelled by his desire for her. In the thriller Scorned (1994), Patricia (Shannon Tweeds) masturbated near an open window. An adolescent boy spied on her, she smiled, and continued. In the British horror film The Awakening (2011), Florence (Rebecca Hall) was masturbating in the bath and sensing the ghost boy watching her, got out of the water to give him a better look. The same reading of exhibitionism can be extended to the Brotherhood, The Hard Word, Havoc, La Gabbia and Only God Forgives scenes where a captive audience constitutes part of the appeal. Also identifiable are scenes where men are caught masturbating and experience heightened arousal. In the drama We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), the adolescent Kevin (Ezra Miller) masturbated. His mother saw him, he saw his mother see him, and he kept masturbating, a smirk on his face. In the comedy Grandma’s Boy (2006), Alex (Allen Covert) was masturbating in the bathroom when his friend’s mother entered unexpectedly. Alex turned from the toilet to face her, her entrance seemed to arouse him further, and as he ejaculated all over her, he screamed, “Oh my god, I’m sorry, I can’t stop coming . . . it feels so good!” In an episode of the teen series The Hard Times of RJ Berger (2010–2011), RJ (Paul Iacono) was masturbating when his mother entered the room. She sat on his bed, he tried to stay still, she touched his leg and he ejaculated. In these scenes, having their masturbation exposed added to a character’s arousal (even if exhibitionism wasn’t their initial intention).
In some of the examples in this section part of the display centered on a woman who is comfortable enough in her sexuality to flaunt it. There is also the idea of the power and heightened arousal that comes from engaging in a private activity in front of someone else and, in turn, establishing oneself as brazen and adventurous, something particularly relevant for Allison in Havoc.
Another interpretation—and one which can be connected to the mad masturbators discussed in chapter 1—is that exhibitionism is a way to frame a character as crazy. Like many non-vanilla sexual behaviors, masturbation has a history of being considered as a deviance, perversion or sign of mental illness.[30] For a character to eschew social standards and not only make their masturbation public but gain specific pleasure from its display is a way to imply the character is unhinged. This interpretation is most certainly relevant to Bad Lieutenant and We Need to Talk About Kevin.
While the performance of masturbation can stimulate others, worth noting, watching one’s own masturbation can in fact be strong fuel for the act too.
In chapter 4 I discussed songs including Billy Bragg’s “St. Swithin’s Day” (1987) and Blink 182’s “M&Ms” (1994) where the idea of making love with one’s hands was discussed. In an 1981 episode of the comedy series Saturday Night Live (1975–), musical theatre performer Bernadette Peters performed a song—“Making Love Alone”—that equally encapsulated these themes (“When one can’t make love with another / one can still make love alone”). Comedian Rodney Dangerfield had a line that referenced similar ideas, “I remember the first time I had sex. It was very frightening. I was all alone.”[31] Alvy (Woody Allen), in the romantic-comedy Annie Hall (1977) also mentioned this: “Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.” Along similar lines, after Eric (Topher Grace) was caught masturbating in an episode of sitcom That 70s Show (1998–2006), his father, Red (Kurtwood Smith), later mocked him: “If it isn’t Casanova, the man who seduced himself.” While these examples present the idea of self-love-making as a joke, more serious displays are detectable.
In a scene from the comedy-drama Hollywood Dreams (2006), aspiring actress Margie (Tanna Federick) masturbated to a local newspaper article about herself. While in this scene it was unclear whether Margie was turned-on exclusively by her image or her “fame,” in other examples the self-seduction is made much clearer. In the horror film The Chair (2007), a bubble bath with candles and soft music set a romantic mood for Danielle’s (Alanna Chisholm) masturbation. In the a scene from the medical drama Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), when Dr. Cruz (Roma Maffia) was coaching Manya (Aisha Tyler) to orgasm—a Somalian model who had had a cliterodectomy and had not previously experienced one—Cruz dimmed the lights and played soothing music. In an episode of the sitcom Rules of Engagement (2007–2013), Jeff (Patrick Warburton) had to give a semen sample and got totally naked while at the clinic and explained to his wife (Megyn Price): “I was romancing myself. . . . With myself, I like a little foreplay.” In a scene from the comedy The To Do List (2013), Brandy (Aubrey Plaza) lit candles and had Kenny G. music playing to set a romantic mood for her masturbation. In many other scenes, self-seduction takes the form of a character admiring and touching their body and getting aroused by it in the same way that a lover might; invariably with the use of a mirror. In Nymphomaniac (2013) for example, when Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) decided to abstain from all sexual activity, she removed arousal triggers from her immediate vicinity including sex-themed paintings and books: notably, Joe painted over a mirror; presumably her own image served to seduce. In the Mexican teen-drama Amar te duele (Love Hurts) (2002), Renata (Martha Higareda) stood in front of the mirror grooming. She touched her lips, seemingly enjoyed the sensation, and progressed to her breasts. She only stopped when she was interrupted.[32] In the Spanish drama Diario de una ninfómana (Diary of a Sex Addict) (1998), Valérie (Belén Fabra) masturbated in several scenes; in one, she stood in front of a mirror watching herself. In the erotic-thriller Body Double (1984), Gloria (Deborah Shelton) performed what film theorist Linda Williams described as her nightly “masturbation dance”[33]: the character paraded in her underwear in front of the mirror touching herself and then lay down to masturbate. In a scene from the Australian television mini-series The Slap (2011), Rosie (Melissa George) posed in front of a mirror—dressed in a bra and skirt—smoking and touching her breasts. She then lay down on the bed and masturbated. In a scene from another Australian drama, Lilian’s Story (1996), the title character (Toni Collette) stood in front of a mirror, touched her body admiringly and then masturbated. In the Italian coming of age film Melissa P. (2005), the adolescent title character (Maria Velverde) masturbated in front of a mirror; the teenage title character (Nicole Puzzi) did the same thing in the Brazilian drama Ariella (1980). In the Spanish romantic-drama Lucía y el sexo (Sex and Lucia) (2001), after discovering she was pregnant, Elena (Najwa Nimri) stood in front of the mirror, touched her stomach and then masturbated. In the thriller Tainted (1987), Cathy (Shari Shattuck) masturbated in her underwear in front of a mirror. In the drama The Fox (1967), Ellen (Anne Heywood) stood in front of a mirror and masturbated, as did Anne (Sarah Miles) in the mystery The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976).
The first reading of these scenes links back to the ideas mentioned in the opening of this section: that characters are making love to themselves. In each example, women gently caress their bodies with the tenderness, eroticism and sheer joy of the flesh that one might expect from a lover. This idea—of treating masturbation as a kind of self-love-making—was actually subtly referred to in van Driel’s work where he quoted from a youth-oriented sex education book which uniquely described masturbation in gentle, love-making terms:
Like toasting a slice of white bread until it’s honey-colored, then spreading it with peanut butter and sprinkling chocolate on top. Lots of chocolate. And not wolfing it down, but cutting it into nice slices, like a cake, and then savouring it slowly.[34]
A woman in sex researcher Shere Hite’s work made the link between masturbation and a kind of solo love making: “Masturbation is sex on a solo level—that’s like saying I can take care of myself . . . I like myself.” [35] The idea that there are different types of autoeroticism—and that sometimes it can function as making love to oneself while at other times it is more about managing horniness—is certainly a viable reading for the scenes discussed above: that these women are taking pride in their bodies, finding themselves desirable, sensuous, and wanting to reap physical and visual pleasure from both their image and the touching of it. Worth noting, these examples obviously serve as a substantial contrast to the hurried, quick-and-dirty masturbation scenes that men are invariably involved with.[36]
An obvious explanation for the why of these mirror scenes is that they reflect how women masturbate in real life. A number of women in Hite’s research identified a role for mirrors in their self sex-play, for example, “I also like to see and feel my breasts in motion. Usually I stand in front of a full-length mirror.”[37]
Another explanation for these scenes is simply that the women are objectifying themselves in the same way that men—and audiences more broadly—are encouraged to: that of course they are turned on by their own bodies, just as everyone else is, something that can be interpreted as in-synch with feminist analyses, but also in more contemporary thinking, in line with queer analyses also.[38]
In the comedy-drama The Big Chill (1983), Harold (Kevin Kline) commented, “I always thought masturbation was the ultimate act of self-absorption.” Here, Harold presents another interpretation of these scenes: that they center on narcissism. The story of Narcissus centers on a man who looked into a pool and fell in love with his reflection. While the characters in the examples discussed above don’t necessarily fall in love with themselves, they are certainly sufficiently enamoured by their own image that they can masturbate to it in the same way a character might masturbate to a photo of a celebrity or other loved one (chapter 3). In Bettina Matthias’ work on hotels on literature, she noted that, “In many texts, self-encounters in the hotel’s mirrors bring to the surface an estrangement from the self to which the individual responds strongly, either positively or negatively.”[39] Matthias specifically discussed a scene from Arthur Schnitzler’s novel Fräulein Else (1925) which involved a woman standing in front of a mirror touching her body. As Matthias explained: “she starts to understand and enjoy her nakedness as an autoerotic pleasure and she wants, narcisstically, to be the only one to derive such pleasure form her body.”[40] The scenes discussed in this section are examples where characters have a positive reaction to their naked appearance and, in turn, participate in self-objectification and achieve arousal accordingly.
Berger, in his seminal text Ways of Seeing, has a slightly different take on this idea. While his discussion pertained to painting, it is equally useful in analyzing these cinema examples:
The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.[41]
Here, Berger provides a reading highly applicable to the scenes discussed in this section: that the mirror serves to make the masturbation appear to be a plausible insight into a character, rather than exclusively voyeuristic titillation for the audience.
In philosopher Titus Burckhardt’s work, he noted, “The mirror is the most immediate symbol of spiritual contemplation, and indeed of knowledge (gnosis) in general, for it portrays the union of subject and object.”[42] Theologian Sandy Yule made a similar point, noting, “The central symbol of the mirror manifests awareness of self and, in the frame, the painfulness that can attach to self-knowledge.”[43] Matthias’ work similarly positions the mirror as a vehicle for self-critique.[44] While the most obvious interpretation of masturbation scenes with mirrors center on arousal, scopophilia and vanity, introspection is another possibility. Such a reading is particularly applicable to a scene like the one from The Fox. Ellen was in a lesbian relationship but was fantasizing about sex with a man: her mirror gaze can be interpreted as being about sexual introspection; about self-analysis.[45] Similarly in Alyce, after she masturbated, the title character stared at herself in the mirror. The narrative centered on Alyce’s guilt over accidentally killing her best friend, her mirror-stare can thus be interpreted as her overthinking sexual pleasure in the shadow of her crippling guilt.
An extension of the self-knowledge interpretation is that by watching oneself masturbate that a character can immerse more consciously in the experience. While at various junctures in this book I have noted that characters masturbate quickly in order to finish before being caught, for others there might in fact be pride in the act: that touching one’s own body and gaining pleasure from it is viewed as a positive, affirming experiencing. In Spalding Gray’s creative non-fiction piece “Sex and Death to the Age 14,” he briefly alluded to this issue:
I began to like to masturbate in front of mirrors. The mirror was very important because, being a Christian Scientist, I kind of lost track of my body; for many years it was denied me. So it became important for me to look at what was there, to get a good sense of it.[46]
For Gray, watching himself masturbate was a way to reclaim his body and the pleasure it proffered. Some of the scenes discussed in this section can be viewed similarly. For adolescent characters like those in Lilian’s Story and Melissa P. there is a character’s joy in their own changing, maturing bodies.[47] For Elena in Lucía y el sexo, pregnancy functioned as a similarly pleasurable experience of bodily transformation (a topic discussed further in chapter 10).
Worth noting, self-seduction scenes do not exclusively involve women. In The Dreamers, Matthew masturbated in front of a mirror. In the Italian mystery Il compleanno (David’s Birthday) (2009), David’s (Thyago Alves) lengthy masturbation scene began with him touching his body in front of the mirror. In the Serbian horror film Srpski film (A Serbian Film) (2010), Marko (Slobodan Bestic) self-stimulated while staring at his face in the bathroom mirror. In the thriller Cargo (2006), Rhombus (Samuli Edelmann) looked into in a small mirror as he masturbated. In the British comedy Human Traffic (1999), Moff (Danny Dyer) actually set up a mirror at the perfect angle before masturbating in front of it.[48] Such scenes are a good entry point for discussing sexualized male masturbation. As with the female mirror masturbation scenes, men in real life also identify masturbating this way:
I didn’t know what I looked like really, and so I was examining myself in front of a mirror and got a hard-on. I jerked off and came all over myself and watched it and it was terrific. For maybe six or seven months after that one of my favorite ways to jerk off was in front of the mirror. I liked that a lot.[49]
Sometimes I will take a full-length mirror, sit in front of it and masturbate. I like my erections . . . I like to watch my body move, and observe what I do when I have an orgasm. . . . It’s almost like watching someone else masturbate.[50]
While such presentations are not the norm—likely because of the “homosexual” connotations of a man enjoying his own male body—there most certainly are examples where male autoeroticism is presented as alluring.
Mentioned repeatedly throughout this book is the sexy female/embarrassing male masturbation dichotomy. This however, is not the full story. While there are far fewer sexy representations of men masturbating, there are indeed some.
While clothing doesn’t always make a scene unsexy—Moira’s sexy masturbation in full French maid attire in American Horror Story is a case in point—generally men masturbate while clothed and thus, when there is a hurried feel to the scene, sexiness is dramatically diluted. Positioning male characters as naked therefore, is one way to make a scene as least superficially sexy. In The Slap, while he is only granted eleven seconds of screen masturbation time, Hector (Jonathan LaPaglia) stood completely naked throughout. A from-behind shot showcased the character’s toned muscular body and pleasure was briefly shown on his face. Almost the exact same scene transpired in American Horror Story. While it was over in seven seconds, like Hector, Ben (Dylan McDermott) was completely naked from behind. Ben was noisy, pleasure was visible on his face and he was allowed to orgasm loudly before the interruption of his guilt and subsequent tears. The same rear-view self-stimulation transpired in the biopic Kill Your Darlings (2013) where Allen’s (Daniel Radcliffe) positioning showcased his naked back and buttocks. In the Australian teen-drama Head On (1998), Ari’s (Alex Dimitriades) naked body was displayed in its entirety before the shot closed in on his face. The scene was all about Ari’s pleasure: the character made noises of pleasure, licked his lips and, like Ben, was even allowed to orgasm; his penis was in fact, even briefly shown flaccid against his thigh after climax. In the period-drama series, The Tudors (2007–2010), King Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)—his bare torso glistening—masturbated vigorously, and loudly, for nearly a minute, while one of his servants knelt below him with a bowl. Once the semen was caught the servant nodded at his master and left the room. Despite the strangeness of the scene, Henry was presented as physically desirable and an added element of sexual curiosity was included via a servant tending to his ejaculation. In Il compleanno, David ran his hands over his body and then moved his hand into his underwear. The scene focused on his body, providing rear and pubic hair views. The character then lay on his back and continued to masturbate.
While body-visibility made these scenes sexy, it should be noted that male nudity does not always guarantee a sexy display. I addressed this issue at greater length in my book American Taboo: The Forbidden Words, Unspoken Rules, and Secret Morality of Popular Culture, where the wide varieties of meanings of male nudity beyond sexiness were surveyed.[51] A good masturbation-themed illustration of this transpired in the teen-comedy American Pie 2 (2001). Jim (Jason Biggs) accidentally used superglue as a lubricant and got his hand stuck to his penis. The character was naked but the display was presented as thoroughly unsexy, and instead was about comedy predicated on stupidity, akin to Howard (Simon Helberg) in The Big Bang Theory (2007–) and his robot hand accidents (chapter 1).
Most male masturbation scenes don’t actually show characters completely naked and thus sexiness is presented in other ways. In the American Horror Story, The Slap, Head On, The Tudors and Il compleanno scenes discussed above, while body exposure added to the sexiness, the men’s facial expressions and moans of pleasure substantially helped bolster this. Discussed already is the BeautifulAgony.com website whereby both male and female masturbators are presented in close-cropped shots, focusing on their facial expressions in the lead up to orgasm. The website operates on the assumption that sexual pleasure expressed through sounds and expressions is arousing. A focus on a character’s face therefore, is another way to showcase male sexiness. While as is typical for male masturbation, Jesse (Lachlan Buchanan) in the Australian surf film Newcastle (2008) was interrupted before he finished, the character was nevertheless granted a minute of uninterrupted, pleasure-centered masturbation. The character lay on his back, stroked his torso briefly and then moved his hand into his shorts. While under ninety seconds, the scene nevertheless provided a non-naked example of sexy male masturbation. Something similar transpired in the romantic-drama The Rules of Attraction (2002): Sean (James Van Der Beek) was on his back, the shot was cropped from his bare chest upwards, and he masturbated, in pleasure, for about half a minute to orgasm, ending with a smile on his face. Also cropped around the character’s face and bare torso, Luke (Sam Harris) in the Australian drama 2:37 (2006) also masturbated pleasurably to orgasm. These scenes aptly illustrate that sexiness can be conveyed in a variety of ways beyond nudity. Worth noting, most male characters don’t generally expose their penis.[52] In the examples discussed in this section, male chests were instead eroticized as a visual substitute; as a non-controversial way to present sexiness without risking harsher classification. Feminist theorist Susan Bordo discussed the propensity for romance novel covers to show male chests as a way to display sexiness in situations where showing a penis would be inappropriate: “If you can’t show a hard penis on the cover, show a hard body.”[53] In American Taboo I discussed this idea, noting:
Certainly the preponderance of bare male chests in cinema—particularly in films such as Magic Mike and The Full Monty [1997] discussed earlier—presents this idea to be a truism; the penis is routinely avoided but a substitution, such as a bare chest, is routinely offered.[54]
These scenes acknowledge the taboo of penises but instead present male sexiness through some of the more socially acceptable depictions such as chests.
This chapter has focused on the sexiness of masturbation portrayals, examining the female presentations and the smaller number of male presentations as being about self-stimulation as an act worth ogling. Voyeurism however, is not the only way to read these scenes. Alison Williams–who plays Marnie in the drama-series Girls (2012–) and who had a masturbation scene in one episode–was asked during an interview about the voyeuristic qualities of the show. Her response was, “I think the show is real on many levels.”[55] While the presence of a camera in a scene—and the fact that the audience is only getting to see the masturbation because it has been filmed—of course, can never make these scenes truly “real.” But, the real that Williams alludes to is that Girls takes cues from real life; that the show aims to present female sexuality as it is in reality and not imagination (a topic discussed further in chapter 10).
Black Swan, In the Cut, Manderlay (2005), Margot at the Wedding (2007) and Last Tango in Paris (1972) provide rare examples where the female characters masturbated while lying on their stomach: female characters are much more commonly positioned on their backs. While this is obviously a more cinematic display—more of the body is able to be shown and a clearer view of the face is provided—there is also the reality that most women actually do masturbate this way: in Hite’s research, 73 percent of women claimed to masturbate while lying on their back.[56] Equally, many women’s faces do contort with pleasure while masturbating. These displays, while able to be construed as voyeuristic, can also be interpreted—as Williams alluded—as simply reflecting the reality of individual sexual activity.
This chapter reviewed the presentations of masturbation which frame the act as sexy. Chapter 7 focuses on a central interpretation of the act within narratives as invariably being a substitute for something more real.
As communications theorist Joseph Slade identified, “Depictions of masturbation are staples of pornography, one of whose classic aims is to foster is as a solitary experience or a shared one” (Joseph W. Slade, Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide, Volume 2 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 41).
While in this scene the character seemingly did have some kind of a rash and was scratching rather than masturbating, worth noting, Physician Wilhelm Stekel identified that scratching has long been a way to legitimize masturbation: “These forms of indulgence serve to quiet one’s conscience, they are means for avoiding the self-reproaches connected with direct auto-erotic indulgence” (Wilhelm Stekel, Auto-Erotism: A Psychiatric Study of Masturbation and Neurosis (London: Peter Nevill Limited, 1953), 134).
Joseph W. Slade, Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide, Volume 2 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001).
Tourism researcher Wanjohi Kibicho, for example, noted that male strippers do masturbate in gay venues in cities such as Amsterdam and Paris to maintain erections and that “[s]ometimes they allow willing members of the audience to participate in this masturbation process” (Wanjohi Kibicho, Sex Tourism in Africa: Kenya’s Booming Industry (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 88).
While not explicitly for purposes of sexual satisfaction, in numerous scenes from the historic-drama series Masters of Sex (2013–), Dr. Masters (Michael Sheen) paid women to masturbate for him as part of his sexuality research.
Kelly Dennis, “Playing With Herself: Feminine Sexuality and Aesthetic Indifference,” Solitary Pleasures, eds. Paula Bennett and Vernon A. Rosario II (New York: Routledge, 1995), 54.
Thomas W. Laqueur, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (New York: Zone Books, 2003), 361.
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972), 47.
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, 16(3) (Autumn, 1975): 6–18, 10.
Lauren Rosewarne, Part-Time Perverts: Sex, Pop Culture and Kink Management (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011); Lauren Rosewarne, Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012).
While the idea of the masturbating women as a sexy display might be a truism, this idea gets subverted—or at least perverted—in a scene from the New Zealand horror film The Ferryman (2007). Tate (Sally Stockwell)—while possessed—masturbated to orgasm, covered in blood and gore, in front of Chris (Craig Hall), saying things like, “You like that? . . . You like to watch? Fucking pervert! You fucking bitch.” In this scene, Tate is making a standard erotic scene thoroughly grotesque.
Jina Bacarr, The Japanese Art of Sex: How to Tease, Seduce, and Pleasure the Samurai in Your Bedroom (Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2004).
“The Agony Principle,” BeautifulAgony.com. Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.beautifulagony.com/public/main.php?page=about.
Mels van Driel, With the Hand: a Cultural History of Masturbation (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 8.
While BeautifulAgony.com is primarily trying to offer something different in the porn market, the reason that mainstream cinema uses such techniques of course often has to do with censorship and classification concerns.
Michele Aaron, “‘Til Death Us Do Part: Cinema’s Queer Couples Who Kill,” The Body’s Perilous Pleasures: Dangerous Desires and Contemporary Culture, ed. Michele Aaron (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 1999), 74.
In Martha Cornog, The Big Book of Masturbation: From Angst to Zeal (San Francisco, CA: Down There Press, 2003), 150.
Martha Cornog, The Big Book of Masturbation: From Angst to Zeal (San Francisco, CA: Down There Press, 2003), 39.
Mels van Driel, With the Hand: A Cultural History of Masturbation (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 12.
Mels van Driel, With the Hand: A Cultural History of Masturbation (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 13.
In my book American Taboo I discussed how sometimes deliberately controversial material is included in popular culture as part of a marketing strategy: “From a production side, the attraction of using controversial material is simple: it often leads to increased attention and, in turn, greater sales. . . . For consumers, while of course there is appeal in purchasing controversial goods because doing so sates a yen for the forbidden, another explanation is that the desire for such goods exists primarily because debate and controversy exists around the item. In other words, some people are drawn to certain films and books not because the topic particularly interests them, but rather because (1) they want to exert their rights not to have their media restricted, and (2) they want to feel a part of a controversy” (Lauren Rosewarne, American Taboo: The Forbidden Words, Unspoken Rules, and Secret Morality of Popular Culture (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013), 10–11).
Shadi Mokhtari, After Abu Ghraib: Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Christopher Graveline and Michael Clemens, The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: American Soldiers on Trial (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc. 2010).
Stephen Eisenman, The Abu Ghraib Effect (London: Reaktion), 98.
Stephen Eisenman, The Abu Ghraib Effect (London: Reaktion), 98.
Stephen D. Cox, The Big House: Image and Reality of the American Prison (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 96.
“Forced masturbation” for example, was discussed as part of the Glen Ridge rape trial in the early 1990s (Andrew E. Taslitz, Rape and the Culture of the Courtroom (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 56). The theme was equally alluded to in the made-for-television film about the case, Our Guys: Outrage at Glen Ridge (1999).
Lauren Rosewarne, Part-Time Perverts: Sex, Pop Culture and Kink Management (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011); Tristan Taormino, 50 Shades of Kink: An Introduction to BDSM (Berkeley, CA: Cleis Press, 2012).
Such scenes also subtly hint to the complicated notion of men’s consent in sex given that their arousal is popularly misinterpreted as such.
Screen flashers are rare but examples transpire in Peeping Tom (1960) and Hairspray (2007).
Patrick Carnes, Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2001); John W. Morin and Jill S. Levenson, A Comprehensive Competency-based Workbook for Sexual Offenders in Treatment (Oklahoma City, OK: Wood ‘N’ Barnes Publishing, 2002); Lauren Rosewarne, Part-Time Perverts: Sex, Pop Culture and Kink Management (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011).
In Aaron Ben-Zeʼev, Love Online: Emotions on the Internet (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 199.
While this book focuses exclusively on masturbation defined as genital stimulation, it is important to note that self-stimulation can involve touching other body parts; an obvious example of this is women’s breast stimulation. Self-breast stimulation serving as a kind of masturbation was engaged in by Hattie (Susan Sarandon) in the drama Pretty Baby (1978), Rebecca (Elizabeth Perkins) in the romantic drama Moonlight and Valentino (1995), Shandurai (Thandie Newton) in the period-drama Beseiged (1998) and Renata (Martha Higareda) in the Mexican teen-drama Amar te duele (Love Hurts) (2002). In the sophomoric comedy Euro Trip (2004), Cooper (Jacob Pitts) tried to convince a naked woman to touch (and pinch) her breasts for his viewing pleasure, a scene which resembled many of the voyeuristic as well as coerced masturbation scenes discussed in this book but one which was rendered substantially tamer because of the focus on breast-only exposure rather than genitals.
Linda Ruth Williams, The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005), 86.
In Mels van Driel, With the Hand: A Cultural History of Masturbation (London: Reaktion Books, 2012), 27.
In Shere Hite, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1981), 64.
In psychologists David Barlow and V. Mark Durand’s discussion on why women masturbate less than men, one of the explanations referenced speed, in turn providing a more practical explanation for why women’s scenes are longer and men’s have a hurried quality: “Because of the nature of the erectile response in men and their relative ease in providing sufficient stimulation to reach orgasm, masturbation may simply be more convenient for them than for women” (David H. Barlow and V. Mark Durand, Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2012), 349).
In Shere Hite, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1981), 69.
In summarizing queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s work on masturbation, queer theorist Jason Edwards noted, “Masturbation’s erotic self-relation is also, Sedgwick reminds us, necessarily same-sex and therefore shares a certain homo quality with homosexuality” (Jason Edwards, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (New York: Routledge, 2009), 66).
Bettina Matthias, The Hotel as Setting in Early Twentieth-Century German and Austrian Literature: Checking in to Tell a Story (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006), 44, n. 4.
Bettina Matthias, The Hotel as Setting in Early Twentieth-Century German and Austrian Literature: Checking in to Tell a Story (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006), 89.
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1972), 51.
Titus Burckhardt, Mirror of the Intellect: Essays on Traditional Science and Sacred Art (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 117.
Sandy Yule, The Burning Mirror: A Christian Encounter with Shamanism (Delhi: Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2005 ), 66.
Bettina Matthias, The Hotel as Setting in Early Twentieth-Century German and Austrian Literature: Checking in to Tell a Story (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006).
Physician John Meagher in fact, alluded to this issue in his discussion of the negative health consequences of masturbation: “Excessive self-consciousness and morbid introspection are commonly observed” (John F. W. Meagher, The Study of Masturbation and the Psychosexual Life (London: Bailliére, Tindall and Cox, 1936), 91).
Spalding Gray, “Sex and Death to the Age 14,” Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth, ed. Bill Roorbach (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001): 161–175, 173.
The pleasure young female characters get from their masturbation is in line with the pleasure that the audience is encouraged to reap from looking at the bodies of young women, particularly those shown masturbating.
Not quite mirror-masturbation, but a scene of masturbation to an image of oneself transpired in the drama Autoerotic (2011) where the unnamed Adam Wingard character masturbated to a video he had recorded of himself engaged in intercourse.
In Linda Levine and Lonnie Garfield Barbach, The Intimate Male: Candid Discussions About Women, Sex, and Relationships (Gretna, LA: Wellness Institute Inc. 1983), 101.
In Linda Levine and Lonnie Garfield Barbach, The Intimate Male: Candid Discussions About Women, Sex, and Relationships (Gretna, LA: Wellness Institute Inc. 1983), 101.
Lauren Rosewarne, “The Penis Chapter,” American Taboo: The Forbidden Words, Unspoken Rules, and Secret Morality of Popular Culture (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013).
When full frontal nudity is shown on screen it is invariably presented as incidental and disconnected from sex (Lauren Rosewarne, American Taboo: The Forbidden Words, Unspoken Rules, and Secret Morality of Popular Culture (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013)).
Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), 45.
Lauren Rosewarne, American Taboo: The Forbidden Words, Unspoken Rules, and Secret Morality of Popular Culture (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013), 185.
In Christopher Rosen, “Girls’ Star Allison Williams On Her Masturbation Scene, Lena
Dunham And More,” Huffington Post, April 29, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2013 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/29/allison-williams-girls_n_146336
8.html.
Shere Hite, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1981), 68.