CONTEMPORARY READINGS: SIXTH EDITION z. rtp Yaa Celso Seh Co aac) econ teasix On Jacking Off, Yet Again Alan Soble In this essay, Alan Soble discusses conceptual and normative issues about ‘masturbatoy. The conceptual analysis of “masturbation” recognizes three types: solitary, dual, and ratual masturbation. 1 unsurprisingly turns out that defin- ing “masturbation” simpliciter is difficult. Some analytic problems might be avoided by acknowledging that “watual masturbation” is a misnomer, not “rel- ly” being a ease of masturbation at all. Moral questions about masturbation are suggested by the claim of Roman Catholic and Natural Law sexual ethics that for sexual acts to be morally permissible, they must bear a significantly direct rela~ tion to procreation. On this standard, bath masturbation aid same-sex sextal acts fail, Immanuel Kant’s sexual ethics have, by his own application, similarly negative implications. As the essay demonstrates, not even purportedly liberal philosophy of sex has been hospitable to masturbation, either ontolagically or ormatively. It is an intriguing question why a harmless act that brings pleas- tre, aud is engaged in by most humans at some time or another, continually requires defense. A related question is why Joycelyn Elders, surgeon general of the United States, was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1994 in part for defend- ing masturbation as safe sex. (Note the irony, given the politica! and medical dangers of White House fellatio.) As the author claims, “Masturbation is qucer”—and queer enowgh, on his view, that the letter “M” deserves a place in 4 expanded LGBT acronyrn (see Study Question 6). {© Copyright 2012, An Sob. This essays epi tice evens wit he permission of autor fom astrbston Conceal ad Eel Mates,” n Tho Piast of Sax: Cartampevary esdngs, th ed ts Aan Sole, 67-04 (Lanham, Ma: Rawman & Lifts, 2002; and “Mstaton, Aga,” In The Phiosphy of Sx: Contrary Roast, Alan Sble and cols Powe, 75-08 (ana, Fwy & Utes, 200) na 78 Alan Soble ‘This vice... has a particular attraction for lively imaginations. It all them to dispose, so ¢o speak, of the whole female sex at their will, and to make any beauty who tempts them serve their pleasure without the need of first obtaining her consent. Jean-Jacques Rousseau If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it offand throw it away. —Jesus [Matthew 5:30] [They were copulating in a grass field, the woman on top, as aa un- known person drew. near} “Please don't move, please,” Simone begged. The steps halted, but it was impossie to see who was ap- proaching. Our breathing had stopped together. Simone’s arse, raised aloft, did strike me as an al-powerful entreaty, perfect as it was; with its two narow, delicate buttocks and its deep crevice; and T never doubted for an instant thatthe unknown man or woman would soon give in and feel compelled to masturbate endlessly white watching that xing psd LATION Georges Bataille? Masturbation is queer. It is similar to sexual activity that I've had with admired and iate lovers, in the sense that it is sex with someone I care about, whose satisfaction and welfare are important to me. It is, incestuous, because I am a blood-member of my own family. When I was married, it was adulterous because I was enjoying sexual activity apart from, and with someone who was not, my spouse. It is gay or lesbian; a ‘man, say, sexually pleases a man and enjoys touching a penis. Youthful masturbation, before the age of sixteen, is pederastic or ephebophilic. I might fall into masturbation inadvertently ("if you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it”); at those times I do not fully consent to it, but it is also not against my will, When I masturbate while fantasizing, it is (see Rousseatt) the promiscuous rape of every man, woman, or beast to Which I take a fancy. Sexual activity that is loving, adulterous, incestuous, same-sex, pede- rastic, involuntary, and rape-ish must be queer. .As a result, it makes sense that we advertise our marriages and brag about our affairs but keep silent about our masturbatory acts, The sexual revolution (is it over, al- ready? did it really happen?) made sexual activity outside matrimony socially acceptable; it encouraged the toleration if not the celebration of homosexual lifestyles; it breathed respectable life into the colorful prac- tices of the philosophical children of the Marquis de Sade.* But to call a rman a “jerk off” is still, in the twenty-first century, derogatory and an accusation that masturbating women, throughout history, have avoided Male masturbation is the black sheep of the universe of sex. Women, having no seed to waste, may and can masturbate again and again andl again, Is this advantage worth not being able to pee effectively while standing? ‘acts, even those that do not involve the hands and genitals, are masturba- he eeiads that appved sexual acts are masturbatory exactly when ‘ iy do BR Is and the genitals. So X's tweaking her own 1 i jeu. On jacking OF, Yet Again » ‘THE CONCEPT [How to deine “masturbation” or get atts esencl] fi paradigm case wives us something to start with: a person in a private place manually rubs the penis or clitoris and eventually reaches orgasm (perhaps aided ty fantasy or pomography). But one could) masturbate in public, on a bus, although that will get yoU into legal trouble. Your hands do not have to be used, if the sexually sensitive areas of the body can be pressed against the back of a horse, the seat ofa bieycle or motorcycle, or rugs or pillows, Further, orgasm need not be attained, nor need it be the goal Prolonged sexual pleasure itself is often the point of masturbation, which right be curtailed by orgasm. (Masturbation conforms to a Tantric prin- ciple of reserontus) The clitoris and the penis need not receive the most attention; the anus and nipples can be the target body parts. What re- mains of the paradigm case? Perhaps only this: the persan who, by touch-| | ing sexually sensitive areas of the body, causally produces the sensation: | 4s the same person who experiences the sensations. The rubber is th rubbed and pice verse. Masturbation: the “solitary vice” of “selfabuse.” (is ita vice? Truc, itis neither abstinence nor chastity, but itis virginal Sanath ke ete Woy mpi mau tion were logically solitary, yet we have a paradigm case of mutual mat turbation: two people rubbing each other between the legs, Now, if itis « conceptually possible for two persons X and Y to masturbate each oie it must also be conceptually passible for X to masturbate Y, while simply relaxes and receives this attention, not doing anything to ot for X. To give to another person, or to receive from another person, what is sometimes called a “hand job" is to engage in half of a mutual masturba- tion. “To masturbate,” then, is both transitive and intransitive] Limilarly, Tcan both respect or deceive myself and respect or: fuga Reflex. ivity, then, may be sufficient, but it does not seem to be necessary, for a sexual act to be masturbatory es [Why, then, is mutual masturbation masturbation? Dual masturbation tial] in which X rubs X and Y rubs Vinreach other's presence or while talkingy..at// on the telephone does not present this problem] Baying (Attempt One)wat@l that the paradigm case of mutual masturbation 7s masturbatory because it involves the hands and genitals is awkward. It allows that solitary sex ike are totes isnt masturbatory ET OE. igh ELE He age0 Alan Soble ‘There must be a better way to distinguish paired masturbatory from Paired nonmasturbatory sexual acts. Another way (Attempt Two) to distinguish paired nonmasturbatory sexual acts from mutual masturbation is to contrast soxuial acts that i ole insertion and those that eo not. The idea is that without the bodily insertion of something, somewhere, no mixing of two fleshes occurs and the participants remain to that extent physically isolated (as the solitary masturbator is physically isolated). On this view, the paradigm case of mutual masturbation, in which the persons rub each other between the legs, and the hand job are both masturbatory because no insertion occurs Male-female coitus and male-male anal coitus are not masturbatory be. cause insertion occurs, Further, X's fellating Y is not masturbatory (which seems correct), and the view plausibly implies that insertion-coitws be. tween a human male and a female sheep, or between a human female and a male dog, is not masturbatory, assuming that a person is not en gaged in a solitary actif an animal is involved. The view also implies that frottage in a crowded subway car is masturbatory, even though it re- auies the presence of another pasa, orang ye Un. and te alan ACRE RE Se tion as the criferion is inadequate. In mutual mastiabation, eeertion of ‘one person’s fingers into the other's vagina might occur; that some inser- tion takes place should not imply that the act is not mutually masturbate. ty. Further, to claim that cunnilingus is masturbatory exactly when it does not involve the insertion of the tongue into the vagina implies that fone continuous act of cunnilingus changes from not masturbatory to ‘masturbatory and back again often within a few minutes. What about male who punctures a hole in a watermelon to make room for his pert, or a female who reaches for her G-spot with a zucchini? These acts are masturbatory yel involve insertion. So Attempt Two also has chaotic and counterintuitive implicationsy “Some of these problems can be avoided by narrowing what counts as “insertion” (Attempt Three). Masturbation might be characterized as sex. ual activity not involving the insertion of a real penis into a hole of » living being, Then the watermelon and zucchini cases are solved. But it Seems to follow that paired lesbian sexuality, which does not involve a Penis, is masturbatory,* while paired sexual acts (fellatio and anal inter. course) engaged in by male homosexnals are not masturbatory. This con. clysion doesn’t make any sense at all Were we to decide that a male having intercourse with a sheep is, after all engaging in a masturbatory act, that is, if no difference exists between this bestiality and his rubbing his penis on a rug or woman's panties (here “solitary” means being apart from other people), we could define masturbation even more specifically (Attempt Four) as activity notin volving the insertion of a real penis into a hole of a human, This scholas. Ne account of masturbation is phalfocentric in characterizing sexual acta (On Jacking Off Yet Again 8 with reference to the male organ. As a result, the analysis implies an implausible conceptual double standard: fellatio done on a male (whether by a male or female) is not masturbatory, but cunnilingus done on a female (by a male or female) is always masturbatory. Fellatio is “real sex"; cunnilingus is a masturbatory fraud. This refined view is sexist but not heterosexist; its point does not depend on the sex or gender of the fellatofl ft is similar to the claim, which is heterosexist but not necessarily sexist, that the paradigm case of a natural, normal, or proper sexual act is ‘male-female coitus. What is conceptually and normatively emphasized in another view (Attonipt Five), the most specific we can get about “inser- tion,” is the insertion of a real penis into a particular hole of a human ‘woman, the vagina. This view suggests that masturbation be understood , as any sexual act that is not procreative in its form or potential, Sethety la solitary oF paired. “Useless” sexual act, those that have no potential toc r&b perpetuate the species and whose purpose is fo yield pleasure for thease! Patticipant(s), are masturbatory. If so, our sexual lives contain a lof mot masturbation than we had thought, Maybe ths is the right conclusion mcf that most of our paired sexual acts (plus Our solitary acts) are masturbatoe. cmd zy, but we would like convincing grounds for it. Maybe, though, w: should abandon trying to distinguish paired masturbatory from paired) nonmasturbatory ais and etison the tin of sutual astbatin from our sexual discourse as being a misleading misnomer, For now, le rate entecet gible pa Mee “(Under certain physical descriptions of paired sexual activity, no dif- fefence exists between paired sex and solitary masturbation. The young, precocious, helpful Alexander Portnoy offered Bis chealing father an ex. culpating (re)description of adultery: What afterall does it consist of? You put your dick some place and ‘moved it back and forth and stuff came out the front. S, Jake, what's thebig deal?® Adulterous coitus is described as solitary masturbation: you put your penis someplace (a fist or vagina) and move it back and forth until it ejaculates. Alex's sarcasm has wider implications: there is no difference between mutual masturbation and heterosexual genital-anal or homosex- ual anal intercourse. Every paired sexual act is masturbatory because the rubbing of sensi areas, the friction of skin against skin, that occurs during mutual masturbation is, physically, the same as the rubbing of skin that occurs during intercourse. The bare difference is that different patches of skin are involved, but no patch of skin has any sexual ontolog- ical privilege over any other./Purther, there is only one difference bes “Teen solitary masturbation afd paired masturbation or pared sexual activity: the number of peopte who accomplish these physica rubbings We have reason for concluding that all sex is masturbatory) yyy” aw ul ath ALY 44 Hire Joy, ii b Hing pccaly val al| ah dhrieeaietientiadn, ly x ms U8 Caches are meartig Ne also forthe touched] ttempt Six is plausible if what lis atthe heart of >: Ag MSS utimately, by acting on others} To be sure, in light of the kind of physical 2 Alan Soble [ler suppose Xngnges ina slay with ants eon ’s arousal is sustained during this physical interaction by X’s pri- vate fantasies. This sex act is solitary and hence masturbatory in the sense that Y is absent fom X's sexial. consciousness. It is as if X were alone, ‘That which would be arousing X during solitary masturbation (X's fanta- sies) is doing the same thing for X while X rubs his penis or clitoris on or with Y's body instead of with X's hand. Paired sex, then, even heterosex- yh tei eras cn ona mart depen on “tain mental components of the sexual act. Perhaps, then, mental aspects ®Yot sexual activity are that which distinguishes masturbation from non- masturbatory sex, even though the acts are physically the same. ‘Quite ordinary interpersonal considerations are helpful here. {Wel right say (Attempt Six) that a sexual act between two people who are concemed not only (or not at all) with their own pleasure but also (or only) with the sexual pleasure ofthe other person is not missurbatory (no ‘matter what physical acts they engage in), while sexual acts in which person is concerned solely with her or his own pleasure are masturbato- fy, $0 rapists and inconsiderate husbands are the authors of masturbato- 3/13 acts. Also, mutual masturbation is not masturbatory as long as the luce sextal pleasure not only forthe toucher but HY solitary masturbation is the person’s effort to cause sexual pleasure for the self. However, it is not exactly true that solitary masturbation is Te~ flexive, for the attempt to produce sexual pleasure for the self can causal- ‘ly involve other people, animals, or the whole universe. Or we might say Bthat acting on and for oneself does not exclude acting on and for oneself, creatures we are, attempting t0 please the self by acting on oneself is easy. Our own bodies are handy, more accessible than the bodies of others. As a result, though, we are misled into associating masturbation with only ‘one form of it, the case in which X touches X. Producing one’s own pleasure can involve others. Solitary and paired sexual acts are masturba- tory, then, insofar as the actor produces pleasure for the actor; paired sexual activity is not masturbatory when one person tries t© produce pleasure for the other. (Yes, a single paired sexual act can be mastur ty for one person and not for the othe.) ~7/ see ‘This notion of masturbation is conceptual five. By itso, it neither praises nor condemns masturbation. That is because we have defined masturbation as sexual activity in which a person is out to pro- vide his ot her own sexual pleasure without adding that such behavior is, immoral. We could embrace or reject that moral judgment. It would be an addition to the conceptual analysis, not a logical implication of it. | not no} On Jacking OFF Yet Again 8 FULFILLING DESIRE Contemporary philosophical accounts of sexuality, proffered by thinkers within a sexually liberal tradition, yield the conclusions that solitary mas- turbation is not a sexual activity at all (Alan Goldmnan), is perverted sextt- ality (Thomas Nagel), or is “empty” sex (Robert Solomon). These conclu- sions are surprising, given the pedigree of these philosophers.® Let's be- gin with Alan Goldman's” definitions of “sexual desire” and “sexual ac- tivity”: Sexual desire is desire for contact with another person‘s body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity ‘which tends to full such desire of the agent (On Goldman’s view, sexual desire isthe desire for the pleasure of physi- cal contact itself, nothing else; it does not include a component desite for, say, love, communication, emotional expression, or progeny. Goldman tgkes himself to be offering a liberating analysis of sexuality that does not sex normatively or conceptually to these other things! But wl advocating the superiority of his notion of “plain sex,” Goldman appar- enily forgot that masturbation needed protection from the same (conser- vative) philosophy that requires sexual activity to occur within a loving marriage or to be procreative for it to be morally acceptable. On Gold- man's analysis, solitary masturbation is not a sexual activity to begin with, for it does not “tend to fulfill” sexual desire, that is, the desire for contact with another person's borly. Solitary masturbation, on this view, is different from mutual masturbation, which does tend to fulfill the de- sie for contact because it involves that contact. Goldman seems not te be troubled that om his view solitary masturbation is not a sexual act. But it is funny that masturbation is, for Goldman, not sexual, for the conserva- tive philosophy that he rejects could reply to his account like this: by reducing sexuality entirely to meaningless desires for the pleasure of physical contact (“smeaningless” because divorced from love, mattiage, and procreation), what Goldman has analyzed as being sexual is merely a form of masturbation, even if it occurs between two peoplel “Tends to fulfill” in Goldman’s analysis of sexual activity presents problems. Goldman intended, I think, a narrow causal reading, of this phrase: actually touching another person’s body is a sexual act because by the operation of a simple mechanism the act fulfills the desire for that contact and its pleasure, The qualification “tends to” functions to allow bungled kisses to count as sexual acts, even though they did not do what they were intended to do. Kisses “tend to fulfill” desire in the sense that they normally produce pleasure, prevented from doing 50 only by the ‘odd infelicty (the hurrying lips land on the chin). The qualification also allows disappointing sex, which does not bring what anticipation prom- ised, to count as sexual activity, In this sense of “tends (0 fulfil,” solitaryam Alan Soble ‘masturbation is not a sexual act, Suppose that X sexually desires ¥ but ¥ declines X's invitations, anct so X masturbates thinking, about Y. Gold- man’s view is not that X's masturbation satisfies X's desire for contact with ¥ atleast a litle bit and hence isa sextal act, even if an inefficient one. X’s solitary masturbation is nota sexual act at all, despite the sexual pleasure it yields, unlike the not pleasurable but stil sexual bungled Kiss that does involve the desired contact. > Let's read “tends to fulfill” in a causally broader way. Giving money toa prostitute—the act of taking bills out of a wallet and handing them to hher—might be a sexual act, even ifno sexual arousal accompanies the acl, because doing so allows the client to (tend to) full his desire for contact with her body. (Handing over $100 would be a more efficient sexta) act PY var handing over $10. this broader reading, however, solitary mas- {urbation is stil not asexual activity; despite the causal generosity, mas- turbation is still precluded from fulfilling sexual desire in Goldman's sense. For similar reasons, masturbating while looking at erotic photo- graphs is not a sexual act. Indeed, solitary masturbation would be a contrasexual act ifthe more X masturbates the less time, energy, oF inter- est X has for fuliling the desie for contact with someone's body. Goldman proposes one way in which solitary masturbation isa sexual activity: Voyeurism or viewing a pomographic movie qualifies as a sexual ac- same is true of masturbo¥ al activity without a partner > Goldman is claiming that masturbation done for its own sake, dane only for the specific pleasure it yields, isnot sexual because it is not connected ‘with a desire for contact with another's body. (Nor would it be a sexual act were it done to produce a sperm sample.) Masturbation isa sexual act only when performed as a substitute for the nat available “real thing,” ‘hat is, when it serves as a substitute for genuiine sexual contact. On what grounds can it be claimed that masturbation’s being an “imaginative sub- stitute” for a sexual act makes it a sexual act? Being a substitute for a kin of act does not generally make it an act of that kind: to eat soyburger as al bbeof substitute is not to eat hamburger, even ifthe soyburger tastes exact. ly like hamburger. Eating hamburger as 4 substitute for the sexual activ- ity I want but cannot have does not make my going to Burger King a sexual event. At best itis compensation. (So, no sexual transubstantiation exists.) Given Goldman's analy’ses of sexual desire and activity, the claim that masturbation done for its own sake is not sexual makes sense. If the solilary masturbator desires physical contact and the pleasure of contact, and masturbates valiantly trying—albeit in vain—to get that pleasure, the act, by a stretch, is sexual because it involves sexual desire. By contrastlif the masturbator wants to experience only pleasurable genital (On Jacking Off Vet Again 85 sensations, the masturbator does not have sexual desire in Goldman's sense, and activity engaged in to fulfill this nonsexual desire is not sexual activity. Now we have a different problem: What are we to call the act of {his masturbator? Tn what conceptual category does it belong if not the sexual? Goldman argues, along the same lines, that if a parent's desire to cuddle a baby; to have physical contact with it, isa desire only to show affection and not a desire for the pleasure of physical contact, then the Parent's act is not sexual. Goldman assumes that if the desire that accom Panies an act is not sexual, then neither is the act sexual. If so, a woman. ‘Who performs fellatio on a man exactly for the money she eayns from doing so is not performing a sexwal act. it does not fulfill the sexual desire “of the agent,” for, like the baby-cuddling parent, she has no sexual de- sire to begin with, The prostitute's fellatio must be called, inctead, a “rent-paying” or “food-gathering” act because it tends to fulfill her de- sires to have shelter andl eat. That we should classify an act in part by its motive and not only in terms of its physical characteristics is an interest. ing idea. Stil, what Goldman’s account implies about a prostitute’s par= ticipation in fellatio, that itis for her not sexual because it does not pro- ceed from the appropriate desire, is counterintuitive. It flies in the face of the usual definition of prostitution as engaging in sexual activity in ex- change for money. We are better off saying that what the prostitute does is to pay the rent by engaging in sex. COMPLETENESS Nagel designed a theory of sexuality to distinguish between the humanly natural and unnatural (or the perverted).® Fuman sexuality differs from «animal sexuality i the role played by a spiral phenomenon that depends fon our consciousness. Suppose (I) X looks at Y or hears Y's voice or smells Y's hair (that is, X “senses” Y) and as a result becomes sexually aroused. Also suppose (2) Y senses X, too, and as a result becomes aroused. X and Y are at the earliest or lowest stage of human sexual interaction: the animal fevel of awareness and arousal. But if (3) X be- comes aroused further by noticing (“sensing”) that Y is aroused by sens- ing X, and (4) Y becomes further aroused by noticing that X is aroused by sensing Y, then X and Y have reached a level of distinctively natural psychological human sexuality. Higher iterations of the pattern are also characteristic of human sexuality: (5) X is aroused even further by notic- ing (#) namely, that Y has become further aroused by noticing that X hae been aroused by sensing Y. We might express Nagel’s view of human sexuality this way: when X senses Y at the purely animal stage of sexual interaction, X is in X's own consciousness only a subject of a sexual experience, while Y is for X at this stage only an object of sexual attention, When X advances to the distiaetively human level of sexuality by not86 Alloy Soble ing that Y is aroused by sensing X, X then becomes in X's own conscious- ness also an object (X sees him- or herself through the eyes, or through the desire and arousal, of Y), and so at this level X experiences X as both subject and object. If Y, to, progresses up the spiral, Y also recognizes Y as both subject and object. For Nagel, consciousness of oneself as both subject and object during sexual activity marks it as psychologically natu- ral, as “complete.” <—~"" Nagel’s theory, because it is about natural sexuality and not about the essence of the sexual, does not entail that masturbation is not sexual. i However, the judgment that solitary masturbation is unnatural seers to y follow. Mutual masturbation ean, but solitary masturbation cannot, ex- hibit the completeness of natural sexuality; it lacks Une combination of an awareness of the embodiment of another person and an awareness of “being sensed as embodied, in turn, by that person. This explains, appar- ently, why Nagel claims that “narcissistic practices’—which for hin Seem to include solitary masturbation—are “sick at some primitive ver- Scion ofthe fist stage” of the spiral of arousal; “narcissistic practices” are perverted because they are “truncated or incomplete versio ofthe com “plete configuration” However, there is a world of difference between "issih (raps Fein) ens and solitary mas- lurbation, so even if looking on one’s own body in a mirror with delight 8 isa sexual perversion, a theorist of sex should not feel compelled for that reason to judge perverted the prosaic practice of solitary masturbation. [Nagel also claims that shoe fetishism is perverted: “intercourse with inanimate objects” is incamplote. But just because shoe fetishism might \Ybe eal preson tht inves masraton 3 y o need “Mot conclude that shocless masturbation is perverted.? ws case can be made that sexual fantasy allows masturbation to be §¥Ecomplete enough to be natural in Nagel’s sense. Consider someone who Sig masturbating while looking at erotic images. This sexual act avoids “incompleteness insofar asthe person is aroused not only by sensing the * Sinodel’s body (the animal level) but by being aware ofthe model's iten- fon to arouse the viewer of by sensing his Or her real of feigned azcusal Se human level as much as these things are captured by the camera (or “ead int the image by the masturbator). Completeness Seems not 0 7e- Sui that X's avousalas a resull of X's awareness of Y'S arousal occur at Sy __ hesame time as 'arous Nor does completeness rei that Xan Y % pein the same place: X and Y can cause each other pleasure by talking Geer the telephone, ascending without any trouble int the pital of arous Sok Further if X masturbates while fantasizing, sans photograph, about shother person X might be aroused by the intentions expressed of arou sth expetienced by the imagined partner. (Nagel does say that X might iecome aroused in response to a "purely imaginary” Y but does not plain ahis observation or explore ity implications.) A masturbator can agin conjure up, ese detals ane’ experience heightened arousal and 50m Jacking Of, Yer Again 7 pleasure as a result. If the masturbator is aroused not only by sensing, in imagination, the other's body but is aroused also by noticing (having created the appropriate fantasy) that the other is aroused by sensing X, then X can be conscious of X as both subject and object, which is the mark of complete, natural sexuality. This argument that masturbation can be psychologically complete ex~ poses a complication in Nagel’s account, Consider a sexual encounter ‘between a man and a female prostitute. The woman, in order to spend as little time as possible engaging in coitus with her client (she is a business person for whom time is money; besides, she might be repulsed by him), Would like the client to achieve his orgasm quickly so she can be done with him. She knows, by intuition or experience, that her feigning arousal ‘both at the animal level and at Nagel’s human level will greatly increase the sexual arousal of her client and thereby instigate his orgasm. She knows, equivalently, that failing to express arousal, lying mute and mo- tionless on the bed, will impede his becoming aroused and delay or pre~ vent his orgasm. The smart prostitute pretends, first, to be aroused at the anima) level and then pretends to enter the spiral of arousal, while her client really does enter the spiral of arousal. The client is not responding, with arousal to her being aroused but to his false belief that she is aroused. (She must fake it credibly, without histrionics.) He experiences himself as both subject and object of the sexual encounter, even though the prostitute remains altogether @ sexual object. Thus, in order for one person X to ascend in the spiral of arousal, it need not be the case that the other person ascend as well; X need only believe that the other person is ascending. Whether this phenomenon (which is not confined to prostitu- tion: it occurs as well in marital sex) confirms Nagel’s account of human sexual psychology or shows that his notion. af psychological complete- ness is inadequate is unclear. COMMUNICATION Solomon, as does Nagel, thinks it crucial to distinguish between animal and human sexuality. On Solomon's view, human sexuality is differen- tiated by its being “primarily a means of communicating with other peo- ple’ (GAP, 279). Sensual pleasure is important in sexual activity, but pleasure is not the main point of sexual interaction or its defining feature (SAP, 277-79), Sexuality is, instead, “first of all language” (SAP, 281). As “a means of communication, itis... essetially an activity performed with other people" (SAP, 279). Could such a view of human sexuality be kind fo solitary masturbation? Apparently not If sexuality is essentially a language, it follows that masturbation, while nota perversion, isa deviation ... Masturbation is not “selfabuse”88 Alan Soble putt is... self-denial, It represents an inability or a refusal to say what nine stony... Masturbation i... essential as an ultimate retreat Mat eapty and without content. Masturbation is dhe sexta equivalent ‘fa Cartesian soliloquy: (SAP, 283) IV sexuality is communicative, as Solomon claims, soktary masturbation eee coxual activity, for conversing with oneself is not impossible, se not the paradigm case of communication, The distinetive flaw of oven rbation, for Solomon, is that communicative intent, success, or con panne passing rom masturbation. Hence solitary masturbation is “emp- see deviation,” 9 conclusion that seems to follow naturally from the proposition that sexuality 1s “essentially” a way persone commun cate with each other Swllomen’s denouncing masturbation as a “refusal to say what one Warn ta say,” however, sights the fact that a person might not have, at a rr Time something t0 say to someone else (without thereby being Eyror that there might be nothing worthy of being said, and so sence aoe another person Is appropriate, Solomon's communication model cesetaality seems to force people to have sexta activity with each other We ik with each other, in order to avoid the “deviation” of masturbation, wea vhen they have nothing special to say. (That looks like “empty see) Further, even if the mastarbasor is meeely babbling to hlmsel! or Weil he or she sill enjoys this harmless pastime as much as does the sae iio, for the pure joy if it, makes noises having nto communicative yee ee meaning, This isnot to say that the masturbator isan infant in 2 reer ony sense The point is that as the baby who babbles confirms and aecteates its own existence, the person who masturbates can aocant lish eaeeve valuable thing at the same time that he or she experiences the Hor physical pleasure of the al. Ts for Solomon to call masturbation set cial” is wrong, (It would be self-denial only if the masturbator seine to say something to another person and fled the opportunity to aaa At least the accusation isa change from the popular conservative sent tiasturbation as being a filure of self-denial, a succumbing to STitsating temptations an inumersing ofthe self inthe hedonistic excess of sell-gratification."! his ttle warrant to conclude, within a communicative model of nity, that masturbation is inferior. Solomon meant his analogy be~ dane salurbation and « “Cartesian soliloquy” to reveal the shallovs- seco Tanlitary sex. But Rene Descartes’ philosophical soliloguies are ye ag tteresting. Even if we reject the foundationalism of Cartesian epistemology, we must admit the huge significance ‘of Descartes’ project. Teupect that many people woukd be prouid to masturbate as well a the ‘Muithations does philosophy. Diaries, also analogous to masturbation, are aeaivnot masterpieces of literature, but that does not make them “emp- Ayr unimporart ideed, see ofthe most fruitful discussions one can (On jacking Off Yet Again 89 have are precisely with oneself, not as a substitute for dialogue with another person, and not as compensation for lacking, conversation with another person, but exactly to explore one’s mind, to get one’s thoughts straight. This is the stuff from which intellectual integrity emerges and is not necessarily merely a preparation for polished public utterances. Woody Allen’s answer to the question, “Why are you so good in bed?” (‘Tpractice a lot when Iam alone”) further diffuses the communicative critique of masturbation. Solomion acknowledges that not only “children, lunatics, and hermits” talk to themselves, “poets and philosophers” do so, too (SAP, 283). This misleading concession has obvious derogatory implications for solitary ‘mastutbation. It plays on the silly notion that philosophers and poets are a type of lunatic. Where are the bus drivers, the cooks, and the accoun- tants? Solomon's abuse of solitary masturbation trades unfaily on the fact that talking to oneself has always received undeservedly bad public~ ity—uniair because we all do it, lips moving and heads bouncing, with- out thereby damning ourselves. ‘Solomon admits, given that philosophers talk to themselves (which is a counterexample to his argument that “sexuality is a language. .. and primarily communicative” and, hence, masturbation is deviant) that "masturbation might, in different contexts, count as wholly different exten sions of language” (SAP, 283; italics added). This crucial qualification implies that Solomon's negative judgment of masturbation is, after all, ‘unjustified. Sometimes we want to converse with another person; some- fimes we want to have that conversation sexually, In other contexts—in ther moods, with other people, in different settings—we want only the pleasure of touching the other's body or of being touched without com- municating, serious messages. To turn around one of Solomor's points: sometimes pleasure alone is the goal of sexual activity, and even though communication might occur at the same time itis not the desired or jntended result but an unremarkable side effect. In still other contexts or moods, we will not want to talk with anyone at all but to spend time alone. We might want to avoid intercourse of all fypes swith human be- ings, those hordes from whose noisy prattle we try to escape by running, off to Montana—not an “ultimate retreat” but a blessed haven, a sancti ary MEN'S LIBERATION (One curiosity of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century is that deciding who is liberal and who is conservative is no longer easy. Consider, for example, the views of John Stoltenberg, a student of the feminist writers Catharine MacKinnon and Avwliea Dworkin, Stoltenberg, rightly complains about our “cultural imperative” that asserts that men0 Alan Soble in our society must “fuck” in order to be men, and he rightly calls "balo- ney” the idea that “if two people don’t have intercourse, they have not had real sex." Stoltenberg also observes that “sometimes men have c0- ital sex .. . not because they particularly feel like it but because they feel they shot feet like i." This is a reasonable philosophy of men’s libera- tion and men’s feminism. But from these observations Stoltenberg fails to draw the almost obvious conclusion about the value of men’s masturba- tion. Indeed, itis jolting to find him, in a passage reminiscent of Catholic objections to contraception (it makes women into sexual objects), laying a guilt trip on men who masturbate with the aid of pornography: Pay your money and imagine. Pay your money and get real turned on, ay your money ana jetk off. That kind of 5€x helps... . support an industry committed to making people with perises believe that people ‘without are sluts who just want to be ravished and reviled—an indus- iy dedicated to maintaining a sex-class system in which men believe ‘themselves sex machines and men believe women are mindless fuck tubes, (35-36) In light of Stoltenberg’s criticism of the social imperative that men must fack women to be men, surely something should be said on behalf of ‘men’s solitary masturbation, The men’s movement attack on oppressive cultural definitions of masculinity, in hand with feminist worries about the integrity of sexual activity between unequally empowered men and ‘women, suggests that men’s masturbation is at least a partial solution to a handful of problems, A man pleasing himself by masturbating is not taking advantage of economically and socially less powerful women; he is not refurbishing the infrastructure of his fragile ego at the expense of womankind. He is, instead, flouting cultural standards of masculinity that instruct him that he must perform sexually with women, and not jeck off, in order to be a man ‘Yet, for Stoltenberg, fantasizing and the heightened sexual pleasure that the imagination makes possible (44), the things I mentioned while arguing that masturbation is psychologically complete in Nagel's sense, constitute wrongful sexual objectification. Stoltenberg does not merely condemn masturbating with pornagraphy (35-36, 42-43, 49-50). Fantasy per seis at fault; Stoltenberg condemns men’s masturbating with memo- tes and passing thoughts about women, even when these fantasies are not violent (41-44). A man’s conjuring up a mental image of a woman, her body, or its various parts is to view the woman a8 an object, as a thing. Stoltenberg thus takes Jesus and Rousseau very seriously. In re- sponse to Robert Nozick’s deconstructive, sarcastic questions—"In get- ting pleasure from seeing, an attractive person go by, does one use the other solely as a means? Does someone so use an object of sextial fanta- sies?”—Stoltenberg answers “yes.” (On Jacking Off, Yet Again on The mental sexual objectification involved in sexual fantasy is both a cause and a result of “male supremacy," according to Stoltenberg, (51, 53-54), Further, mental sexual objectification makes its own contribution to violence against women (54-55). Stoltenberg’s reason for thinking this is flimsy. He supposes that when a man fantasizes sexually about wom- en, he reduces them from persons to objects. Further, when a man thinks ‘of women as things, he has given himself carte blanche in his behaviot toward them, including violence: regarding an object, “you can do any- thing to it you want” (85). The last elaim is obviously false. There are innumerabie lifeless objects to which I would never lay a hand because other people value them and J value these people, or because | myself dearly value the objects. Therefore, reducing a woman to a thing (or, to describe it more faithfully to men’s experiences than Stoltenberg is will ing to do: emphasizing for a while the beauty of one aspect of a person's existence) does not mean that she can or will be tossed around the way a young gil slings her Barbie and Ken. Stoltenberg underestimates the nuances of men's fantasies about women. His account of what occurs in the minds of fantasizing men the purported reduction of persons to things, is crude. Her smile, the way she ‘moves down the stairs, the bounce of her tush, the sexy thoughts in her ‘own mind, her lusty yeaming for me—these are, I admit, mere parts of her. But imagining them while masturbating, or driving my car, or hav- ing coffee, need not amount to—indeed is the opposite of—my reducing, her to plastic. These are fantasies about people, not things, and they remain people curing the fantasy. My fantasy of her (having a) fantasy of me (or of her having a fantasy of my {having a] fantasy of her) is structu- rally too sophisticated to be objectification. The fantasizer makes himself in his consciousness both subject and object and imagines his partner as both subject and object. Recognizing the imagined person ontologically as a person is hardly a superfluous component of men’s or women’s fantasies. That Stoltenberg overlooks the comsplex structure of men’s fan- tasies about women is not surprising. The primitive idea that men vul- garly reduce women to objects in their fantasies is precisely the idea that would occur to someone (Stoltenberg) who has already objectified men, who has reduced men from full persons having intricate psychologies to robots with penises. CONJUGAL UNION The New Natural Law philosopher and legal scholar John Finnis claims, plausibly, that there are morally worthless sexual acts in which “one’s body is treated as instrumental for the securing of the experiential satis- faction of the conscious self"! Out of context, this claim seems to be condemning rape, tie use of a person's body by another person for mere2 Allan Soble “experiential satisfaction.” Rape is the fusthest thing from Finnis's mind; he is talking not about coerced sex, but that which is voluntary. When is sex instrumental and worthless even though consensual? Finis immedi- ately mentions, implying that these sexual act are his primary targets that “in masturbating, as in being . .. sodomized,” the body is merely a tool of satisfaction. As a result of one’s body being used, a person under- {goes “disintegration”: in masturbation and homosexual anal intercourse one’s choosing self [becomes] the quasi-slave of the experiencing self which is demanding gratification,” We should ask (because Finnis sounds remarkably like the Kant who claims that sex by its nature is instrumental and objectifying)#® how acts other than masturbation and sodomy avoid this problem. Finnis’s answer is the surprising “they don't’: the worthlessness and disintegration of masturbation and sodo- my attach to“all extramarital sexual gratification.” The physical nature of the act, after al, is not the decisive factor; the division between the sext- ally wholesome and the worthless is between potentially procreative “conjugal activity” and everything else. Finnis's notion of masturbation is broad, which explains why he mentions this practice as his first example ofa worthless, disintegrating sexual act. For Finnis, a martied couple that performs anal intercourse oF fellatio (nonprocseative sexual acts) engages in masturbatory sex.” ‘The question arises: what is so special about the conjugal bed that allows marital sex to avoid promoting disintegration? Finnis replies that Worthlessness and disintegration attach to masturbation and sodomy in virkue of the fact that in these activities “one’s conduct is not the actualiz~ ing and experiencing of a reat commen good.” Marriage, on the other hand, swith its double blessing—procreation and friendship—is a real com- ‘mon good ... that can be both actualized and experienced in the orgas- ‘mic union of the reproductive organs of a man and a woman united in commitment to that goed: Being married is, we can grant, often conducive to the value of sexwal activity. But what is objectionable about sexual activity between two sin- igle consenting adults who care about and enjoy pleasing each other? Does not this mutual pleasing avoid worthlessness? No: the friends might be seeking only pleasure for its own sake, as often occurs in sodo~ my and masturbation. And although Finnis thinks that “pleasure is i deed a good,” he qualifies that concession with “when it is the exper fenced aspect of one’s participation in some intelligible good.” For Fin- nis’s argument to work, however, he must claim that pleasure is a good only wher it is an aspect of the pursuit or achievement of some other {go0d. This is not what Fionis says. Pethaps he does not say it because he fears his readers Will reject such an extreme reservation about the value ise he realizes that it is of pleasure, Or, perhaps, he doesn’t say it bec On Jacking OF, Yet Again 98 false: the pleasure of tasting food is good in itself regardlese of whether eating is part of the good of securing nutrition. What ifthe friends say that they do have a common good, their friend- ship, the same way a married couple has the common good that is their marriage? If “their friendship is not marital ... activation of their repro~ ductive organs cannot be, in reality, an... . actualization of their friend- ship's common good,” replies Finnis, The claim is obscure. Finnis tries © explain, and in doing so reveals the crux of his sexual philosophy: the common good of friends who are not and eannat be married (maf and man, man and boy, woman and woman) has nothing to do with ‘heir having children by each other, and their reproductive organs can- not make them a biological (and therefore a personal} unit, Finnis began with the Kantian intuition that sexual activity involves treating the body instrumentally, and he concludes with the Kantish in- tuition that sex in marriage avoids disintegrity because the couple is a biological “unit,” or insofar as “the orgasmic union of the reproductive organs of husband and wite really unites them biologically.” In order for persons to be part of a genuine union, their sexual activity mast be both marital and procreative. The psychic falling apart each person would undergo in nonmarital sex is prevented in marital sex by their joining, into one; this bolstering of the self against a metaphysical hurricane is gained by the tempestuous potentially procreative orgasm (of all things). At the heart of Finnis’s philosophy is a scientific absurdity, if not also an absurdity according to common sense, and further conversation with him becomes difficult. ‘TRANSCENDENTAL ILLUSIONS For Finnis, the self is so fragile metaphysically that engaging, in sexual activity for the sheer pleasure of it threatens to burst it apart. For Roger Scruton, another conservative who cortdemns masturbation, the ephem- ‘eral self is in continual danger of being exposed as a fraud: “In my [sexu al] desire (for you} lam gripped by the illusion of a transcendental unity behind the opacity of [your] flesh.” We are not transcendental selves but fully material beings, which is why “excretion Is the final ‘no’ to all our transcendental illusions” (151), We are redeemed only through “a metaphysical illusion residing in the heart of sexual desire” (95). Our passions make it appear that we are ontologically more than we really are. Sexuality must be treated with kid gloves, then, lest we lose the spiritual- ly uplifting and socially useful reassurance that we humans are the onto- logical pricle of the universe, the crown of creation. The requirement that human sexuality be approached somberly trans- lates, for Scruton, not only into the ordinary claim that the sexual impulseoy ‘Alan Soble must be educated or tamed to be the partner of heterosexual love but also into a number of silly judgments. While discussing the “obscenity” of ‘masturbation, Scruton offers this example: Consider the woman who plays with her clitoris during the act of coi- tion. Such a person affronts her lover with the obscene display of her body, and, in perceiving her thus, the lover perceives his own irrele- vance. She becomes disgusting to him, and his desire may be extin- {uished. The woman's desire is satisfied at the expense of her lover's, ‘and no real union can be achieved between them. (319) ‘The obvious reply is to say that without the woman's masturbation, lier desire might be extinguished and his desire satisfied at the expense of hers, and stifl no union is achieved. Further, her masturbating can help the couple attain the union Scruton hopes for as the way to sustain the ‘metaphysical illusion, by letting them experience and recognize the mu- tual pleasure, perhaps the mutual orgassn, that results. Scruton’s claim is false, I think, that most men would perceive a wontan’s masturbating during coitus as “disgusting.” But even if there is some truth in this, we could, instead of blessing this disgust, offer the pastoral advice to the ‘man who “perceives his own irrelevance” that he become more involved in his partner's pleasure by helping her massage her clitoral region or doing the subbing for her. When they are linked together coitally, he will find the arms long and the body flexible. Why does Scruton judge the woman's masturbation an “obscene dis- play’? Here is one part of his thought. When masturbation is done in public (a bus station), itis obscene; it “cannot be witnessed without a Sense of obscenity.” Scruton then draws the astounding conclusion that all masturbation is obscene, even when done privately, on the grounds that “that which cannot be witnessed without obscene perception is itself obscene” (319). Scruton’s argument proves too much: it implies that coi- tus engaged in by a loving, heterosexual, married couple in private is also obscene because (to use his language) this act cannot be witnessed in ‘public without obscene perception. The fault lies in the major premise of Scruton’s syllogism. Whether an act is obscene might tum exactly on whether it is done publicly or privately. Scruton fails to acknowledge the difference between exposing oneself to anonymous spectators and open- ing oneself to the gaze of a lover. "AI masturbation is obscene, for Scruton, also because the act "in- volves a concentration on the body and its curious pleasures” (319). Ob- seenity is an “obsession . . . with the organs themselves and with the pleasuires of sensation” (154), and even if the sextial acts that focus on the body and its pleasures are paired sexual acts, they are nonetheless “mas- turbatory.” (Recall how the religious conservative criticized Goldman's “plain sex.") “In obscenity, attention is taken away from embodiment towards the body” (32), and there is “a ‘depersonalized’ perception of On Jacking OFF Yet Again 95 human sexuality, in which the body and its sexual function are upper- ‘most in our thoughts” (138). A woman's masturbation during coitus is obscene because it leads the couple to focus too sharply on theis physical- ity, She is a depersonalized body instead of a person-in-a-body. Thus, for Scruton, this obscene masturbation threatens the couple's metaphysical illusion. But if her masturbating during coitus is greeted with delight by her male partnet rather than with disgust, and increases the pleasure they realize and recognize in the act together, then, contrary to Scruton, either not all masturbation is obscene (the parties have not been reduced altogether to flesh) or obscenity, all things considered, is not a sexual, normative, or metaphysical disaster. NOTHING MUCH EVER CHANGES once quipped, at the beginning of a lecture I gave at Bloomsburg Uni- versity (in October 2005), concerning Thomas Hobbes's view of human sexuality, that reciting his farnows slogan in Leviathan would sum up his sexual philosophy. Sexual interactions, for Hobbes, would be nasty, brut- ish, and short—and they would certainly be solitary if the sexual agent were poor. The joke expresses, as do many jokes, a germ of truth: hetero- sexual men’s access to sexual activity with women has long depended, and still in part depends, on the male's ability to provide resources to women that are necessary for their lives and the lives of children. For the ancient Hebrews, the number of wives a man had (if any!) was a function of his wealth and the length of his beard. A young man today will not get far with the babes if he doesn’t have his own ride and crib. But the phenomenon was also at work in ancient Greece. A scholar of the first rank, K. J Dover, informs us that there was “a certain tendency in (Atticl comedy to treat masturbation as behaviour characteristic of slaves, who could not expect sexual outlets comparable in number or quality with those of free men,” those aristocrats who had at their disposal teenage Bitls as wives, courtesans with whom they could enjoy both intercourse and discourse, and beautiful boys (eromends) who offered their bodies in exchange for the education made possible by their older lover's (erastes) wisdom. But not much has changed in another sense: even with all thase outlets for his sexual urges, I submit, the ancient Greek free, propertied, erudite male would, as a slave to his own desires, occasionally give in and jack off.2" NOTES The #1 essay 4 wyroke 08. masturbation, “Sextal Desire nclie Division meetings of ve Anverican rel Sexual Objects iswapleal Associ% Alan Soble tion (San Francisco, March 1978)-1 then published “Masturbation” in Pact Peosopi cal Quarterly 61:3 (1980) 233-44. That estay was reprinted, unchanged, in Igor Primo- tat, ed, Hunan Sexuality (Dartmouth, 1997), 139-50. Part of my introduction to The Philosoiy of Sex, 1st ed. (1980), was devoted to masturbation and was developed into another version of the essay, “Masturbation and Sexual Philosophy,” which was in- ‘ded in my Te Philosophy of Sex, 2nd ed. (1991), 133-57, T continued to read and think about masturbation, and the results of my additional research emerged as chap- ter 2of my Sexual Investigations (New York University Press, 1996). Pare ofthat chapter became “Masturbation” in my The Philosopieyof Sex, Sr eg (1997), 67-85. That version ‘wa reprinted in David Benatat, ed, Ethie for Everyday (McGraw-Hill, 2002), 180-96; t ‘was further modified to become "Philosophies of Masturbation’ in Martha Comog, 2, The Big Book of Masturbation: From Angst to Zeal (San Francisco: Down There Press, 20d), 149-66. The essay printed here is also partly derived érom my entry "Masturba tion’ in lan Soble, ea, Sex fam: Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encytopedia (2006) ln most of the versions of my various essays on masturbation (although not the version printed in this volume), made a distinctioa Between “binary” and “unitary” theories of sexuafty: those that assume that sexuality is ontologically or analytically a ‘two-person affair and those that do not make this assumption, and T expanded the arguments for considering the unitary theory to be superior (in, for example, empirical esearch on human sexuality). The frst places I made this distinetion were the 1980 Pecifie Philosophical Quarterly essay and the “Introduction” to te first edition of Philo oy of Sex in 1980: ‘The problem that arises here appears clearly if we examine an account of sexuality that has much in common with Goldman's but which attempts to ‘overcome the main drawback of his theory—the fact that masturbation was ‘excluded from the domain of sexual activity. This account would say that Goldman has not really exposed the bare level or core of sexuality, that theres sexuality that is “plainer” than his plain sex. Sexual desire, on this view, isthe desire fnr certain pleasurable sensations (perid: no mention of contact with another hoy), Please note my use here of bth “plainer” and “period” (“Introduction p. 18; see also ppp. 48n9 and 49ni0) well before other scholars in the philosophy of sex picked up these tems for their own use (e-, Igor Primorat, Ethics and Sex (London: Roulledgel, 1998), 2 Rousseau, The Confessions (New York: Penguin, 1979), bk. 3, 108; Georges Ba- tale, Story ofthe Eye (New York: Urizen Books, 1977) 8. 3. The mainotrenmecg of sadomasochism is ilustrated by Daphne Meckin’s spank {ng confessional, "Unlikely Obsession: Confronting a Taboo,” Neto Yorker (February 26 land March 4, 1996) 98-115, (See an update in Slate: www slate comarticleslars/the_ bbook_cubyfeatures/2006/the female thing/bratty beauties and_babyish- boys; accessed March 9, 2012, For explorations and defenses ot more intense sadomaso- thism, see Samois, ed, Coming to Power, 2nd ed. (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1982), and especially the writings of Pat Califia: Macho Sluts (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 1988) and Public Sex: The Cure of Radial Sex (Pittsburgh, Penn; Cleis Press, 1994), 4. About problems in defining “sexual activity” for lesbians, see the wonderful essay by Marilyn Frye, “Lesbian “Sex.” in her Willful Virgin: Essays in Fevttisne 1976-1982 (Freedom, Cait: Crossing Press, 1992), 109-19. 5. Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (New York: Random House, 1968), 88 6. Arnolable contrast is Russell Vannoy’s humanistliberaltrentment of masturba- tion in Sex without Love: A Philosophical Exploration (Bulfalo, N.Y. Prometheus, 1980), 11-7. Thave already discussed the “oicefashioned” medieval Natural Law philosy. phy of sex as found in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas, It condemns masturbation, because it is nonprocreative sex carried out only for sexual pleasure, See the section “Natural Law” in my The Analytic Categories of the Philosaphy of Sex” (chapter Lin this volume). On Jacking Off Yet Again 97 tumZ, “Pisin S0X” Philosophy and Pubic Afars 6 (1977): 267-87, reprinted in this vol ante “Smal Perversion” Jounal of Piso 66 (196: 5-17, epined inthis vol 5. A sexual acs perverted, for Nagel, iit . oA lage if itis “incomplete Persons pester {hese acs are perverted only if they prefer perverted sats poychslogedy ere acts. Some pele tag, prostitute) are not pores despte pesestn er sexs they perform tem for reason nrlated (oval se 10, “Sex and Perversion” (SAP), in Raber Dake and Frederik Elson, eds, Phils apy and ‘Ser, Ist edition (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1975), 268-87. See also hie Sexual "rags Jul Psp 71 (970) 3s Se Thamar a ry Se: A Cllr History of Masturtion (New York 2AF Se high tr “Te Langg of Sx are the Sx of Lange" 7 oad the Sox of Language” in Alan Seb ed ‘Sex, Love, and Friendship (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), 23-31. ae 3. Reftsing to Bea Man (Ponand, Ore. retenbush Bonk 1589, 3 14. Novick Anarchy, State and Up {Neve York Basic Desks 197) 32 pis lin Fis, “The Wrong of Homosonsali” New Rai (Noveonber 15,1955, 16, On Kant se Alan Sol, “Soxul Us” inthis volume Fils, “Lave: Morality, and Seatal Orientation” Note Dane Law Reo bi BB a Orenaion.” Nate Dane Law Review 695 1S. Sexual Desire A Mora Philosophy of he Erotic (Now York Free 19. Greek Homosexuality, updat Caml rad Univers Pe oe ty, upate ed. (Cambridge, Mas Harvard University Pes, 20. Fors typology of mastubatorsin relation to virtue the “c and Exponure” in Sex and Ett: Esnys Sealy, Virtus otoos Co Lae ene Holwand (New York Palgrave Mocballns 27), 23882 at psd, oN #6 8 Raja STUDY QUESTIONS 1. Define “solitary masturbation,” “dual masturbation,” anc “mutual Masturbation.” In what situations might it be dificult to decile Whether a sexual act falls into one category instead of another ee into none of them at all? Does it matter? 2 Is solitary masturbation a sexual act? If itis a sexual act, what feature of the act makes it a sexual act? fit is nota sexual act. wy of? What would it lack that sexual acts possess? And if itis not 2 senual act, what kind of acts it? Does a male's rubbing his pesto Produce a sperm sample for donation or medical analysis count ae ‘masturbation? Only if the room supplied by the physician or donor bank contains a table fll of a mixture of Playboys and Playgirs? 3. Employ the conceptual framework from “The Analytic Categories of the Philosophy of Sex” (chapter I in this volume) to discuse ‘masturbation. Is it, or when is t, moral or immoral, nonmorally good or nonmorally bad, pragmatically useful or counterproduc- tive, and natural of perverted? Giver overall assessment of masturbation? Nn your answers, what is your