In response to:masturbation

2008-11-08T20:03:25+01:00

Can you be religious and have a post-modern outlook on sex and masturbation?

Postmodernism, or is it post-modernism? The spelling of the word post-modernism in fact encompasses the core meaning of post-modernism. “What is that?” you may ask. If Arthur wanted to spell it with the hyphen and Martha wanted to spell it without, then they are both entitled to their opinion and neither is wrong. Post-modernism requires of us not to break the mould completely, be it academic, moral, social, or religious, but not conform to it either. We need to acknowledge the mould, but at the same time accept that things that do not conform to that particular mould, or thought pattern, aren’t wrong and should not be dismissed without careful consideration. When the word “mould” is used in this case, it is not just a well known metaphor; it is synonymous with the social standards that we have been raised by. Each generation by its own. These social standards have been set by the society of the time. My quest is to find out what the deciding factor is in changing these moulds. Is it merely time, thus leaving us completely submissive and powerless to the clock, or is it a mindset?

Through my unmapped exploration of post modernism it occurred to me, after much contemplation, that Post modernism is in fact relative. What I may regard as being post-modern in terms of breaking religious or social taboos is primarily based on how I was raised as a child and what I was exposed to. This inevitably differs from one family to another. In some households it is taboo to even mention the word “sex” and in others the ins and outs are discussed and displayed blatantly in a debonair way, as a normal part of life. To these families and parents sexuality is a sign that their child is growing up. Perhaps my most important discovery is realising that not only is post-modernism relative to personal upbringing, but it is a time period as well.

A couple of quotes from the movie Dead Poet’s Society that gave me some insight into post modern literature were when Robin Williams said the following:

“I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way. Just when you think you know something you have to look at it in another way, even though it may seem silly or wrong.”

“Now when you read don’t just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think.”

“This was an exercise to prove a point – THE DANGER OF CONFORMITY”

This links adequately with the metaphor of breaking the mould.

Woody Allan was quoted as saying:

“Do not knock masturbation, its sex with someone you love.” (DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS, p74)

For the purpose of this essay I would like to focus on the strong connection religion has in the way people perceive themselves as sexual beings. This is still regarded as a very touchy subject and having come from a conservative / religious background it was a big step toward post-modernism for me, as it challenged me to look at things from a completely different perspective. It challenged what was taught to me and what I believed. The Compact Oxford Dictionary defines religion as…

religion
• noun 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship. 3 a pursuit or interest followed with devotion.
— ORIGIN originally in the sense life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.

In this case I am going to define religion as a set of morals and belief in a higher power than ourselves. Do people’s religion, and also very importantly, their upbringing stunt their sexual growth and maturity or is it supportive. What effect does this have on whether we as a society and individuals have a post modern outlook on life? My immediate impression was that religion causes feelings of guilt with any action associated with sexuality.

Whether you are a Freudian or not, one has to acknowledge that some of his theories were regarded as being outrageous or incredible at the time. I believe he was ostracized because of his post modern theories on sexuality, as a result of society not being ready for it. Society still shuns some of his theories on sexuality - can we therefore in all certainty say our society has made a progression toward becoming post-modern? In no way am I attempting to say that everything he or any other psychologist said is right and should not be debated, quite the contrary. However, after reading a number of novels by Nancy Friday it has become evident to me that 70 years later, his theories on the stages of development, guilt and early childhood experiences may have some credibility to them. Nancy Friday is an author whose name immediately came to mind when mentioning post-modern novels. She is a liberating writer who focuses on feminism. She experienced a great deal of rejection from family and friends for daring to put onto paper what so many suppressed women thought, but would not admit for fear of what society would think of them. She first published a book, “My Mother Myself”, in 1970 where she said a child’s sexuality is directly influenced by his/her mother and that a mother’s initial reaction toward her child ultimately determines the child’s insecurities and strengths. Then shortly after that she published a book entitled “My Secret Garden.” In this book women were coming to terms with their sexuality in a world where they were perceived as being asexual beings, purely there for man’s satisfaction. They were expected to always act ladylike and suppress all sexual feelings they may have had.

“So afraid were women of breaking The Rules that they denied their fantasies even to themselves.” (Friday, p100)

According to Freud, if you suppress a feeling constantly it will manifest itself in some or other way. This has subsequently been proven to be correct and is supported by most practicing psychologists. In the cases in this novel it manifested itself in the women fantasising about being raped. In that way they were still able to hold on to their “ladylike” or “good-girl” status, and at the same time receive the sexual gratification that they desire and rightfully were entitled to, without being responsible for what happened, thus negating any guilt feelings.

To confirm my point about people experiencing guilt feelings as a result of religion and how they were raised I read the novel “Woman On Top” by Nancy Friday. This is an extremely liberal book which has a firm foundation in feminism and the psychology behind the women’s repressed desires and fantasies.

“Even when we choose to act a certain way in reality because of moral / ethical / religious codes, in the dreams we dream at night as well as our sexual fantasies, our unconscious selves demand expression…Women were simply waiting for the jailers – other women – to say it was alright to make them conscious.” (Friday, p100)

This book is a compilation of women’s sexual experiences and fantasies and how these were influence by the way they were raised. The women mentioned in this book come from a number of different religious and social backgrounds and the one point that remains constant throughout is that there is ongoing turmoil within them about having human and sexual desires and the guilt that accompanies this.

“They know they are sexually naïve, lack self confidence, and feel guilty about sex. They are not reluctant to name their sources of their inhibitions: some have had strict religious training.” (Friday, p101)

The women however, that come from less religious or conservative backgrounds, have a much more liberated approach toward their right to sexual gratification, in whatever form. They have little to no guilt because they believe this is a very normal and natural part of life, as did Freud. He believed that it was a developmental stage which he called the Phallic Stage. This is a stage that a child reaches from approximately the third year of life to about the sixth or even seventh year. During this stage the child, both male and female, are obsessed with their genitals and the pleasure derived from touching them. Masturbation is common during this stage.

In later years when a child reaches the final stage which Freud has called the Genital Stage. He or she may experience guilt feelings when experimenting with self gratification or sexual activities. One has to look back at where these feelings of guilt emerge and if they truly are valid. The reaction by parents or caregivers toward a child will determine the degree of guilt experienced by this individual, who has now grown to be a teenager. Many children have received negative messages, either directly or indirectly, about masturbation from their parents. If a child was punished for touching themselves, during the Phallic stage, and told it is “dirty” and a “no-no” then they subconsciously develop the irrational understanding that anything to do with their genitals or sex is dirty. Some children were even beaten for the parents suspicion that their child was touching themselves.

A touching account comes from a 27 year old woman by the name of Erma, who relays her experiences in Woman On Top:

“My mother never really spoke about sex, except negatively. My mom’s theory on sex was that you only did it if you were married, and only to your husband, when he wanted it. It actually sounded dirty the way she described it to me. Well, fortunately (?) for my sister, she was a virgin when she got married. She was the “good girl.” I’m not sorry I lost my virginity when I was 18 years old. My mother was quite infuriated when she found out. She told me I had better fake being a virgin if I wanted a good man.” (Friday, p139)

She goes on to say:

“I guess our upbringing can have traumatic effects on our lives. All we need to do is take the first step and really be ourselves. Women are human and have sexual feelings, too. Don’t let any man ever fool you otherwise. We need our sexual gratification, too!” (Friday, p140)

After speaking to psychologists and counsellors about this topic, many have confirmed that it is a common occurrence for them to deal with patients who are experiencing problems in marriage or their sex life because of similar events that happened in their childhood. As a result these individuals experience extreme feelings of guilt. They admit that this is often difficult to sort out. This again proves what Freud said about the repressions of feelings in the unconscious and the influence of early childhood development. In this case it manifests itself in guilt feelings. Karen Horney concurred with Freud regarding the influence that childhood experiences have on a child. For her though, it is the child’s relationship with his / her parents that is important because it is this relationship that determines if the child will develop basic anxiety. (Hergenhahn, p153)

“…Yet another group realises that the fact that mother called them a whore for masturbating isn’t irrelevant.” (Friday, p101)

Erik Erikson’s opinion on childhood influences and the relationship parents play is:

“The parents must perform the delicate task of controlling the child’s behaviour in socially acceptable directions without injuring the child’s sense of self-control or autonomy. In other words, the parents must be reasonably tolerant but still be firm enough to assure behaviour that is socially approved. If the parents are overly protective or unjust in their use of punishment, the child will be doubtful and experience shame.” (Hergenhahn, p173)

A form of behaviour modification that is used is what is called positive and negative reinforcement. This method relies on rewarding the child for repeating the desired behaviour by giving positive feedback or responses when they model the behaviour that is desired and denying them certain pleasures when unacceptable behaviour, like touching themselves, is modelled. Punishment is a form of negative reinforcement.

Freud identified three forms of anxiety namely, reality anxiety, neurotic anxiety and moral anxiety. Reality anxiety is not particularly relevant to this case so I will only be focusing on neurotic and moral anxiety. Freud said that neurotic anxiety is the fear that one will be punished externally by other people (parents or caregivers in this case), for impulsive actions like aggression or giving in to one’s sexual desires, whereas moral anxiety is the fear that one will be punished internally by feelings of guilt. (Hergenhahn, p35) We can see that there is a direct correlation between neurotic anxiety and moral anxiety. The one (neurotic anxiety) escalates the other (moral anxiety). The more a child gets punished for doing something wrong the more exaggerated the feeling of guilt will be when they do it.

Where does religion come in? Negative sentiments are also partly due to centuries of religious teachings that masturbation is sinful. Many religions, in particular Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Mormon, believe that you should marry as a virgin and that intercourse is something that should be done within marriage, not before. Beatrice doesn’t mention what her Religion is, just that pre-marital sex goes against it and that it is a difficult rule to stick to. (Friday, p90) They then believe that if they masturbate they are committing a sin and once again the guilt feeling is present. This is very well illustrated buy a girl by the name of Gail who says:

“I have been fantasising since I was 6. I’ll be 20 next month. For a short while (my senior year in high school) I was trying to rededicate my life to Christ, and I was having a really difficult time reconciling my nightly pillow – between – the – legs escapades with my search for higher spirituality. Then I decided to give up guilt altogether. I feel it is only human to masturbate and fantasize, and it does not prevent me from treating others as I would like to be treated or loving my neighbour as myself. It probably makes me less judgemental.” (Friday, p138)

When asked what his opinion was on masturbation and if a person who masturbates is sinful, Dr. James Dobson, a Christian family psychologist, said the following:

“It is my opinion that masturbation is not much of an issue with God. It’s a normal part of adolescence, which involves no one else. It does not cause disease, it does not produce babies, and Jesus did not mention it in the Bible. I’m not telling you to masturbate, and I hope you won’t feel the need for it. But if you do, it is my opinion that you should not struggle with guilt over it.” (Dobson, p47)

The association of masturbation with guilt and anxiety is partly due to the ignorance of the fact that masturbation is not harmful. If we just touch on the myths about masturbation we can see that this was a method society used to try and frighten people with the aim of preventing them from self gratification. What was their thinking behind this? People were extremely gullible to believe the hyperbolic myths about masturbation. For example, the myths that masturbation will cause you to go blind, induce acne, never enable you to have children, or even result in hair growing on the palm of your hands.

These myths have been medically proven to be a complete fallacy and the medical world has even conducted studies which prove that there are a number of benefits to masturbating. An unknown lady on an internet forum said:

“Sexual release is as important as any kind of emotional release. Saying that you shouldn’t masturbate is like saying that you shouldn’t cry when you’re upset or hurt, or that you shouldn’t hold in any anger and other emotions. I see no difference in Sexual release and emotional release. Not releasing will only result in stress and health problems.” (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/4884.htm)

Would a society that had a post-modern perspective convey these lies to children? Can we continue to sow these seeds of untruths to the youth when we know that the human race is unable to overcome the AIDS epidemic? Masturbation is the ultimate form of safer sex – there is no risk in pregnancy or infection.

What admirable insight Thomas Szasz had when he said:

“Masturbation is the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth it’s a cure.” (DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS, p78)

We are all familiar with the saying: “Prevention is better than cure.” Well, we unfortunately have no cure for AIDS, and until such time, the human race will have to be satisfied with the fact that we are not all powerful, and that for now masturbation is the post-modern prevention to AIDS.

In my opinion a person’s mindset is more important in post-modernism than the fact that it is regarded as a time period. Having considered the psychological, religious, and post-modern aspects regarding my topic I believe this is still a very challenging subject for society to deal with. I would have to say that I cannot give a definite answer as to what the solution is and if one can be religious and have a post-modern outlook on sex and masturbation. However, the more novels I read, the more apparent the value post-modern literature plays in society becomes to me. We are currently in an era where we are trying to come to terms with things that have happened in the past, and confronting the issues that were previously taken for granted. Post-modern literature now gives us the freedom to write about things that may be controversial, and that we were not able to verbalise, but thought of. We now have the freedom to bring these topics out into the open and share how we truly feel about them. What a way to liberate society – from themselves!

Bibliography

DOBSON, J. 1994. Preparing for Adolescence. Regal Books.

FRIDAY, N. 1991. WOMEN ON TOP. London. Arrow Books

HERGENHAHN, B R. et al. AN INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF PERSONALITY – SIXTH EDITION. 2003. New Jersey. Pearson Education, Inc.

2004. DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS. New Lanark. Geddes & Grosset.

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/4884.htm. 23 April 2006.

In response to:masturbation

2008-11-08T07:31:21+01:00

please keep in mind that women mostly lie

In response to:masturbation

2006-05-15T18:47:34+02:00

hi Carrot i do appologise for my inadequacy in being able to explain myself correctly. no there is no way one can do post-modernism such an injustice but i am doing the survey in order to substantiate a point.

it is difficult for me to tell you exactly what i am trying to achieve without rewriting my essay but i will try and be brief.

here goes: i believe post-modernism is relative based on a person's upbringing. if a child comes from a conservative family and the word sex is not to be mentioned let alone spoken about a child who is discover stimulating themselves as a todler will be punished severely and therefore when growing up experiance guilt feeling with regaurd to masturbation and sex.it is often based on a religious taboo or so people think. on the other hand a child who comes from a liberal family may be told that masterbation is a healthy way of relieving frustration and then be told that they may do it as long as it is in private.

Women feel particularly guilty and according to Freud it is completely natural.

my perspective is that the period of post mdernism should promote feminism and free both male and particularly female to be open about these issues and our children as the future generation should not have the same restrictions placed on them and experiance a feeling of guilt for something which is natural and human.

what i intend doing is using Freuds theories which were very post- modern in its time and comparing it with people's opinions today to see if we have made the paradigm sift and are post-modern.

if you would like i can post my essay for you to read and i would love your opinion. all comments are welcome

yes i had a probably about 7 people respond to my survey in two hours before it was taken off line. 6 out of the seven were women.5 confessing to not feling guilty after masturbation but this is not sufficient to base an essay on.

In response to:masturbation

2006-05-15T17:25:42+02:00

Reducing post modernism to mastrubation, that' s really strange. *g* Did someone already answer your questions? *g*

i'm all ears

In response to:masturbation

In response to:masturbation

In response to:masturbation

In response to:masturbation