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masturbation?

(110 Posts)
helshea Fri 30-Dec-11 10:00:51

Why are men proud and admit it, and women are embarrassed and deny it?

Joan Sat 31-Dec-11 07:25:28

We pooled our knowledge of the facts of life in the school playground. I got my knowledge from a slightly older girl cousin who told me just about everything. The school did organise sex education when we were about 13, but we'd pretty much found it all out beforehand (without trying it of course)

I also loved Buddy Holly, Gerry and the Pacemakers etc and wore those full skirts with sugar-stiffened net underskirts during adolescence.

But for me, real pop music started with the Beatles and the Stones!

Greatnan Sat 31-Dec-11 06:43:19

I am older than you, Joan, so my fashion was full skirts, with sugar-stiff peticoats underneath, tight sweaters over whirlpool bras and little scarves.
I used to go roller skating almost every night, when I wasn't ballroom dancing, and I made all my own full circle skating skirts. I finally found some use for my maths. 'O' level - I could work out how far to cut out the waist because I knew the formula to calculate the radius from the circumference. I stuck sequins on them,and with the white boots they were very flattering! WE also had full circle felt skirts in really beautiful jewel colours - scarlet, royal blue and emerald green.
I was a very 'good' girl -I didn't smoke or drink (that came much later, in my late 30's) and I would not have dared to have sex - partly for fear of getting pregnant and partly because I lived in a small town and the double standards applied even more than they do today. I think one of my reasons for getting married at 18 was that I wanted to be able to enjoy sex without anxiety - as a married woman I was able to attend the Family Planning clinic.
When I got divorced at 39, I did all the things I should have done in my teens, apart from smoking, which I hate.
Our music was Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Paul Ank, The Four Seasons, with ballad singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams and Tony Bennet (who is still going strong).
We had no sex education whatsoever, either at my covent school or at home. I don't remember how I learnt the facts of life but I know that when my older sister had a baby when I was ten, I had no idea of how she had done it!

kittylester Sat 31-Dec-11 06:40:55

Didn't we invent it shock I remember lots of sniggering when 1969 arrived and having to have the significance explained to me blush Well I was only 20!

Joan Sat 31-Dec-11 04:08:51

All sex was regarded as taboo by our parents when i was a young 'un. (born 1945) We were supposed to be virgins when we married, and even then, enjoying it was regarded as not quite nice. As for masturbation - an absolute no-no, especially for girls. Our parents carried on as if we'd been conceived immaculately.

So we all cheerfully ignored our parents and did exactly what we wanted, and ended up thinking that we had invented sex in the 1960s!!!

To help matters, we had great music - Doris Day and Frank Sinatra were replaced by the Beatles and the rest of the Mersey sound, the Stones and all the rest of them. We wore our micro minis and kinky boots, listened to naughty songs and managed to have sex lives in spite of parental restrictions, albeit in great secrecy.

Oh, those were the days, my friends......

Greatnan Sat 31-Dec-11 01:04:33

My dear mother was a virgin when she was married at age 32. She once asked my sister and myself 'How do you know if you have had an orgasam?'
We had to tell her that if she had to ask, she hadn't had one!
She had five children in ten years, then my father 'shut up shop', at the age of 44, probably due to his increasing health problems. My mother was a superstitious, rather than practising, Catholic, so would not use contraception and I think my dad just didn't fancy a sixth baby. I was the youngest, and I don't think he ever forgave me for not being an abortion!

petallus Fri 30-Dec-11 23:46:09

I suppose it is only to be expected that in a thread entitled 'masturbation' we are more comfortable having a laugh about other people's sexual peccadillos than talking about ourselves!

Carol Fri 30-Dec-11 23:39:44

Just exchanging a few anecdotes so we don't get too personal.......

Anne58 Fri 30-Dec-11 23:30:53

I think we seem to have veered off the subject here, which seemed to be female masturbation?

Carol Fri 30-Dec-11 21:17:01

Many years ago, I worked with a punch and judy man and his exotic wife who helped him. When he was convicted of sex offences against children, he was unable to ply his trade and, being instructed never to go near children again, he put his puppet theatre in the shed. When his sentence was completed, he took out the very damp, mouldy puppet theatre and headed off to the seaside. On assembling his puppet theatre, he found that mice had chewed the wires that enabled him to broadcast the sounds he made with his swazzle. He insisted his wife should hold the wires together during the show.................

.....ten minutes into the show, children on the hot sandy beach began to shout 'smoke...fire...!' as his dried-out tent went up in flames! He was shipped off to hospital. Poetic justice?

Grannylin Fri 30-Dec-11 21:03:00

My doc daughter has a wealth of A and E stories but I especially like the one about the consultant who displays the orifice objects on his shelf...the favourite being a Smurf!

Greatnan Fri 30-Dec-11 20:08:55

The title of this topic is surely clear enough - if anyone thinks they would be offended by a bit of honest talk about a subject most people find interesting, then they need not open it.
I know younger people think that sex is 'gross' (their word) for anyone over 30, but I hope we are all a bit more broad-minded!
My daughter and her husband were going to Paris for a much needed break, whilst I was child-minding. For some reason, she had to open her suitcase, and right on top was the best that Anne Summers could supply.
She also ran Anne Summers parties for a time, and it was good fun to see how the 'ladies' lost their inhibitions after a few glasses of wine.
The items they did not buy were the bright red, scratchy briefs - apparently something only bought by men for their unappreciative partners!

Carol Fri 30-Dec-11 20:02:05

Not illegal JessM - the cops wanted to know why this known sex offender was carrying something suspicious into his house, and whether the animal they found had been killed illegally (it wasn't), so then they looked at whether some criminal damage had been committed, but the CPS, when consulted, decided not in the public interest to charge him with anything. It didn't stop them from broadcasting what they had found, just to keep the offender on his toes (apparently, he did need watching carefully).

JessM Fri 30-Dec-11 19:49:11

Weren't we the generation that discovered the female orgasm? Certainly the first generation to think it was some kind of god given right... Or am I going all senior and remembering wrong...

JessM Fri 30-Dec-11 19:44:38

I knew an Australian once whose party trick was, apparently, turning the lights out and streaking through the crowd with an ignited newspaper in that location. There were reliable accounts of this entertaining pastime. Along with igniting farts. Boys...
Is having sex with dead badgers illegal then. Or does it only count if it is a live one. Trying to work out why the cops were interested, other than sheer blooming nosiness.... Other than to eliminate the small body theory.

johanna Fri 30-Dec-11 19:44:15

OMG, Masturbation on Gransnet?????????
No, no, no, this is going too far.............
Don't forget ladies ( ladies? ) : " for some sex is a topic of conversation, for others it is way of life! "

Carol Fri 30-Dec-11 19:25:11

Ah! I see we have found the level we were dithering about....

Annobel Fri 30-Dec-11 19:21:29

Carol shock. If your story wasn't about the fens I wouldn't believe it. wink

harrigran Fri 30-Dec-11 19:09:36

Any doctor or nurse who has worked in A&E will have weird and wonderful stories to tell. Once on a late shift a gentleman presented with a rolled up newspaper in an unusual orifice, offending paper removed, soothing cream applied. Enter senior doctor " anyone got an evening paper?" we were wetting ourselves.

Carol Fri 30-Dec-11 18:51:22

I think that is where my personal threshold is Greatnan. Talk about anything you like but sexual boundary stops when it comes to my personal and private life.

I have heard of the most bizarre and dysfunctional sexual behaviours and have heard some hilarious stories from investigating police officers, one of which I can tell is general terms and you can guess the rest. A known offender's house, deep in the fens, was searched when concerns were raised about his comings and goings with what looked like a small body wrapped up in a blanket. In the freezer was found a roadkill badger that he had been thawing out with the hairdryer and using for sexual purposes, then re-freezing. Forensics found 'a lot' of DNA evidence to substantiate their suspicions.

I do have lots of enecdotes about fetishes, and only need encouragement and a small schooner of sherry.............

petallus Fri 30-Dec-11 18:44:30

I think the answer to Helshea's question is that men are proud of, boast about and even exaggerate their sexual activity and women, generally speaking, do not (esp. older generations). On the subject of masturbation, and keeping it secret/private, some years ago I was chatting to my daughter in my bedroom and picked up my duvet to give it a shake and there on the sheet lay a bright pink vibrator I had at the time. We both stared at it in silence. Too much information for a daughter to have about her mother?

Greatnan Fri 30-Dec-11 18:33:41

I only once had a man friend who suggested photographing us 'in flagrante delicto' and I dropped him at once.
Young people do not seem to realise how the things they post can be used against them, even to the extent that potential employers now look at their social networking sites to find more information about them.
I can't understand why celebrities allow themselves to be filmed, as they must know the clips could be widely circulated if they break up with that particular partner. Or is that any publicity is better than no publicity?

I don't in the least mind discussing sex in general, but my personal life remained personal and private. (Nothing to discuss for the last 13 years!)

JessM Fri 30-Dec-11 17:23:04

Sorry, wild assumption there. We didn't have the electronics in our youth. But I should only speak for myself about those middle ages...

JessM Fri 30-Dec-11 17:21:43

The one I find mysterious is the "taking pics and videos of yourself having sex and sending them to your mates" which, according to our school nurse is common practice amongst teens... Now that is something we didn't do in our miss spent youths and middle ages.

grannyactivist Fri 30-Dec-11 14:36:48

Some years ago I attended a training course on Sex and Sexuality which was run for LA youth workers, SW's, and others who worked with adolescents. At the time I was a social worker for a Christian based charity and regarded with suspicion by the others on the course once it was established, during the ice-breaker session, that I was a Christian myself. I actually came in for a lot of (quite personal) hostility and there were many comments about my ability to 'cope' with the course contents. (Not from the trainers who were both very professional.) Imagine my delight therefore (smug emoticon) when we did an exercise in sexual terminology and I was able to correctly define and discuss accurately every single term used. At the end of the course I was invited to return as a trainer!!
Like Greatnan and Carol I've worked in the field and there is very little that I haven't come across in terms of sexual behaviours.

helshea Fri 30-Dec-11 13:14:06

Closed bedroom curtains during the day always intrigue me?