A personal recollection: One of the responses below mentions the film Ordinary People.I first saw that movie in the theater with my mother when I was 15. When Timothy Hutton told Judd Hirsch, "I jack off a lot," I was mortified with embarrassment! It practically ruined the movie for me!]
On an episode of Roseanne,D. J. began spending a lot of time in the bathroom, and after his parents found crinkled pages from the young girl's underwear section of a store catalog, they realized that he had begun masturbating. After he had been "indisposed" for a long time, Darlene said, "He must be either really good at it or really bad at it."
- age 20, Pennsylvania (female)
"Your sister's gone out on a date, and you just sit at home and masturbate..." from the Billy Joel song "Captain Jack."
- age 19, Florida
"They never went blind for what they did, but I may as well have..." Alanis Morisette in "Forgiven." The beauty lies in the fact that you have to know the myth to get the reference. It's not like Beavis and Butt-Head where someone says wood, rod, or stroke, and everyone starts to giggle.
- age 18, New York
I like all the references in The Simpsons.Most of them are pretty subtle, as if the writers are trying to sneak them past the network censors. In one episode, Bart writes on the blackboard "I will not grease the monkey bars." In another, it's Bart's birthday and two girls are seen at an arcade playing "Whack the Weasel." Then there's the time Homer is choking Bart and Marge says, "It's yourself you should be choking." These are especially cool because lots of kids watch the Simpsons but I bet not very many get these jokes.
- age 32, Minnesota
Tori Amos, in "Icicle" off of Under the Pink-- "...When my hand touches myself I can finally rest my head. And when they say take of his body, I think I'll take from mine instead."
- age 14, Massachusetts
A couple come to mind, although I'm sure I'm forgetting some good ones. The first is Joel's dream about the babysitter in Risky Business(the second dream, not the one that begins the movie). As he starts to fantasize about it, you can clearly see his hand go under the sheets to masturbate. The second is from an episode ofSt. Elsewhere.A man checks into the hospital for a penile implant to correct his impotence and shares a room with a depressed burn victim. The first man keeps trying to cheer up the burn victim with no success. On returning from the implant surgery, the first man is told by his doctor to allow the surgery to heal before trying the pump that had been installed (to induce his erection). Shortly after the doctor leaves, he says that he can't wait to try it out. He pulls the privacy curtain, and you hear an air-pump-like sound, and the man making favorable exclamations. The burn victim becomes intrigued and begins leaning over to listen. Suddenly, there's a loud pop and the first man yells "Oh no!" Despite himself the burn victim begins to laugh hysterically, then the first man pulls the curtain open to reveal a popped paper bag that he'd faked the explosion with. Seeing his roommate finally laughing, he says, "Gotcha!"
- age 27, Texas
My favorite was in Made in America(starring Whoopi Goldberg, Will Smith, and Ted Danson). They were at a sperm bank, and Will Smith was being asked to donate. After he found out he would get paid andsee a dirty film, he was soon asking for a second cup.
- age 16, Texas
The Violent Femmes' song "Blister in the Sun" — "Let me go on, like I blister in the sun / let me go on, big hands I know you're the one."
- age 19, Indiana
Comedian George Carlin once said, "If God didn't want us to masturbate he would have made our arms shorter!"
- age 15, Massachusetts
My favorite reference is in The Basketball Diaries.I love it when Leonardo DiCaprio says his friend "did seven" and beat the record of the dying guy. I also love it when DiCaprio is masturbating on the roof of his apartment.
- age 20, Alabama
It's hard to top Woody Allen in Annie Hall,countering a friend who just put down masturbation: "Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with somebody I love."
- age 57, Missouri
I like Bloodhound Gang's song "Water Fire Burn." There's a line that goes, "I'm kinda like Han Solo, always stroking my own Wookie."
- age 14, Texas
The Buzzcocks' "Orgasam Addict": "Tried it just for once forund it all right for kicks / but now you find out it's a habit that sticks."
- age 20, United Kingdom
Near the beginning of the original Emmanuellebook is a description of her masturbating on a plane. At first she is alone, and then the man beside her joins in. I must have read that passage dozens of times over the years, and it always turns me on. The rest of the book ain't bad, either!
- age 35, United Kingdom (female)
Weezer, in the song "Why Bother?", talking about a girl — "Why bother? It's gonna hurt me, it's gonna kill when you desert me. Its just sexual attraction, it's nothing real so I better keep whackin'."
- age 17, Arizona
The song "You're Makin' Me High," by Toni Braxton. She says: "I always think of you / inside of my private thoughts / I can imagine you / touchin' my private parts / with just the thought of you / I can't help but touch myself / that's why I want you so bad..." I can remember several times that I have actually masturbated to this song.
- age 14, New Jersey
The phone-sex scene from The Truth about Cats and Dogsis hot. Even though they are under the sheets, you know they are masturbating.
- age 41, California
It has to be in National Lampoon's Vacation(1983). When the Griswold clan stays overnight at cousin Eddie's, Rusty is talking to Eddie's son (I forgot his name) about his girlie magazines. Eddie's son says he doesn't want to sell them because he uses them all the time. Rusty gets a puzzled look on his face and asks, "How do you use a magazine?" Eddie's son replies that this older guy showed him a few months ago. He then asks Rusty "Do you ever bop your baloney?"
- age 29, Pennsylvania
In Monty Python's Life of Brian,-- the Pontius Pilate character has a speech impediment. When describing his friend from Rome, Bigus Dickus, he claims that Bigus "...wanks as high as any in Wome!"
- age 26, Colorado
In the movie Biloxi Blues,Matthew Broderick's character keeps a journal and he discusses the masturbation habits of another guy in his barracks. The guy is not ashamed at all and announces to the entire company when he is about to ejaculate by yelling things like, "torpedo one FIRE!"
- age 18, Indiana
I love the Yahoo radio commercials. This kid talks about what he finds while "Yahooing." Then he says, "I asked my dad if he Yahooed when he was a kid... it was weird. He, like, grounded me." Then at the end, a guy's voice goes, "Do you, uh, Yahoo?"
- age 15, California
As an undying fan of classic rock & roll music, I like the song "Pictures of Lily" (1967) by The Who: "Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems/ pictures of Lily helped me to feel all right..." It's a classic masturbation tune by a classic band whose sole mission at the time was to speak out against the oppressive "older" generation of the '60s. Bet they got plentyof people mad with this song!
- age 18, Massachusetts
It was in the TV show Austin Storieson MTV. One guy was telling another about how plants had a psychic link with his mother to tell her when he was doing anything. In fact, when he was a teenager "doing what it is teenage boys do," she would come in and water the plant.
- age 14, California
A line from Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" — "in the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat"
- age 44, New Jersey
In the movie Mallrats,where Brody discusses with everyone watching the *live* game show how he had a cousin who started "beating off" when he thought the plane was going to crash-land. This triggers 300 other passengers to start masturbating as well. Everyone I know who has seen Mallratsloves that part.
- age 25, Australia
I haven't seen much of that at all — the media doesn't publicize masturbation as it should. Especially where I live, everything is old-fashioned. Our libraries and newsstands are stocked only with books that are considered "moral." Fair, huh?
- age 15, Michigan
My favorite reference in a movie is in the '50s French film The Wages of Fear.Four guys are transporting nitroglycerine in trucks across a South American jungle to fight an oil well fire. At one point they must use their ingenuity and also risk their lives to overcome an obstacle — a giant boulder is blocking the only route. After successfully getting rid of it, the four men are in an exuberant mood and start grasping their crotches and speaking of celebrating, and they all begin to walk away together. When the scene fades out, it's then clear they are going to celebrate their victory by masturbating together. This is an excellent movie in other respects as well and I recommend it, but beware: badly edited editions of it exist. But this scene took my breath away — so civilized a situation and so far ahead of its time, handled with such European sophistication.
- age 34, Massachusetts
From the movie Weird Science-- Lisa: "Do you know that your son's only sexual outlet is tossing off to magazines in the bathroom?" Gary: "I never tossed off, Mom, never...!" Mom (crying at the same time): "...and I thought you were combing your hair...!" Gary: "I was, I was..."
- age 18, Oklahoma
My favorite is Jackson Browne's song "Rosie" — "Rosie, you're all right, you wear my ring / when I turn out the light, you light my thing / Looks like it's you and me again tonight, Rosie..." Any guy who doesn't lie knows this is a song about our best friend, "Rosie Palm and her five daughters."
- age 50, Colorado
Songwriter/comedian/actor Adam Sandler once wrote a song called "Medium Pace" referring to masturbation. It was about him getting a girl to have sex with. He gets so horny he starts to masturbate on the bed with her watching. He masturbates "at a medium pace," and then he ejaculates and doesn't do anything with the girl.
- age 16, Massachusetts
Two favorite references come to mind: the movie Ordinary People,in which the Timothy Hutton character tells the psychiatrist he masturbates too much (the first time I had ever heard a movie character reference, let alone admit to,masturbating). TV's Friends,where Joey gives Chandler a gold bracelet, saying it will change his sex life. Chandler agrees, saying it will slow him down a bit, but after a few weeks he'll get back up to speed! Then of course there's Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint,but that's a whole chapter rather than a reference!
- age 40, New York
It was in the movie Stand By Me.The four main characters need to cross over a river. One of them suggests that they go around the river, while another suggests they go over the railroad tracks and says that while he waits for the others to walk around, he will be "alone with my thoughts." To which the other replies, "Do you do that with your left hand or your right hand?"
- age 16, Florida
From the 1983 film The Right Stuffwhen the astronaut trainees are asked to masturbate in the bathroom for a semen sample. Sitting in separate stalls beside each other, the men masturbate while singing "Wild Blue Yonder."
- age 28, Canada
Of course, my favorite masturbation reference is JackinWorld!
- age 15, Puerto Rico