Angela Barnett

It’s OK for mothers to marvel at the rubbish truck boy, get all titillated by 50 shades of grey, want sexy lingerie, or demand a good servicing. But it’s not OK for mothers to admit, that after going to yoga, writing a report, and picking up the groceries they flicked the bean until it was time to get the kids.

I mean, ew.

Apparently May is National Masturbation Month. If you’re a mother you probably have no idea because nobody tells you such things.

If you’re talking to another mother you can’t assume she paddles the pink canoe, sauces the taco, trips the switch or enthusiastically clubs the clam. Whereas dads don’t have any issues assuming. They know. They nod. They wink. They are all part of the same secret club called Jerking Off and they never think of themselves as jerks for doing it.

For mothers, if you mention ménage à moi at a party, even if you’re talking about the benefits of increased circulation, reduced stress and an energized system, people look at you like you’ve got no knickers on and you’re about to swing around the nearest pole to prove it. Suddenly, once you’ve sexed your way into a baby, you’re not sexy if you talk about masturbation, you’re just a little bit weird.

A British comedy show EastEnd Cabaret—who are a high-powered feminine ‘Flight of the Conchords’ dipped in acid and drenched in smut—often ask their audience whether anyone has wanked recently. The dynamite vixens wave their hands in the air on stage yet mothers rarely put their paws up. Not unless they’ve been dipped in a bottle of wine and drenched in complete darkness. Otherwise it’s eyes straight ahead and sitting on hands, especially once the femme fatales hit song Danger Wank blasts the crowd.

Because nobody wants to be labeled the Wanking Mother.

Mothers don’t do that. They provide, they nurture, they inspire, they can make a hell of a good meatloaf but they don’t polish the pearl. Oh no.

Yet the statistics show there are plenty of women who do because it is good for us.

Making your body feel incredible for an intense few seconds, like being swallowed by sunshine and stars and racing through the universe in your own glass rocketship has got to be the best thing ever. It is not dirty. It doesn’t make you blind. It releases those glorious free happy drugs called endorphins.

And as Truman Capote said, “you don’t have to dress up for it.” It’s frickin’ amazing that our bodies can do this especially as we don’t need the frickin’ bit. It’s all ours whenever we want it.

Forget chia fungus smoothies and mindful flower picking, a good old finger paint improves sleep, reduces menstrual cramps, and makes women more comfortable with their bodies.

It’s not always easy to figure out but neither’s sex. You need commitment! Dedication!

Comedian Amy Sedaris has said, of orgasms, ‘It is much like the final available seat on the last lifeboat of a sinking ocean liner: everybody for themselves! Don’t expect it to be handed to you like a free cup of coffee, you must be aggressive in your pursuit, not unlike a raccoon foraging in a trash can for any edible morsel.’

Victorian Doctors in the 1880’s treated women with hysteria by helping them climax—often assigning this delicate job to midwives—and relieving, for a while, hysterical symptoms: nervousness, respiratory troubles, insomnia, spasms and irritability—before the vibrator was invented. Knowing orgasms are a more natural solution than swallowing pills mothers have assigned the delicate job to themselves.

Girls need to know it’s a sport worth pursuing. There’s a movement in Europe and the UK promoting masturbation for teenage girls to avoid unwanted pregnancies and STDs, because if teenage girls know how to entertain themselves they might think less about that boy Leroy from down the long driveway because they don’t need him.

Plus it makes them feel like Wonderwoman on their own. It’s powerful. And if they know how to indulge in a little DIY time then they’ll know exactly what they need when Leroy or Lisa calls.

We don’t have to show our daughters (hell no!) or give them pamphlets but if they overhear mothers and aunts and grandmothers and older sisters joking about ‘Rubbing One Out’ then they won’t think it’s weird.

If they hear us singing along to FKA Twigs ‘Kicks’, and Cindi Lauper’s ‘She Bop‘ and the Pussycat Dolls ‘I don’t need a man’ and Madonna’s ‘Into the groove’ and ‘Sexx dreams’ by Lady Gaga and ‘Coin-operated boy’ by the Dresden Dolls, they won’t think it’s so mortifying that mothers do it too.

In India, the Hindi phrase ‘Apna Haath Jagannath’ is sometimes found in graffiti on school toilets, which translates to ‘self help is the best help’ and means ‘your hand is your god.’

Amen.

Hungarian Doctor, Thomas S Szasz said once on the subject, ‘In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it’s a cure.’ Enough sitting on hands mothers. Well actually more of that but more raising hands too. National Masturbation Month is on and it’s more interesting than Dry July.