A Requiem For A Dream

Masturbation: An Existentialist Crisis

Masturbation is the quintessential 21st century human experience; it embodies the fundamental alienation of modern man.

Masturbation is all about self-pleasure with no responsibility and no accountability; self-centered stimulation without real interaction with other human beings. People masturbate so that they can avoid having to work on social relationships that will bring them happiness and pleasure that are much more lasting, much more meaningful. Instead, people masturbate to get that quick-fix, and then soon after, they feel empty and need to find something equally transient to satisfy a fleeting desire. It embodies the 21st century's obsession with finding a cheap, quick fix without wanting to actually work to get a long-term solution.

Masturbation is irresponsibility, because we are stimulating ourselves to images, not to people to whom we have accountabilities toward. You can't simply masturbate in front of that hot girl; instead, you fantasize about that hot girl and then you masturbate. And what is this except objectifying other people? There is no respect for others as human beings but only as sexual objects, good only for a jerk.

And yet the very products that we masturbate to--pornography, mass media magazines, TVs, movies, etc--are packaged consumer products ready for consumption. And the people who are in these pacakaged products are in turn selling their physicality, hence they themselves become part of commercialism. And what you end up getting is just a chain of selling and buying, supply and demand, producers and consumers, all intricately linked in this web of commercialism that relies on exploitation.

In fact, at its very essence, masturbation is inauthenticity: after all, you are simulating sexual intercourse, except there's no partner, no other to speak of. The entire process: the obtaining of the pornography, the sexual fantasies, and the quick but transient satisfaction--all of this is fake. It is completely built of fake experiences and simulation--trying to emulate something but not wanting to do the work. Masturbation is an entirely superficial experience.

And then what's to separate masturbation and all that it implies with how people in the 21st century live their lives? Reality isn't any more authentic than masturbation is, because even reality is now mass-marketed, advertised, created by the media. We buy, sell, and spend, hoping that consumerism will give us that quick fix. Everyone acts out of self-interest. In fact, the oxymoron is now that sex is everywhere...except in the actual act of sex.

So people can masturbate, not simply to please themselves, but as an existentialist exercise in resignation and alienation: giving into the act of inauthenticity because of, and in spite of, the hollowness of the act. Masturbation then both becomes a rebellion against alienation and a surrender to it.

But then again, it does make you feel good. So on that note, it is now time for me to go see Professor Hans Jerkov.

Posted by humanflyz at November 29, 2005 02:25 AM | TrackBack