The Unspoken Fantasy of Partnered Masturbation
A Canadian study of sexual fantasies uncovers some curious findings
“Deign, O my love, deign to serve me as a woman after having been my lover, and enable me to say that in your divine arms I have tasted all the delights of the fancy I cherish supremely,” says Marquis de Sade in Philosophy in the Boudoir, a book that tells the tale of unbridled libertine sexual desire, sensuality, sexual rebellion, and anarchy.
Sade was a writer who explored any and all sexual fantasies, no matter how forbidden — and he especially enjoyed the ones that were most forbidden.
And today, many scientific thinkers and writers are following in his footsteps, seeking to peer into the sexual minds of people all over the world in order to see what makes them tick. Sex is so fundamental to the human experience that the psychology of human sexuality is, for some, one of the most fascinating subjects we can explore.
When most of us think of verboten kinks and dark sexual fantasies that dwell in the damp basements of the deepest crevices of our perverted minds, we think of the extreme stuff. Most of our minds wander to the porn movies that made our eyes pop out with a curious mixture of surprise, disgust, amusement, and perhaps arousal, not much unlike the labyrinthine mazes of stunning perversity found in Sade’s books.
Groupsex, gangbangs, massive fucking machines with dildos attached to the end, rape fantasies, and public sex probably come to mind when most of us think of the far-off fantasies that make us blush at the thought of confessing them to others — often even our most intimate lovers.
But sometimes, our minds play tricks on us. Sometimes, our fantasies are much more mundane, much more ordinary, and much less sensationalist than our minds make them out to be.
A 2014 study sought to uncover what people fantasized about in order to get a clearer picture of what fantasies were rare and what fantasies were commonplace. Fantasies span the gamut, from the fantasy that one woman reported of being a human cow force-fed hormones (literally), to fantasies about being eaten alive, and more run-of-the-mill fantasies like cuckoldry or threesomes.
The study gave participants a questionnaire that offered 55 different sexual fantasies and asked a total of 1,516 adults about their sex lives. There were 799 women and 717 men included. Participants also wrote down their own sexual fantasies as well. Researchers then categorized the fantasies into three distinct categories, rare, unusual, and common.
The results were further broken down and divided by sex, so men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, were branched into their own separate categories. That way, researchers could determine what each sex fantasizes about most.
Women fantasized about giving fellatio more, while men fantasized about having sex with two women more.
Even extremely commonplace things were included in the questionnaire, like giving or receiving oral sex, sex with partners of a different age group, and sex in romantic places.
And when the results were in, they were nothing shy of surprising. As expected, things like “sex in a romantic location,” i.e., the beach, were quite popular. But one thing that jumped out was the popularity of masturbation by or with people’s partners.
Far away from the masked orgies in churches, we think of when we think of the kinks we have difficulties confessing to our partners, masturbation fantasies made it into the top ten for both sexes.
76.4% of men reported they fantasized about masturbating their partner, while 68.1% of women said the same thing. Additionally, a near-equal 71.4% of women and 71.7% of men reported fantasizing about being masturbated by their partners.
But the question remains: why? What makes this fantasy so appealing that it would turn up in such a wide plurality of the participants in this study of over 1,500 people?
The answer lies in a little philosophy that’s the polar opposite of everything the Marquis wrote about more than two centuries ago in his infamous, debaucherous, raunchy, and highly taboo erotic writings — and the whole thing centers around privacy and vulnerability.
For most of our lives, pleasuring ourselves is something we do alone, in privacy, without another around. It’s a delicate act that’s continually reinforced in our minds as something that’s not for prying eyes. In our culture, a culture that stands in total opposition to the inhibited world Marquis de Sade wrote in, sex is everywhere. It’s right out in front of us at all times.
Sex sells.
Sex manipulates.
Sex is advertised on our carefully-constructed bodies, on our TV screens and cell phones, and it screams from the tops of billboards down to us, trying to inspire action.
For Marquis de Sade, writing in the late 1700s, all sex was private sex, tucked away in the nooks and crannies of our private lives. The fantasy for him was extravagant, it was sex taking place out in the open, it was group sex, it was pushing things to the extreme. But there’s something to be said about quiet, vulnerable moments in our sexuality, especially in today’s culture of sexual bombardment.
When we share masturbation with our partners, we’re sharing one of the most intimate parts of ourselves that no one else has ever really gotten to see. No doubt, by no, most, if not all of our partners have seen our O-faces, they’ve smelt our sweat, they’ve seen us in those vulnerable moments before and after sex, as we look down at the floor while we shuffle out of and back into our clothing.
There’s no “sexy” way to take off skinny jeans in front of someone; it’s more like a full-body exorcism needs to take place in order to wrangle off the clinging fabric and present ourselves to our partners in our birthday suits.
But masturbation is a step beyond this. And perhaps because masturbation is so rare among sex partners, its appeal in fantasy remains unspoken and ongoing. Its charm is in the secretiveness of the act, and its secretiveness drives its appeal.
In a very real way, when we masturbate someone or masturbate with someone, we’re sharing one of the historically most intimate parts of our lives with them, saying to them, “I trust you to see me in this vulnerable state, a state I’ve shared with no one or nearly no one, and I accept and trust you not to take advantage of me while you’re here.”
Personally, I’ve never found such fantasies very enthralling. I’ve always been more of a Marquis de Sade kind of guy, minus the brutality and bloodshed — but after reflecting on this study a bit, I can see why people find it attractive, at least in theory.
Perhaps the big takeaway from this story is one of reframing our perceptions of sex. What if sex isn’t always about the elaborate theater of extravagance? What if, in the quest for “mind-blowing” orgasms, the kind you’d read about in Cosmopolitan magazine, we’ve forgotten to tap into the subtlety of our humanity, our humility, and our vulnerability? I think it’s very well possible.
But it’s never too late to get back to our roots and bond with one another through the wonderful, natural, sexuality that we share with our partners.
Perhaps you can apply this logic to your relationships. Consider the ramifications of doing so. Maybe we all need a bit more quiet connection of all sorts with those we love.
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I suggest checking out the excellent book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals About Human Desire, which can be found here on Amazon.
Full disclosure: Marquis de Sade is very hardcore literature. I wouldn’t recommend reading his work if you aren’t okay with brutal, aggressive erotica.
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