Buffin’ the muffin. Tiptoeing through the two lips. Five knuckle gusset shuffle. Coochie cuddling. And, if you’re Irish, Tickling me Elmo. We all do it and we all have our favorite euphemisms for it—so why can’t we talk about it?
For years I tried to hide the fact that masturbation, or Mistress Bation (the preferred nomenclature for many females), was a rather energetic pastime of mine. And yet my life with Mistress Bation was fraught with deception. My favorite fib was the one where I pretended that my current boyfriend was the messiah of mechanical pleasure. “Oh, really! That’s how it’s done. Well, my heavens…I simply didn’t know before you.” I think it was an easy way to assuage many men’s wishes to “boldly go where no man had gone before.” Mostly, it was a technique to engage in a little diddley-doo without the embarrassment of admitting that I was only too thrilled to hop on the five-fingered saddle during sex, and even worse, admitting that I was a true cowgirl when it came down to it.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Once we’ve crossed the bridge of confirmation—“Yes, I do it”—we’re then in the difficult position of becoming comfortable with how we do it. This may come as a surprise to some of you that play your clitar in silent secrecy, but we pretty much all do it differently.
From the beginning, I knew that I was a freak of nature, that there was something terribly wrong with me. At the age of five, I climbed a pole on a swing set, wrapping my legs tightly around the cold metal bar as I ascended with all the energy and speed of a Kindergartner. Lo and behold, although I never made it to the top, I reached a high point of another kind. Sadly, a five year old, although physically equipped to deal with that kind of information, is not yet intellectually qualified to decide the most appropriate course of action. Thus, after a particularly busy week of dry humping everything from bathtubs, arm wrests, and bed frames, my mother took me aside and explained that privacy is often key while engaging in such activities. To this day, I still appreciate the gentle and non-judgmental way she guided me towards propriety—but I still learned shame.
Over the years, I honed my method and progressed from dilettante to true craftsman; but with age came the growing pains of knowledge. From various pornographic sources, I soon learned that my acceptance of Mistress Bation had come too soon. I was doing it all wrong. According to those sources, I should be lying on my back, tanned legs akimbo, shaved girl-pearl perfectly displayed, all while daintily gyrating two manicured fingertips. I suddenly realized that my version, which more closely resembled a dog retching on a piece of road kill, was simply not sexy. Once again, the Mistress and I went into hiding.
Strangely, it seemed like the nineties was a time period when guys wanted to watch. Every time, I had to fake…and I was a girl who didn’t fake, so dishonesty was heaped upon the shame. There I sat, my two fingers rubbing delicately, peeking through my half-closed eyelids and hoping that my performance was convincing enough that he would just hurry up and mount. Imagine his confusion when I demanded a little extra in the sex that followed. The fact was, I got nothing out of touching myself with the ole finger puppets. And I tried. Believe me, I tried.
I spent the next year questing after the perfect masturbatory technique. Whatever it took, I was going to be porn sexy. One friend advised me to “get in touch with myself.” Somehow, this involved staring at my naked, unshaven pussy with a mirror, ad naseum. I think the key root word here is nausea. I didn’t feel in touch with myself. I felt like I was being introduced to a drunken Sharpei who had some whisker issues.
