Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.XXXX" class="imagecache-Normal" />

Kate McCombs says

Sometimes “hand jobs” get a bad rap. “Intercourse’s [or a blow job’s] poor cousin,” some people say. And as it applies to women, “fingering,” while an accurate descriptor for some vulva/vagina stimulation activities, evokes a rapid in-out motion of finger-in-vagina, which is insufficient for most women to to experience orgasm. The phrase often invoked to bring some legitimacy to the act, “mutual masturbation,” brings to mind more routine self-pleasure rather than the exchange of delicious, playful climaxes. Despite the negative press, the manual pleasuring of your partner’s sexy bits can be a delightful addition to your sexual repertoire. Variety is, after all, the spice of (sex) life.

Source: Debby Herbenick's My Sex Professor

I'm really not sure why we're so quick to pooh-pooh manual pleasuring, although as McCombs laments, compared to almost every other kind of sex act there are very few euphemisms for it and few of those make it sound either interesting, desirable, or very pleasurable.

Which is a shame because while like pretty much everything else about sex it takes time and practice but, once taken, the results can be elegant, intimate, erotic, and eye-rollingly enjoyable.

I mean, seriously, to the extent we're able to use our hands* is there any limit to the situations our hands can't be central to?  We already use our hands for timid first-time explorations, for gleefully surreptitious mischief, for foreplay, for massage, and for even the most operatic moments of domination and submission.  And as I pointed out years ago in Giving everybody a warm round of (self) applause "let's get over even the faintest fantasy that women's orgasms from hands-free intercourse are 'normal' or 'real' orgasms.  Nor should we forget about using our hands on ourselves to show our partners what we enjoy.  And while we're at it let's remember that very often our partners are able to take their own pleasure seeing, or at least knowing, when we touch ourselves.

And finally, while McComb is careful to point out that there are some illnesses that can be transmitted hand to hand, she also reminds us that while hands are a great way to transmit pleasure to each other, they really are a remarkably safe way to minimize transmitting other things.

Anyway, point is, rather than look at... darn it all I really want more vocabulary for this... rather than look at "manual stimulation" as high-school substitutes for "real thing" activities we should recognize and embrace what we can do with them, in bed and... elsewhere.

* It would be ableist to assume that everybody has uses of their hands.

Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.XXXX" class="imagecache-Normal" />

According to Annie Scudder, one of the items in a current Time magazine roundup of "things you didn't know about sex addiction" would be...

An orgasm a day is considered troublesome: The article explains, "seven orgasms a week (either alone or with someone) is still considered by many experts to be a threshold for possible disorder."

Source: Très Sugar

While this is a very big improvement on the Victorian belief that men could develop terminal and/or mental illness with "as many as" ten ejaculations a year, it's still a pretty ridiculous threshhold. 

I'm not saying, at all, that all people should have libidios.  Roughly 1% of adult men and women are straight-up asexual so no doubt 1% of sex "rehab" counselors are asexual as well.  (Same with Time Magazine reporters, editors, and fact checkers, who seemed a little more skeptical of the claim.)  Substantial numbers of other men and women have modest libidos, and numerous others either neglect or avoid erotic interest, and the libidos of others may be episodic or circumstantial where said circumstances are not common.  So, again, I don't expect all of them to have average to above average libidos.

But do none of them?

Actually, if I may be fair for just a moment, the very fact that people's libidos vary enormously both from each other and even within individuals over time suggests that "seven orgasms a week" might be a sign of "addiction" in an individual who's natural libido cycle would ordinarily be substantially lower.  In other words as with other silly-sounding but perfectly legitimate psychiatric disorders, a guideline of once per day can be an indication, but not an automatic diagnosis. If someone's libido interferes with their normal daily functions either directly or through obsession or anxiety about it then treatment might be beneficial.  Or, as the American Psychiatric Association's proposal puts it you might have a disorder if "you have an illness if you spend so much time pursuing intercourse or masturbation as to interfere with your job or other important activities."

But so much for being fair.  First because once a day doesn't seem like a very reasonable threshold. Second because I'm as suspicious of those who profit from "curing" sex addiction as I would be of, say, vibrator vendors who claimed one should have at least one orgasm a day.

Bottom line: the proposed APA definition based on effectiveness encroachment is waaaay more reasonable than a blunt count.

(via Em & Lo)

Rashida Hull of Utica College's independent student publication, Tangerine, says

According to a journal of sex research, it seems that women aren't the only ones who fake orgasms during sex. Studies are now showing that men, too, fake it.

The study revealed "more than 200 college students, 25 percent of men, and half of the women reported that they'd acted out an orgasm during sexual activity." Most male students admitted to faking orgasms because they said the sex was terrible and wanted it to end.

...

Other reasons men fake it are to avoid awkward moments with their partner or so they don't hurt their partner's feelings. Male students may also feel pressured to have an orgasm after their partner had their orgasm.

Source: Tangerine

Hull doesn't cite the source, nor can I find a reference, but it appears she's talking about a study in the November Journal of Sex Research by Charlene L. Muehlenharda and Sheena K. Shippee out of theUniversity of Kansas psychology department.

Here's the abstract

Research shows that many women pretend or “fake” orgasm, but little is known about whether men pretend orgasm. The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) whether, how, and why men pretend orgasm and (b) what men's and women's reports of pretending orgasm reveal about their sexual scripts and the functions of orgasms within these scripts. Participants were 180 male and 101 female college students; 85% of the men and 68% of the women had experienced penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI). Participants completed a qualitative questionnaire anonymously. Both men (25%) and women (50%) reported pretending orgasm (28% and 67%, respectively, for PVI-experienced participants). Most pretended during PVI, but some pretended during oral sex, manual stimulation, and phone sex. Frequently reported reasons were that orgasm was unlikely, they wanted sex to end, and they wanted to avoid negative consequences (e.g., hurting their partner's feelings) and to obtain positive consequences (e.g., pleasing their partner). Results suggest a sexual script in which women should orgasm before men, and men are responsible for women's orgasms.

Source: Journal of Psychology

Interestingly, Hull quotes popular sexpert Ian Kerner, who says the two big reasons men faking intercourse more are increasing use of SSRI-based antidepressants (which based on my experience with the things sounds 100% plausible) and porn-fueled disappointment with less-than-ideal real-life partners (seems more cliche -- ever heard a woman who watches porn use that as a reason?)

I say interestingly because neither of those reasons seem to have been on the minds of the researchers themselves. (Or if they are other reporters aren't mentioning it -- I haven't read the pay-per-view article myself.)

For instance Stephanie Pappas, senior writer at LiveScience.com, who has read the article says it looks more like this

For men, the most common reasons for faking it were that orgasm was unlikely or taking too long and that they wanted sex to end. Four-fifths of women reported they faked it to avoid negative consequences, like hurting their partner's feelings. Half of men reported the same motivation.

The participants who faked shared a common sexual "script," the authors wrote, in which both genders feel pressure to orgasm during intercourse, with the woman orgasming first. In some cases, people are so wedded to this script they pass up the chance to orgasm for real in order to fake orgasm at the "right" time. The study found that 20 percent of the women pretended to orgasm because their partner seemed about to.

Source: LiveScience.com

Those reasons sound a lot more plausible.  I've said for years I think the problem of men and anorgasmia is one of those major stealth issues.  Not every man can get away with faking orgasms every time but the expectations are so high (for both men and their partners) that if for some reason you can't or otherwise don't come easily you're not going to disclose it readily.

I'd also add that even back in the 1970s, before either porn or antidepressants became nearly universal, between 5 and 15% of men could be persuaded to admit at least occasional difficulty having orgasms.

(Via Razib Khan)

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, notes the heterosexual orgasm gap in the latest Indiana University National Sex Study. In a nutshell 85% of men say their partners had an orgasm at their most recent sexual encounter while only 64% of women say they did. Amanda does the math and notes the gap is still wide even you account for the 7% of men who say their last sexual encounter was with another man.

Anyway, no doubt riffing off the recent Missouri puppy-mill/patriotism mashup, she says

I’m sure I’ll offend some choice feminist who thinks that it’s unfair to criticize women who make the totally autonomous choice to flatter a man with a fake orgasm instead of working towards a real one, but I’m taking a stand on this one.  It’s un-feminist to fake, ladies!  I’ll quote Dan Savage on this one:

The boyfriend or husband you humor with fake O’s today may be some other woman’s boyfriend or husband tomorrow.  He’s not yours indefinitely.  When he lands between another woman’s legs, make sure you’ve done your part for the sisterhood—-which is powerful, you know—-by not giving him a false impression of his own meager skills, or false expectations about women’s sexual response.

On the flip side, if we start protesting the institution of the fake orgasm, watch the Tea Crackers rush forward to angrily defend it.  I’m just sayin’. 

She said it here.

It’s a great punchline although, unfortunately, a little bit of Googling suggests Tea Bagger types are more likely to feel entitled to real ones, seeing faked orgasms as more evidence of conniving “female” duplicity.