Adam Conover, of Adam Ruins Everything, a rather pompous individual who apparently knows everything (except how to eat without becoming obese), insists that everyone masturbates.

I assume he's got a reason to believe that this is a behavior that is innate to humanity, since he obviously hasn't observed every human being that has ever lived, especially in that particular behavior.

I would venture to say that asexuals probably don't.

... putting this on my little list of Beliefs Jews Do NOT Share with Christians...

Whew.

Asexuality does not seem to preclude masturbation. It can be used as stress relief, not a desire for sex.

Whoever posted those is mentally ill. And ignorant: the clitoris has no involvement whatsoever in babymaking. Its only purpose is pleasure. What sort of upbring did they have, to think women have no right to physical pleasure unless a husband provides it?? Sad. And not a belief shared by most christians.

I suspect that the source of those absurd quotes is more likely to be someone who hates Christians than someone who is a Christian.

Apparently I missed something in sex ed... just how does a clitoris create a child?

I mean I've heard orgasms increase likelihood of conception but from there to "creating a child" is a bit of a stretch

Apparently I missed something in sex ed... just how does a clitoris create a child?

Given that in certain Muslim nations they cut that doorbell right off, and they don't seem to have a particularly diminished population.

Due to that, any way.

"... make she she has never self-raped her sin cave."

Somewhere, a college kid is laughing. I'm not going to spoil things by looking, but I'm willing to guess that StopMasturbationNow.org isn't meant to be taken seriously.

Darth, it's mostly African countries. Plus, the practice predates Islam. As I understand it, while it's mentioned in the Koran, it's not exactly advocated. (Btw, since it's not usually done in a hospital, it's often lethal, and the attitude is often "it was just her time to die." That's from the book below.)

From chapter 7 of Fauziya Kassindja's memoir, "Do They Hear You When You Cry":

In her Muslim sex ed class: "If it were a requirement of the Islam faith, the malam would have told us as much. But he never even mentioned the word. He did talk about polygamy, though..."

(Born in 1977 in Togo, she was raised Muslim by relatively liberal parents, but when her beloved father died in 1993, his relatives forced her mother to leave - perfectly legal - and, in 1994, tried to force her into a marriage with a man 30 years older who had three wives - and he wanted her mutilated. In October, she escaped with the help of her mother and sister just hours before that would have happened - made it to the U.S., tried to apply for asylum, and wound up in prison under horrific conditions with other refugees and real felons for nearly two years. In June 1996, she became "the first person to receive political asylum from the United States based on the threat of female genital mutilation." (PBS). She got married and now runs a business on Staten Island.)

Ken R, I'm sure you're right.

Btw, everyone, check out this tale from the Decameron (you WILL enjoy it):

"Third Day: Tenth Story"

http://decameronbyboccaccio.blogspot.com/2010/03/stories-from-decameron.html

What kind of moron would think self-pleasuring women are evil?

PS If you marry a woman who has never masturbated, you are very likely marrying a woman who has no interest in sex.
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Exactly. It's been common knowledge that, ever since the late 1970s, according to the late psychologist, educator and marriage counselor Eleanor Hamilton, men aren't that eager anymore to marry completely inexperienced women (any man who would be unhappy about a bride who's gone all the way would likely also be just as unhappy about one who's had oral sex) for several reasons.

1. In the age of birth control, any female who is completely untouched is too immature to marry, or if she's over 20, she's likely asexual, in the closet, severely traumatized or just plain very unpopular. Who wants to marry anyone like that?

2. Whether such a woman is still a teenager or not, for those reasons, marrying such a woman is a quick path to divorce court. If there's anything men are REALLY scared of these days, it's that.

3. Men don't want to be accused of being jerks with double standards. (Does anyone really think that a man who's both ABLE and willing to marry - as in, you know, someone 25 or older - is going to be untouched himself? If he is, he's likely a male version of #1.)

4. The younger you are, the harder it is not to confuse love and sex. This is said to be why so many people in very religious communities get married pretty early; they're sick and tired of waiting for sex, and the parents encourage those early marriages, because in a world where divorce is taboo, they don't care much if their children marry in haste and repent at leisure. Avoiding premarital sex and staying married are all that matter.

Btw, in the "Courtship and Romance: Methods of Meeting" section in her book "Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium," she wrote:

"Victorian gossip is full of stories about innocent brides receiving unpleasant diseases from their parent-chosen bridegrooms."

So at the very least, men should expect their fiancees to ask highly embarrassing questions that might even make them angry, like "when will you see the doctor before the wedding and prove to me that you don't have herpes, even if you haven't had any symptoms yet?"

As MM implied, parents in Victorian times likely thought that if a man came from a "nice family" and was religious, either they could assume he was untouched or that at least he would be enough of a gentleman to go to the doctor without being asked. Not the case - and, of course, plenty of diseases back then were incurable or worse.

mpetrie, from what I've heard time and again, it wasn't until the 19th century that women were seen as the guardians of virtue. Before then, they were seen as the devil's instruments/temptresses. Virginity was considered magical. Any woman who ENJOYED sex was suspect - even after marriage. That would certainly explain why Susan B. Anthony was opposed to birth control (Elizabeth Cady Stanton wasn't); she felt that it would only lead to wives having even more unwanted sex.

To clarify: In Victorian times, men were more or less expected to put with wives who simply refused to have sex as a means of birth control, since the wives were just being "virtuous" that way. That would help to explain why, despite the infant mortality rate, a married woman didn't typically have ten or more children in those times. (Yes, I know about nursing as a contraceptive - but still.)

> men aren't that eager anymore to marry
> completely inexperienced women

> 1. In the age of birth control, any female who
> is completely untouched is too immature to
> marry, or if she's over 20, she's likely
> asexual, in the closet, severely traumatized or
> just plain very unpopular. Who wants to marry
> anyone like that?

This speaks more to the practicality of accomplishing this, rather than men's eagerness for it. If marrying virgins were still a practical option, I'm sure there'd be no shortage of men eager to marry them.

> 2. Whether such a woman is still a teenager or
> not, for those reasons, marrying such a woman is a
> quick path to divorce court. If there's anything
> men are REALLY scared of these days, it's that.

The stats show otherwise - the more partners a woman has had before marriage, the more more likely her marriage is to end in divorce -

http://socialpathology.blogspot.ca/2010/09/sexual-partner-divorce-risk.html

> 3. Men don't want to be accused of being jerks
> with double standards.

Men and woman are different, so different standards make sense. A key that can open a lot of locks is a master key. A lock that can be opened by multiple keys is a weak lock.

Gives a completely different meaning to the Ding Dong Ditch prank.

"I'm willing to guess that StopMasturbationNow.org isn't meant to be taken seriously"

But how else are we to keep up with the news of Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin's pardon by the Governor of Arizona?

The stats show otherwise - the more partners a woman has had before marriage, the more more likely her marriage is to end in divorce -
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I didn't say anything about having multiple partners. Of course a man is not eager to marry a 25-year-old who's already had six or so - and it's easy to imagine it wouldn't work out anyway. (Women married to rich men - like Jackie Kennedy - who don't want to give up their cozy lifestyles are more likely to be forgiving of philandering as well as the men's past records.)

But, if he doesn't get married till he's 35 and no one under 30 is willing to marry him, he's being ridiculous if he really expects a 30-year-old to be completely inexperienced by that age. If it bothers him so much, he should do everyone a favor and never get married - or get married long before he turns 25. Fat chance of the latter happening, of course.
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Men and woman are different, so different standards make sense. A key that can open a lot of locks is a master key. A lock that can be opened by multiple keys is a weak lock.
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Yuck. Being promiscuous is bad for BOTH sexes. Men are better at spreading diseases than women, after all, so one could argue that THEY should be the chaste sex. "Like" and "equal" are not the same thing, and there is such a thing as a happy medium. I will bet that most modern parents would agree that there are far worse things for 18-year-old daughters than premarital sex with condoms. Namely:

1. Marrying at 18 out of emotional/sexual desperation, repenting at leisure, divorcing by age 21, and coming home to one's parents with a baby or two for them to support - or at least a broken heart. (Which would have been the "happy ending" version of "Romeo & Juliet," when you think about it.)

2. Being brainwashed by one's parents into believing that THEY are never wrong in their judgment or orders to their daughters, which can lead to the incurable Victorian hell that MM mentioned above. (I only wish she'd made it clear just how you DO ask your betrothed certain embarrassing questions, when they might be offensive.)

3. Being raised to be so modest and squeamish about sex that she can't even talk to her doctor about "indecent" things like contraceptives, so she and hubby have kids at the wrong time, again and again, which destroys their marriage - or at least threatens it badly.

Not to mention that any community where it's normal for a man to marry a woman barely out of high school is very likely a community where divorce is considered a absolute moral disgrace. I.e., just because such a marriage doesn't necessarily break up doesn't mean the two are happy. Even if she WAS older than her teens at the time - but how many women or men are willing to wait for sex until age 25 anyway?

"Men are better at spreading diseases than women... "

Got some data to back that assertion up?

Yes. Newsweek, for one, in 1991, after Magic Johnson admitted he had HIV. It's all about men's producing more bodily fluids.

The stats show otherwise - the more partners a woman has had before marriage, the more more likely her marriage is to end in divorce -
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And you're obviously dodging my point, which was: Why would any man be likely to stay married to a woman who's asexual or gay if he didn't know that when he married? Why should he HAVE to stay married in that case?

And while a teen marriage may not be a lot more likely to break up than one between two adults, it certainly isn't more likely to be a happy marriage in the long run. There's a reason most people warn against it.

On top of that, just because a man may firmly believe that men should be free to get sexual experience before marriage and women should not, that doesn't mean any woman will necessarily put up with that. Modern men may be "on strike," according to Dr. Helen Smith, but even SHE didn't claim in her book that modern women's reluctance to marry before 21 or to abstain until 25, 30 or 40 has anything to do with men's growing reluctance to marry at all, IIRC.

In the same vein, just because a man hates washing dishes or even mowing the lawn, while his wife (not a housewife) might enjoy both, that's not a fair excuse for him to refuse to do either, since both NEED to be done, and both parties deserve a certain amount of useless leisure time. (Not to mention that parents wouldn't tolerate a teen's whining "you enjoy this, I don't," so what's the difference? After all, a chore-hating spouse still wants the other spouse to have plenty of energy - and cheer - left for bedroom fun, right?)

And, from the CDC:

"Female anatomy puts women more at risk than men. Female genitals are thinner and more delicate than male genitals, giving bacteria and viruses an easier pathway."

And:

http://www.malehealthcenter.com/c_std.html

Excerpt:
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FAQ
There's a lot of hype about how risky it is to have unprotected sex. What are the real odds of catching a disease?
The real answer to your question is that it depends on which disease is being transmitted and who it's being transmitted to. The odds are as high as 50 percent in some cases. For example, if a woman has unprotected sex with a man who has gonorrhea, she has a 50 percent risk of becoming infected. In the opposite case, the risk is 30 percent. In fact, in nearly all cases, women are more likely to become infected by carrying males than men are to be infected by carrying females. The risk for younger women and, perhaps, for women who use birth control pills, may be even higher. To worsen the situation, some diseases, such as chlamydia, may not produce symptoms in a man, even though he can pass the disease to his partner.

The statistics look like this:

Risk of Infection (%) from One Unprotected Encounter

MEN WOMEN
Genital Herpes 30% 30%
Gonorrhea 25% 50%
Chlamydia 20% 40%
Syphilis 20% 30%
Chancroid 15% 30%
Genital Warts 10% 10%
Hepatitis B 5% 10%
HIV .9% 1%

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Lenona, I've taken a look at that site before, and I'm very leery of it. Most of the medical advice is out of date, and some of it, particularly the section on erectile dysfunction, is mostly shaming of the "it's all in your head, snap out of it" variety. (This sort of treatment is why men don't like to go to doctors.) The section on male heart disease is 100% shaming, with no practical advice whatsoever. There's a "For Women" section which begins with, "women, here's a list of all of the ways in which your husband is disappointing you." It then goes on to tell women to treat their husbands as children. "Go to the doctor with him." Seriously? I'm not six years old; I don't need my mommy to go to the doctor with me.

I've long suspected that the "Male Health Center" is a stealth feminist site, in a weird way. It combines traditional Christian lecturing at men with feminist lecturing at men. As for the stats you quoted, I note that they do not cite a source for them.

I was in a rush and it was one of the first sites to pop up. How's this one?

https://www.sexualhealth.com/why-women-are-more-at-risk-for-stds-than-men_n_1592/

Actually, in many areas of the country there is a shortage of men to women, so men have the opportunity to have more partners and in many cases they do. More men die early from accidents, war, high-risk jobs etc... Plus, more men are likely to end up in prison - decreasing the potential partners for women and increasing the available partners for men, who are alive or not in prison.

Fun facts about divorce are at your fingertips!

http://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/