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SEX — They’ll take all comers |
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Written by asap
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Thursday, 24 August 2006 |
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LONDON — Drag queens, porn stars and regular Joes marched into a central London studio in early August, armed with sex toys, money and a freedom from shame. Their mission: to masturbate.
Usually a furtive act reserved for moments of solitude, masturbation was opened up to the British public at Europe’s first Masturbate-A-Thon. But instead of merely pleasuring oneself, the goal was to encourage safe-sex discourse and raise money for two London charities aimed at raising HIV, AIDS and general sexual health awareness.
“No one can get a sexually transmitted disease masturbating, that’s for sure,” said northern England resident Dan Kahn, 43.
Kahn, a drag queen, wore two sets of tights, a black snakeskin top and blue eyeliner to the temple. He prefers to be called Tia Anna (Sore Ass Wrecked) and was named Miss Originality in the Alternative Miss Ireland competition. Kahn said it was important to increase discussion about masturbation and using his hand to sexually satisfy himself was a great, and unique, way to raise money.
The Aug. 5 event was a continuation of Masturbate-A-Thons that have taken place in San Francisco since 2000. The interest is far more widespread in Britain rather than the United States, said cultural sexologist Carol Queen, who organized the event along with her husband, Robert Lawrence.
More than 150 people attended in London — nearly double what some of the San Francisco Masturbate-A-Thon’s drew. At the San Francisco events, about $25,000 was raised, an average of about $4,000 each year. Though participants have one month to send in the money raised, Queen said this was the most successful event yet.
Why then, is prim, proper, conservative Britain in more of a masturbating mood than the United States?
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SWINGING BRITAIN
 “Britons are much more open about sexuality. Period,” says former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. She stepped down from her post in December 1994 when a brouhaha erupted after she said at a United Nations AIDS conference that masturbation should be taught in U.S. public schools.
“Britain, and Europe in general, is more honest and willing to talk about sexuality. In America, we’re just getting past the whisper stage of talking about masturbation. In Britain, they scream it. (The United States) is still in the phase where it uses chastity belts and ties hands behind kids’ backs to keep them from having sex,” Elders said. “We focus too much on the negative — teenage pregnancies, diseases. It’s never anything positive.”
In the United States, abstinence is pushed more than other forms of safe sex, like kissing and massages. At his 2004 State of the Union address, President Bush said abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. He also started the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003 -- a $15 billion, five-year global initiative. Though recently praised by Bill Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, it has been criticized because of its focus on abstinence programs. Congress requires that at least 33 percent of the money spent on prevention go to abstinence programs.
“Right now, it’s abstinence only. The government needs to get out of our bedrooms and educate instead,” said Elders, who added she thinks masturbation should only be conducted in private, but it’s “none of my business what other people do.”
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CREATING THE MOOD
London’s Masturbate-A-Thon was Moroccan-themed. Teal, gold and maroon curtains enveloped cozy, candlelit rooms, accented with sophisticated pillows.
More than 200 roles of utilitarian, unglamorous toilet paper filled the rooms. The participants -- about 80 percent of whom were men (half of whom were gay) listened to soothing music.
Coffee was brewed to soften the smell of the event. Four areas were set up for the eight-hour affair — one for women, men, both genders and an exhibition room so an English TV station could film their documentary. BBC Channel 4 filmed the event as part of a week long sexual series dubbed “Wank week.” It is expected to air toward the end of the year.
The four areas were divided by curtains, so there was no masking the event’s live soundtrack. Privacy wasn’t a concern; there was one area where the embarrassed could go behind a curtain, but embarrassment wasn’t a prominent trait among this crowd.
The world record for masturbating at the event is more than eight hours for a man and more than six hours for a woman.
The exhibition room with extra greenery and mirrors was porn star Rebecca Smyth’s room of choice. Smyth, 26, chose the room because she sexually expresses herself in front of others “all the time.”
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THE FUNNIEST JOKE OF ALL
Open sexual expression is common in Britain -- the primary reason why it is more accepting of masturbation, said Kate Fox, who studies sex differences and behavior and is director of the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, England.
The English are not as prudish about sex, which is treated more as a joke. It’s intimacy that they find embarrassing.
“For Americans, it may not be so much the sex element of the Masturbate-A-Thon that is so offensive, but the humor — the fact that the serious subject of HIV/AIDS is not being treated with due earnestness and reverence,” Fox says. “Among the English, it is normal to joke about serious matters. Humor is how we deal with fear, as well as our antidote to embarrassment.”
Ignoring the subject matter is the most popular way to show disapproval for Masturbate-A-Thons, both Elders and Queen said. The San Francisco events drew a few protesters, and London’s only one.
The protester, Matthew Bell, 34, from the London neighborhood where the Masturbate-A-Thon took place, demonstrated because he was upset the local paper welcomed the event without the residents’ consent — not because of what occurred behind studio doors.
The British should be commended for their openness, Elders says: It’s human nature and, well, The public knows masturbation happens.
“Almost all men and 80 percent of women do it,” she says. “Ninety-nine percent of sex is for pleasure. It’s not going away.”
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asap contributor Laura-Claire Corson worked in the AP’s London bureau.
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