Musical Masturbation

Masturbation is a topic that is often avoided in society. Even as discussions about sex are becoming more common and more acceptable, masturbation is still something that people are very uncomfortable talking about. Art becomes a great venue to be able to discuss this topic as it forces us to confront it when witnessed. Pop art is especially powerful as it is much harder to ignore. Pop music forces us to discuss uncomfortable topics because popular music pervades our entire culture. While music is a lot freer with the topic of masturbation, it is still rare and we can see trends of discussion of masturbation and sex in music and relate them to societal changes.

Off the top of my head, I can list four songs that were culturally pervasive and about masturbation. These are “She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper, “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes, “I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls, and “Feeling Myself” by Nikki Minaj featuring Beyonce (all Linked below). Already we can see a trend with the songs. Three of them ( “She Bop”, “Blister in the Sun”, and “I Touch Myself”) occurring within 8 years of each other and two of them ( “She Bop” and “Blister in the Sun”) coming out within the same year. Why do we see this concentration of masturbation songs in this time period? We can assume this comes from the culture in which they were made. “She Bop” and “Blister in the Sun” came right near the end of the sexual revolution that started in the 60’s. The sexual revolution obviously caused the discussions of sex and masturbation to become more common and less disparaged. So while the conversation of masturbation was still mostly restricted, the sexual revolution signaled to musical artists that they could initiate the conversation without severe repercussions.

“I Touch Myself”, on the other hand, comes after the end of the revolution. This makes sense, but leads us to a question: If the sexual revolution already happened, why didn’t songs about masturbation become more popular? “I Touch Myself” is one of the only culturally pervasive songs about masturbation that came out in the 90’s. We can explain this through the evolution of the music industry in the 90’s. The industry started to see advantage of marketing to large groups of people, mostly teens and preteens. From this new revelation, the music industry greatly shifted to being mostly controlled by “kid-safe” boybands and female megastars. These new artists needed to be family friendly so that they could be marketed to the largest group of consumers possible. Therefore, slowly, sex and masturbation fell out of the discussion of music and was only allowed through allusions and carefully constructed metaphors. Luckily, this ended, the death marked by the heavy popularity of hip hop (where no topic of discussion is off limits) and the want of 90’s sensations to move to more serious music, like Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” (also linked below).

Now where does “Feeling Myself” come into play? Well it is of my belief that we are in a new sexual revolution. Discussions about sex and masturbation are now more open than ever. We can see this reflected in the music as well. Discussions of sex in music has exploded since recovering from the sanitization of the 90’s. While the topic of masturbation within lyrics hasn’t recovered as quickly, it is clearly coming back. “Feeling Myself” is especially important as it links masturbation to personal pride and self-fulfillment, unlike “Blister in the Sun” where it is shamed for being an addiction. I believe “Feeling Myself” is the first in a long line of personally sexually liberating hit songs.

“She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper

“Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes

“I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls

“Feeling Myself” by Nicki Minaj ft. Beyonce

“SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake ft. Timbaland