From the umami blast of sizzling ramen noodles to the presence of a silicone cock, many of my most erotic experiences have occured with my mouth full. While I don’t remember initially recognizing the sex appeal of of tsukemen, I certainly can name the first time I looked at my trusty mauve dildo and thought why not.
It was a cool winter night a while back when I turned out the lights, dipped my shoulders beneath the covers, and slowly guided the toy to my lips. In the dark, the dildo recalled a wireless microphone, though I had no intention to sing. Instead, I nearly laughed while sheepishly opening wide. Soon I had slipped into the sounds of the femme person in the porn I was watching, and suddenly I sensed a new presence rising from within. It was another femme person, one blossoming within me. There, in the anarchy of that moment, I felt my gender to be less some immovable aspect of who I was, a box checked by a doctor decades ago, and more something I felt and did.
I’m not going to say that blowjob made me realize I was nonbinary, but it did constitute a moment when I saw the boundaries between masculinity and femininity for what they are: porous, mutable, queerable. Are dicks masculine? For some, perhaps, though mine certainly isn’t. Is sucking them feminine? Generally speaking, who cares? But in that moment, in a messy, non-queer-theory-proof way, sucking that dildo did affirm some latent femme part of me. It helped me understand nothing was fixed, nothing was neat. Neither was I.
What I did that night goes by many names. Some call it solo-sex. Our more technical friends might call it masturbation, or onanism. Others may prefer dotting the “i,” ménage á moi, or double-clicking. And in Bushwick, they just call it DIY. Yet for a community with so many ways to describe minding the gap (my personal favorite), we hardly talk about it. And that’s, to use a slightly loaded phrase, a shame.
From reducing stress to releasing sexual tension, aiding with sleep, and even relieving menstrual cramps, masturbation carries a slew of benefits for the body. For the mind, masturbating can improve our self-esteem as well as our knowledge of what turns us on. It can also be a potent venue for exploring one’s queerness. It certainly was for me.