Masturbation: Putting the Fun Into Self-Loving

From the long description before the short starts, you can tell that a lot of thought and effort went into this film to make it as realistic as possible. At first viewing, I truly bought into the possibility that this was an actual school film until the second title came up. The film does a fine job of spoofing the genre of film, and does a good job of cutting from scene to scene without revealing too much. There is one brief glimpse of an erection, but otherwise it's only in the scientific drawings that you see the full deal. I did learn from this film a new phrase for me, "jackin' the beanstalk", so for me the short was worth watching.

From the long description before the short starts, you can tell that a lot of thought and effort went into this film to make it as realistic as possible. At first viewing, I truly bought into the possibility that this was an actual school film until the second title came up. The film does a fine job of spoofing the genre of film, and does a good job of cutting from scene to scene without revealing too much. There is one brief glimpse of an erection, but otherwise it's only in the scientific drawings that you see the full deal. I did learn from this film a new phrase for me, "jackin' the beanstalk", so for me the short was worth watching.

Truly a work of genius, this short film is a dead-on spoof of those boring 1950's health films you watched in high school. As the opening card states, however, this was no typical film - it was banned for its content, but now, "restored" years later, it gives you a glimpse into the forward-thinking and ahead-of-his-time Doctor Sigmund Winston's research into the subject of male masturbation. With the help of his sidekick, Billy, and a cast of self-loving teens, you, too, can learn more about fun, new ways to play jackin' the beanstalk, beating the bishop, and pounding the pud! Truly, a hilarious addition to the short film festival circuit, and winner of numerous awards for its creator, J.T. Tepnapa.

Can one understand Tepnapa's film as a mere parody of 1950's educational videos? Of course not, although focused only on humorous motifs one could suspect that his intentions as director conveyed greater meaning.

Each époque has approached masturbation through its own cultural baggage. For some people it might have been duly qualified as a sin, for others as a simple nasty habit. Even in the Victorian Age masturbation was seen as a threat to natural vigor, and a possible cause of harm for upcoming offspring, after all, wasn't it healthier to save, much like a bank, all of those emissions so that the male could be well provisioned when the time of marriage would be upon him? Unlike popular belief, Victorian people were very concerned about sex, they didn't ignore it, quite the opposite. In Histoire de la Sexualité, Michel Foucault explains that up until this historical period investigations about human sexual habits had been scarce, at best; from then on sex became almost a scientific obsession which tried to coerce intercourse or control it in order to cater to the needs of progress and production. Scientific minds would prove back then, just as conclusively as they would prove the superiority of one race over another, that masturbation (and any sexual practice that deviated from heterosexual normativity) would actually diminish physical health.

Some might say the Victorian age no longer looms over us. Perhaps it might be so. But then again, if it were truly over, we wouldn't have such a hilarious film like "Masturbation: putting the fun into self-loving", which is not only a refreshing take on the subject, spiced with many unique touches (like the very surprising masturbation techniques displayed in it), but mainly the redemption of self-stimulation practices. Perhaps, in the same manner people reacted when Jacques Lacan referred to masturbation as the jouissance of the idiot, this short film is Tepnapa's most valid answer to a universal act that is still a taboo in the 21st century.