The Contest in Australia -or- Song of Myself
Self-Pleasuring -or- Polymorph Perverse
While Freud's idea of the "polymorph perverse" body predicts that human pleasure and sexual gratification is arrived at in innumerable ways. The pleasuring of oneself known as masturbation, is a behavior that has also been observed in animals and in human dreams. Thomas W. Laqueur "Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation" provides a background the changing cultural mores of this behaviour. Laqueur believes that the moral paradigm for this behaviour changed with the Enlightenment.
From a literary perspective, Laqueur states that; "Walt Whitman's celebration of masturbation in ‘Song of Myself' is, claims a prominent modern critic, the ‘genuine scandal' of his poetry." From a popular culture perspective Seinfeld's "The Contest" provides a euphemistic vision of the pleasures and frustrations of being the "master of my domain". The dream below speaks of self-pleasuring. While for Kumberlin it may seem strange that she has a penis, the use of sex toys is standard issue at "sex shops". Here is the dream;
Kumberlin, 28 Australian
Strange one this, I'm female but just had a dream about having a penis and was masturbating. It wasn't really feeling like a sexual thing and it didn't really seem like it was mine.....quite strange and woke up soon after having the dream feeling a little disturbed? Would love some help as to what it might mean.