Sticky: A (Self) Love Story

I want to ask you something personal,

but before I do, I want you to imagine

that sitting next to you is your mother or father

or maybe your grandparents.

Okay.

Are you ready?

Here goes.

If you have a hard time answering,

you're not alone.

I've spent over seven years interviewing

anyone I can get my hands on

from educators to porn stars

to sexual revolutionaries,

even a former Surgeon General

on topics ranging from history to politics

to health and education

or lack thereof.

Female reporter: He was bullied so badly

over that video that he committed suicide.

I've done this in order to understand a question

that has bothered me for years--

why is something most everybody does

so hard to talk about?

We know that 80 to 90% of men masturbate,

65 to 70% of women masturbate,

and the rest lie,

so what are we going to talk about?

All: ( repeating ) Masturbation. Masturbation. Masturbation...

Choking your chicken.

Spanking the monkey.

Go ahead!

Double-clicking the mouse.

Blasting off.

- Pet your bunny. - Coochee coochee coo!

Whacking off.

- Ow. Ha ha! Ow. - ( vibrator buzzing )

Ow, ow, ow!

Hand-to-gland combat. I like that one.

This is my rifle. This is my gun.

Men: This is for fighting! This is for fun!

Some call it self abuse.

Give me a break.

Wanking. Wanking. Wanking.

It's masturbation. That is the word.

Oh, rubb-a, rubb-a, rubb-a, rubb-a.

- Hey! - Oh!

When people ask me why I am making a documentary on masturbation,

I tell them it started as a joke.

Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love.

We laugh at masturbation like we laugh

when someone trips on a banana peel.

We laugh because it makes us uncomfortable.

I recalled a conversation with someone.

He said that masturbation was like hemorrhoids.

Just because it existed

doesn't mean people want to talk about it.

Was masturbation so disgusting and painful

that it could be compared to hemorrhoids?

I have been obsessed with masturbation

for as long as I can remember.

I had my first masturbation experience when I was five.

I was playing show and tell with several

of the neighborhood girls.

I showed them how to do it, but for the life of me,

I couldn't figure out how they did it.

Women's hotspots are kind of in the little folds there

and not as easy to find.

Susie Bright has this great line about saying she never--

she never met a man who didn't know where his penis was

and didn't know how to have an orgasm, right,

whereas she's met thousands of women who have no idea

where the clitoris is and don't know how to have orgasms.

I think men are more comfortable with admitting they masturbate

because I think it's more accepted.

Men and women are socialized in fundamentally different ways

around masturbation.

Male genitalia is really out there.

You sort of can't miss it.

And women are born with a vulva, and it's internal.

So for us to actually figure out what's going on

takes a bit more work.

The clitoris is the only organ designed in the human body

exclusively and only for pleasure,

and for most women, it is their best bud.

There is no doubt about it.

Ducky Doolittle actually once said...

The clitoris is the center of the fucking universe.

Almost every woman can have an orgasm through her clitoris,

and studies show that as few as 24% of women

can orgasm from penetration alone.

Women have a lot more nerve endings than men,

or at least they're more centrally focused.

Normally men have between 4,000 and 5,000 nerve endings

where women have 8,000 in their clitoris.

Jamye Waxman: So there's a big difference in the sensation.

We all know the stories of too-tight pants,

sitting on a washing machine,

riding ponies when you're a girl

and how exciting that is.

You talk to the women and ask them

what they humped when they were little, they'll be like...

- ( kisses ) - ( clears throat )

"Oh, my God, I can't believe I humped that, too."

They hump a lot of stuff.

Female narrator: It's wonderful being a girl.

Clits rule in the female sexuality world,

and let's hear it for penis tops as well.

( boisterous music plays, applause )

Narrator: I was never taught about masturbation

and sex in Catholic school,

but I was taught about lust and sin.

There are no circumstances

under which we can condone masturbation.

It's what we call a moral absolute.

Narrator: I was in religion class

when I discovered a hole in my pants pocket

that allowed me to touch my penis

without anyone knowing.

It's a sin of Onan, the masturbatory crime.

Feelings of guilt mixed with feelings of pleasure,

but I couldn't resist.

The good feelings outweighed the bad.

I wondered what other religions had to say about masturbation

and whether they also viewed it as a sin.

No, masturbation is not a sin.

Masturbation has been indicated as a deviation.

If God didn't want us to masturbate,

he would have made our arms shorter.

It is a sin because it's an abuse

of what sex ought to be.

From a Buddhist perspective, the question of masturbation

has to do with what's our intention?

Does masturbation bring us closer to reality

Look at the nature of desire

and see if it really brings you the happiness you seek or not.

Muhammad: Based on the Koran

and the sayings of Prophet Mohammed,

masturbation is classed as a minor deviation

because the person is not harming anyone else.

In that case, according to the Quranian Law,

he has chosen a lesser evil.

The lesser of two evils principle does not apply there.

Ron: In the Jewish tradition, not so clear-cut.

Masturbation is not listed among the negative commandments

but mistakenly, people believe

that masturbation is condemned in the Torah.

That is not accurate.

It is not mentioned in the Torah "You shall not masturbate."

- It simply doesn't make sense. - So where did we get the idea?

It's from a story in the Torah in "Genesis"

of a guy by the name of Onan.

When Onan's brother died, God commanded Onan

to marry his brother's wife.

Joycelyn: He didn't want to have children...

Maybe I can convince him.

Because they would not be his children.

- And so he decides... - He would pull out

- and withdraw before he ejaculated. - And spill his seed.

Martha: What he did do was ejaculate not in a woman.

He ejaculated outside a woman which is similar to the way

you ejaculate in masturbation.

That somehow morphed into "masturbation is a sin."

It's a controversial subject.

They call masturbation Onanism. It simply inaccurate.

And now I'm stuck in a bad situation.

I'm the poster child for masturbation.

Narrator: If God made sex the only way

to procreate the human race,

what do all these religious people have to be afraid of?

The fear is that if we masturbate,

we will replace intercourse

and human connection with masturbation.

So they had to create all these mythologies

about the horrible dangers of masturbation.

Sex is for procreation, and pleasure is an incentive.

If it doesn't cause suffering,

then you can masturbate all you want.

But that doesn't give us reason to justify it.

Narrator: But it can be justified, because today

technology allows us to procreate through masturbation.

I think I'm probably responsible for somewhere between

75 and 100,000 children being brought into this world.

You see, I'm a andrologist, and I study men,

and therefore I study their sperm,

which is acquired through masturbation.

No, the act is still wrong.

Many people are taught that masturbation's a sin.

Whether it be in Judaism or Islam or any other religion,

- guilt is really intense. - It's always wrong.

Narrator: My Catholic upbringing influenced

the shame and guilt that I feel about masturbation,

even to this day.

I remember the summer before high school

being called a jerk-off for admitting that I masturbated.

The rumors went around that I was a pervert.

I felt like Hester Prynne from "The Scarlet Letter,"

only my letter was a big "M."

Nobody talked about masturbation in high school.

Most of my education about sex

came from whatever porn magazines