Sunday, April 15, 2007

A Question for My Readers

First of all, this is a gross question. That said, it has come to my attention that there are guys in the world who masturbate while they talk on the phone with people unbeknownst to the people with whom they are speaking. So like there is a regular conversation going on, and they are just masturbating as it happens.

Is this something all guys do? Is this normal behavior? Because I feel like it is repulsive.

11 comments:

Nik said...

Ew. I have NOT heard of this but I am often derided for my naivete. But I'd like to go forth in the world believing that a man cannot masturbate and talk with normal breath and tone simultaneously.
My husband says this is not normal male behavior but then he told me to call him tomorrow in his sultry voice.

Dr. Crazy said...

Well, I'm totally naive as well if this is something that even a small percentage of men do. Somehow a friend of mine and I got onto this topic of conversation and she said this guy she went out with in college did it to her, and then told her about it later - she didn't know when it happened. This makes me never want to talk on the phone to a boy again.

k8 said...

Ick! Ick!! Ick!!!

I have never heard of this. I am thoroughly disgusted. And it takes a lot to disgust me.

jo(e) said...

Some men (and I am thinking it is a small percentage of the population) will routinely call hotlines that are set up for help -- just so they can hear a female voice and masturbate. When you are working a hotline, you can tell pretty quickly if you have one of these men just by the sounds on the other end. Training to work these kind of hotlines includes learning to identify what are called "sexually manipulative" callers -- and quickly hang up on them.

I don't think I'd consider it in the range of normal behavior, unless the person on the other end is aware and consenting .... in that case, I think it's fine.

~profgrrrrl~ said...

Skeeving me out ...

Unknown said...

This is not normal behavior - it totally takes advantage of the female as it puts her into a sexual encounter without her consent.

I used to work at a rape crisis line - and like jo(e) says, we'd get men calling all the time and whacking off. I had many several pretty horrible experiences. Some would call and pretend to have been sexually assaulted, would talk to me about what happened, all the while getting off.

One of my students just asked me about this on friday as I guess the new guy she is seeing did this once, and she wanted to know what she should do. I wanted to say, "RUN!"

Anonymous said...

this has happened to me so I guess I'd say some guys do it but I don't think it's at all normal. it's totally skeevy and I completely agree with shrinky about it taking advantage and placing the female in a sexual encounter without her consent. And I agree with the advice to run. run away! from anybody who behaves this way.

itinerarium said...

Gross. And no, never. Postcards/letters soon, but no, never. And wrong wrong wrong wrong,

Horace said...

Just to throw a grenade into the conversation--I am made a bit uncomfortable by the policing of the normative here, particularly of the "Ick" variety.

I would certainly go so far to say it's not polite behavior, courteous behavior. Neither is sitting on the john while on the phone and lord knows that happens often enough.

While I'd certainly never advocate, well, let's call it "phonanism" for comedy's sake, with an unknowing participant, I can imagine scenarios which fall short of the "calling up a helpline to get off to the sound of a female voice." Scenarios in which the timing of the two activities were coincidental seem to fall into a greyer area...

There are for example, dozens of representations on film of one partner playfully seducing another who is on the phone conducting otherwise unrelated business. Is this abnormal? Gross? Sick? That sort of language sounds too much to me like the same sorts of responses to queer sex that smack of homophobia.

Of course I feel obliged to give the "I personally don't do this" response and I don't, because, as I said above, I'd think it rude. But I'm not willing to pathologize it quite so quickly.

Horace said...

[now cringing, waiting for the response]

Dr. Crazy said...

Ok, I see what you're getting at Horace, but here's where I think you're wrong.

In the example you give, of somebody talking sexily to a partner while they're at work, the partner is busy doing the unrelated thing but KNOWS he/she is being seduced and consents to that seduction by not hanging up the phone. In the masturbation example, the non-masturbator doesn't have the option to "say no" by hanging up - the masturbation is already going on by the time the non-masturbator figures it out or it goes on without the non-masturbator figuring it out.

As for this being an issue of innocent multitasking, I'd say that gets it wrong, too. Example: I'm having a conversation with somebody in the same room, and while we are talking, I am also looking at something on the internet or also watching a television show (these are things one might also do while on the phone, which is why I choose them). This may be rude, but it's not inappropriate, right? Let's say that in this in-person context I just begin masturbating. Is that multitasking? Is that "just rude" but not a violation of the other person? I'd say it's a violation.

as for talking on the phone while using the bathroom, well, here's what I'd say about that. If one is in person, no, one won't go to the bathroom in the room while talking to another person, because one has to go into the room with the toilet. That said, people do carry on conversations while they use the bathroom through the bathroom door, for example, without it being seen as a weird thing. (This might in part be more common for women - I've talked to my women friends in public bathrooms while we're peeing and it's not a weird thing at all.) In other words, you don't SEE the other person peeing but you are talking to them. That seems to me to be the exact same situation as being on the phone while peeing, but maybe I'm wrong? I don't know.

Anyway those are my thoughts, but I do see your point about pathologizing in your post as much as I disagree.