Sticky: A (Self) Love Story
There are so many questions with so few answers. Why make a documentary on masturbation? The more interesting question is, why hasn’t one been made before?
DO YOU MASTURBATE?
Yeah. You do (I mean, probably).
The vast majority of humans masturbate; it was probably the first thing humans learned to do once their arms were long enough to reach their genitals. And yet there is so much shame around this act of self-love — as if it's somehow deviant.
Here's the thing about masturbation: Vilifying it isn't helping anyone. It's not helping us, and definitely not helping our kids. The only thing shame accomplishes is stifling conversation and sending people into hiding.
Enter: Vision Films.
I was given the opportunity to early screen this movie...I watched it twice. As a masturbator and mother (of teenagers, no less), I'm here for the conversation.
(Not so much for the stiff sheets, though, boys...)
Shout out to Our Bodies, Ourselves and Betty Dodson.
From the producer:
When people ask how I came up with the idea for a documentary on masturbation, I tell them it started as a joke, as a way to get attention as a filmmaker and to make people laugh. But once I got past the jokes, I was shocked to realize that most people have a touchy relationship with self-pleasure. Still you may be asking yourself, why make a documentary about masturbation?
There is almost no education about masturbation. In 1994, the first female African American Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, suggested at an AIDS conference that we teach about masturbation in school as a healthy alternative to sex. This resulted in her forced resignation by former president Bill Clinton, the man who committed adultery with his intern using a cigar.
Our views of masturbation are very political. There are a number of states that have tried to uphold a ban on the sale and purchase of sex toys. As recently as 2010, Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party favorite, made national headlines because of comments she made in the 1980s on an MTV program about sex, stating that masturbating to pornography was equivalent to adultery.
Even in the twenty-first century, society is ambivalent as to whether masturbation is right or wrong, healthy or harmful. The major religions of the world disagree on whether masturbation is a sin. Eastern medicine and Western medicine argue whether it is healthy or harmful. Two recent studies on the link between masturbation and prostate cancer yielded contrary results.
There may be some risk to warrant our fear of what has become the world’s most popular taboo. Some sexologists believe excessive masturbation leads to Sexual ADD, a condition where people lose interest in sex with a partner. Other studies show that people can become addicted to the serotonin and dopamine released in the body when masturbating to pornography.
There are so many questions with so few answers. Why make a documentary on masturbation? The more interesting question is, why hasn’t one been made before?
“Sticky: A (Self) Love Story” will be available on DVD and VOD across North America from February 2nd 2016. WARNING: this film won’t make you go blind!
