Double Flee A

Norman Mailer said: "I think the internet is the greatest waste of time since masturbation was discovered", which raised an important question for me. No, not "Who does that guy think he is, disparaging two of my favorite pastimes in one sentence", but, "was masturbation discovered or was it invented?" To discover something is to point it out, to name something which has remained hidden, like the pituitary gland. That wasn't invented, it was discovered, like the rings of saturn. Somebody did some work and defined it. Boom, discovery.

Masturbation, though, took some doing. The raw materials were there to begin with, to be sure, but it wasn't like it was lying under a tree waiting to be found. I think it's better to say masturbation was invented. When fire was made by rubbing two sticks together, it was an invention. When a stick was used to pry up a rock, the lever was invented. You could say that a reflex was discovered, so that when you hit your knee your leg automatically bounces around, and you'd be right, but the hitting, the method of hitting and with what and at what speed, that was invented. Masturbation doesn't try to take credit for orgasms here, you see, but it's an invention that closes the distance between a person and an orgasm. So unless it's the case that an invention can be discovered, I don't think masturbation can be said to have been discovered.

posted by dale @ 9:27 AM