One of my favourite expressions has to be “whack that one in the spank bank,” because, frankly… what the fuck? Saving a mental image or memory to get yourself off would be a laughable concept to my previously prudish self, but now I’ve come (no pun intended) to envy those in possession of the metaphorical “Spank Bank”. Pleasuring yourself with mental foreplay is an under-appreciated privilege, and the few of us that fall between the gaps live in chronic broke-ness. Well I say no more!
In a recent Tikok scroll, I discovered ‘aphantasia’, which is the inability to create mental images. I always figured that when my therapist told me to close my eyes and picture a beach, it was more in the conceptual sense. That, or she was screwing with me. I understand beaches exist, and I get the idea of a beach, but like… I don’t see a beach. Apparently most people can to varying degrees. People in the comments bonded over this previously unknown blockade to their pleasure, realising that we’d been swindled out of this apparent standard fantasia. Once again, I may never have an original experience.
How does one find solo pleasure when they can’t imagine? When science suggests women need at least 20 minutes of foreplay before penetration, mechanical touching is not enough to unlock bigger and better orgasms. Sexual fantasies are the gateway drug to satisfaction, they are the foreground, middleground, and background of pleasure. We all deserve pleasure.
I always felt bad for watching porn. I felt like I had this incurable hypersexuality, as if I got off on exploiting others just for the hell of it. I felt so guilty that I couldn’t just close my eyes and imagine The Lonely Island in x-rated forms (don’t yuck someone else’s yum, dear reader). Many aspects of the porn industry are exploitative, abusive, and feed off the male gaze, and watching the videos makes me feel shameful, but I watch it anyway. Guilt-ridden, I attempt to get off to a terribly acted pizza-delivery-man-to-lover plot. It’s not ideal, but it gets you in the mood a bit more than staring at the blue doona sprawled haphazardly across my bed in a flurry of stuffed toys, complemented by the texture of crumbs.
People who can make mental images have no idea how good they’ve got it when it comes to pleasure. You’ve got the premium lifetime membership to the unlimited “Spank Bank” and I’ve got the mental concept of scissoring with no visual stimuli. Nothing says “let’s get it on” like thinking about the logistical nightmare of 69ing (I mean, how does one accommodate for differenty sized torsos?) with no creative mental imagery to investigate further.
The stigma around women watching porn is so harmful. We are presumed to just be fine without it, and if we aren’t, we’re anti-feminist? We are expected to be hyper aware of the abuse it portrays and how it harms society’s perspectives of intimacy, and if we aren’t, we’re dishonouring our gender? Women deserve to get off, but apparently only by their own devices, whereas men get the privilege of the World Wide Web. Two things can be true at once; we can condone unethical and inherently misogynistic practices in the porn industry, and also use porn as a facilitator of pleasure, and to find sexual satisfaction (or sexual ‘good enough’) in an empowering way. Often, the message of the porn industry’s unethical practices becomes misconstrued in women’s spaces as seeking pleasure also becoming unethical, and thus there is less space for women to explore sexual inclinations. This is further perpetuated by the mainstream media and unsatisfactory sex education that is biased towards male pleasure (as society generally is).
This conversation always seems to come back to feminism. If you pleasure yourself with video assistance you don’t care about the rights of exploited women. Means of pleasure should not be a question of feminism, nor is it inherently feminist to watch porn – do what you want… or who you want! Reclaim your relationship with pleasure!
For all of you who can see those pretty pictures in your mind, flaunting imaginary fisting and floggers, enjoy the ever-flowing fountain of the ‘Spank Bank’. For myself and the other 4% of the population who close their eyes and see nothing, watch a video, or don’t — it’s up to you! Just don’t let yourself get left behind because you can’t “whack that one in the spank bank”.
