“Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.”
–Woody Allen,
Annie Hall

When I found out our flavah topic for this week was “spring break,” I thought to myself—What the fuck do I write about?! How does spring break even apply to me? I’m a grown man with a goddamn mortgage and real bills; not bills you pay to the Columbia House DVD Club. The term “spring break” is about as relevant to me as the term “Individual Retirement Account (IRA)” is to someone for whom the term “spring break” actually still means something. But being the jovial team player that I am, I decided I would try to find an appropriate blog for this flavah topic and the only thing I could think to write about was Phoebe Cates and masturbation.

See, one spring break many decades years ago when I was just a wee lad and hanging at my friend Samir’s house, we were flipping through the cable channels when we came upon a Phoebe Cates movie. I’m pretty sure it was Fast Times At Ridgemont High, but it could have easily also been Private School. All I remember was—there were Ms. Cates’ glorious boobies and I began to get a tingly feeling down below and…BAM! Really? What a discovery! You could have this much fun just with yourself? Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?

So to honor that fateful spring break day of self-discovery, I present five of my favorite songs about the joys of self-love. And yes, I know I left off some obvious choices like the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese,” Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-A-Ling,” Violent Femmes’ “Blister In The Sun,” the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” or anything by a pre-1990 Prince. Which begs the question—Damn, there are a lot of songs about masturbation, aren’t there?

CYNDI LAUPER “She Bop”

You’d think the lyrics were enough to tip anyone off to what this song was really about:

Hey, hey–they say I better get a chaperone
Because I can’t stop messin’ with the danger zone
No, I won’t worry, and I won’t fret–
Ain’t no law against it yet–
Oop–she bop–she bop—

But if that’s not enough, check out the video above: what did you really think she was doing alone in her car with the copy of BEEFCAKE magazine and the smoke rising from down below?

BILLY IDOL “Dancing With Myself”

Idol originally recorded this song with his band Generation X in 1981, but his more pop-friendly solo effort a few years later became a big hit. Idol has claimed the song is not about masturbation, but literally about dancers he witnessed dancing with themselves in a Japanese nightclub (hey, why do all these songs about masturbation somehow reference the Japanese?). Really? Next thing is you’ll be telling me N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police” isn’t really about our latent desire to have sex with authority figures with long batons? Judge for yourself:

When there’s no one else in sight
In the crowded lonely night
Well I wait so long
For my love vibration
And I’m dancing with myself

THE WHO “Pictures of Lily”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G11oIadJfhI

Masturbation has been proven to bring with it many health benefits including serving as a cure for insomnia. But before egghead scientists told us this, the Who already knew it to be true as they made clear in this song about a boy who has trouble sleeping until his father gives him a picture of Lily, which immediately relaxes him and helps him sleep. No need to spell out why:

Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
Pictures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright

MR. BUNGLE “Girls of Porn”

This late 80s/early 90s hard rocking band featured frontman Mike Patton who was also moonlighting as lead singer for the more popular Faith No More during the same time. But no one could top Mr. Bungle for their raunchiness (though they were the nicest, coolest guys off-stage). There’s nothing subtle about this song. If it’s unclear whether some of the songs above really are about masturbation, there’s no doubt here:

My hand gets tired and my dick gets sore
But the girls of porn want more
So, I flip through the pages one more time
And I just let the jism fly

TORI AMOS “Icicle”

Tori Amos’ music always makes me think of masturbation. Not sure why, but there’s probably some weird childhood psychological reason for that. Or maybe it’s just because of songs like this which is typical of Amos—in this case, an ode to a young girl discovering the joys of self-love in her room while the adults downstairs are holding a “church meeting”:

and when my hand touches myself
I can finally rest my head
and when they say take from his body
I think I’ll take from mine instead

Getting Off Getting Off while they’re all downstairs
singing prayers sing away he’s in my pumpkin p.j’s
lay your book on my chest

Happy spring break everyone!