LINCOLN, Nebraska. In this state capitol in America’s heartland, the battle between religious traditionalists and those who want to remake the law in their own image is joined over a ballot question that would prohibit a man or a woman from marrying him or herself.
Fine–have it your way.
“What do we want?” a speaker on the state house steps shouts into a bullhorn. “Our own rights!” comes the response. “When do we want them?” he asks again. “A half hour ago!” comes the answer.
“Today, we have come together–actually, separately . . . “
The Onanist Rights Movement is a late-starter in the movement for increasing sexual freedom, following heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals, but maintaining a two-length lead over bestialitarians and necrophiliacs as they make the final turn towards the finish line. Onanists seek the right to make love to or with themselves, and the freedom to marry themselves if they choose.
“Except for the mathematical side of the issue–which is really trivial–there is no reason why a person should not be allowed to marry him or her self, if that’s what he or she wants,” said Phillip Nicholson, who has been living with himself in a committed relationship since 1997.
Dorothy Parker, parakeet owner and poet
“Onanism” is the medical term for a person whose sole or principal means of sexual fulfillment is masturbation. Onan was the son of Moses who, upon being ordered to have sex with his brother’s widow, instead “spills his seed” on the ground and is slain by God. American poet Dorothy Parker named her parakeet Onan because he too spilled his seed on the ground.
Lawyers for the group say recognition of onanists’ rights is an issue of fundamental fairness. “When an onanist dies, his or her mate does not inherit the assets,” said Mary Bonito, who married herself in a 2005 ceremony in Massachusetts, the only state to recognize the right to date. “You could be left destitute, if you weren’t already dead.”
Auto-eroticism
According to specialists in the field, onanism is different from auto-eroticism. “An onanist will typically spend a lot of time in the bathroom or in bed,” said Curtis Douglas, head of the Institute for the Study of Self-Arousal at the University of California, Berkeley. “Auto-eroticism often involves changing your own oil, or replacing the spark plugs on a Toyota Corolla that you’ve developed a relationship with.”
The Onanist movement received a boost in recent years with the popularity of the one-man play “I Am My Own Wife” by Doug Wright, which examines the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite who killed her father and survived the Nazi and Communist regimes in East Berlin. The play won the 2004 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the Playboy Magazine Readers’ Choice Award in 2005.
Actor Brad Pitt, who recently said that he will not marry actress Angelina Jolie until “everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able,” applauded the movement’s stand. “It’s like on Seinfeld,” he said, referring to the infamous “Master of My Domain” episode that first brought the cause of Onanism to the attention of the American public. “If you’re as attractive as I am, and your girlfriend is always pregnant, what are you supposed to do?”
April 21, 2009 at 2:37 pm |
thanks for the usual entertaining read