14 Tragic Movie Masturbation Scenes
By Chris Dahlen
July 30th, 2007
1. Parenthood (Joaquin Phoenix)
In the '80s, nobody talked about beating off; masturbation was something to accuse the creepiest, most maladjusted kids in school of practicing. In Parenthood, a young Joaquin Phoenix (credited as Leaf) nails the part. He sneaks out of his bedroom with a furtive look, a mysterious grocery bag under his arm, and a monosyllabic response to questioning. His mother (Dianne Wiest) is bewildered at his behavior, until she gets her hands on the bag and pulls out a copy of Wet, Wild and Ready (with "XXX" helpfully printed on the label). But leave it to the all-knowing Keanu Reeves to clear everything up: Phoenix has been masturbating, a lot. And that's okay. As Reeves tells Wiest—and the audience—"That's what little dudes do. We've all done it."
2. Spanking The Monkey (Jeremy Davies)
In his breakthrough role, Jeremy Davies bears a strong resemblance to elf/pirate pretty boy Orlando Bloom. But Spanking The Monkey shows why some young actors wind up in heartthrob roles opposite Keira Knightley, while others go on to play Charles Manson in a remake of Helter Skelter. The initially-fresh faced Davies comes home from college and winds up stuck for the summer with his ill, manipulative, sexually frank mother. Davies can't get to his internship, can't escape his parents' demands, and can't even get a little privacy to masturbate. Soon, he can't maintain a normal relationship with anybody, least of all his mother, who—in the film's infamous twist—has drunken intercourse with him.
3. The Exorcist (Linda Blair)
As Peter Biskind writes in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Linda Blair was 12 when director William Friedkin auditioned her for the part of the possessed girl in The Exorcist. When Blair explained that she knew what masturbation was ("It's like jerking off, isn't it?"), Friedkin asked if she ever did it herself. She answered, "Yeah, don't you?" Still, home rehearsals couldn't have prepared Blair for her big scene: Deep in the clutches of Satan, she effectively rapes herself with a crucifix, spraying blood all over her nightgown and screaming, "FUCK JESUS! FUCK YOU!" at the top of her voice. Then she jams her mother's face into the mess, screaming "LICK IT!" before casting her aside. "Do you know what your cunting daughter did?" asks Satan/Blair. Yeah, well, it was pretty hard to miss.
4. The Squid And The Whale (Owen Kline)
Owen Kline is the younger of two sons of stuffy Park Slope, Brooklyn writers Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. When his parents separate, Kline finds several ways to cope—and the creepiest comes in the school library, when the sight of a girl with giant bright earrings prompts him to walk over to the stacks with a wrinkled piece of porn and rub himself off against a bookcase; after he ejaculates, he smears his semen along the spine of some books. Later, Kline declares that he's a "philistine" who hates "books and things," by way of rejecting his father's book-based authority and his mother's literary success. Maybe his handling of the library books is another way of acting out against them. Or maybe that's just how writers breed in Park Slope.
5. Junebug (Amy Adams)
Amy Adams loves Ben McKenzie. They're married; she's carrying his child. But McKenzie is withdrawn and uncommitted. In one scene in the middle of the film, Adams, lying in bed hugely pregnant, comforts herself with a photo of the two of them together, though in the photo, McKenzie looks just as distant as in life. Meanwhile, her husband's in the other room complaining about their marriage, which she can hear through the walls. "I woulda gone to Washington D.C. in 12th grade, except for her!" is the last thing she hears before she finishes.
6. Shortbus (Paul Dawson)
In Shortbus, the graphic sex serves the plot and the character development. But no matter how mature viewers feel coming into the movie, there's no getting around the curiosity factor in the opening sequence, as a buck-naked Paul Dawson gets on his back, flips his feet over his head, and tries to fellate himself. He gets excruciatingly close and manages a slight insertion before he ejaculates—and then bursts into tears. Minutes later, his lover comes home, and Dawson quickly gets dressed and runs away, while everyone in the theater silently ticks his acrobatic act off their "things to see before I die" lists.
7. Your Friends & Neighbors (Aaron Eckhart)
The arch metropolitan elites of Your Friends & Neighbors can't satisfy each other, sexually or otherwise. Aaron Eckhart plays the schlubbiest character, which is almost to say, the most likeable one. Discussing his best sexual experience, Eckhart brags, "The best lay I've ever had? That's easy, it's me!" Nothing satisfies him like himself, and he enjoys a post-coital spank better than the real act with his wife (played by Amy Brenneman). But even though he's the one character not dependent on other losers for his own satisfaction, Eckhart gets dumped anyway: While his wife beds down unhappily with the menacing Jason Patric, Eckhart tries but fails to reach orgasm on a sex chat line. In narcissistic despair, he shouts, "What is the matter! Is it me?"
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