Sheffield University Students Will Study "The Art of Masturbation"

The Brits are really feeling themselves lately, as evidenced by a lecture for students at Sheffield University on a touchy subject: masturbation. Although beating off is usually seen as low-brow, the title of the lecture, which is mandatory for second-year English lit students, is "The Art of Masturbation." It's part of the “Pleasure, Self Scrutiny and Auto-Eroticism” section of a criticism and literary theory course, The Tab reports.

Required reading includes Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl, which argues that Sense and Sensibility is actually an extended ode to lesbianism; Hardcore: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible, which analyzes the role and affects of hardcore pornography; Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (self-explanatory); and Walt Whitman: The Spermatic Imagination, which suggests that Walt Whitman's is a gay icon in American literature.

Dr. Fabienne Collignon, one of the professors behind the art of masturbation lecture, said the course emphasizes the relationship between "literary pleasure, critical self-scrutiny, and auto-eroticism," which sounds like a clever way to elevate whacking off. Laura Bell, a second-year English student, is a bit apprehensive about the course: "They showed us a video of naked men wrestling during one lecture in first year about masculinity," she said. "I dread to think how graphic the lecture is going to be when the title alone is already banging on about wanking. Lets hope there’s no practical work involved."

Another student, Jake Rainbow—whose quote seems almost too perfect to be true—allegedly told The Tab, "It’s pretty nice to finish such a hard module with something I can firmly grasp."