(in lieu of) Masturbation

What point is there to masturbation?  What purpose past adolescence could be conceived for that which sometimes (rightly?) has been called self-abuse?  The sexual impulse is utterly wasted when diminished to some exercise of rubbing skin against skin.  The purported liberation that comes after orgasm dissipates quickly into the dull, aching loneliness, the empty room.  Then, the semen is mopped up efficiently; nothing ever is allowed to dry, except of course this heathen ritual desiccating slowly into a routine, an apathetic obligation to self. There is no satisfaction without a second present, a voyeur for your exhibitionist, an exhibitionist for your voyeur.  I want the response to my touch to be unpredictable, this thigh recoils, this hand flattens out.  This body thrashes beneath my weight like a fish twisting the hook deeper into his gullet.  This one lays very still, an opossum--hairy and monstrous--playing dead in anticipation of being killed.  And this ass rises and falls in perfect synchronicity.  It holds me, releases me.  It understands the tension between my desire for communion and my desire for freedom.  You can't fantasize that with five pearls of lubricant and your scaly right hand.  It is the surprise in sex that contains its rewards, the unexpected noises arising from the throat, the moans, the sighs, the misplaced names that punctuate our heavy breathing.  Half-swallowed, most of what they say is indiscernible, a murmur blurring with the friction of our skins.  Look at his pleasure, the quivering upper lip; listen to her body, sizzling as it abandons itself--in a perspiring swoon--to sensation.  This is ecstasy.  She is a soul rolling back in her head; I can see my own naked image reflected back in the black of his dilated eyes.