You can find Joseph Kramer's PhD 93-page dissertation online at his website, eroticmassage.com.  His Ph.D. is from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and his dissertation was primarily about his own work, A Social History of the First Ten Years of Taoist Erotic Massage, 1982-1992.  Kramer is a former Jesuit, and he takes erotic massage seriously.  He and his coworkers have produced a series of DVDs devoted to self-massage and the erotic massage of others.  Fire on the Mountain is 3 hours of instruction about masturbation for men.  The fact that the menu screen shows a muscled naked man holding his large erect penis with one hand, holding onto his fireman's helmet with a fire hose draped over his shoulder, and animated flames at the bottom of the screen shows both that this is aimed primarily at gay men, and that it is a curious blend of education and pornographic styles.  Other titles produced by Kramer's business, The New School of Erotic Touch, include Uranus: Self Anal Massage for Men, Evolutionary Masturbation: An Intimage Guide to the Male Orgasm, Anal Massage for Relaxation and Pleasure, Anal Massage for Lovers, (volumes 1 & 2), The Best of Vulva Massage: An Anthology of Erotic Touch, and Fire in the Valley: Female Genital Massage.  The DVDs are presented by a variety of instructors, including Kramer himself, Chester Mainard Carol Queen, Robert Lawrence, Betty Dodson, Annie Sprinkle, , and feature many people demonstrating the techniques being discussed.  Some of the DVDs are releases of old videos from the 1990s, and are brief at 40 or 50 minutes, while others are packed full of different features and have 3 or 4 hours of viewing material.  The quality of production is mixed, and occasionally the DVDs are unintentionally funny because of the cheesy style or because of the seriousness with which speakers talk about the value of masturbation.  In one DVD extra in Fire on the Mountain, Ben Haggard suggests that it can contribute to solving the world's problems.  All through these DVDs is a strong belief in an Eastern approach to the body and its connection to the mind, and the centrality of erotic pleasure to life.  So these DVDs would be suitable for people who are looking for a frank discussion and exhibition of sexual pleasure, demonstration of erotic massage techniques, and some theoretical ideas about the psychological and cultural place of self-pleasuring and erotic massage. 

Link: The New School of Erotic Touch

© 2007 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York.