According to San Francisco-based, lady-owned sex accessories shop Good Vibrations, the month of May is International Masturbation Month. Which makes sense because your mom will always interrupt right in the middle of it. Why is it necessary to have a whole month dedicated to "solo sex," as masturbation activists call it? Because some people haven't had their spring awakening yet, obviously.

Here are the good people at Good Vibrations reminding the Internet that masturbation exists:

Good Vibrations began celebrating National Masturbation Month in 1995. Earlier that year, then-Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders was fired for saying that masturbation should be discussed as part of young peoples' sex education. We were astounded. It was one of the most sensible things we'd ever heard a government official say -- and it cost Elders her job!

We started National Masturbation Month to raise awareness, and because we wanted to highlight the importance of masturbation for nearly everyone: it's safe, it's healthy, it's free, it's pleasurable and it helps people get to know their bodies and their sexual responses. Of all the kinds of sex people can have, masturbation is the most universal and important, yet few people talk about it freely -- worse, many people still feel it is "second best" or problematic in some way.

Now, the whole thing has gone international, because (we assume) someone abroad finally got off. Anyhow, this year's theme is "D.I.Y." (what else could it be, really?) and here's a quick link to all of SFist's NSFW material, which will either get you started or totally kill the mood.