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Contrary to the views of critics who find the Huck Finn center section of Twain's classic realistic and the Tom Sawyer opening and closing chapters trivial, May regards the latter as an essential frame containing the concealed latent sexuality. Twain's conflict between sexuality and purity manifests itself in Huckleberry Finn as a conflict between fantasy and reality. Twain's anally bawdy "1601" and his talk, "Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism," are considered in terms of adolescent concerns with breaking wind and masturbation. Twain referred to "old masters" as "an abbreviation, a contraction." Masturbation involves temporary regression from outer toward inner reality, a process also central to literary creativity. The production of a work of art requires a return to work in contrast to the nonproductive play of "farting around" or "playing with yourself." Thus, though the book is a serious work of art, the Tom Sawyer fantasy frame shows it is also a form of masturbatory play that masters its own sub-universe of fable. While Huck Finn may escape civilization, Sawyer and Twain subvert it with play.