The good thing about masturbation is that you don't have to get dressed up for it.

In this quip, the humor turns on Capote’s characteristic blend of candor and social satire. The line treats masturbation not as a moral problem but as a practical convenience, implicitly mocking the rituals of courtship and the performative “dressing up” demanded by sex as a social transaction. It also plays with the contrast between private desire and public presentation: the body’s needs are simple, while society layers them with costume, etiquette, and anxiety. The joke’s breeziness can be read as a defense mechanism—using wit to domesticate taboo—and as a critique of how much effort people expend to meet others’ expectations in intimate life.