Conclusion of a two-part series; read Part One.

Being a masochist, I didn't believe in premarital sex (quit laughing), so masturbation was my entire sex life. Periodically I'd get tired of the same old same, and the urge to try something different would fill my thoughts until I couldn't stand it anymore. And I'd go down to the local sex shop for some help.

Sex toys are expensive. Women have it made — vibrators are plentiful, they work, and they don't cost that much. Not so with men's stuff. For my first try, I went the cheap route and bought a sleeve called The Throbber. It looked like a bicycle handlebar grip. I was smart this time, though — I bought lube. The Throbber was awful. I blame part of it on years of masturbating dry. If you're not used to lube, it takes a lot of getting used to. Dry masturbation means a lot more positive friction, and humping a piece of smooth plastic felt exactly like that — like I was humping a piece of smooth plastic. I never ejaculated into it, and it went into the trash.

A few years went by and I decided to try again. This time I bought something for around $35. It was flesh-colored, a lot bigger around, and it had nodules inside. I figured that would do the trick. And it had two vibrators — one in the front and one on the opposite end. This thing seemed state of the art. Well, once again — if you're not used to lube, the friction goes away. I was gliding right over the nodes, and it was like there was nothing there. (I tried it once dry, and it was like pumping sandpaper.) The vibrators weren't much help. They buzzed, which felt sort of good, but only vaguely. Mostly they felt like buzzing. The real fun was that by varying the speeds of the two vibrators, you could set up some interference patterns — that felt pretty good. But nothing near intense enough to get me off. Overall I was a little more successful — I managed to complete the act a couple times, but it, too, went into the garbage.

The third toy (I was developing an interest in them, even though my luck was terrible) was something I see around a lot. It looks like a centipede from the outside — it's about a foot long and has a lot of concentric bumps. I thought those would feel good to thrust in and out of. And it had the buzzer on the end, and it had a pump so you could squeeze it and fit it around you. Inside it was smooth — it had inflatable ridges that went lengthwise along it — no friction. And if you pumped it up, all it really did was try to push its way off your erection. This was another disappointment: You had to get yourself a big old erection to start with (and the looks of the thing offered no inspiration whatsoever), stick it in, and then — blah.

My fourth and final professional product was The Fleshlight, which I stumbled on over the Internet. This thing looks sort of like a flashlight on the outside, and has a spongy, almost play-doh-ey thing in the middle, with a slit and a hole that runs lengthwise. It's also smooth inside, but it has a nice feeling. I don't use it nearly as much as I plan, because you have to clean it more meticulously than you would regular plastic, and who wants to do that when you're drifting off after a pleasant orgasm?

Along the way I had tried a few other things: a very unsatisfactory session with an orange (the juice stings, and it's sticky), and much better luck with something I had picked up from the old alt.sex.wizard's FAQ — the simulacrum made from a block of sponge rubber and a condom. That had a good feel, and cleanup was a breeze. Unfortunately, my preferred method is to stretch out on my back and relax, and the sponge-rubber contraption wasn't well suited to it.

I envy young people today in that they have all kinds of resources for finding out about sex and masturbation — whether it's sound advice or just nudie pics to flog the dog to. It's everywhere, and in a lot of cases — it's free.

When I first got online in the mid '80s, the local bulletin boards didn't have pics or frank discussions of sex. At one point, when I got a decent paying job, I got on Compuserve and found the "dirty" (what would be rated PG-13 these days, I'm sure) pictures and forums. I also discovered the huge bill and dropped it. Happily, I managed to get onto the Internet, and suddenly I was like a kid in the candy store. You want your pictures of women with breasts the size of watermelons? Here they are! You want pics of women seeing how far they can jam a bowling pin up their quim? Here they are!

Even though we had a usenet newsgroup called alt.sex.masturbation, it was (as it is now) mostly riddled with spam, and a lot of mournful posts asking for "any new techniques?" I looked at the alt.sex and alt.sex.wizard FAQs, drew on everything I knew, and cobbled together the original alt.sex.masturbation FAQ. It had a section for all the questions I had when I was a kid ("can anyone tell if I'm masturbating?") to a section on techniques, to a section on sex toys, and finally a bibliography with some of the better stroke books I'd come across over the years (my favorite: Nancy Friday's Men in Love. A must have). It wouldn't win a Pulitzer, but I was proud of it.

As I'd mentioned, sex and masturbation just were not discussed among my friends when I grew up. I was never ashamed of masturbating — I never felt guilty about it, nor that I would go to Hell. But I was still paranoid I'd be found out anyway. I didn't want people knowing about my private life if I didn't know about theirs. I posted the FAQ through what was then an anonymous service, so that my name never made it onto the message-posting headers. The only bad thing about it was that a few nice people who had written back to me were anonymized as well.

It wasn't until I started hanging out on IRC (everything bad that you hear about the Internet on the 5 o'clock news is all on IRC), on the #masturbation channel. IRC is a lot like fishing — you spend a whole lot of time hanging around waiting for something to happen. But sometimes things happened. I met a few nice people. I met a lot of jerks. Had a few rounds of netsex. (Oddly enough — like real life — it's a lot better with someone you really like.) I never got very far into netsex; it's harder than you think to find someone who's good at it. You need someone who's willing to type a lot while you stroke, and vice versa. And most people don't have the patience or the imagination to do that. What was great fun was just talking — sharing experiences, horror stories, some laughs. The anonymity allowed a lot of us to let down our shields and talk about things we wouldn't do if we had to look each other in the eye.

I'm retired from IRC these days, and the FAQ is in better hands (so to speak). I still masturbate dry most days (unless I really want to spend the time — in which case I break out the lube for a nice change). I discovered Jackinworld a couple years ago, and marveled at what The Internet Had Wrought. I'm pleased (and surprised) to see the freedom and openness that masturbation is discussed.

Enough of this. It's time to read a little, lube up, and masturbate.


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