I was reared in a home where sex was never mentioned; I never even heard the word "pregnant." How I managed to get to be 11 years old before learning the facts of life I do not know, but I did. I moved to a new school when I was in the 5th grade, and there I began to get a real education in things I'd never heard of. I knew where babies came from, of course, but I had no idea how they got there. As a boy I'd had erections from time to time, but I never knew what caused them or how to get rid of them — I found them to be a nuisance and in the way until they finally subsided.
I was an early bloomer and probably began puberty at about 12 years of age. I remember becoming aware of pubic hair and the increased size of my penis and testicles. Still, I knew nothing about what to do with them. As well as I can recall, I never had a "wet dream" at all, though I may have had one and didn't know. So far as I know, I have never in my life had a wet dream. (I suppose there was never enough semen build-up for it to become necessary.)
When I was about a 7th grader a fellow student took me into the restroom at school and showed me how to masturbate. I had never heard of it or seen it, much less tried it! It was intriguing to watch him, but I don't think he ever ejaculated. I think I forgot about it for a few days or weeks, until one afternoon after school I decided to try it. I went in the bathroom, sat on the toilet, soaped up my hand, and went to work. Eventually I reached a climax and ejaculated all over myself. It was a great pleasure and soon became a daily habit. Neither of my parents said anything about my new hobby until much later, when my father took me aside and warned me about the perils of such a practice. In line with men of his generation (he was born in 1900), he believed masturbation would "drive you crazy," and I was told that I must stop it. I didn't pay him much attention, though, for I don't remember stopping for many days.
The same boy who had first showed me how to masturbate came by one day and wanted to go fishing at a nearby lake. We were about 13 years old at the time. We fished awhile, then talked about sex, and then fished awhile longer. He told me about his childhood sex play, when he and other boys tried to engage in anal sex. In fact, he said, that was how he learned to masturbate: "greasing up" for the anal sex was found to be pleasurable in itself, so he learned to do it on his own. We tried the anal sex bit, but I found it impossible for me to either make an insertion into him and couldn't tolerate the pain of his trying to enter me. That fishing expedition ended with our both masturbating side by side, but neither touched the other. I was interested in his different technique: He simply massaged the end of his penis with his fingers, while I already had learned to use the more common up-and-down fist technique. Later I tried to imitate his style but found it not very stimulating and less than satisfying.
As I grew older, my masturbating continued on a regular basis. I can remember doing it several times a day many times as a teenager. I once had at least 9 ejaculations in one day, which left me worn out and my penis highly irritated around the rim.
Since I had started using a soapy hand, I was never comfortable not using some sort of lubricant. I can remember a summertime vacation visit to my grandmother's house in a rural area. In the bed at night I had no ready access to soap and water, so I began to use saliva for a lubricant, a quite satisfactory practice I have continued my whole life.
Because of my religious leanings and my inner desire to please God, I often felt guilty over my masturbating. I would pray and promise God I was quitting, and my good intention would last about a day, and then the desire would overwhelm me and I would succumb once more. Like St. Augustine I probably prayed, "Lord, make me pure — but just not yet!" As an adult I learned the truth about what the Bible says about masturbation, which is nothing! The supposed "sin of Onan" (thus, the term "onanism" for masturbation) was his practicing coitus interruptus and failing to impregnate his widowed sister-in-law, which was his duty as the surviving brother. The Bible never alludes to masturbation in any other place in any way. I was relieved to learn that.
As a college student I continued to have the same inner struggle with my sexual habits. I tried to stop numerous times, thinking perhaps I was the only one with such a habit, but gradually I began to learn that everybody else was doing the same thing. As a high school senior I had been introduced to mutual masturbation by a friend, a practice I'd heard of but never practiced. It never occurred to me that mutual masturbation was only for gay guys, so I enjoyed the practice for several months with him and eventually with several other friends. In college one Friday night another student and I began to talk about our habits, admitted our masturbatory practice, talked about doing it together, compared penises, and even touched one another, but we never went all the way to masturbating to climax. I was amazed at his huge penis, which made mine look minuscule: He would walk down the hall from the shower, penis erect, with his bath towel hanging over it as if over a towel hook! Along with other guys I was amazed, along with my jealousy of his super-development. Only once as an adult have I engaged in mutual masturbation: I was visiting an unmarried college friend from years before, and we began to talk about sex and ended up masturbating each other, which was quite pleasurable for us both, as I recall.
Somewhere along the way I began to come to terms with the guilt feelings I'd had all my masturbating days. I read all I could read about it, and it began to come clear that this was a normal practice of men in the entire world. In those days (the late 1950s) there wasn't nearly the widespread acceptance and chatter about masturbating that there is now. Many guys would never admit doing it, although now I know they all did it. Occasionally a guy would admit to it, but that was rare. My high school best friend and I talked about it often, and he berated himself over it constantly, wishing he could stop but never able to stop. We have talked about it over the years, and he has never quite come to accept it as I have.
I was an intense student at the university, so I didn't take much time for dating. Eventually I married the only girl I ever dated much, and we have been married for nearly 40 years, with children and grandchildren. We have a good sex life, but along with our sex life together I have continued to have my own life apart. She has known about this, "caught me" several times, and has never understood about it at all. Like many women she says, "Why should he do that when he has me?" — not understanding that men like that private sexual practice for its own sake without its ever detracting from their interaction with their wives. We finally had to agree to disagree about it, and she has not mentioned it in years. Interestingly, she says she never touched herself, never masturbated at all, and never learned to bring herself to orgasm. It took us several years of marriage for her to learn to have orgasms — which, when she did learn, were explosive and exciting and satisfying. We still have regular orgasms together. From time to time she has masturbated me, but often I am unable to reach orgasm from her efforts, just because she can't seem to get the right rhythm and speed to make it happen.
In my professional life I have dealt with many individuals and heard their stories. I am convinced that many men's sexual problems in marriage are related to their poor masturbatory habits as teenagers. The most common male sexual problem, "premature ejaculation," is probably directly related to "quickie" episodes designed to get it over with to prevent being discovered by one's parents or someone else. If guys could be taught to enjoy it, to do it slowly, to "make love to oneself," many later sexual problems might be avoided. If women could learn what it takes to satisfy themselves, then later with their mates it wouldn't take so much effort to reach orgasm. I do think things are better nowadays than they were 40 years ago, but there is still a high level of guilt and shame associated with what ought to be a joyful, exciting part of a person's life.
Now in my early 60s, a highly experienced professional man with both master's and doctoral degrees and a successful career and wonderful family, I still masturbate regularly, though not as often as I once did. I still have as much desire as I ever had, and I still have good, strong erections without much effort. I wake up each morning with a strong erection, as I have for 50 years. I need to lie down for a masturbation session to be satisfying and satisfactory; standing up in the shower, as I used to do, almost never results in an orgasm anymore. I feel myself and rub my stomach and genital area, eventually arriving at my testicles and penis. Frequently I fantasize about pictures or movies or actual sexual encounters I have had. It takes longer now to reach orgasm than it once did, so I have to have at least a half-hour of privacy. Sometimes I do it in my recliner or on the sofa, though most often it is in my bed. I still use saliva for a lubricant most of the time, though I sometimes use Astroglide, which my wife and I use together. While I sometimes would like to do it several times in a day, it's as if I have only one orgasm per day left in me, and I can't have another no matter how hard I try. My sex life has been mostly trouble-free all these years, but from time to time I have difficulty ejaculating, sometimes not ever finishing. This leaves me frustrated and very full of desire the next time I have the opportunity.
Masturbation — I'm all for it, as I have been for nearly 50 years. I continue to recommend it to myself and to anyone else who wants to discuss the topic. I will never understand how so much baloney and false information have been circulated in our world related to this pleasurable, joyful practice.
Do you find yourself masturbating more often during some seasons than others? Why?
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