I grew up in the bush in Australia. We lived in a scattered community. The one-teacher school, with a couple of dozen kids, was in a village a couple of miles away, so we had to walk to and from school though the bush. I was 7 years old and in 3rd grade, but we all played together with boys in the upper grades. One afternoon I set off to walk home after school and was joined by three 9- and 10-year-olds. They told me that they wanted to show me something. We stopped at a picnic spot on the edge of the bush.
The 3 older boys dropped their trousers and began to masturbate. I thought that they were trying to pee, but I noticed that their penises were stiff and their fists were flying up and down in a way that didn't suggest urination was their intent. They explained to me that, when you rubbed your penis like that, it produced a great feeling, and they invited me to try. They pulled down my trousers and underpants and began to masturbate me, showing me how to grip the shaft and rub the thumb over the tip to maximize the stimulation. I saw their bodies start to jerk as the three of them began to rub faster and faster in unison. Gasps of pleasure told me that this was a pretty interesting thing, so I kept pounding away. All of us being pre-pubescent, there was of course no ejaculation.
I guess it must have been 5 or 10 minutes before I felt my penis begin to tingle, so like them I increased the pace. The tingle merged into an intense feeling in my groin which spread through the lower half of my body followed by the strong spasms of my first orgasm. Meanwhile they had started all over again, and by the time we finished, they had all had several orgasms and I'd had another. They swore me to secrecy and said I could tell no one about what we did. The seeds of future guilt were planted on the day I learned to masturbate.
I was hooked on a lifetime habit, but I had no idea why a part of my body should react that way when it was rubbed. That night in bed I started all over again in what was to become a life-long ritual and had two more orgasms. I thought this was pretty special and wondered if I cold produce the same feeling by massaging other parts of my body. Next morning I rubbed my little finger, which was the nearest in size to my penis, but with no resultant pleasure! I couldn't wait to meet up with my school friends again to ask what other bits I could rub to get this great feeling.
That afternoon the 4 of us set off again to walk home, and once more we dropped our trousers in a clearing farther on into the bush and began to masturbate. I asked why my penis was so special, and what else could I rub to achieve what they called "the thrill." They all laughed like crazy and said, "Don't you know anything?" They then explained whatever rudiments of sex they knew, such as the difference between boys and girls, how when you grew up you made sperm that came out when you got "the thrill," and that putting it into a girl was how babies were made. They invited me to join their club where they swapped knowledge of sex and masturbated each other. One had an older sister who, I discovered, was the source of much of their knowledge. We met like this daily for a couple of years. We would all masturbate together, and at other times I would get together with one of them to have a mutual session. There were occasion when we experimented with other things such as oral sex and even anal penetration, but it was almost all mutual masturbation.
During this time my education was advanced one day when I found my brother (who was 6 years older) engaging in mutual masturbation with 3 of his teenage friends, and watched as each ejaculated, living proof of what my friends had told me! They progressively graduated from primary school until I was the only one left with no one to add to my knowledge of sex or share my masturbatory experiences. I continued to have my multi-orgasms every night, mostly in bed, but often in the bath, where I used soap as a lubricant (putting up with the stinging sensation it produced in the meatus of the penis in exchange for the increased pleasure it occasioned). But I would masturbate whenever and wherever I had the opportunity — in the bush, where I got naked, in the toilet, and even in class as I made a hole in my pocket so that I could play with my penis at any time.
Then a new opportunity arrived. I had become friends with a boy a few months younger who had joined the school. He lived with his widowed mother in a house that was on the way home from school. I would often stop there to play, and then began to spend nights. There was nothing sexual; we were simply good friends for a couple of years, until one night we took a bath together. As I soaped my penis, it began to get stiff. I was embarrassed and tried to hide it under water. But he was curious and asked me what was happening. So I began the process of educating him, as I had been 3 years earlier, in the secrets of masturbation and passing on my elementary knowledge of sex. I showed him what to do, and in a short while he experienced his first orgasm. That was the start of a relationship that ended 14 years later when we both married.
I reached anxiously awaited puberty when I was 12. I experienced my first ejaculation a week or so before my 13th birthday. I was sitting in class one afternoon when I had the urge to masturbate. This was not unusual! But there was great urgency on this occasion. I asked to go to the toilet, dropped my trousers, and began to masturbate. As I neared my climax I sensed something different in my penis. It seemed to swell up and tighten. Suddenly my orgasm rushed up on me and a powerful force seemed to overtake my body. I sagged at the knees as several drops of fluid emerged from my urethral opening. I fell to the floor. I carefully examined the drops and was satisfied that it was, in fact, semen. I was overjoyed, the sensation being so much stronger than the dry orgasms I had experienced up until then. But the days of multiple orgasms were over, I soon discovered.
A few weeks later I had my first "wet dream," in which I was standing under a street lamp, naked and masturbating. Over the next few years I had several more, all involving me masturbating. However, it was several months before I ejaculated consistently, so I learned to save up and wait a few days between sessions rather than practice my daily ritual. Over the next year the volume of my ejaculate increased greatly and became regular. I resorted to my daily (and often twice daily) ritual. My best friend was a late developer and didn't reach puberty until he was 15. While we had a somewhat unequal sexual relationship for about 3 years, he was grateful for the education I was able to give him as I became more experienced.
About the time I reached puberty, I was sent to boarding school, where there were many opportunities for my experience to be extended. It was all done very discreetly, and in those days everyone was consumed by guilt as well as dread that this practice would send us either mad or blind, drain our energy, or exhaust our semen supply so that we could never conceive a child. I was conscious of my penis size: other boys in the shower at similar stages of puberty had bigger genitals when soft, but as I explored my sexuality with others I found that when my penis was erect it was, if anything, above average. So I got into a habit, which has persisted, that whenever I have to undress where there are other men I try to get myself a little tumescent. Later reading told me that I was in a minority of men where my penis more than doubled in size when it became erect, which allayed my worries.
There were several embarrassing experiences. One day I was sweeping the dormitory when I got an erection. I paused in my work, reached into my trousers, and began to masturbate. I soon reached a climax and returned to my task, whereupon I noticed that in a far corner there was a boy lying on a bed who had watched the whole performance. he proceeded to spread the news around the school. Another time having masturbated in the toilet, I forgot to flush, and the boy following me found my leavings and again spread the word about my disgraceful habit, notwithstanding that every other boy was doing the same thing.
What to do with the ejaculate was always a problem before the days of Kleenex. I got into the habit of ejaculating into a white handkerchief, which I would keep for about a week until it was stiff; then I'd wash it in cold water and find a discreet place to dry it. That led to a later embarrassing experience when I was in college: A friend locked himself in my bedroom, and while messing up my bed he discovered my "shag rag," as it was called, and teased me mercilessly about it. The worst, however, was when my uncle took me on a holiday when I was about 16. We stayed in adjoining rooms in the hotel. Taking a rest after lunch on a very hot day, I stripped and had the urge to masturbate. I had just climaxed, my belly covered with semen, when I sensed the connecting door open — and I opened my eyes to see my uncle standing there for a few seconds, taking in the scene before tactfully withdrawing.. That night over dinner he made several references to how I seemed to be enjoying my stay in the hotel!
I am now over 70, happily married for over 45 years, with children and grandchildren. I have enjoyed my sexual life, including regular masturbation. It took me quite a while to get over my guilt and share my secret joy with my wife. When I was in my 20s I had read the Kinsey report. I simply did not believe that a man would continue to masturbate when he could have sex any time with a wife. Rational knowledge was subordinate to my guilt hangover. My wife similarly confessed her enjoyment of it, and masturbation became a regular feature of our lives together.
I was very open with my sons about the practice, described its universality among males, and I encouraged them to see it as an introduction to the wider joys of sex and enjoy it without guilt. Setting aside one question from my father when I was 14 — whether I had yet had a "wet dream" — the only sex education I had ever had was from my peers and later my reading. I am glad things are different now, and I applaud the contribution that JackinWorld is making to understanding of the phenomenon. I still enjoy masturbating at least once a week, without guilt!