shame

I am past 70 now, but I shall never forget the time of my adolescence with its confusion, frustration, and pain — all of which were related to sexuality, a total lack of understanding about the changes taking place in my body, and specifically, masturbation. I grew up in a Christian home where sex seemed to be a dirty word. Actually, I never heard it discussed at all, and I suppose the silence was what conveyed the idea that the subject was something to be avoided. There was absolutely no sex education at all.

My relationship with masturbation began sometime when I was about 10 or 11, although it had been developing for a while. I was in the 5th grade, and we had, after much anticipation and fear, completed the dreaded one-hour puberty class surprisingly painlessly. Though maddeningly vague and cutesy, it did, thankfully, explain to me what an erection was — a phenomenon I had experienced for years, and that I was wholly convinced was a freak mutation unique to myself.

Growing up in a Baptist family in the Midwest was not the easiest way to learn about sex. Fortunately, it was at a time when the media was progressing just fast enough to make sure that a clever kid would get a chance to peek at a pair of breasts on cable now and then if he was sneaky enough. No matter how my parents tried, I was going to figure out what this sex stuff was all about.

I have been masturbating regularly for the last 42 years, except for the one-year period immediately after my marriage.