Sex for me began innocently enough. Starting at age 12, I enjoyed lying on my bed in pajamas, on my belly, rocking forward and back, because it made my penis feel good. If I did that long enough, for just a moment I would feel very good all over my body, like I was flying, and there'd be a little "jump" deep inside me. I had never heard of masturbation, didn't suppose that any observer would guess that my penis was being stimulated, and did it openly, whenever I wanted, even if other family members were present.
All that changed a couple of weeks after I turned 13. I was nude, all rolled up in a feather quilt, vigorously massaging the area overlying my penis, when the flying sensation was succeeded by a series of powerful and frightening contractions deep within my pelvis. What had I done? Would they ever stop? Had I broken something?
When they ended, I dreaded telling my mother and our doctor that I had broken my penis by playing rough with it. Gingerly I unwrapped the quilt, forcing myself to look at the mangled remains of my once proud penis. But my penis looked normal, except that it was soft and small whereas before it had been long and stiff. When I saw the little wet spot on the quilt, I knew what had happened.
Of course I knew where babies came from, and I had heard that "white stuff" was supposed to come out of one's erect penis, but I hadn't known what to expect. The sex book that my parents had given me was filled with circumlocutions and euphemisms. Nobody had told me what it was supposed to feel like.
Since I didn't enjoy my first ejaculation, I didn't touch my penis for a while after that. But it kept demanding attention, so I gave in to it later that summer, and decided to fondle it just a little. I'd make it feel good but stop short of the contractions. I was dismayed when semen came shooting out of me with hardly any provocation.
It happened once more and then again, and I began to worry: Was I using up all the seeds that would otherwise become my children? I made a determined effort not to stimulate my penis, and was actually rather successful; but then I began having "wet dreams." What was happening to me? I no longer had control over my own body.
I read everything I could find about adolescence, which wasn't much in those long-ago days. I did find information about "wet dreams" in the Boy Scout manual, under the heading "Conservation." It said that "wet dreams" were normal, but no attempt should be made to encourage them. "That's masturbation. It's a bad habit." I didn't know the word; I misread it as "mastrubion."
So, I had a bad habit. Well, being strong-willed and stubborn, I'd simply conquer this "mastrubion" — which, perhaps because of the context in the Scout manual, I took to be synonymous with ejaculation. I still pleasured my penis, but now I counted strokes. In bed, I'd allow a predetermined number of strokes, with my hand or against the mattress, plus of course the occasional bonus stroke, and then stop. Partially relieved of my lust, I usually fell asleep quickly.
I never surrendered without at least token resistance to the almost nightly demands of my erect penis. So long as it remained confined within my pajama bottoms, I refused to touch it. But if the unruly organ happened to slip out of the fly front, which it usually did after a few well-aimed pelvic thrusts, it became fair game for whatever might befall it.
Still, I allotted the strokes responsibly: a few less every night, so as not to cross the line. The trouble was that my stroke count diminished linearly, but the sensitivity of my penis increased exponentially. I never quite caught on to that, so although I managed to hold it off for nights on end, eventually I would have an intense and very messy orgasm. I was always surprised and chagrined when it happened, and was never prepared to catch the semen in a tissue, because I never knew it was going to happen that particular time.
Obviously, I was well on my way to a sexual neurosis, one mainly of my own design. Then, when I was nearly 15, I had an epiphany one sweltering night.
My parents had decided to take me and my younger brothers on a trip to Calexico, on the border with Mexico, for Easter vacation. Suspecting that there would be little privacy during the trip, and wishing to avoid any potentially embarrassing sexual situations (I'd already had a couple), I had induced a perfunctory, joyless orgasm the day before. I knew I would not become seriously horny again for the next few days.
We walked around the town of Mexicali in the evening, ate spicy Mexican food, and I got stung by a bee. Other than that, nothing occurred to foreshadow what would happen later that night. We all returned early to the De Anza Hotel and retired, all of us in the same room, in beds or cots.
It was very dark in that room, and also very hot. Air conditioning was uncommon in the late 1940s, even in the desert. I wasn't used to the heat and it kept me from sleeping.
I got hard.
I stayed hard.
I tried changing my position, hoping my boner would go away. On my back. My left side. My right side. On my belly, with my penis down the groove of my thighs, but that just made me want to wriggle my pelvis. Nothing had any effect on the boner.
I had a powerful urge to hump the mattress, but I decided not to because the bed was squeaky. A parent or brother might hear me doing it and I'd be found out, humiliated. Moreover, it was possible I could lose control and ejaculate all over the sheets. They would surely be stained in the morning and might smell of semen — a dead giveaway of my bad habit. So I did nothing.
Sweat was pouring off my body and my heart was pumping fast. My penis was pulsating with each heartbeat. After a while I heard the others' rhythmic breathing; they were all asleep. Lying on my back, I began to touch my penis, hesitantly at first, very gently reading its shape with my fingers, appreciating its smoothness, probing its amazing hardness. And each touch felt exquisite, regardless of where my fingers landed. After a while, waves of pleasure began to radiate out from each touched spot to suffuse the whole organ. It felt like my penis was on fire.
I stopped. I knew what would happen next, and I didn't want it. I lay perfectly still. But now the weight of the single bedsheet on my penis became unbearable. The slight motion from my fast breathing and racing heart were making the sheet tickle me. I felt an orgasm beginning to rise like a mighty ocean swell.
Panic! If I threw aside the sheet, I'd squirt all over the place. But if I didn't.... And then the wave broke over me, and I managed to abort the pumping and spurting with a massive (and never repeatable) effort of my will. A single warm drop fell on my abdomen, nothing more.
I thought my penis would go soft after that, but it didn't. My objectless lust continued unabated. I forced myself to remain motionless. I heard my blood pounding in my ears in the still darkness. I longed for the night to end and the dawn to come.
That's when the music started. Somewhere in the distance, mariachis began to play. They played and played, seemingly the same tune, over and over. The heat was stifling. My penis was throbbing. I was sweating profusely.
I suppose I would have looked comical to anyone who could have seen me: body rigid, legs straight out and clasped together, arms folded resolutely across my chest, my bedsheet tented in the center. But it wasn't funny to me. I was in agony as my penis quivered under the sheet while the mariachis played on and on in the hot, endless night.
I was a stubborn boy, a boy with a very strong will, a responsible and resolute boy, but flesh and blood can stand only so much. At some late hour of that long night, I came to a realization. I would have to emancipate every single spermatozoan in my young body. Not accidentally. Not perfunctorily. Deliberately, intentionally, willingly.
The mariachis might mask whatever noise I made, but how to avoid the scent of semen and the mess? My hand groped a handkerchief in the pocket of my PJs. I had found my answer.
Tenderly and lovingly I wrapped the handkerchief around my eager penis — so gently, because I didn't want to set it off prematurely. Then I flopped over onto my stomach and thrust furiously against the mattress. My orgasm was shatteringly intense.
All the next day I felt wonderful. The colors of the land sparkled brightly in the sunshine; the air was electric; I was overflowing with young life. There was a slight ache in my balls that was not at all unpleasant. I knew then that "mastrubion" was not a bad habit. It was healthful and life-affirming. It was good for my body, and I would do it whenever my body wanted me to.
That's pretty much what I've done for the past 60 years, only rarely encountering an embarrassing situation. I fathered 4 fine children the normal way, and maybe some others when I was a sperm donor for a clinic. I like to think that my favorite habit has brought joy to one or more childless couples somewhere, as it has to myself.
Do you find yourself masturbating more often during some seasons than others? Why?
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Bonus stroke
Gender:
Male