orgasm

Growing up in a fairly (or depending upon how you look at it, unfairly) religious family, I was extremely naive about many things. One of those things was my penis. I don't remember taking note of my penis before age 14 — seriously, it was there so I could pee. Then one day, at the small private school I was attending, a new student that year (with whom I had recently made friends) made an interesting gesture with his hand in front of his groin after saying a joke.

I guess it all started when I was about 11 years old. Although I had heard of it, I wasn't masturbating then, because I thought you had to have started puberty before you could get an orgasm. So I hadn't even tried it.

I began to masturbate at about age 11, mainly due to curiosity about my body that a number of guys have when they start wanking. I was sitting in bed and noticed that my penis had gone stiff. I began to rub it with the "fist" method, and a little later I had this intense feeling, my first orgasm. I rushed to the bathroom, thinking I needed to pee quite badly. I thought all these feelings I had were odd, and didn't think about what I had done for a week or two. At about this time, my friends had been joking about wanking, and I had no real idea what they were talking about.

I have been playing with my penis since I was a child. My mom told me not to put my hands in my pants, but she didn't tell me anything when I played with it during a bath or in my bed. My first embarrassing incident was at age 5. I stayed in a hotel with my grandmother, and I woke up with a strong erection. I grabbed it and just kept it in my right hand. Suddenly my grandmother started to get up and uncovered me, too, for a bit. She asked me what I was doing in my pajamas. I pulled out my hand and did not say anything. Fortunately she did not say anything more.

I was not one of those boys who just happened to discover masturbation on his own. I needed to be taught. Thank goodness I found a good teacher: My best friend in 6th grade taught me the fine art of masturbation.

My first introduction to the wonderful world of penises and masturbation occurred when I was in 5th grade. I was toddling from my classroom out to the playground when my best friend yelled out my name. I turned around. My buddy was wearing a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and he had a monster erection — well, monster by 5th-grade standards. "Hard as a rock!" he yelled excitedly. I smiled obliviously. What was that supposed to mean? The next morning, I asked my mom what it meant when my penis got hard. Predictably, she turned beet-red and told me to ask my father.

From the days of early childhood, I can remember innocently humping pillows or playing with myself. I had no idea what I was doing, nor did I really care. All I knew was that it felt good. In kindergarten I can remember wrestling with the other kids and how good it felt when they would get on top of me and put pressure on my penis. At one point the neighbor kids and I would get together to show each other our penises. I am not really sure why we did it; it may have been simply because we knew we were not supposed to. I believe at age 10 I noticed my first semi-erection.

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.

I remember the first time I masturbated like it was yesterday. I was 12 years old; it was a Saturday in mid April. The night before, I had stubbed my toe, and I was lying on my parents' bed waiting for it to stop bleeding, when some church visitors came over and my parents had to go downstairs and visit with them. My parents had just purchased satellite TV, with all of the movie channels.

I began the process of discovering self-pleasuring in the summer before 7th grade at, of all places, a church retreat. A kid at the pool we went to was staying over by the jet where the water comes out, watching a girl. When I asked what he was doing, he said I was too young to understand (which confused me, because I thought I was older than he was), but he did say that it "felt good."