My Masturbation Journey

The summer after I joined the Boy Scouts, I went to camp with my church’s scout troop and learned to masturbate. I'd heard guys at school talk about "jacking off," and I thought it had something to do with penises and sex, but I really didn't know what it meant or how to do it.  One day a group of us we were hiking in the woods, and a friend told us that his father, who was our scoutmaster, caught my friend's older brother and another boy “jacking off” in their tent.  I laughed along with everybody else, but later, when we were alone, I asked him what, exactly, they were doing. He held up his left index finger, gripped it like a pencil with his right hand, and rubbed it up and down. I got the picture.

I was too shy to try anything at camp, but the first night I was home I took my erection out of the fly of my pajamas and rubbed it up and down until it began to feel a whole lot better than anything I’d ever done before.  Suddenly, I felt like I was going to pee. I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom and stood in front of the toilet waiting to pee. Of course, nothing came out. Embarrassed, I went back to bed. My erection was gone but somehow, I knew I was on to something.  The next night, I tried it again. This time I had a better idea of what to expect, so I kept going until I got the “feeling.” I wasn't disappointed.  I have seldom been disappointed for over 60 years.

Before going to camp, I had been playing with my penis for some time and had learned how good it felt to rub my palm over the glans (one of many terms I did not know until much later).  I rubbed on the head of my hard-ons, trying I now realize to reach a climax. 

 I'd played doctor with a boy my age up the street.  We stripped naked in his garage and compared our hard-ons.  I also played with my cousin.  At family gatherings at my grandmother's house, he and I would go out to the former chicken coop in the backyard and play with our penises. 

But the discovery of orgasm was a whole new world, and I practiced my discovery virtually every night and in hidden places outside during the day.  I was delighted when my mother left me alone after school to go grocery shopping!  My frequency sometimes resulted in sores on my penis.   My ejaculations created the challenge of hiding the evidence.  I never used a sock or a cum rag; I was too afraid they would be discovered in the wash.  Instead, I relied on the box of Kleenex in my headboard cupboard and flushed them away discreetly.

All this took place in the context of 1950’s sexual mores.  My parents and my church never taught me that sex and masturbation were bad, but since masturbation was never spoken of, it seemed clear that it was taboo and should be hidden.  The wider culture taught me that sex was naughty, and masturbation was shameful.