I don’t know what you ladies said to each other in your younger years as light-natured ribbing. Hell, I’m not even sure if ladies do light-natured ribbing. But for us fellas, the list of jokes when you’re young and poking fun at each other is pretty short :

1. you masturbate too much
2. you can’t “get” a woman (see #1)
3. your dick is tiny
4. you don’t last long in bed
5. you’re gay (much more common pre-2000 compared to today)

It might seem strange, but I didn’t wanna be a hypocrite by joining in on the “ha! johnny jerks his pole!” humor while also running home to do the same. I thought it was considered weak and pathetic to masturbate. Like it was a sign that there was no one else on earth you could find to touch your dick, so you’re hitting rock-bottom and taking matters (quite literally) into your own hands. I also had — and still have — a deep paranoia about being labeled “the perv” (as you might have heard or came to realize), and I figured there was nothing more perverted than sitting in your room, furiously stroking your dick and shooting jizz all over the place.

For these reasons, and perhaps a few more, I didn’t masturbate until I was well into my 17th year of life. Most people think I’m lying when I say that, cause apparently that’s counter to the “vibe” I put off.

In my Senior year of high school, I had a fascination with Satanism and Anton LaVey. Maybe it was spurred on by the knowledge that Marilyn Manson was a Reverend in the Church of Satan, but it was mostly “I like evil shit! let’s see what this is all about!”. The Satanic Bible is a fun little book to read. It’s one of those books that gives you a huge ego boost and makes you feel spiritually stronger, inside yourself, than you’d otherwise feel. It presented to me a worldview of less guilt, more pleasure, more accountability, more self-reliance. I’ve known many people that have gone down the same road for the same reasons, and some of them are my favorite people in the world. The most negative thing I can say about Satanism today is that it’s still just another religious belief with its own set of hocus-pocus. At the time, however, I was entranced.

There was a chapter, or maybe just a series of pages, in particular that woke me up to the reality of the guilt I’d long felt over perversion and my unwillingness to masturbate. I don’t recall the exact details (and I don’t feel like thumbing through the book to find it), but basically Anton LaVey wrote about masturbation in such a revered tone. He wasn’t just unashamed about it — he was promoting it, hailing it as a wonderful thing, and giving it an air of power and self-preservation. This man I looked up to, this book I was fully on-board with, was basically yelling “stop reading and jerk off this instant!”.

Who was I to ignore that wisdom?

I decided I’d do it in the shower. I knew my jizz well enough to know it’s a g’damn mess I didn’t wanna clean up. And I figured some kind of soap might help with the lubricating part of the matter.

Once in the shower, I awkwardly tried stroking it. I felt weird and uncomfortable. Like I was a standing, jerking cliché. But… it also felt pretty nice, so I kept on going. It didn’t feel like I needed a lubricant, so I just went right on with it. It was taking a long time — at least, in my head — to even get close to the feeling of orgasm. I stroked harder, faster, tried switching hands, tried a different grip, and it was barely helping at all. Eventually, I got into a “groove”, and I just kept right on going and came right there in the shower. My moment of bliss was short-lived. In all my furious attempts to get off, I’d worked up a crazy sweat and now it was like I was in a sauna : just sweating, feeling ill, fatigued, having trouble standing. I quickly finished up my shower and stepped out to dry off. A few minutes later, I ran back into the bathroom to throw up.

I was a bit gun-shy after that. But, I came up with a plan to head into the shower while already hard. It was a short walk from my room to the shower, so I pulled it off (no pun intended) without issue. This time, I started while the water was still warming up. Once I jumped into the shower, I thought I’d try a little soap for lube. It seemed like a great idea at first, but holy shit the burning pain in the urethra when I finally got off. For the rest of the night, I kept feeling like I really needed to pee but never did.

Strike two in my attempts to jerk off properly.

The following night, I figured “fuck it, I’ll do it in my room”. I grabbed my wastebasket, put on some tunes¹, and went to town. This time, finally, it was glorious from beginning to end. This was fantastic. I think I went another two times in a row after that. I had no guilt, no shame. It was just “okay. this is what I do before bed now”.

That experience was transformative. I felt a lot less guilt about being the total pervert I continue to be, and masturbation seems as normal to me now as brushing your teeth. Err.. maybe going to the bathroom is more apt : I still wouldn’t do it in front of anyone who didn’t ask to see it. Then again, I’ve jerked off in front of a lot more people than I’ve ever peed in front of. So fuck it, make your own analogy.

And then go masturbate. It’s good for ya.

1. if you’re curious, my official Jerk-Off Soundtrack for the first few years was The Minute of Decay ↩