guilt

I was reared in a home where sex was never mentioned; I never even heard the word "pregnant." How I managed to get to be 11 years old before learning the facts of life I do not know, but I did. I moved to a new school when I was in the 5th grade, and there I began to get a real education in things I'd never heard of. I knew where babies came from, of course, but I had no idea how they got there.

I am a 53-year-old man living in the U.K. I have been a regular (perhaps even a compulsive) masturbator all my life. However, I have also had a continual struggle to reconcile my feelings of guilt, the condemnation of my church, and the disinformation from my guardians with the pleasure I have derived from this universal activity.

My nearly 9 years of masturbation have been plagued with misinformation. I keenly recall one of my early experiences: I was watching Saturday Night Live, and Dr. Joycelyn Elders was being portrayed, just after all the hoopla over her now-infamous remarks. At that time, I had just turned 12 and had been getting erections for some time, but was still uncertain exactly what they were good for other than embarrassment. Speaking with my parents on anything sex-related was, and still is, difficult.

Guys, if you have any questions about masturbation, "wet dreams," size, or anything, talk about it. Find an older male to ask questions or to observe — no matter how embarrassed you feel. I didn't do this, and it really screwed me up for years.

I'm a 17-year-old male, and I've been masturbating since I was 13 years old. I do very well in school — I get straight A's and B's. We live in a small town in southern British Columbia, Canada. My parents are cool. I have awesome parents now. However, it wasn't always that way.

My first orgasm occurred at age ten when I was climbing a metal pole on a playground. I had been pulling myself up with my arms and then tightening my legs around the pole while I slipped my arms up and continued climbing. When I got near the top of the pole, I experienced the wonderful, thrilling feeling of my first orgasm. I held on to the pole very tightly while it happened, and then I slid back down and sat on the corner of a sandbox to think about the experience. I was very excited by the discovery.

To begin with, I am a 16-year-old male, so I haven't got much to tell. I'm sure my parents must know I masturbate, because they joke around with me about masturbation and the myths and call me names, and I think it's a good thing they know. I'm sure my dad, uncles, and male cousins have masturbated before. So I feel no shame, embarrassment, or guilt in masturbating.

It all started in 2nd grade, at around age 9. Somehow, I got a hold of two "Dizzy Drollers," as they were called — cute little psychedelic-colored pens, which an ordinary kid would have used to draw jaggy red or blue lines on a piece of paper. In retrospect, the small vibrating phallic-shaped "pens" could be easily called and sold as vibrators, if it weren't for the coloring tip (which was removable, by the way). It didn't take me long to get bored by the seemingly random lines it created, so I started looking for other ways to use it.

About 6 years ago, at the age of 12, I discovered the many joys of masturbation. It was a regular night, and I retired to the bathroom to take a bath before I went to bed. I liked to take long baths; sometimes I would even read in the bathtub, but most of the time I just relaxed and let my mind wander. I retracted my foreskin, as my father had instructed, to wash my penis and prevent infection. This time the feeling I had was unlike any other — somewhere between an unscratchable itch and a pleasant tickle. I continued to do this, and the odd sensation became stronger, and more pleasurable.

I grew up in a cool family. I'm the eldest in our only-boys family, and that the fact that we have no sisters makes us aware that we have nothing to hide from each other — we all have penises, and we know for a fact that we all masturbate. That's probably why we give each other enough privacy to do whatever we want to do.