On: Masturbation and those awkward middle school years

Yep, that strange territory that people are entirely comfortable joking about but not too comfortable admitting to actually doing.

I'm currently in the middle of eating my post-masturbatory sandwich, and it tastes great. Yes, I washed my hands first.

The thing about jerking off is the varying levels of importance it takes in your life over different periods of time.

I first "officially" masturbated in the summer between the 8th and 9th grades--a late bloomer to most people, as is my understanding. But before I messed up that spot on my bedroom carpet, I came close a few times. All I knew is that any mention of sex got me immediately and permanently in that masturbatory mode, but not yet knowing how to release that energy, it was pure torture to me. Here I was, my mind all in a tizzy and my body ready to do something, but I'm completely baffled as to what I it was supposed to do. I was a mess.

I remember the first time pretty vividly. It started on a warm summer day as I was leafing through my 8th grade yearbook, looking at the girls and how goddamn amazing they were starting to look. That yearbook and subsequent ones became my primary masturbatory material for at least 3 years, which I'm sure wasn't the yearbook committee's intention. If only those well-meaning hard workers realized how those picture collages would soon be viewed and used by what I could only guess were hundreds of kids like me, I'm sure they'd sooner join the Key Club and instead work on something a little more charitable than providing endless jerk fests to their horny and shameless classmates.

Anyway, I got to the picture of the one girl--lets call her Jessie Planter--who I first laid eyes on the first day of school in 7th grade and immediately thought "god damn, I'm not in elementary school anymore". She looked at least 5-6 years older than she was, and could easily pass for a hot senior cheerleader or whatever porn fantasy you'd like to enter here. She had the sexiest damn eyes and a wide, open face with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair. And the body--god damn again--I was not used to these bodies in my 6th grade class. What the hell happened over the summer for the girls around me to look like this all of a sudden?

That's the other thing that is so damn unfair. Most 7th grade boys are stuck in our 6th grade bodies plus three months--pudgy, baby fat, still with no clue as to how to dress, talk, or interact with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, girls get all curvy, grow boobs, develop nice round asses, have shiny long hair, and are actually eloquent and seem to be in total control of the world around them. It's amazing that we're in the same classes at this point. All I cared about in 6th grade was Notre Dame football, the Knicks' playoff chances, and my social standing in terms of how good I was at sports. I definitely had an interest in girls, but more for the social aspect than in any real desire to be in any relationship with them.

By 7th grade, all that changed. Girls were everywhere, and they all looked fucking AMAZING. To the point where it would get me nervous and I'd stammer and stutter and choke on my words any time one of them talked to me. This mentality lasted well throughout high school, and even as I developed into a somewhat better looking person.

So I went way off topic there for a bit. Back to that warm summer day, and me flipping through the 8th grade yearbook on my floor, examining each girl's picture (any high school girls that happen to be reading this: yes, we do thoroughly examine those yearbook pictures of yours, so say cheese with that in mind), and I get to Jessie's picture. All of a sudden, I start stirring a bit down in the pants and before you know it, my pants are undone, and I'm dryly rubbing myself and my body has completely overtaken my mind. I'm doing this involuntarily and I'm not stopping until I reach some conclusion that I only know about through evolution and possibly a few awkwardly taught sex ed classes.

Another aside-- I must have been taught about ejaculation pretty poorly (and in that pre-internet age, sex ed was pretty much all we had), because I imagined it being a stream of liquid, like taking a piss. I had no idea what to expect when I finally did finish and how exactly it would come about.

So I'm jerking in my own primitive, instinctual way and I'm just eyeing that picture when all of a sudden, it starts feeling really damn good and bam... out leaks a little clear stuff onto my bedroom carpet.

And so began a new world for me.

High school was all about finding 5-10 minutes by myself, usually with nothing but my imagination. Before school. After school. Before bed. In bed. In the bathroom. In the living room. In the kitchen. Between the pillows. Discovering wetting it (which by the way is like rediscovering masturbation). Discovering the twist technique. Discovering internet porn.

High school was basically a blur of jerking off to every thought that I couldn't jerk off to in those dark ages when I had no outlet for that feeling. I would plan on who I would jerk off to each night. I would discover new ways of doing it. I was like a little Magellan, going to uncharted territory with reckless abandon.

Then came college, and sharing a room with my friend, and learning to interact with females in day-to-day life, not just in those awkward 8 hours in a concrete building under flourescent lights. I actually had to live with these creatures. My first sexual experiences are well documented here, so I won't get into that, but suffice it to say, my masturbatory tendencies declined quite a bit then.

And now, I'm 26 years old. I have a steady girlfriend who I consider my best friend and a peer. An equal. Not an unattainable piece of perfection that I will never attain. She's a human being with her own insecurities and thoughts and fears and interests and her own stories of youth. Just like those girls way back in 7th grade, which I was all too unaware of at the time.

And we have sex. Lots and lots of it. Enough to keep a guy completely sexually satisfied.

So no need for masturbation now, right? Well, wrong. I still do it, as I alluded to above. But it's become more of a chore at this point. I do it now just because I can. I could just as easily go to bed or read a book or watch a movie. It's not the world changer it was back then. I guess a part of me still hopes for a bit of that excitement every time I do it, but now its lost a lot of the luster.

I'm running out of steam here, and I don't really have any kind of conclusion in mind for this little entry, so lets leave it here before I get more disturbing.

Good night, kids.