twice yesterday.” “Oh, yeah?
Three times for me!” “Let’s go behind the garage and do it some more, right now!” No wonder so many men in this book Men In Love
43
recall early group masturbation with such enormous satisfaction.
Nevertheless, inhibitions established early in life can never be put totally to rest. In fact, I often think proliferation of girlie magazines is a result of this problem. The flagrant covers seem to be saying, “Don’t be guilty about a fantasy of naked women and playing with yourself. Millions of other guys who buy this magazine are doing the same thing.” It is a message that combines bragging and daring, making the customer feel he’s not some poor lonely soul jerking off because no girl is available to him; instead, he’s but one of an army of sexy, go-to-hell men who don’t mind having a bit of fun any way they can.
We have come a long way from the early part of this cen-tury, when masturbation was considered so physically harmful and morally reprehensible that even the Boy Scout manual (1910-1945) warned against it.
And yet if times are changing, I do not believe they are changing as rapidly as most people think. Clifton (below) is only nineteen, born well after World War II – but he describes his parents as “puritanical.” Is it surprising he says he is “embarrassed” by his own sexuality? Hal (below), too, is so inhibited that he performs a kind of masturbation I’d only heard about before from women. In a kind of sly maneuver that is obedient on the surface but rebellious beneath, the parental admonition against touching the genitals is taken literally. Lester (above) rubs himself against the sheets. No hands, no guilt. Don (below) goes so far as to tell us his mother would become “hysterical” if she found evidence of his masturbation. Is it surprising that he married “a nice girl” who does not like sex?
If many parents today have learned to speak with a certain tolerance about autoeroticism, one senses that in their gut they feel some of their mother’s anxiety. We are all our parents’ children. Jud (below) tells us that one of his favorite fantasies is to imagine women applauding his masturbation.
A member of the female sex once made him feel guilty about Nancy Friday
44
it; to have women “cheer him on” instead, now that he is grown, is supremely satisfying. Research in child rearing today defines masturbation not as an embarrassing phase the child will outgrow if left alone, but as a “normal” part of sexual growth. I have rarely heard even the most enlightened parent recognize masturbation as a mighty force for independence.
CLIFTON
I am a nineteen-year-old college student and I am rather quiet around most people until I really get to know them. I come from a farm and pretty puritanical parents so, even though I have very strong sexual feelings, I always felt somewhat embarrassed by them. I have had two sexual experiences, so I’m not a virgin, but they were emotionless and unfulfilling.
I suppose fantasy has always played an important part in my life. My favorite fantasy is about this girl who lives in my dorm. She lives on the same floor that I live on. Although we’ve never met, I found out from someone that she kind of digs me because she thinks I look like Elton John (which I do).
My fantasy is that some night, I would walk by her door and hear Elton John music playing real loud inside. I would open the door without her knowledge and see her lying in her bed in only a little light and staring at a picture of Elton John (of course she has no clothes on). She’s rocking back and forth to the music and I can tell that he really turns her on.
Gently I take the picture away from her and she’s so wrapped up in him that she thinks I am Elton John. She pulls me on top of her. I start kissing her with my tongue and everything and touching her all over her gorgeous little body.
She just moans a lot and spreads her legs apart.