8.7 Masturbation: Safest, Best, Lowest Cost Sex

Physician's Notebooks 8 - http://physiciansnotebook.blogspot.com - See Homepage

7. Masturbation Update 26 Aug. 2021

My 1st sign of puberty was breast nipples sensitivity and swelling at age 9 and, shortly after, I saw first pubic hairs.
I had a pal, Harry, and told him. Harry said I was getting "sexy" and told me a baby actually happens because a man's "prick" gets stiff and is put into a woman’s "cunt" and shoots juice inside. I said “I don’t believe” and Harry said "Try thinking about doing that and jerking off."  He described the jerking off  and said "It's fun." Still I did not believe but was curious to try.
   A few days later when my mother is out shopping I sit on bed and think about the girl next door taking off her clothes for me, and I get an erection. Then I grasp my erection firmly in hand and start jerking away like Harry’s say.

   Minutes pass and nothing happens except my arm is getting tired. I am almost about to stop when something nice starts in my hand. It is just a faint flicker, and as I jerk on, it continues, waxing and waning. This reassuring response reinforces me. Suddenly, an electric ecstasy goes off in my hand and spreads ripple-like, to lower abdomen and thighs, down to ankles and up to chest; my whole body becomes nearly numb; and, deep in my penis, ecstatic spasms start and soon a drop of chalky white fluid appears at penis tip.

   Harry was right.
   Within a year I average 1 to 2 hand jobs a day and quickly I learn to use fantasy: a fellow girl student, a teacher, a female relative or a movie actress giving in to me. I feel guilty; boys were warned it will weaken them. I try to stop but the pleasure is too good and it is too easily obtained so I resign myself to the vice. Every boy I know does it and none I can see is weakening.

   Jerking off is a solitary activity but I recall a group of us getting together once and one boy jerking the other boys off and getting nicknamed ‘Hands’.

   At 15 I start getting occasional orgasm with girls but too few to affect my jerking off. After marriage my rate drops as coitus with my wife satisfies orgasmic need. I occasionally masturbate when my wife is not available. It seems obvious that the need I satisfy by masturbating might be satisfied in extra-marital sex. As I age and need less orgasm in my life, masturbation has returned but less than when young. Where then I did it to satisfy inner pressure, now, in old age I do it as a well practiced pleasure reward. As widower I average 1 or 2 a week and it certainly keeps me out of trouble. And now at age 88, I only rarely think to do it.

   My advice to parent who discovers son or daughter masturbating is: “Make like you never saw it.” Follow former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elder’s wise advice; ignore it. Since statistics show that every boy in America does it, it cannot have a bad effect and it will keep your boy out of trouble by allowing him a harmless outlet for his excess sexual energy. 

   Female masturbation in USA had a 62% lifetime incidence in 1953. It was more frequent in single than married and most in highest educational level. A gender gap was seen in the incidence in relation to age, with the male incidence rising sharply in the ages 10 to 15 then flat while women showed a gradual, less steep rise from childhood to age 45. This is probably due to lower orgasmic drive and its serving as more of an alternative orgasmic outlet for middle-aged women compared to men. 

    In a 1953 survey, the method in women varied compared to men’s jerking off by hand. The order was: finger rub of clitoris; hand pressure on vulva lips; inter-thigh pressure by rhythmically pressing thighs together, lying face down and making rhythmic motion that rubs front on mattress; manual stimulation of nipples; and vaginal insert. Today women add mechanical penis insertion and electric vibrator. Time to reach orgasm in female averaged 4 minutes but many women reported prolonging it for more extended pleasure.

   Masturbation causes no illness. It is a safe, voluntary outlet that allows erotic experience that might not be safe or appropriate if carried out with others. It is available, costs nothing, and its pleasure is as good as other sources, and more repeatable because it does not depend on others. I found it useful to head off dangerous desire for strange bedfellow. I know I’m richer for it from all the money I might have wasted on sex with another person but got freely by my hand, and it has preserved health (the safest sex) and saved my life.

   I say to men: Just before making important sexual decision; jerk off!

A final, important point.  In The histories of boyhood mental illnesses are too many cases of guilt over excessive masturbation. This should be completely preventable by teaching that it has no bad consequences and is completely benign.
     END OF CHAPTER. To read on next now, click 8.(8-10) More Sex! Petting/Oral/Coitus