A Million Inches Delicious

My masturbatory beginnings were as a young boy in my bed, quietly rubbing one out and depositing the deed onto the sheet next to me. I was quite young and had no idea what the proper protocol was, so it sufficed. This went on for some months, and the spunk happened to disappear from my thought after having a rollicking good date with my hand the night before. Out of sight, out of dick, out of mind.

Later on I was asked to change my sheets, and I thought nothing of it. The phantom sperm simply stayed there and somehow went to Cum Heaven where it rubs elbows with gallons of female ejaculate. I took the sheet off the bed, with my mother next to me, when all of a sudden the curtain raised up and revealed the horrible sight of a yellow cum-stain on the mattress pad underneath. I had no idea it stained yellow. I was certain I had made some kind of scientific discovery.

My mother and I never spoke of it. From that day forward, I pleasured myself as nature intended: in the shower.

AGE 12

NEVER

AGE 13

NEVER
Not when my parents are home
Not during the Sabbath
Not to internet porn

AGE 14

NEVER
Not when my parents are home
Not during the Sabbath
Not to internet porn
Always erase internet history
Not before a big test
Not at a friend’s house
Not with food
Not to my sister’s magazines

AGE 17

NEVER
Not when my parents are home
Not during the Sabbath
Not to internet porn
Always erase internet history
Not before a big test
Not at a friend’s house
Not with food
Not to my sister’s magazines
Not on my sister’s magazines
Not with food that could still be eaten
Always before a big test
Not to photos of people who are dead now
Not to photos of people that I know
Not if it means that I’m ignoring my family

AGE 18

NEVER
Not when my parents are home
Not during the Sabbath
Not to internet porn
Always erase internet history (shit)
Not before a big test
Not at a friend’s house
Not with food
Not to my sister’s magazines
Not on my sister’s magazine
Not with food that could still be eaten
Always before a big test
Not to photos of people who are dead now
Not to photos of people that I know
Not if it means that I’m ignoring my family
Not if it means that I’m ignoring my friends
Not in public
Not on a towel
Not on a shirt
Not in a sock
Not in a quilt
Not in a pillowcase
Not in or on anything my mom will hand-wash

PRESENT

“Private Browsing”
Not while eating

Lights up. KABIR DAYA and GIRLFRIEND are sitting in a living room quietly. KABIR is typing something onto his laptop computer while GIRLFRIEND is reading a book. Silence for a few seconds until…

GIRLFRIEND: <snicker, laugh>

KABIR raises his head form his work to see what is going on. He gets GIRLFRIEND’s attention and asks what was funny.

GIRLFRIEND: Oh, in this book the main character masturbates into a tube sock.

KABIR looks at her expectantly, GIRLFRIEND is not looking back. He clearly is in need of a punchline to the story. He prods for some more information.

KABIR: So?

GIRLFRIEND: So…what?

KABIR: …nothing.

He quietly goes back to typing, a staccato tempo adding a literal ellipsis to the conversation. A minute passes.

GIRLFRIEND: So, do guys–

KABIR: <immediately> Yes.

GIRLFRIEND: Oh.

A strong pause occurs between them, wherein KABIR continues on his laptop and GIRLFRIEND ponders. She breaks the silence.

GIRLFRIEND: He did it while driving on a freeway.

KABIR: Well, at least I never did that.

Curtain.

I didn’t know what an orgasm was the first time I had one.

Men masturbating is a fairly straight forward and common thing. We joke about it, we have lots of terms for it, and we often even make the cupped-hand, up-and-down motion to one another.  Girls, on the other hand, have a completely different situation. How many times have you rolled your eyes at someone and made the girl-jerking-off motion? What is the girl-jerking-off motion? I certainly don’t know. So while all the 12-year-old boys were realizing that there are only so many ways to grab onto a penis and make it feel good, us girls were stuck with this deep and folded crevasse hidden away in the most private corner of our bodies.

During this phase of sexual maturity, I was pretty much in the dark. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the things I wanted. I knew what sex was (more or less), but I didn’t know what an orgasm was. I knew that sex would feel really good, and I knew that I wanted to feel that. But unfortunately there was no womanly instinct to direct me, no internet to look it up on, and no way in hell I was going to ask anyone else.

Sometimes at night I would let my hand wander “down there,” what a confusing place. There is no visual for female masturbation, no dick to whip out and watch what you’re doing on. I could only feel around with my index finger to try and figure out where everything was. Yes, there is a hole. I’ve heard about this. This is the hole where the boy puts his thingie in. And that is going to feel really good. But unfortunately just sticking my finger in this magic hole has produced zero magical sensations. Would putting something bigger in there feel better? I was too scared to ever try, although I’m certain other young girls do it (hopefully with dazzling results). Instead I discovered the clitoris, an astounding button of nerve bundles that I had no idea what do to with. Touching it head on was like rubbing a raw nerve – way too much stimulation, my toes would make fists and my eyes would squeeze shut, not exactly pleasurable. I was about to give up.

And then, by some miracle, I picked up my sister’s feminist book. I can’t remember what it was called, Dance and Laugh Naked? Empowered Woman? Wild Female Product of the 60s? I’m not sure. I picked it up and naturally skimmed to find the part on sex – the secret phenomenon I so badly wanted in on. She talked about her vibrator (what’s that?), she talked about eating mangoes naked, she talked about a lot of shit that I didn’t really care about. I wanted the goods! I wanted to know how to get my hands on (literally) this world of pleasure waiting between my legs!

And then I finally found what I was looking for. It wasn’t a big feature of the chapter, she only casually mentioned it – the bathtub. She made a brief joke about letting the faucet run over certain parts of your body and then moved on to talk about anal beads or something. But the seed had been planted! The bathtub, the faucet, the warm running water…it was all starting to make sense! I was scared, but I was ready. I waited for an opportunity to be home alone and then headed upstairs.

Have you ever sat naked on the floor of a bathtub? It’s fucking freezing. But I didn’t care, I wanted the faucet. The act would be a million times easier if it wasn’t for those two appendages we call legs. To get the water to run in the right spot you need your ass cheeks up against the side of the tub, which means your legs either need to be sticking straight up the wall of the shower, or, as I had them, criss-cross around the faucet itself. It was an awkward position to manipulate, but I was determined.

I turned on the faucet and spent a few painful seconds flipping between freezing cold water, and scalding hot. Apparently that part of the body is a little more sensitive to temperature gradients. I eventually found a suitable temperature and laid back, wincing as my back touched the freezing tub.

It felt OK, nothing mind blowing. I looked up at the ceiling and wondered is this it? I decided to make an adjustment. I reached down with my hand and, as my sister would later put it when we discussed the act, “opened the gates to heaven,” exposing all pleasure centers to the rush of water.

I gasped, my eyes widened and my entire body tensed. I couldn’t believe the sensations radiating from my inner thighs up my abdomen! It felt so good! I loved it! I laid there for maybe one blissful minute before the orgasm started.

I will never again have an orgasm like I had that first time. I don’t know if I’d even call it pleasurable. I pinched my eyes shut as I felt my body transform entirely out of my control. Not knowing of the existence of orgasms, I had no way of knowing what was going on. As my mind switched into an unknown gear and my body tensed in ways I didn’t know existed, I became a little scared. I was a teen getting inebriated for the first time, I was Albert Hofmann discovering LSD, I was Helen Keller on the Giant Drop. I was desperately wondering what was happening, but at the same time I absolutely didn’t want to do anything to make it stop. At the climax, I felt my body melt into the floor of the tub as I continued to frantically wonder what the fuck was going on.

And then suddenly, it was over.

Suddenly I no longer wanted that water anywhere near me. Suddenly it was incredibly overpowering and I knew from the core of my soul that I was DONE. I sat up and slid backwards, away from my niagara of pleasure. I stared at the water in shock as I hugged my knees. I pulled the knob and turned on the shower – finally letting my freezing body warm up. I sat in the tub stunned. And then the shock turned into a smile, and the smile turned into excitement, and excitement turned into anticipation for my next shower!!

I eventually, of course, discovered the title of my experience – I had had an orgasm! Due to the necessity of being home alone, I rarely had the opportunity to do it, but let me assure you, I did. I eventually moved from the bathroom to the bedroom where I mastered the art of climax through my own hands. I still masturbate every now and then, though not as much as I used to. The once new territory has become well developed. That familiar onset of the big O is no longer a stranger, but an old friend, and I love her dearly.



I first started seriously masturbating in the summer of my eighth grade year. I was at summer camp sharing a cabin with five other hormonally-soaked 13-year-old boys, when one day this kid with too little sense and too much space between his eye sockets pulled out of a care package a tube of KY jelly. Now, I had no idea what this mysterious material was, nor was I aware of the immense significance it would come to have in my life, but my friend Kabir—my closest friend at camp and the only one of the six of us with an older brother—honed in on the translucent liquid jackpot immediately.

“Holy crap you guys,” Kabir shouted, snatching the tube from Sloth’s hands, “do you know what this is?” We all stood silent, chewed upon by our ignorance. “KY, guys! This is sex lube!” Kabir had a bizarre half-southern accent that surfaced when he got excited, so the last word came out leeoob, causing me to topple onto my bed and seize with giggles and embarrassment.

“My mom sends me that stuff for my hands,” Sloth whined, reaching for the tube, “it’s a really good moisturizer.”

“Yeah, right. Moisturizer. For your hands. Sure. Listen,” Kabir leaned into the center of the cabin, strangely serious, “tonight we’re going to use this. You guys won’t even believe how good it feels.” The familiar chimera of terror and arousal took hold of my stomach at this prophesy, and I wondered if I would ever be able to fill my lungs with air again.

That night—with our counselor aware of our planned self-reconnaissance and out of the cabin accordingly—we passed the tube from bunk to bunk, a cold metallic baton for our strange and pathetic relay race, and set to work. The cabin itched and groaned with the motion of our trembling bunks, but aside from that the night was silent, disturbed not even by the breath halted in our throats. And then Kabir spoke, booming and proud:

“Done.”

That was all he said. And even though I had absolutely no idea what he was referring to, I refused to settle for anything less than second place and slowed my arm just enough to choke out, “Done.” Instantly the cabin was a chorus of young men singing the finality of their innocence, our voices falling like exhausted popcorn made in a sauna, and even though I had produced nothing and was entirely unsure if I had even done it correctly, the tranquility that followed was so happy and relaxed that I had no choice but to fall deeply and dreadfully in love with masturbation.

Once again, Kabir broke the silence, “Wait a second, guys. Hey, Sloth. I didn’t here you. Did you finish?” Silence. Then, slowly, “No, I didn’t finish. I didn’t want to do that. It’s gross.” The truth of this statement meshed so finely with the beginnings of our freshly ground guilt that I could feel the other kids crumple in their beds, the cabin whining with the pressure of heads slipping under sheets. But Kabir wasn’t having it, “Whatever, dude. You’re missing out. Big time. Freak.”

We performed this collective ritual about six more times in the weeks to come, making it a point to put down Sloth immediately after shouting “Done,” for after all he was the freak in the cabin, not any of us. Masturbating together was what cool kids did, and refusal to join in was a rejection of both brotherhood and pleasure. We teased Sloth about this accordingly, sarcastically asking him about how much he loved masturbating or why he hated being a guy so much. He never answered these questions, and didn’t have to, the turmoil was quieted in our souls regardless.

It took me almost six years to realize that what we had done that summer was weird.

Yes, I’m listening to the Foreigner song while I write this. No, I did not listen to the Foreigner song the first time I masturbated. I took the most obvious title for our month of masturbatory writing and it isn’t really even that fair of me because this isn’t exactly about my first time. It is actually about something that happened a little while after.

The first time I ever masturbated was probably a Monday or Tuesday because I always had my Religion Classes on Wednesday nights. Coming from a family of Catholics, but seeing as I was in a Public School, and seeing as how we went to church at most every other week I was condemned to attend RELIGIOUS EDUCATION PROGRAM classes every Wednesday night from Kindergarten to Junior year in High School.  Every year, one of these classes was set aside for you to attend confession. What a horrible experience. The worst part of which was that I actually did feel better after confessing my sins and being absolved of them. I felt so good that I didn’t even feel like I had to do my penance half the time.

Back to the matter in my hand. Now that I think of it, this is probably the Xth anniversary of the first time I ever masturbated because those yearly confessions were in March so that all the little boys and girls had souls whiter than freshly laundered non-cum stained sheets. This fateful year I came into the church feeling pretty good about myself. I hadn’t killed anyone, hadn’t lied about anything big, and nothing had been stolen by these hands of mine. This particular year we got a fancy new confession accessory; as we entered the church to await our time in the confession room we received a small pamphlet to help us search our souls. (Just a note, we never got a booth. We always just sat in a room at a table facing the priest. I have never been allowed the cloak of anonymity when I confessed. Just brutal, honest eye contact. So brutal in fact that I would make up sins to confess, lest my actual list of sins seem too small.) I scanned the pamphlet, which had each of the 10 commandments listed and the major sin it corresponded to. Underneath each sin was another list of related, but lesser sins. I was cruising through the list when I decided to peruse the list of sins related to adultery to see if there was any titillating material. I thought I could skip the sixth commandment (it is the 6th for us Catholics) because I was acutely aware of the fact that I hadn’t had sex. I was so aware of this fact that I knew it more fully than even the omnipotent God could. I was flying through the list, rather disappointed at the lack of titillating material when I came to an entry that put me into deep freeze. The horror started in my eyeballs and quickly spread throughout my body in a shame aneurysm.

Have you ever masturbated?

YES! I just figured it out! I was so proud of myself! I thought I had discovered a new country of ecstasy! Described a new species of pleasure! Other people knew about this?!?! Other people hated me for it?!?! GOD hated me for it!?!? Oh Holy shit. I was so thrown off balance I didn’t confess anything that year. Just slunk into a pew and hoped I would be overlooked.

When I got home I hid the little pamphlet that had sheparded me into a new world of shame in the same place that I had the adult catalogue that had ushered me into my short lived glory. This hot gooey world of nerve explosions was being drowned out by a world rife with terms like “self-abuse” and “using one’s self as a mere means.” What a bunch of stuffy bull shit. I wasn’t using myself. I loved myself and always took myself out for dinner and dancing first.

What a strange tableau those printed materials made. The pleasures of exploration and the pain of shame wrapped together. The juxtaposition of these discoveries has put me into a strange place. Ever since then I  run hot or cold. Either I have to make the choice to go whole hog into an expansive masturbatory lifestyle so chock full of half hour wank sessions that there is no room for second guessing and guilt or I live a life of masturbatory chastity. There is no middle ground. This might not seem terrible, but I think it is. That little pamphlet has made it hard for me to get to know myself sexually. I haven’t been able to explore or screw up in front of myself. Masturbation is important for that. It is important for allowing you to figure out just what the fuck is going on and how you go on about it. All my screw ups have been while I was screwing and thank god for those excruciating eye to eye confession sessions because the practice of pulling out my sin guts has made it easier to look my partner in the eye and let her know just why I am the way I am. In these cases I always make sure to do my penance with a vim and veracity that would astonish my former priests or maybe make those old, child touching bastards weak in the knees (that isn’t hyperbole, my parish was commonly used as a hide out for way ward touchers).

You know, it has taken years and years, but currently I am drowning my second guessing and guilt in a sea of self abuse. I think my guilt has started in with the cartoony three count and I don’t see the sea getting shallower anytime soon. So maybe my title is apt. I’m slowly making my way back to that very first moment of discovery. I’ve got a map and I’ve got a compass (or is sextant a more loaded metaphor?).