As a 10-year old kid I was walking around the back of my best friend’s house when he pointed in the window at his sister, who was standing with her back to the door and rubbing one out. The light was on, so we could see her going at it. She was fifteen or so, and I hadn’t seen anything like her. He was used to his sisters traipsing half-naked around his house. But I had three brothers, and I sure didn’t know what she was doing. Obviously she was enjoying it.
Flash forward and our family moved away, and then I saw that same friend when I was sixteen. He asked if I still masturbated and I told the truth. We’d done it side by side sitting on the downstairs couch back when we were twelve and had first learned how. Nothing harmful there.
But he insisted he’d quit. Cold turkey. I asked him why and he gave some vague answer about it making him weaker or lacking discipline. Well, he went on to get married and have three daughters. Then he divorced that wife and found another. His own childhood had been marred by divorce and we’d been really close friends partly as a result of our each finding solace in our childhood world.
During my thirties he moved into our state with his new wife and was cordial enough, but didn’t really try to make up for any lost time. Years after that, we friended on Facebook but as soon as I showed my liberal roots he dumped me.
I’ve often wondered whether his unwillingness to continue our friendship in life had to do with some sort of “split” in our formerly close personalities around the issue of masturbation.
But as a man, it took years and years to put two and two together with his sister rubbing one out. Looking back, it humanizes her to me in an all new way. It’s just ridiculous anyone should be ashamed in any way. Your observations about how it clears your head are spot on. As an artist and writer there have been many times over the years that sexual tension stood in the way of creative pursuits.
