8 Awkward Steps in My Masturbation Education

Repressed parents, lousy porn, and horny friends led to an exceptionally awkward sexual awakening.

When I was in kindergarten, I used to lay in bed butt-naked, spread-eagle, and imagine girls from my class, falling on top of me through the ceiling. Then, we would hug each other very tightly and roll around. At this point, I’d never seen people have sex, nor had I seen porn. I just instinctually wanted a warm body against mine, never suspecting for a minute that this spout between my legs needed to be in any way involved. This weird habit aside, my interests were more in building forts, putting ketchup on chicken, and refusing to take off my blue power ranger outfit. Then, one dark night, everything changed.

Sleepovers were the in-thing in the 90s. Without group texting, if I wanted to interact with my friends, this meant seeing them. I was seven or eight, and my best friend was named Joey. He was cooler than me. This isn’t saying much about Joey, though, since I was still refusing to take off my power ranger costume. It was the middle of the night, and I was almost asleep, tucked innocently beneath a blanket on one couch. At the same time, Joey lay, breathing heavy, on the other. I was almost in dreamland when I found myself shaken awake. Joey was standing over me, and he said:

“Have you ever masturbated before?”

“What?” I asked. And he smiled like adults smile when they find out you haven’t yet heard this really great band. (Yes, kids, surprises get worse and worse the older you get).

“You’ve gotta try it,” he said. He held up a finger, then used his ring and middle fingers to press it into his thumb. He started moving them up and down.

“Do that,” he said, “But — “ and this was the kicker, “with your penis.”

And I did.

Oh, boy, did I.

I don’t remember what happened to my blue power ranger outfit after that.

Related posts:

When it comes to IAM misconfigurations, they should be addressed immediately as bad actors can use them to access an organization's confidential data, with the intent to steal information and damage…

Computers are loaded with sensitive information and data, from the seemingly innocuous (like birthdates) to the kind you’d want carefully guarded (like credit card and social security numbers)…

Storytelling differentiates the average Product Managers from the awesome Product Managers. There is literally no other skill that comes close when it comes to differentiating PMs. Given that PMs…