Lifelong Learning

Let me introduce the main character of this story. He is a lot like me in some respects, but he is also different and some of the things that happened to Bill have not actually happened to me. So let's call him Bill. Bill is a man in his 70's which means that he grew up long ago when sex was rarely talked about, there was no internet, and what he learned about sex came from the Encyclopedia Britannica and Lady Chatterley's Lover. Neither of these sources were very illuminating on the subject of women's sexuality. Although D.H. Lawrence did suggest that Lady Chatterley was pretty keen on having sex, he was vague on the details, and the Encyclopedia Britannica only showed something that looked like a map of canals. As a boy scout Bill had learned about male masturbation from an older boy and had his fair share of group masturbation sessions. Some rather soiled black and white Harrison Marks photography books, bought guiltily and furtively from a market stall, provided the only visual stimulation. The posed models were air-brushed to ensure that whatever was between female legs remained a mystery and pubic hair was never seen. When he was sixteen, Bill went to a naturist movie 'Naked as Nature Intended' but the women in the film were always posed in a peculiar way, with one leg forward, or shown from the rear, to keep the secret of women's sexual parts from him. While Bill and his friends were regularly wanking several times a day, it never occurred to him that girls might be doing anything similar. It never crossed his mind. Even after his marriage, and his growing experience of sex with women, the idea of women wanking was as remote from his mind as the sex life of the sea slug. he didn't know about it and it never occurred to him to him to ask. It was only much later in his life that the subject of female masturbation came up and was hurriedly passed over with embarrassment. But the idea of a woman diddling, fingering or jilling began to take a hold in his mind. It became something of an obsession. Then he met a woman who not only admitted to him that she wanked regularly and enjoyed it immensely but who was willing to talk to him about the technicalities - how she liked to do it, when she did it, how often and what it felt like. She even showed him how she put her index finger in her bush, which was a bright ginger colour, by the way, to find her clitoris and then how she lightly moved her finger over her 'pearl', how she gradually increased the speed and intensity of her movements, how, when she was going to come, she would straighten her legs and point her toes, until she was overcome with a shuddering convulsion that shook her whole body. Unfortunately the relationship with his first girlfriend willing to talk about masturbation didn't last long. She lived far away and they didn't meet again, though she did describe her masturbation habits in a letter, in response to Bill's eager questioning of her solo sexual behaviour. 'I usually do it either last thing at night or first thing in the morning' she wrote. 'I sometimes do it in the bath or in the shower. I use just one finger, either the index finger or my middle finger. I like to keep my nails short, so that I don't scratch myself. Sometime it takes only a minute or two, but sometimes I like to take a really long time. I never look at pornography, because I have a very vivid imagination and can envisage all sorts of sexual situations to get myself off. I tend to get very noisy when I am wanking. I'm sure the man in the flat below must know when I'm having a session. What else do you want to know?' Although Bill did look at pornography, he rarely found it convincing and some of it was clearly abusive which he hated. Why did the man have to 'finish' by wanking himself onto the woman? Why did pornography never show the woman climaxing? Why was it so obviously staged and unreal - the women with false silicon enhanced breasts and men with fake tans? Then he found a website called 'beautiful agony' which showed head and shoulder shots of women (and some men) who are clearly masturbating though you only see their shoulders and maybe arms moving. Their facial expressions show their progress towards climax screwing up their faces with the intensity of the feelings which are overcoming them. This was pretty exciting for Bill, though also frustrating - what exactly were these people doing? A few years later a new site opened called 'Ifeelmyself' and at last all was revealed. At first the quality of the filming was poor, but gradually the quality improved and Bill became entranced by watching the different ways that young women pleasured themselves to a climax. He loved the pleasure the young women were able to give themselves, their self-absorption, their single-minded devotion to achieving sexual fulfilment. The explicit filming left nothing to imagination. At last he could see the girls plunging fingers into their vagina, rubbing their clit, or using a dildo. He was fascinated by the variety of methods used. Some were rough with themselves beating their clit with a violence that surprised him. Some used a deft flickering of fingers over their genitals like strumming a guitar. Some moved slowly, stroking themselves with gentle movements, while others moved their fingers so fast they became a blur. They opened their legs wide, or clenched them together; they lay on their backs or face-down; some stimulated their breasts while others ignored them completely; some were almost silent while others screamed and shouted as they came. The scenes are set in many different places - the studio bed, gardens, attics, stairways, on waste ground and public places. All show a girl masturbating to climax in full, beautiful colour. When Bill discovered SoloTouch he was given more insights into the sexual experience of young girls and women of all ages. He discovered that some women are sexually aroused several times a day and need to relieve themselves in a way that he thought was exclusively a male habit. He discovered more about what they fantasised about and how they brought themselves to a climax. The final step in Bill's journey to understanding female solo sexuality came when he met the woman who became his wife several years later. She talked about masturbating as soon as they got intimate and they read stories from SoloTouch together. She would often masturbate while Bill was fucking her. Yes, you can do both, he discovered. He fingers flicked over her clit while his penis was still deep inside her. When they were still living apart each would masturbate while on the phone, as they shared fantasies, hopes and desires. Now they are together, they sometimes masturbate together each 'doing their own thing' and sometimes they masturbate each other. So masturbation has become just one of the many options, one of many different ways of having loving sex together. Does that mean Bill's appetite for watching girls masturbate has diminished? Not at all. He loves to watch his wife fingering herself, but he is also still endlessly fascinated by the girls of IFM, some of whom seem to have become familiar as friends. He reads SoloTouch, especially stories where girls write about their masturbation experiences. Bill masturbates regularly when he's alone, even though, as he gets older, it takes longer for him to come. He knows more about women's sexuality now than he did all those years ago when he knew so little, but he knows that he has more to learn yet - and always will.