Shame, guilt, and masturbation

Masturbation in the 1960s was at once a pleasure, a mystery, and joy as well as source of guilt, shame, degradation and self-loathing. I had my first self-induced orgasm at 13. It was a dry orgasm. My orgasms would be dry for another year. 

I brought myself to orgasm for the first time on a Sunday afternoon when I was alone in the house. My first orgasm was spectacular! The pulsating pleasure that rippled through me making my hairless little hard-on jump and my asshole twitch with unspeakable pleasure was spectacular. I immediately started doing it several times a day. It should have been the most joyful experience of my life.

We were Catholic. Sex was not a subject for discussion in the family. And, in those days, we guys didn't talk about masturbation. We all did it and made jokes about guys that did it, but many of us did not realize that teenage masturbation is a normal part of growing up at the time. We were, in the view of the church, "solitary sinners," We were perverts for touching ourselves for the purpose of having pleasure. 

And what pleasure it was! But the enjoyment of it was lost in the churches' anti-self-pleasure propaganda rammed down our throats by nuns and priest. What should have been a liberating experience turned into shame and degradation. We were guilty of nothing more than attaining puberty. For that, we were made to feel like depraved perverts. Our souls were lost in our quest for our solitary orgasms. 

I was certain I was going to burn in hell for all eternity for masturbating my little hairless cock! By masturbating myself to orgasm, I was trespassing on territory reserved for married couples, or so we were told. Sex was a pleasurable act that is a reward given by Jesus (that's what the nuns told us, given by Jesus, not by God) to couples who are married in the eyes of the church. Any sex act outside of that restriction was a mortal sin. And even within that restriction, sex was only to be enjoyed without penalty with a cock inside a pussy. No blow jobs. No hand jobs. And certainly no anal sex. The only kind of sex the church wants the faithful to engage in is cock-in-cunt sex that can result in pregnancy. This means that women who have sex after the change of life are committing a sin because they can no longer get pregnant. Yes, sex is for pleasure of the participants, but only if it can result in pregnancy. 

Being a teenager isn't difficult enough but the church had to mindfuck young members to make certain they would have to keep confessing to their masturbation to gain absolution and thus be eligible to go to heaven in case of an untimely demise. It was a win/win situation for the church. They did their best to make kids feel like perverted little shits for just being nothing more than completely normal. Through the dogma and the ridiculous superstitions of church doctrine, this attitude is passed on inter-generationally assuring that that kids who were properly mindfucked would grow up to have kids that would be similarly mindfucked and thus continue this cycle of psychological abuse into future generations assuring the church of (1) future victims to fuck over, and (2) victims who would also, as adults, contribute financially to the church. They gain an expanded membership which contributes money. Religion is not about Jesus. It is about power, control, money.

Whacking my carrot became my daily addiction and the whole sin and guilt thing took on gi-fucking-gantic proportions. Many was the Saturday evening I went to the confessional to unburden myself from the weight of my heinous and perverted acts for the week. I had a crafty technique for dealing with those confessions. 

Catholic priests could only celebrate two masses a day. Since there were three masses each Sunday, an extra priest was required. This was usually a Franciscan friar from nearby Saint Bonaventure University who would come over on Saturday and help Father Grode with confessions on Saturday evening, stay in the rectory overnight, and celebrate the 10:30 mass on Sunday. The trick was to go to the confessional that had the visiting priest in it, that way my pattern of repeated transgressions would not be obvious, and I got off easy with five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys and the slate wiped clean for a new series of sins. Sometimes I still got stuck with our sourpuss parish priest. 

Crossing myself, I whispered “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” through the screen in the darkness of the confessional, hoping he wouldn’t recognize my voice. It was a small parish. “It has been a week since my last confession, and these are my sins.” 

I had an inventory all worked out in my head with the most heinous ones slipped in real fast at the end. I always rehearsed it in my head before going into the confessional. 

“Father…uh…I…uh… took the name of the Lord in vain…and I…uh… disobeyed my parents…twice… and…uh…I…uh…” “…touchedmyselfimpurelyfivetimes! I am sorry for these sins and all the sins of my past life.” 

Then came the lecture. 

“You say you touched yourself impurely five times…” 

Aw shit! It didn’t work. I lied anyway. I said five times. It was at least seven (or more!). I figured the actual number of times I pumped my peter would be between me and Jesus. 

“You’ve got to get ahold of yourself.” 

Strange choice of words, being as that is exactly to what I was confessing. 

“If you can’t exercise some will power and get this tendency under some restraint, Satan will completely take control of your soul, and you’ll have to get psychiatric help.” 

I guess this was the official Catholic version of “if you play with yourself for a hundred days, you’ll go crazy.” Better than going blind, I guess…I already wore glasses…no hair on my palms…yet. 

“…for your penance say ten Our Fathers, ten Hail Marys, a Glory Be and the Apostles’ Creed.” 

Whew! At least it wasn’t the whole goddamned rosary! Being the only one at the communion rail saying a ton of penance while other people were whizzing in and out was about as embarrassing as shitting your pants in a crowded elevator. 

We were encouraged to denigrate "queers," that is how the priest referred to gay people. He said, "There are some people that we call "queer." There is a good reason for that." Never mind that when I was about 14 I walked in on our parish priest sucking another priest's cock in the sacristy! What's a little more moral confusion in my world, fucked as it was?

The church had me so fucked up about masturbation that at one point I was considering self-mutilation so as to remove the means by which I was going to send myself to hell through my acts of masturbation. I had zero self-esteem. THAT is definitely fucked up!

Now in my 70s, I regard masturbation as a gift of immense pleasure we have been given to freely enjoy. Whenever we have the opportunity we can give ourselves a reward of an overwhelming cock-twitching asshole-clenching self-induced orgasm just because we can. The church railed on about masturbation being "unnatural." If we weren't meant to enjoy it, our genitals would not be within such easy reach!

I masturbate daily, and I masturbate my wife as well. I don't always cum and I need Cialis to get hard. But I'm still jerking it! I even get to jack off with another guy from time to time as well as doing some occasional recreational cocksucking! Love it!

I don't know how the church deals with this nowadays as I separated myself from them over a half-century ago. We have one child. I made damned certain her innocence was never tampered with by the church and it's collection of sadistic sexual myths and superstitions. She has thanked her mother and I for making this conscious choice.