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[Please forgive me if this is a duplicate post on your system. My system did not respond "Article posted" after receiving it nor did I see the message 9 hours later when I checked. I'm therefore presuming it didn't make it to the newsgroup the first time around.]
This has been a very interesting thread to follow during the past month or so--to see the variety yet commonality of experience. I hope others will contribute as well.
I'm a naturally very curious person (the "I wonder..." type), and this curiosity displayed itself especially during my adolescence, when I discovered and explored my sexuality. I grew up as a teen in the late '50s and early '60s. There was no such thing as sex education back then (either from my parents or from school). The subject of sex was a forbidden topic at home, so I had to try to find out things on my own. I grew up on a grain farm outside of town, and therefore I didn't really have friends to talk with like the "town kids" did.
I remember around 7th or 8th grade becoming curious about various bodily functions (such as urination and defecation) and about my genitals (probably because they were getting larger than they had been). Physically, I think I was a rather "late bloomer". I believe puberty must have started for me perhaps in late 7th grade or during the summer between 7th and 8th grades. One of the first signals that I remember was the beginning of a voice change. I had always sung first soprano in our school's 4-part treble choir, and, after the 8th grade audition at the beginning of the year, I was quite disappointed that I had been put in an alto voice part. I also remember having erections during 8th grade (maybe even 7th), but I didn't associate these with sexual maturation (though I did note that my penis was growing larger, along with the rest of my body). I don't remember having erections at grade school (I may have had them and just don't remember them), but I know I had a lot of them at home. While sitting on the toilet in the locked bathroom (which happened to have a full length mirror) I would play with my stiff penis and slap it around (often looking at myself in the mirror), but regarding it more as a new plaything than for any kind of sexual stimulation. At the time I hadn't the slightest idea why my penis would sometimes get stiff like that and other times not.
During 8th grade and especially the summer following, my curiosity took a more "scientific" turn. Since I had an interest in astronomy, I had received a refracting telescope from a cousin when he was no longer interested. Quite by accident I discovered that, when the telescope was compressed rather than extended, it greatly magnified objects held close to it--much more so than a magnifying glass might. One of the objects I decided to look at in detail was my circumcised penis. It was fascinating to note the "rough" appearance of the glans skin when magnified, to see the wrinkly frenulum in detail, and to look down the opening a little way into my urethra. I also noticed that on occasion I would see a clear drop of fluid form at the urethral opening of my penis. It was gooey and slippery (rather than watery like typical urine), and it would form lengthy strands if I slowly pulled my finger away after touching it. Not knowing anything about the existence of sexual fluids, I figured that it was probably somehow related to urine and didn't give much further thought to it at the time. (Of course, I now realize that it was precum, probably stimulated by the touching of the glans and frenulum during my "scientific investigations".)
I probably began sprouting pubic hair during 8th grade, but I seem not to have given much thought to it (since I have no strong memories), probably considering it just part of "growing up". I must have had the typical (for an early teen) 1"x3" or so, sparse-to-medium-density patch of hairs, 1/2" to 1" long, growing above and to the sides of my penis by the time I entered 9th grade, since I recall being similar to most other guys in my gym class. However, I remember marveling to myself that a guy whose locker was near to mine had much denser, bushier pubic hair than I had, after seeing him in the locker room during my first physical education class in high school (the first time in my life that I had ever seen other guys naked).
It was probably during 9th grade that I had my first wet dreams. I remember that the first time it happened, the vague dream memory and the physical sensation of urinating awakened me and led me to think I had wet my bed--a very embarrassing situation for someone 14 or 15 years old. In the darkness I could feel that the bed and the front of my pajamas had large wet spots on them. However, another time I woke up when the urinating sensation was just beginning. So I quickly got up and went to the bathroom to urinate, but nothing would come out my erect penis. (I had no idea at that time that a little frictional rubbing just then might have led to my first manual ejaculation--ah, the 20/20 vision of hindsight! As it was, it took me about another year and a half or so to discover masturbation.) Anyway, as my stiff penis became softer and smaller, a sticky, gooey, slightly whitish fluid oozed from the tip. I wiped some onto a finger and smelled it, but (in contrast to later on) it was virtually odorless. I had no idea what was going on. I don't remember being particularly frightened by what was happening--I was probably more puzzled and curious than anything else. In later wet dreams (which occurred at first only very occasionally, maybe once every 2 or 3 months, and which became more frequent by the time I was 16, perhaps every other week or so) I remember a more pungent odor to the sticky, slimy wet spots (if I woke up shortly afterward) and crusty spots on my pajamas on the "morning after".
Since there was no one else to share any knowledge with me about what was going on, I was pretty much on my own. Since these were things happening to me about which I knew nothing, I became intensely curious (and that curiosity has stayed with me to the present, evidencing itself in study and research). At the time, I was nearly completely ignorant of sex. In 8th grade, for example, it became evident among the other boys that I was relatively unknowledgeable about sex, and so they would tease me with questions like "Do you know what spam is?" and then giggle when I naively replied that it was the canned meat product. (In hindsight, I presume this was a reference to sperm, perhaps from masturbation.)
Since I couldn't get information from people, I spent several years looking in libraries for information, trying to satisfy my thirst for knowledge. (Libraries became my friend--maybe that's why I'm now in the library and information science profession.) Public libraries had books that dealt with how animals mated and with the "facts of life" relating to human conception and fetal development, but that was as far as the books went at that time. They told about the "what" but never described the "how" of sexual intercourse, which is what my inquisitive mind was seeking. From my occasional wet dreams, I knew that something wet, sticky, and pungent-smelling came out of my penis other than urine, but there wasn't much "evidence" left after a couple of hours of sleep--only slightly yellowish crusty spots on my pajamas when I awoke. And so I wished I could see whatever it was during daylight and study this part of me I knew hardly anything about. By the summer of my 16th year I was experimenting with trying to collect some of this unknown substance called semen from wet dreams without it disappearing by morning. I tried putting plastic wrap around my penis and lightly keeping it in place with a rubber band before I went to sleep at night, figuring that maybe this might trigger a wet dream. None of the attempts were greatly successful, except that once or twice there were dried whitish blotches on the plastic wrap. (The final time I did this experiment, I remember dreaming about doves or pigeons mating rear to rear, and I especially remember the strong, vivid physical sensation of my own release of fluid (like aching, tensed urination and tremendous pleasure at the relief of letting it flow) simultaneously with the mating animals in my dream. The strong sensations awoke me just then, and I removed the plastic wrap with its reservoir containing my semen, thinking that this ought to be interesting to look at in detail in the morning when it would be light. (I couldn't do it right then at night because my younger brother shared the bedroom.) However, by morning all that remained were dry white patches. So much for these experiments!) There had to be a better way. And so I tried to see if I could determine a way to trigger during the daytime what was happening automatically at night, so that I could see exactly what was going on.
What really urged me on shortly thereafter was that, a couple of days before the event in the next paragraph, I had a difficult bowel movement which required a lot of squeezing and relaxing. From today's 20/20 hindsight, I don't know whether what happened was caused by the repeated squeeze-relax muscle contractions in my groin area or by the hand holding my erection (so it wouldn't touch the toilet bowl) unknowingly slightly rubbing the head of my penis or by a combination of the two. In any case, I got an erection and after a few minutes had a spontaneous ejaculation, similar to what I was experiencing in my wet dreams. Since I was mostly squeezing my muscles quite hard, the sensation was more of pouring out (like urine) rather than rhythmic contractions. I know there was an ejaculation because the pleasurable urination feeling occurred and because I saw some semen come out, but it drained into the water below before I knew what was happening or could do anything about it. I was rather surprised by this (and disappointed at having missed an opportunity to see and study my semen), having not the slightest idea of how or why it had happened or, most important, how to make it happen again. I figured that there must be a way of making this happen in a more controlled manner, and I was determined to do some in-depth research to find out how.
When my parents had retired from farming after my high school freshman year, we had moved to a small university town. It was there, in the university library, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school (probably in July of 1962), that I found a marriage and family textbook (or human sexuality textbook) that finally revealed to me the "missing link" of how sperm got from a man to a woman. This book said that the male places his penis inside the lubricated female vagina and that, after a period of FRICTIONAL IN-AND-OUT MOTION, his orgasm deposits his semen in the vagina. THERE was the secret, finally! This was what I had been trying to find out for 2 years! When I got home later that afternoon (or maybe the next), I decided to try out my new-found knowledge. Up until then, from my wet dream experiences and from my exploratory experiments, I was aware that semen was a sticky white fluid, but I had no control over it. (If there's anything a teenager wants, it's control of his life, and I was seeking such control over the last mysterious part of my body.) Anyway, I went to the bathroom and locked the door (of course!). As I sat on the toilet, I tried to figure out how to simulate the slippery smoothness of a vagina. I decided that enclosing my erect penis in my soaped-up right hand would likely be a rather close simulation. I didn't know what to expect, since the book didn't go into details (in those days details may have been illegal, for all I know!). Anyway, as I stroked up and down (attempting to simulate the in-and-out motion I had read about), I could tell that things were building up and that this was finally going to do it. (I had had wet dreams, of course, and so I knew there were some feelings similar to urinating--that's how I knew this was going to be the REAL thing.) Never having done this before, I didn't know exactly (1) what would happen (the book had said only that the orgasm deposits the semen; I didn't know that there would be several rhythmic spurts), (2) when it would happen (I didn't know that it would initially take only a minute or two of stimulation), or (3) what it would feel like (WOW!). I began to feel a growing tingle as if I were just barely starting to urinate, followed by a strong sensation of urination, and then, all of a sudden, the next thing I knew, I started spurting semen. In my experimental mind set, I had bent forward over my upright penis during the entire stroking time to examine the whole process closely, and I squirted upward nearly 15" right into my eye! What a surprise, what an experience--I had finally done it! I finally had control over the last "mystery" in my teenage life; I was now able to make my semen come out whenever I wanted, so that I could study this mysterious substance. (Little did my parents know that I could use my microscope set for looking at something much more interesting than onion skin cells! It was quite an experience to see all the tiny sperm swimming around so quickly, lashing their tails, and then slowing down and stopping as they began to die when the semen dried.) Of course, what the books didn't indicate was how pleasurable the feelings were during stimulation and ejaculation. So, not only could I now learn more, but I could enjoy myself in the process! My first weeks and months were spent in what seems like nearly constant experimentation, seeing what effect different variations had (strokes, speed, positions, etc.) and doing various measurements (genital size, how much time it took, spurting distance, quantity, etc.).
Once I was in a small den in our basement attempting to measure how far I typically spurted. I was standing at a desk with tissues spread out to catch my ejaculate and with my jeans and briefs around my thighs. I was stroking myself and was almost at the point of climax when I thought I heard someone coming down the basement stairs. Instantly I stopped what I was doing and quickly pulled up my briefs and pants. Interestingly (although unplanned), the action of pulling my briefs up over my erection created just enough friction to push me over the point of no return. I had now lost control, and, no matter what, I had to go with it. This had never happened to me before, and I was a little bit at a loss. What was different from previous times was that there was not any kind of ongoing stimulation; rather, the process had been triggered, and everything was now "on automatic pilot", a sort of domino effect. I was more of a passive observer than an active participant, and this gave me a chance to fully feel the various stages, which I had not experienced before. I felt a feeling of warmth go down my penis and spread throughout my groin; I felt my groin muscles tense and clench hard; I felt the strong sense of urination which heralded my imminent ejaculation; I felt the rhythmic muscular throbs of my penis as my underwear held it against my belly; and I felt the warm wetness of my semen in my underwear and on my belly. As it turned out, the stairway noise was a false alarm, and so I then had to deal with cleaning up the mess inside my underwear. However, the experience was quite interesting from a sensation standpoint, and so I occasionally deliberately rubbed myself through my underwear a couple of times after that to re-live the original experience. This experience is where I first discovered the possibilities involved in playing brinkmanship around the point of no return (or point of ejaculatory inevitability, as others call it). Such experiments have proven to be most instructive about what goes on just before and during ejaculation.
It was only some time later that I found out from my ongoing research that this manual stimulation was called masturbation and that most other guys did it, too. Anyway, I discovered masturbation at age 16 (I was a "late bloomer" compared to most others I've read about), and I've been experimenting and analyzing constantly in the 33 years since then. There's always something new to learn, some nuance I hadn't noticed previously.
My main interest in recent years has been the various sensations involved in stimulation and ejaculation and relating these sensations to what is happening physiologically. Additionally, quite some time ago I began wondering how I compared with other men; I considered myself quite an expert on my own ejaculatory process, but were other men similar or different or what? To help explore these various interests and questions, I began collecting books on the topic of human sexuality (I'd been collecting books on all sorts of other topics, so collecting was not anything particularly new to me). More recently, about 8-10 years ago, I began collecting a wide variety of adult videos as well for purposes of observation and analysis. About the same time, I acquired a video camera and have videotaped myself for visual documentation of many of my observations about my ejaculatory process.
Well, that's the "what" of my interest in sex and sexuality and "how" it all started with my first experiences (and, of course, later it included learning about the female body and how to help bring my late wife to sexual climax, too). After all these years, though, I'm still puzzled about the "why". I've often asked God why I'm so interested in sex but others seem not to be--you know, "why me?" I guess I've come to accept the fact that I can't explain why I'm curious about things (including sex); I just am. In any case, my desire is to use the knowledge gained from my curiosity and research to help others.
Much of the preceding was based primarily on memories I wrote down in 1987, 25 years after I first discovered masturbation. I have a pretty good memory and had been carrying them in my head all these years, but I decided it was better late than never to get them in written form. I wish I had written down more when I was younger, since memories can fade (or worse yet, change or get invented) with age. A word to the wise among those here who are younger (and even most of you already have at least 5 to 10 years or more of sex-related memories): I encourage you to write down your memories now, not someday in the future (even better, journal each of your memorable experiences shortly after they occur); include feelings as well as facts; include as much detail as you can; include as much objective data (dates, times, measurements, drawings, etc.) as you can. What you write doesn't have to be a literary work of art--you can always polish the language someday in the future, if you want. I think you'll be glad you took time to write down your memories when, years from now, you can look back and use your written accounts to vividly recall events from your younger days. I wish you well in this endeavor! (By the way, this technique works for anything in your life you want to remember, not just sex.)
I hope you all enjoyed reading about my first-time experiences!
Harvey Hahn