Thoughts on just being a guy

[sebbie]

Part XVII

Every once and awhile I like to do some searching and reading on the Internet on topics that interest me, but especially on topics where I am thinking that my own thoughts and ideas perhaps have become out of date. There is no more interesting topic than masturbation. Some of my readers may not know that I had my prostate surgically removed 5 years ago, and I was also interested in seeing how the subject of male masturbation was currently being addressed with respect to its use in prostate surgery recovery.

But first, let me summarize what I learned from the general discussions of masturbation from web sites such as http://healthystrokes.com but many others as well, focusing on males.

Interestingly, the writers on the subject usually are female. This in some ways is encouraging, but in other ways there are biases and things females still tend to get flat-out wrong about males. There is better understanding than in the past, but there are still understanding gaps on the part of females talking about the subject. Having said that, let me summarize and draw some conclusions.

1. For males, straight and gay, the number of orgasms a guy has via masturbation will greatly dwarf the number of orgasms he will have via partner sex in which the penis is inside the partner when the orgasm happens. Based on what I have read, I have been attempting to put a ballpark number on this. The number I come up with is 50. I am thinking of this as an average number across a spectrum of males with a wide range of wages, different sexual orientations, both in and out of relationships. In short, if we were to get an average for all these males, the average would be that the male will have 50 masturbation orgasms for each partner sex orgasm in which the organs are together.

2. My concern with the number 50 is that it may be too low not too high. I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there with much higher numbers. Plus a few who claim that they never have an orgasm without the participation of their partner. Plus some guys who claim they have had sex with 50 or 100 different females and also lie when they say they never masturbate.

3. In short, frequent masturbation is really part of who we are for the vast majority of guys, but the tricky part is figuring out how to get into a workable routine in the face of being in close quarters, say in a college dorm room or in a military situation. If what I am reading is correct, male college students living in dorms or other close quarters generally are a little more open about the issue than we were 50 years ago, but this remains an interesting puzzle college roommates need to resolve in such a living situation.

4. The good news is that females generally now recognize that males masturbate a lot even if they are in a relationship, and there is not the disgust and anger over the whole idea that may have existed 50 years ago. Too, it appears that there is a growing appreciation for the idea that male-female mutual masturbation is a viable and less risky option than “real” sex in any instance where the couple does not want to face the issues associated with real sex, (starting with birth control). A lot can be said for forms of sexual interaction that get only to “third” base. Plus, both partners may learn a lot about what exactly makes the other happy in this setting sans coitus.

5. Increasingly, females are starting to see female masturbation as not a bad but a good thing though my number for females would be smaller than for the men, perhaps 25 not 50. But the guilt associated with female masturbation seems to be gradually evaporating, even as female roommates struggle with some of the same “how do I deal with this” issue the guys have to resolve.

6. Generally speaking, the women writing on male masturbation tend to think that guys nearly always masturbate by simply stroking the bare penis with a bare hand, though admitting that technique is less than perfect and that some guys may use a lubricant such as a hand lotion. I think this idea comes from the thought that a masturbating female might logically do it to herself.

7. In reality, masturbating by stroking a bare penis with one’s bare hand is not a common way for a guy to masturbate despite what the female writers seem to think. Most of the time when a guy masturbates he is wearing something. I suppose the lone major exception is the guy who favors masturbating in the shower. The soap and water then acts as a “lubricant” and the “evidence” washes right down the drain. However, most guys probably masturbate wearing an article of clothing. This strategy is popular for several reasons. First, the guy is not naked and therefore not able to in any way hide that he is wanking should someone such as a roommate show up unexpectedly. Second, the clothing item captures the ejaculated semen so that cleanup simply involves putting the garment into the laundry bag to be washed, and, perhaps most importantly. The cloth can provide the lubricant or smooth feeling sensation missing from bare hand on bare penis. Wearing a smooth-textured slick-feeling garment (Swimsuit anyone?) as bedtime wear makes a whole lot of sense for the guy who likes to masturbate at night, roommate or not. Go to any department store and you will see lots of men’s underwear items made of slick smooth fabric that would make great masturbation nightwear and every guy needs to maintain a stock of these.

8. An interesting puzzle is whether or not college roommates can be open enough with their roommates to be able to be frank about what is really happening and then open enough to share and trade ideas and approaches in this area. Fifty years ago, most certainly “no” but nowadays? That is an interesting puzzle.

To be continued…
 

[sebbie]

Part XVIII

Traditionally, men have been conditioned to believe that intercourse with a female was good. After all, that might lead to new life. But conversely, any other form of sex was wrong or unacceptable. Interestingly this view tossed masturbation together in with gay sexual behaviors of any form, and I guess is a reason why young bully guys sometimes accuse another guy unfortunately caught masturbating as being gay. This is not something a “real” male would ever do never mind that nearly every male is masturbating but hasn’t yet gotten “caught”.

I was interested in finding out what the current medical thinking was with regard to the possible usefulness of male masturbation as a method of treating prostate surgery patients after surgery and whether the medical profession saw any role for male “self-abuse” as a post-surgical treatment of sorts.

Think about this. Any sort of activity in which sexual arousal happens to a certain degree is going to put the human body under stress. We may be conditioned to believe that any sort of stress is a bad thing, but thing about a body builder who uses weight conditioning in an effort to build muscle and make a stronger body than would be the case without being stressed by the weightlifting. Or, think of the issues an orbiting astronaut faces in the absence of gravity. So being stressed is not necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on what the specific stress happens to be.

Under stress, the body responds in certain ways, some automatic, some nearly so. Heart rate and blood pressure rises, for example. But, the stress associated with, say running, is very different from the stress that occurs during arousal, though some of the same events happen.

A lack of stress can lead to physical problems down the road. Think of the astronaut working in a weightless environment. Muscles weaken, including the heart, and so long term working under weightless conditions requires an exercise regimen to keep muscles working and not being subject to atrophy.

I know a lot of stuff from simply having been there. Pre-surgery I was told that one side effect of the surgery was that I might not be able to get an erection at all, or if I did it might be weak but could improve over time. But, I was assured that I could still have orgasms. Actually, I learned how this could happen already next to a jet in my hot tub. That is a weird feeling of going from nothing to ejaculation in less than 30 seconds, almost as if the semen was being sucked from my body by some giant external force.

Think about this: a guy comes home from surgery knowing that at least for a time, he will be unable to have an erection. If he has a female partner he will not be able to engage in intercourse. So, the likely response will be “we can forgat about having “real” sex for a year (or two, or three…)

So what does the guy do post-surgery? Well maybe just crawl off in a corner and decide that he is stuck in a life with no more erections. And after all, is it even meaningful to have an orgasm without an erection?

I do not have a wife or other sexual partner, but I do have a long list of things that I like to do and these have made me a sexually a very happy person. I’ve probably told you about a few of these already and maybe even dropped hints that this particular idea could do neat things for youto try on your own. Even I was not going to sit down with my urologist surgeon and explain all of this. After all he had surgeries to do. But suddenly, if I am going toi be able to reacquire my ability to get an erection, a lot of this stuff I have been suggesting becomes very important.

As a few of you perhaps know already I am particularly fond of garments that help me to constantly think about my penis and groin area. A snug fitting swim brief, for example, or a strap covered by a pair of compression shorts. And, I am reading that anything that keeps me aroused, if even only a little bit, is useful treatment post surgery. Are the urologists recommending this as a post-surgical prostate surgery “treatment” of sorts? Well sort of. I suppose if I had a real sexual partner, that person could work overtime to keep me horny by touching and playing with various body parts as a treatment, even as I try to do the same thing for my partner. But this is not penis-vagina sex. It is an interesting form mutual masturbation in the absence of the ability to get a strong enough erection for penetration.

MOST of the post-surgical discussions I encountered on the Internet apply to a couple where the guy can no longer get an erection. Most of the stuff on the Internet says that with luck, erections may return after a year or two of healing but they would be weaker and not as hard. I have some actual data on that. Pre-surgery I was at most 6 ½ to 6 ¾ inches hard 5 years after surgery, the best number I can come up with is 5-5 ¼ inches and not as hard. But I do have orgasms, dry but powerful. And I have not lost my interest in masturbation techniques.

So the Internet is awash with post surgical prostate guy with wives--guys who can no longer get hard enough for “real” coitus. What to do? WELL, this is the point for both partners to learn about the wonders of mutual masturbation as opposed to penis in vagina. The wife is going to learn exactly where he likes to be touched and how. Meanwhile, he is going to learn some of the details of where SHE likes to be played with that he never bothered to learn when they were both regularly engaged in partner sex. And some of the guys even write that because of this event, the relationship, now built around mutual masturbation not coitus, has reached a whole new level.

In gay anal intercourse, the prostate gland plays an important role for the pleasure of the guy being penetrated, and if the guy no longer even has a prostate or the ability to get a firm erection, this could be a potential relationship problem. Most of the discussion on the Internet centers on post-surgical issues heterosexual couples face, and there is only passing reference to the possibility that the surgery may mean major changes for gay couples as well.

Any number of articles where masturbation is mentioned as a post-surgical treatment after prostate removal are out there, including several written by faculty at major medical centers. The doctors are all endorsing masturbation as the best first method for regaining one’s sexual health after surgery, but in some cases are also suggesting that frequent masturbation is an essential part of rebuilding a guy’s capability to have a decent erection after surgery, and that this is something that could and should take place.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XIX

One fascinating way to look at arousal extending from an initial arousal all the way through to orgasm is that it is simply a form of stress. Thinking about stress unrelated to sex, human beings cycle back and forth between periods of stress and periods of no-stress. While stress may be thought of as primarily having to do with the mind it is usually accompanied by physical changes to the body which often includes things such as blood pressure, heart rate etc. When it comes to stress the mind and body are clearly quite intertwined.

You might think that stress is always a bad thing and to be avoided no matter what, and that the ideal life is stress-free. But if that were the case, humanity would have not achieved a wide assortment of goals that were achieved under stress and probably would have been impossible without stress. Accomplishments in stressed-out situations occur in a wide variety of activities, astronauts, sports heroes, people who save lives of others, and arguably many people actually perform better not worse when quite stressed out.

The college student about to take a tough exam might actually perform better on the exam because of the stressed out condition. The athlete seeking to score the winning basket might somehow make what appeared to be a near impossible effort work to win the game. High-pressure situations can turn out very well.

With respect to sexual feelings and arousal, it may be helpful to realize that anything that leads to arousal is a (perhaps curious) form of stress. Given that it might be helpful to think about ways in which the mind and body copes with stress in non-sexual situations and perhaps use what we know to better deal with stress in sexual arousal.

Once a guy achieves puberty, a guy’s mind quickly focuses on two different ideas that conflict. Idea 1 is how much sheer fun and pure enjoyment is readily available and accessible in his groin. Idea 2 is a near constant worry that something is going to happen in which the sheer pleasure of sexual arousal will occur in a time or place in which he no longer can maintain control. The stressed-out situation happens not only because his body is undergoing physical changes as arousal takes place, but also because of the near constant fear that the guy is going to perhaps quickly get into a situation whereby he can no longer shut down whatever is happening to him.

Think about a guy in a gym locker room who is not only aroused for some perhaps unclear reason, but everything is quickly getting to a point whereby he no longer can delay having an orgasm. But male peers are wandering about the locker room, and at least a couple of them have noticed the predicament he is in. Even though being hard is really pleasurable, the overwhelming stress here is one of sheer fear, maybe even terror. And even if a guy has never experienced a real-world situation like this, guys constantly worry that this could happen to them. This leads to a huge amount of stress.

Or, think about a swim team that must wear swim briefs for a meet and some of the participants have never done that before. These guys probably worry that their bodies are going to react to this situation in ways that could be quite embarrassing. A partial erection in the locker room pales to the fear of still having an erection when the guy goes out to swim in front of a crowd of people. And, horror of horrors, what if something really terrible should happen, say a full orgasm complete with a pulsating penis clearly visible by the crowd under the skimpy swimwear? This is terrifying stress for guys.

The other stressful situation is in early dating, where a lot of guys perhaps foolishly believe that getting a hard-on when dating a female is a good, more than acceptable or desirable thing to happen. This morphs into the idea that if this doesn’t happen on schedule like clockwork the female with think he is an unattractive date. Again we get back to the notion that guys would like to be able to turn sexual arousal off and on like a water spigot using the mind as the control box, but somehow that is not how it usually works, at least not a lot of the time.

Or consider an older male who has a difficulty in getting and maintaining an erection for a mate. The inability to direct the penis to do what the guy thinks it should itself becomes a stressful situation which makes mate apprehensive and stressed-out.

If a guy masturbates by seeing how quickly and efficiently he can get off without detection, he does not learn the fine skills necessary to cope with these varied and interesting situations. There is no better way of learning how to NOT a degree of control over one’s erection than masturbating this way under time or fear of being discovered pressure.

The problem is that guys all need private time alone to explore their own bodies that does not involve getting off in a hurry to avoid being caught doing “something he shouldn’t be doing.” If a guy has a fear, say a fear of putting on a swim brief because he could end up hard, then he needs to get himself a swim brief, take it home and experiment with his body in private. Better an orgasm happens in private than in the locker room or in front of a crowd at a meet. A guy can “train himself” in such a situation such that wearing a swim brief is less stressful.

Adult males generally face too problems in sexual relations. These are either ejaculating too quickly (premature ejaculation) or too slowly (delayed ejaculation). Both of these can be treatable medical conditions, although I will say that many guys struggling with premature ejaculation with their sexual partners may have inadvertently “taught” themselves how to do this as teenagers when they found ways to masturbate quickly to orgasm without being discovered by others.

Finally, I would encourage every guy to face his “demons”, especially with respect to items of clothing that might lead to an erection or orgasm. If a guy fears that in wearing a swim brief he might get an erection and perhaps even ejaculate, there is no substitute for buying a swim brief and getting into it for the first time in the privacy of a bedroom, and see exactly how the penis actually responds as opposed to how the guy thinks it might respond having never actually worn a swim brief.

The same goes for other clothing items guys think might cause “problems” in this respect: compression gear, athletic supporters of various shapes and sizes, football pants, wrestling singlets etc. Now if you could only figure out a suitable line to feed your younger brother when he asks you “why are you wearing that?”

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XX

As he is growing up, every guy probably develops something of a “list” of clothing items that make him apprehensive if he got himself in a situation where he was expected to wear one of them. A number of these items tend to be related to athletics of various kinds, though this is not necessarily always true.

Males discover at a very early age that sexual arousal is something that is considered normal if this happens in the presence of a sexual partner, traditionally a female about the same age. But it doesn’t take long for a guy to also learn that sexual arousal sometimes happens without any particular reason at all, and quite frequently not when a person of the opposite sex is present.

Think of the guy who gets aroused simply thinking about putting on a swim brief, as a classic example of a non-sexual arousal “triggering” method. Guys are not supposed to get aroused just by wearing an article of clothing. That can’t be considered normal, or can it?

I suspect that most guys have lists of specific clothing items that they are apprehensive about wearing for fear of getting an accidental hard-on and the potential embarrassing consequences if that should happen when other guys are present.

Swim briefs are just the classic male fear garment. There are others. Athletic supporters with a hard cup or not, compression gear, snug-fitting football uniform pants, wrestling singlets. The list of possible items can quickly get quite long. Not every guy will have the same items on his list, but these illustrate the idea.

Guys have to live with the realization that although it would be nice if the male brain could turn sexual arousal on and off at will, this is normally not the case and this inability is a source of great concern for a lot of guys. Guys all realize that getting aroused is really enjoyable, even in the absence of a sexual partner. In addition, if the guy starts to understand that the garment can stimulate him sexually, it quickly becomes useful when jerking off.

So often the same guy who is apprehensive about getting into a swim brief in a gym locker room may secretly want to do exactly the same thing in a swim brief and enjoy his body that way. Except that is not “normal” or is it? And what explanation does a guy concoct for wanting or having a swim brief for a parent, sibling or even a college roommate? And what in the world does a guy do with his swim brief hangup if he decides to get married, anyway?

Does this guy have a problem that needs to somehow be addressed, or not? My advice on all of this is that every guy needs to come up with the courage to face his demons. Part of facing the demons is specifically NOT to try and avoid the specific items that tend to make you horny. Maybe if you climb into a swim brief every day this will become familiar and therefore normal to you, and you will have less of a tendency to get a hard on. But maybe not. By facing your demons directly, at least you will find out. And why should a guy be unhappy if he discovers he likes to jerk off wearing a swim brief?

The trickier question is what to do with this if you enter a sexual relationship with a partner? Should the partner be told? Should you destroy the items you enjoy so much before the marriage.

I assume that two males in a gay relationship will be able to deal with this more easily than a male-female couple, but I have no direct information on that given the role that these garments might play in gay mutual masturbation. But what I have told you will likely to be all new to most females, whose moms never covered THAT subject for sure.

I still say every guy needs to find a way to confront his personal demons.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXI

Assume that a guy, say you, gets aroused at the mere thought of, say, wearing a snug-fitting clothing item, for example a swimming brief, and this is something that you not only realize but have been dealing with perhaps ever since you went through puberty. Your little “affliction” gives you a lot of pleasure, and you fondly recall the first time you managed to figure out a way to get yourself your first swimming brief and to try it on at home, for the very first time, in private and in front of a mirror.

Just doing this gets you hard and erect, actually very hard and erect. Merely seeing your own body respond like this is in itself erotic, very erotic. The urge to ejaculate right inside the new swimming brief you have just gotten into is getting tougher and tougher to keep from happening, but the harder you get the more your body seems to be telling you that it is really enjoying the situation you are in.

You soon burst forth with the most powerful orgasm and ejaculation you can ever remember having. Powerful muscular spasms occur over and over in rapid succession, each one more mind-blowing that the last. Your now wine-red penis seems to pulsate with each heartbeat. Somehow the slick little brief is containing the creamy-white cum even as big damp spots soak through several different places on the front of the brief. You honestly believe that this was the most-powerful and longest-lasting orgasm you have ever had.

You are really happy that you were able to finally get yourself your own little swim brief in order to try this, and look forward to using this brief as a method for jerking off again and again. This was an even better experience than you could have ever imagined just thinking about it.

This was so much wild and crazy fun, and already you are completely “hooked”, both psychologically and physically. But at another level you are worried as well. For starters what you are doing to and with yourself is very different from how you see male sexuality portrayed elsewhere. Coming-of-age movies, for example, depict guys having sexual encounters with females their own age. What does this mean, anyway, if I like to do this to and by myself, with absolutely no one else present? Clearly this cannot be something gay since another guy is not present even to watch me play with my own body. It’s just plain ordinary solo sex albeit with the slight wrinkle involving the use of the snug-fitting brief. This whole idea of getting really turned on by just observing one’s own erection inside a swim brief cannot be normal either, or is it. Do the other guys near my age know about this and maybe even do the same thing?

Other knotty questions pop into your mind. If the whole point of sex is to make sure that the human species continues, why in the world were you built to enjoy this purely solo-sex activity so much? Shouldn’t you only get turned on like this in the presence of a sexual partner? What gives, anyway? Can the extraordinarily fun stuff I am doing with my own body in private in front of a mirror possibly be something other guys secretly do to and with themselves as well?

And how am I going to handle it if someone else, anyone else, accidentally discovers what I enjoy doing so much. Surely this needs to all be as carefully-guarded secret as one can ever imagine having to keep. No guy would ever talk about or admit to doing this in a conversation with any other person, that is for certain.

Which brings me finally to this. What if someone invented a marvelous mystery pill, a pill that if only taken one time, would rid you entirely of the problem of getting erections and masturbating in any type of snug-fitting clothing, including a swim brief? After the guy takes the mystery pill, the guy’s mental and physical body reprograms itself to ensure that the guy will only get aroused and he will only be able to obtain a hard-on in the presence of a sexual partner. Therefore all the apprehension about wearing some article of snug-fitting clothing and ending up erect suddenly vanishes entirely. Male sexual arousal for the pill taker now works just as it is depicted in the coming-of-age movies where erections and ejaculations happen only in the presence of a (usually female) partner.

Given that, do guys who have the described “affliction” really want to be rid of it? Would your life be a happier one without it if it meant that you would only get a hard-on in a real-life sexual encounter with another person? The thought question therefore is “Would YOU take the magic mystery pill in order to be as “normal” as you somehow think your male peers are?”

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXII

“Those will likely fit a little snugger than what you have been wearing” says the department store sales clerk. Something very interesting happens in a guy’s brain when he hears those words. For many guys, perhaps most guys, it is almost as if some sort of curious male-arousal “switch” suddenly gets flipped to the “on” position.

Maybe I am saying something here that nearly every guy already knows to be the case. I haven’t even said anything about what the item the guy is thinking about buying actually might be. A pair of narrow-cut jeans? Some underwear? Swimwear? Whatever it is that fits more snuggly than the guy is used to I assume will fit around the groin area, and perhaps put the guy’s penis in new situation that is a bit more “confining” than the guy has been “used” to on a daily basis.

For me at least, those words by the sales clerk would be enough to set off an automatic switch sending me immediately into an involuntary precum-oozing mode. This same involuntary reflex no doubt “hits” other guys in much the same way. It’s weird. On one hand the fact that I cannot control the reflex is more than a little scary but also, well, most interesting. Every guy worries that if he starts to precum he will soon be in a condition whereby the only way “out” of the predicament will be to deal with an increasingly obvious erection. And to deal with that will soon mean that an orgasm will be the only feasible way out. Not one of those “socially-acceptable” orgasms that might occur together with a female partner, but one of those crazy ones that seems to be happening for no apparent reason at a time or in a place that might not be the most private..

It takes some time for guys to fully understand that they can be in full precum mode for substantial amounts of time and still continue to function without getting significantly erect. That is what the term “feeling horny” translated really means. The guy who says he is feeling horny probably indirectly is saying that he can feel the viscous ooze forming at the tip of his penis and making his underwear damp there. Generally this phrase does not mean that a guy is in imminent danger of getting really hard and ejaculating uncontrollably. It takes guys awhile to pick up on these details about how being male both mind and body really works. A lot of this is subtle.

So, guys develop what I sometimes call a love-hate relationship with garments that the sales clerk refers to as “fitting more snuggly than what you have been wearing.” Once a guy gets past puberty he then realizes that feeling horny is a really interesting and enjoyable place to be even in the absence of partner-sex. And he has probably picked up on what I call some personal “triggering mechanisms” that will cause the “horny central” mechanism in the brain to flip the switch to “on” so to speak. This is fascinating stuff from a biological perspective, because this switch is connected directly to the obscure glands called the cowpers gland, and the cowpers is completely separate from the main semen-producing glands. There are two somewhat disconnected mechanisms at work in male sexual response. A lot of guys have no idea about that, or they figure that out only later in life. This information is not something you would likely see in a health education book designed for 6th graders!

So, on one hand the guy wants the clothing item that he thinks will flip his cowpers into ooze-production mode, but is squeamish about the possibility that the same garment could fit sufficiently snug to send him into an “I’m getting hard” mode or even “I really need to ejaculate” mode. Guys like very much being in ooze-production mode, but they are wary about where this all might lead.

Of course, dating behavior for guys with another person is driven by all of this as well. Guys go out on dates and spend money dating in large measure because the entire event is a great opportunity to get the cowpers pumping ooze. Where this goes beyond that is a fascinating question to ponder. A lot of guys are more than happy to spend time, energy and money on a date with a pretty girl even if the night was only a good ooze-producer and does not conclude with an erection and partner orgasm. Indeed, guys frequently attempt to choose mates for dating on the basis of the degree to which that person flips the ooze-production switch!

Or, a lot of guys come home from a date and then masturbate to the point where they quickly get fully erect and then ejaculate alone, while dreaming about doing the same thing with the very person they just dated. Spending an entire evening in ooze-production mode will tend to do this to guys. This is a lot of fun but sometimes drives guys more-or-less bananas as well. There are a lot more ways for a guy to have a sexual response than having “real” partner sex, and probably a lot more dates end up with the guy doing this than end with a copulation event with the partner! Of course, guys would never ever admit that this is how dating works for them. Every hot date is supposed to conclude with the couple doing the real thing! That is the idealized world but not the reality of the world guys live in.

So, what about the snug-fitting garment then? Guys eventually decide to buy these items because they think that the garment will be a way of flipping the switch that turns on the cowpers without having to bother going on a date, and to better understand the nuances of male arousal. Unlike a full-blown erection, it is possible to ooze precum while more or less being engaged in other activities that are not particularly or even at all sexual. A guy on a date at a fancy restaurant with a pretty girl somehow still manages to function at various non-sexual levels while in full-precum mode. Long ago I discovered that my exercise routine seems to move along a lot faster if I am oozing precum at the same time, and that some of the routine, particularly the stationary rowing part, seems to actually help the process along.

Still, there are certain things I would not attempt while in precum mode. Taking a tough exam in a college course is an example. Or, any other activity that is going to require your full-and-concentrated attention.

So, guys are interested in owning garments that they believe might switch on the horny mode because of the specific snug fit and feel in part because this represents an interesting and fun way to run rewarding experiments and spend maybe a pleasant and leisurely afternoon better understanding how their own body works. There is nothing at all wrong with this. Indeed this is an excellent way for a guy to learn some stuff about himself and how his body works and even to prepare himself in the event that a life with a sexual partner happens at some point.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXIII

What I have described with regard to the details of how sexual arousal works for guys is not something that guys only discovered in recent history. This is how it has always worked and the mechanisms that have always been in place. Guys have always been sensitive about wearing snug-fitting clothing, and it is interesting to attempt to trace some of the history of exactly when and how that happened.

This history takes us down the path of the history of men’s underwear along with side trips to other kinds of snug-fitting garments such as swim briefs and athletic supporters. Men’s underwear design is the place to start the analysis, in large measure because this has long been the one item that was going to come in close contact with the male penis.

The development of underwear is closely intertwines with the history of the Jockey® company, best known for inventing the Jockey® brief. Their Web site contains a detailed history of the company from its inception is at the link https://www.Jockey.com/ourcompany/ourhistory

From that site we learn that the Jockey® company dates from the early 1900s and that for some time. From 1902- on the company manufactured what were called Union Suits. These were a cotton undergarment that covered everything from neck to ankle. I have difficulty imagining guys wearing these heavy undergarments on warm summer days, but apparently that is what they did. It was not until 1928 when they started manufacturing knee length garments with sleeveless shirts, initially all one-piece but soon the shorts were made as a separate garment from the sleeveless shirt.

The now-famous Jockey® cotton brief did not arrive until 1935. The site indicates that someone at Jockey® saw a post card picturing a man wearing a brief-style swimsuit on the French Riviera and decided that the brief design might be a logical choice for a men’s underwear brief. The short story is that the Jockey® cotton brief was suddenly a huge hit with men, tired of the bigger-loose-fitting designs that came before.

I have an “R”-rated explanation as to why all of a sudden every guy wanted a pair of “Jockey® shorts and I have my own theory as to what was really going on in the minds of guys suddenly purchasing these briefs. Unlike the earlier, looser designs where certain parts of the male anatomy were easily shielded from view, for the guy wearing the cotton brief the male anatomy was quite obvious even if covered in coarse-textured cloth.

Some guys probably were apprehensive about having critical anatomical features in such plain sight, but most guys realized that the briefs were going to be covered with other clothing anyway so that was no big deal. And the briefs soared in popularity.

Now, what goes on in a guy’s mind and body today is no different from what must have been the case right after Jockey® briefs were introduced. Even back then guys probably still had a “love-hate” relationship with snug-fitting clothing coming in contact with the male genitalia. For some guys at least, it must have occurred to them that a Jockey® brief was more than just daily underwear. Snug-fitting briefs have a way of tripping wires and setting off male arousal triggering mechanisms.

So, was this also the case from the moment the brief arrived at stores in the mid 1930s? It is tough to believe that the things that go on with men were that much different from how they work today. Could it be that one reason for the immediate popularity of the Jockey® brief was that some guys decided that if their wives or girlfriends saw them wearing one including how the male anatomy fit the brief that the wife or girlfriend would get turned on herself?

But another more deeply hidden explanation might also be accurate. Could it have dawned on a few men that a Jockey® brief was the then perfect garment for male masturbation? Clearly the fit of the garment was such that it was going to tug on and rub against places that guys would like to have tugged and rubbed. Was this the real motivation and source of sales that was sending the demand for briefs sky high?

I come back to the old idea that masturbation is a lot of fun but covering one’s tracks can get tricky without some help. But a guy could shoot cum in a cotton Jockey® brief and thus contain himself and then do cleanup by simply tossing the brief into the weekly wash. No one else needed to be the wiser as to what was really going on. Jockey® had accidentally managed to design a near perfect garment for male masturbation. A snug-fitting cotton garment that contained the cum from an orgasm, yet was reusable with a simple cleanup in the weekly wash! Carefully keeping what you just did and your tracks covered and hidden from view is an important part of developing successful masturbation techniques. What a superb idea these cotton briefs!

I grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s. In the 1950s there were only two underwear designs popular with men for summer wear. By far the most popular was the men’s white cotton brief. The only other style that was worn to any degree was a cotton garment that was constructed the same as the brief but had slightly longer legs. Today we call those boxer briefs. And at least in the 1950s, mens underwear was always white cotton, no colors or other smoother-textured materials.

So, in the 1950s nearly all the guys I knew were wearing cotton briefs. They were growing rapidly too, so the briefs often quickly got a little to a lot undersized. I therefore conclude that most of the guys my age learned the finer points of masturbation techniques wearing a cotton brief, perhaps Jockey® but by the brands like Fruit-of-the-Loom® and Hanes® were available as well. The Jockey® brand with the “y” front was the “premium” product.

By the 1960s, men’s cotton briefs in colors were coming available as well as a few briefs made of colored materials such a slick nylon blend. Most guys thought these new trends were a bit “girlish” and stuck with their white cotton briefs, but a few of the guys were wondering how that slick nylon brief material would feel rubbing against the underside of an erect penis, and got up enough nerve to try out the new idea. And guys kept purchasing new underwear in part based on the perception that the new garment could perhaps prove to be a valuable aid in masturbation. This in addition to what the girlfriend might think is neat or sexy should the situation arise.

Candidly, these perceptions drive a lot of underwear sales even today, guys seeking out just the right cut and material to wear while masturbating. At some level the underwear manufacturers all must be aware of this. Of course, no guy would ever want to admit to what I have told you, at least not the masturbation part!

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXIV

The idea that the proper warmer-weather underwear for guys should be either a brief or boxer-brief style made of white cotton material was largely the accepted thinking in the 1950s and then into the 1960s. Even ribbed cotton briefs in colors other than white were largely frowned upon, perhaps in part because of the fear that a brief in black or navy could not be washed with the white clothing for fear of dye transfer to the other clothes in the wash. But as the 1960s ran down, colored dyes were improving and the idea of a guy wearing a cotton brief in a color other than white was starting to be possible. Still nothing radical. A light gray cotton brief was certainly possible, and for the more daring, the same brief in black or dark navy blue. Bright blue or red was still out of the question.

It was not until the 1970s that underwear manufacturers started experimenting with selling underwear to men in fabrics other than the usual ribbed cotton material. Women, of course had been wearing nylon briefs (aka panties) for some time, and the fear in the case of men’s underwear was to end up with a product that looked too much like the products being sold to women. Men’s underwear and women’s underwear had to be different.

The other issue was the fly. Traditionally, this was a required item for any underwear sold to men. But, if the new designs were going to be cut skimpier, with a lower rise than a standard brief, then at some point the cut got so low that the guy could just flip himself over the top of the waistband with no need for a fly.

At this point we have all of the components of a men’s bikini-style brief, aside from the idea that the design, cut and material may still appear to be too “girlish” for a guy to wear. What, a smooth, stretchy material, a skimpy cut that fit at the waist well below the belly button, and the complete absence of the fly? Could this ever be sold as an undergarment to a real guy? Initially it was thought that while this design might have some appeal to gay guys it would never work as something a straight guy consider wearing.

I like to think about the demand for men’s underwear to be divided into subgroups or categories. The first and largest subgroup is the underwear styles and cuts an ordinary “normal” guy (read normal as the typical straight guy in the 1970s) might purchase for himself. Typically this underwear was a white-ribbed cotton brief or boxer-brief and these were still very popular for that use well into the 1970s. Generally, a guy in a gym locker room would not attract any undesired attention wearing a white cotton brief.

But as any ordinary guy knows, even in the underwear world there are what can be called special occasions. Every straight dating male fantasizes about a date that will end in intercourse with the female, and guys need to be prepared, underwear-wise, for the occasion should the fantasy come true. If this happens, obviously she will get to see what you are wearing for underwear. You want this to be an occasion she long remembers for her. Somehow just any ordinary everyday white cotton brief doesn’t cut it for such an occasion. Need something with a bit more “punch” to it. You want to be a turn-on for her. The problem is that the underwear cannot be too skimpy or too colorful, or she might think you have a gay or bisexual side that she doesn’t yet know about. So finding the right underwear for just such an occasion can be a real problem. The guy wants to look sexy and desirable but not too much that way, either. Tricky stuff, that underwear purchase for date wear!

Then there is the third demand. Guys irrespective of sexual orientation often make some underwear purchases simply because the material, cut, color and design seem to be ideal for masturbation. What are we talking about here? First, a material that stretches but feels slick and smooth to the skin. Second a cut that is skimpier than a standard cotton brief. Generally this is a brief without a fly that seems made to order for successful and fun penis stroking.

These designs were probably first made to appeal to gay men, but like so much in men’s fashion, ideas that start out being aimed at a gay male market soon become adopted by males of varied sexual orientations. The market for these designs to gay males was obvious from the very start, but what the underwear manufacturers initially failed to recognize is that a lot of guys keep underwear with a particular material or cut simply because a particular design works so well when trying out various masturbation techniques. Nothing quite like a snug-fitting slick-feeling garment to wear when getting off. Guys all know this irrespective of their sexual orientation, but whether they dare buy underwear for specifically that purpose is another question.

Still, during the 1970s more and more companies were finding that the demand for such underwear was taking off even as the demand for traditional white ribbed cotton briefs was slowing. And the briefs were getting skimpier and skimpier with ever slicker material, not only now being devoid of the once mandatory male fly, but morphing from bikini brief into the string bikini. Men’s and women’s briefs were nearly indistinguishable. Some of the men’s brief designs attempt to better accommodate the parts of the male anatomy the female lacked, but even this for a time seemed optional.

The unique development of men’s thong underwear is such an interesting story that it requires a chapter (or as it turns out more than a chapter) of its own.

To be continued…

[sebbie]

Part XXV

Then starting in the 1980s everything changed again. Part of the changes that occurred in underwear fashion had to do with how men’s clothing, particularly jeans, had changed.

Think about the uniforms basketball players wore in the 1960s with very short shorts compared to the sloppy shorts that extended below the knee in the 1980s.

The mid-late 1960s was a period of time in which nearly every young male was wearing skinny, body–conforming jeans, and the snug-fitting cotton briefs almost universally worn during the same time period paired well with the jeans. The jeans fit very snug in the thighs, and there was no room for another layer of cloth extending into that area.

But by the 1980s everything was just the opposite. The popular jeans were very loose-fitting with very wide legs and guys suddenly decided that having genitalia in a confined space was no longer a thing to do. Instead, guys started wearing loose-fitting boxer shorts that extended all the way to the knee. Cotton briefs, for that matter ANY kind of brief was considered totally unacceptable. Students dare not show up in a locker room wearing anything but a very loose-fitting pair of boxers or they would be teased and bullied.

These loose, sloppy designs stayed around a long time—far too long in my view. But what happened revealed a linkage between what guys thought was the right design for jeans and other pants as well as the underwear to pair with them.

A lot of guys seem to think that their specific choice of underwear might reveal something about their sexual orientation to others. This is a particular concern for younger guys who go in for athletics that involves changing in a locker room of some sort. Guys also who go on dates with females worry that if the date concludes with intercourse, the underwear choice may tell the female something about the guy’s sexual orientation that she did not know, especially for guys who have a gay or bisexual side, though if the guy is having intercourse with a female that alone tells the female something about the guy’s sexual orientation without relying on clues from his choice of underwear.

The key advantage of loose-fitting blue plaid boxers (the most popular pattern and color) that extend to the knee is that no guy would ever accuse a peer of being gay based on that choice in underwear.

The key disadvantage of that specific underwear design is that it provides essentially zero support or protection for the genitalia. I certainly would not engage in any sport wearing these as the only undergarment. However, there may be a compromise. Faced with this dilemma I would suggest that the guy who wishes to make it appear that his underwear choice is a loose-fitting pair of plaid boxers, I would purchase a bikini brief in a coordinating solid color such as medium blue, and wear that as a supportive “liner”. Then the boxers and the liner could come off as a single garment in the locker room.

Still, loose-fitting plaid boxers are a poor choice for male underwear given the lack of support and protection for the genitalia. These are still available but for the most part underwear design and what guys wear has moved on. Generally loose-fitting boxer shorts are a poor choice for masturbation activities. Everything important just flops around loose and the coarse weave of the cotton-blend fabric makes them largely useless. I can’t imagine a guy saying “I get turned on when I get into my plaid boxers!” but maybe that is or was the point.

To be continued…
 

[sebbie]

Part XXVI

The idea of men wearing thong underwear in the US probably first came to the US in the very late 1980s but probably a little earlier in Europe. I know that the first pair of thon underwear I ever owned I purchased sometime in 1989. Not surprisingly, I was fascinated with the design and what wearing a thong might fit and feel. They seemed a lot like a strap, but instead of elastic leg straps and a nonexistent back, a thong had no leg straps but a thin band of elastic that was designed to cut between the glutes.

Over time, thongs used different kinds of elastic for this back, which was what held the front pouch in place. The pouch consisted of a 80% cotton-20 % Lycra blend fabric which was quite snug but stretched just enough to contain the (flaccid) male anatomy. The earliest thongs used a round elastic cord designed to cut tight between the glutes, If the pouch was ro remain in place, containing penis and balls, this cord needed to stretch but be quite short. These cords would appear to disappear entirely between the glutes.

These cords at times would seem to all but disappear entirely almost as if they weren’t there at all. But with any movement, the guy would become “aware” of the cord which gave an interesting set of sensations even when just walking. These thongs were fun to wear but not as interesting as to what followed a year or two later when Jockey introduced their first mens Thong.

The first Jockey-branded thongs were really interesting for several different reasons. If I were to award a grand prize for the most interesting underwear I have ever worn, surely that prize would have to go to the early Jockey design. The early models were all made of cloth that was a Cotton-Lycra blend. This cloth had a lot of stretch but it the fabric was not easy to stretch. The back of the thong was not a round elastic cord but instead a flat band of elastic about a quarter inch wide, Again, this had a lot of stretch but it was tough to make longer. Unstretched it was quite short. The elastic back was sewn to the stretch elastic pouch, but this created a built up spot of sewn thread where the band was attached to the pouch.

Unstretched, the pouch was not very big, but stretched out it was just big enough to contain a guy’s flaccid penis and balls, with some doing. Interestingly the sewing that connected the elastic band to the pouch created a hard little lump of cloth precisely at the perineum.

I still have a few of these thongs that amazingly are in pretty good shape so I decided to get into one of them in order to be able to describe all the details.

So the first trick is figuring out how to get my anatomy entirely into the pouch without leaving anything important outside. This takes some practice and is part of the fun. A guy would have to be brain dead if he didn’t get at least somewhat erect just getting the pouch in place with the male anatomy inside.

Once I got everything that needs to be inside the pouch inside, then this is the time to position that neat elastic back band between my glutes. This keeps the pouch in place, and the more I cinch up the elastic between my glutes the more I like the sensations.

But I suddenly notice that my perineum area just behind my scrotum is starting to feel pretty good too. I can feel that lump of thread pressing against my perineum and the sensations I am getting are nothing short of excellent.

With everything going on I start to expand some more, and that has the effect of putting more tension on the elastic between my glutes as well as snugging everything up at the perineum. This thong still feels really really good. Somehow the combination of tensions seem to create a wonderful place for me that I really want to be.

How long can a guy stand this without ejaculating into the pouch? Well, your experience may vary from my own but if I were in search of a unique masturbation experience this one would be at the very top of my list.

To be continued…