Free Willy

I think I may be a prude. I mean, I'll laugh and joke with my peers about all things naughty in nature, and sit through conversations about friends' intimate encounters... but all the while I'm projecting a demeanor of comfort and ease, I'm totally squirming on the inside with beet-red embarrassment. Call it my country-boy sensibilities. Or maybe I'm just a touch of the dreaded C-word (conservative, that is, but not politically speaking). Upon reflection, this probably goes much deeper into my psyche since I generally do not feel nearly as cool, calm, collected, hip, sane, social, smart or at ease as I may appear.*

Whatever. In any case, I only bring this up because, living in the city that I do, I frequently find myself in a modest state of mortifaction. Like the first time I saw buttless chaps walking down the street. Or the time a co-worker paid for a lapdance at the strip club (I think the stripper felt as sorry for me as I felt for her). Or the time I was hiking along the most lovely secluded beach around in the shadow of the Bridge and scrambled over an outcrop to land, momentarily oblivious, directly between two naked gentlemen who were clearly engaged in some, uh, cruising I guess is the word? It's hard to call it flirting when they're naked already.

I'm not sure where I was headed with any of this, except that this weekend is the annual, wait for it, Masturbate-a-thon. It's not like I will be in any way involved, mind you - I just happened upon the poster.

It's a fund raiser for sex education that was started by a local sex toy shop called "Good Vibrations." And you can pledge money to the participants. Who will then take matters into their own hands. In public. Repeatedly.

There are, in fact, several awards to be handed out, including one for number (record: 6 times for men, 49 times for women), one for duration (record: 8.5 hours for a guy, 6.5 for a woman), and even distance (I'm afraid to look what the record is for any gender).

This is both hilarious, and utterly mortifying.

Also, just as another aside, all this hearkens back to college when such things were part of our regular late-night conversational study breaks. For example, One of the first things I learned about a roommate (LB volunteered it, I might add) was that he should have entered the above contest because he would have hosed the competition. And I also was introduced to the fine art of the euphemism. A few classics: To rub one out, spanking the monkey, tipping off the inspector, to choke the chicken, crowning the king, applying the hand brake, holding your own... and of course, my all time favorite (college being the era of Joycelyn Elders, whose ousting for suggesting masturbation was ok, incidentally, is what started the Masturbation-a-thon to begin with): Firing the Surgeon General.


* Which is not to say that I even appear any of those things. Let's just be clear about that.