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| Young, Horny, and Impotent | |
| Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome can ruin your sex life. Good thing it’s reversible. | |
 by Marty Beckerman, December 24, 2007
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Woody Allen defined the act as “sex with someone I love.” But sometimes you hurt the one you love, and in my case I proved Norman Mailer’s theory that “anybody who spends his adolescence masturbating enters his young adulthood with no sense of being a man.”
Specifically, I entered adulthood with no sense of how to have sex with an actual human female, thanks to Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome. TMS affects between five and fifteen percent of the male population, according to the TMS-awareness website HealthyStrokes. The effects of TMS are twofold: inorgasmia, the inability to climax (unless the penis is stimulated in the traumatic fashion), and erectile dysfunction. Two-thirds of prone masturbators suffer from the latter even if they’re 70 years younger than former Senator Bob Dole.
Before we proceed, it’s important to note that TMS isn’t entirely accepted in the medical community as a physical affliction; it is a theory that Dr. Lawrence Sank of the Center for Cognitive Therapy postulated in 1998 after studying just four traumatized masturbators. (Wouldn’t “Four Traumatized Masturbators” make a great name for a band?) More research is necessary. That said, my story would indicate that Dr. Sank is right on when it comes to hard-ons.
The first time I had an orgasm, I had no idea what I was doing. I was lying on the floor of the family living room, doing seventh-grade homework, and suddenly my groin started to feel good. So I pushed harder against the carpeting. And harder. And harder. And then I peed my pants, only the pee was tugged out of my urethra.
At least I thought that it was urine. My boxers were soaked with a warm, sticky liquid. My heart was racing, my face was flushed and I was hyperventilating. Why is my pecker so sore after peeing? I wondered. Why did I piss myself when I didn’t need to go?
What lies beneath: Only time can cure a broken dick
I stood and limped through the living room, a stab of pain with every footstep.
“Why are you wincing, honey?” my mother asked. “Do you have a headache?”
Mom had guessed correctly, except that it was my southernmost head that ached. I staggered to the bathroom and removed my briefs, dismayed to find that I had ejected gooey, clear piss. I wondered if I should tell Mom to call 911.
I had taken sex education the previous year, so I must have technically known what semen was—although the teacher never detailed its albino yolk-like consistency—but I didn’t put two and two together. I decided against summoning an ambulance, changed into an unsoiled pair of underwear and forgot about the incident.
A few weeks later, however, I was lying face down in bed, trying to sleep before class the next day, and I felt the same pleasant pressure. By instinct I cupped my testicles with my hands, thrust downward into the mattress, and soon ejaculated for the second time. The third time, I used a towel from the linen closet to capture my sticky Semitic seed. (And thus was I united with my jizz rag; it’s a heartwarming saga.)
I never had an older brother to teach me how to masturbate, and I didn’t understand the jerking motion my friends made whenever they referenced the topic. Humping the bed seemed to work fine. But when I finally scored the occasional opportunity to have sex with girls, the effects of this prone method took their toll.
The majority of traumatic masturbators would rather whack off than have sex, as opposed to 80 percent of non-traumatic masturbators (which is still a startlingly low statistic—seriously, guys?), and I soon discovered why.
Because of TMS my penis was moodier than a Dashboard Confessional record. The first time a girl offered to have sex with me—an act of charity that dwarfs anything that Mother Teresa ever accomplished—I couldn’t get it up. This was partly due to nervousness, but mostly due to my traumatic masturbating. “Um… just give me a minute…” I kept pleading, humping the mattress.
Even cowboys get the blues: Smoking makes everything go a bit soggy “Maybe you should drive me home now?” she asked forty-five minutes later, as I sobbed upon her breasts like a little girl who had lost her teddy bear.
The next time a chick offered to defile me, however, I did manage to get it up—only I couldn’t get it down. After a good hour of fucking, I couldn’t finish. She was getting sore and asked if I’d take much longer; ultimately I drove her home with a raging, unsatisfied erection. (Guys assume that it would be great to last forever, but when you can’t actually enjoy the proceedings, the feat of endurance is useless.) When I arrived back at my house, my mattress finally got me off.
This happened the next time I had sex, a month later. I bragged about my superhuman capacity to anyone who would listen but I privately wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Why could I orgasm so easily when I made love to my bed, but mashed these girls’ innards into the raw, stringy consistency of ground beef?
However, by the time I started college, I had the opposite problem: I lasted only a few minutes, and sometimes seconds, during sex. A girl once laughed after my sub-par performance and asked the most dreaded question a man can hear: “That’s it?”
The most shameful incident came in the summer of 2003, when I had the chance to have sex with a lesbian whom no guy had ever penetrated. (If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Thank Christ for booze.) We were pounding shots. She said that I was cute—which proves that I’m either such a stud that even lesbians can’t resist me, or I look like a pretty woman—and we made our way to a bedroom downstairs. She gave the best head that I’ve ever gotten in my life (she licked my balls like a clitoris, I think), and then confessed that she had always wondered what it’s like to have a man inside her instead of some chick’s fist.
So I slid into her, totally getting off on the fact that I was converting a lesbian, and then I actually got off. I blamed my premature ejaculation on the alcohol, but I knew it was the same problem that had plagued me for years. I just didn’t know what the problem was.
(Fun Factoid: after I had finished filling the lesbian with Man Juice, she said, “I thought it would spray more—like a geyser or something!” Fun Factoid #2: Did you know that only scientists can impregnate lesbians?)
With my next girlfriend I tried those “extended pleasure” condoms with a numbing agent for guys with control issues, except that they made me so desensitized that I couldn’t summon an erection in the first place. By this point, I was terrified of sex—it always meant embarrassment and emasculation.
No humping: The only cure for TMS
But salvation came in the form of a Google search for “young male impotence,” or some such thing. I discovered HealthyStrokes.com and realized that I had been my own worst enemy for all those years; I had conditioned my anatomy to only respond to the stimulus of pressure instead of friction. The good news was that TMS is fully reversible. I could save my privates through a journey of sacrifice.
The sacrifice was this: I had to forever give up humping the mattress. At age 20 I had to teach myself how to masturbate all over again. At first it felt foreign and strange, jerking up and down whilst I lay on my back. There was nothing erotic about it; I couldn’t picture myself on top of a woman, and because of my TMS I hadn’t yet had one on top of me during sex. I started to despair; what if I couldn’t fix the problem and recondition my penis? What if I was doomed to a solitary life of self-satisfaction?
But like Senator John McCain, my motto is No Surrender. After a couple unsuccessful tries at whacking it like a normal human male—and subsequent relapses into prone masturbating—I forced myself to jerk it faster, faster, faster, and finally my body responded. It was the best nut-bust of all time because it meant freedom. Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I was free from TMS at last!
I continued to squeeze ‘em off using the time-honored method, and then something happened when I next had sex: I actually had sex. I lasted for a decent amount of time, I enjoyed it. And I climaxed. It was everything that I had always (wet-) dreamed.
However, because I’m faithful to my current girlfriend and therefore cannot have good sex with all the girls whom I’ve disappointed—especially that horny fucking lesbian—I must always live with the shame of knowing that I underperformed for all those years. Things have straightened out, so to speak, but those females will always remember me as a boy—an invalid—instead of a man.
But for all of you budding traumatic masturbators out there, you can avoid my mistakes. You are the future; TMS is scary enough to make you really piss your pants, but you can spare yourselves from years of humiliation and self-doubt if you simply take the time to learn the proper method. The choice isn’t hard, my friends, but you will be.
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Marty Beckerman is the author of Dumbocracy: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right and Other American Idiots (Disinformation, September 2008). More... |
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Anonymous
Something similar happened
Something similar happened to me, only it wasn't against a mattress, instead i would lie on my back and apply pressure against my thigh. I realized around 16 that I was conditioning my penis to respond to that rather than the conventional.
When I lost my virginity I didn't get off at all, I actually faked it behind the darkness and the condom. The third time I had sex, just days later, I finally was able to climax, since then, I have tried not to jerk-off any other way but "normal" though it is still easier and quicker using pressure.
Good to see it's getting more attention these days, this was 6 years ago and I freaked over whether I could ever get off again.
Proud Self-Loather
I applaud your bravery
I give you mad kudos (that's a hip-hop expression, right?) for your brutal honesty. Anyone who doesn't have embarrassing sex stories has either never had sex or is lying.
However, a word of caution: while you are now no doubt the greatest lay among all men or beasts that roam the planet...if you are young enough to have actually Googled something when you were 20, let me assure you that there WILL be plenty more opportunities for you to embarrass yourself sexually one way or another.
I don't wish it on you.
I'm just sayin'. Shit happens. (Not literally, though that would certainly be an example of an embarrassing sexual gaffe...unless she requested it...)
The point is that it's as much about how you handle it versus how much you let it get to you. This article is a great way to handle it and I truly hope the lesbian reads it.
And that Mailer quote really speaks to me. Unfortunately. Thanks, man.
Anonymous
Absolutely the same for me
Absolutely the same happened to me.
It's incredible how similar my own experiences were, and how difficult it was for me to go through the horrible humiliation of not understanding why my penis wouldn't react to these incredibly hot girls. I got a reputation among my friends for not banging my girlfriends, and more than once I dumped a girl after a week or two because I was afraid of becoming any more physical.
It took a few weeks of abstinence and trying with my hands before I got myself off. I remember exactly the date and place of my first manual masturbation, it was Summer 2005 - it took a long time but yeah, it meant I was free!
It was less than a year later that I had another girlfriend, and it took some courage after so much humiliating failure, but everything worked well after 6 months of 'proper' method.
But you know - it really ruined my life for a long time. So many girls I cared about I let go, or humiliated myself in front of. My life would be very different had I not spent the first 23 years of my life fucking my mattress. There's a chance someone out there is reading this who gets off in this way and will have, or is having, an experience similar to mine. All I can say is - stop, wait a bit, try the 'digital' method, or your love-life is screwed.
Ibod Catooga
It helps my cat
The first thing I fucked was a cat, and ever since then, I haven't had a problem because fucking a cat and a girl can be much the same thing if she uses Miracle-Gro.
Anonymous
therapy
you point out the interesting situation most sex therapists are well aware of-you can condition yourself to be aroused to many things (e.g. certain clothing, parts of body, and of course physical sensations). the good news is that you can recondition your responses. i have been a sex therapist for 25 years and what you present is not all that uncommon. hopefully others will realize that there are many ways to deal with this issue in healthy ways. also we need to point out that penis-vaginal intercourse does not often lead to female orgasm so don't forget that massaging the clitoris is often helpful while having intercourse. be careful of the info you read on the internet and make sure the person hosting it is a licensed professional. interesting read and well done.
Marty Beckerman
We should form Traumatic
We should form Traumatic Masturbators Anonymous. (TMA? More like TMI....)
Anonymous
Did anyone else think
Did anyone else think Healthystrokes.com was disgustingly hetero-normative and a little old-timey?
Token Goy
Did anyone else think ....
... the term "hetero-normative" is absurd? If 97-98% of people are hetero, in what sense is that not a norm?
Marty's Ex Girlfriend
Skeptic
I dont remember this being a problem.
Anonymous
How appropriate this story was in "Jewcy"
Not to have this debate, and I don't have any hard data, but here's what I think: TMS (Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome) only affects circumcized men. The fine-touch nerve ending have been hacked away, so the penis needs more pressure to be stimulated.
I wonder if any studies have been done...anecdotally, I've heard that going down on uncircumcized guys is "easier" because far less suction and/or pressure needs to be applied...also, that the sex is differrent, because circumcized men need to "pound" their way into orgasm, whereas uncircumcized men can "glide."
So...any uncircumcized TMS sufferers out there? I very much doubt it.
David Strauss
Re: Did anyone else think ....
"If 97-98% of people are hetero, in what sense is that not a norm?"
It is the norm. You're just confusing "norm" with "normative."
Normative: prescriptive (seeking a certain standard)
Norm: descriptive (what is predominant in the status quo)
Definitely heteronormative, though:
"So why don't I warn against heterosexual experimentation too? Because
this isn't a two-way street; many females would reject a male for
having engaged in homosexual activity, but no gay men would reject one
for having experimented heterosexually. So it's rational for a male to
postpone homosexual experimentation until he's certain he's gay."
Anonymous
bigot
bigot
Anonymous
not you strauss, the 97% guy.
not you strauss, the 97% guy.
Anonymous
Get the fuck outta here
Seriously
Anonymous
Similar situation - the female version
The article is great - interesting topic, well-written, and
relevant. From a female perspective it is always intriguing to hear
male anecdotes and stories, but a lot of times they are also applicable
to both genders. The problem with not learning how to masturbate
correctly can be a feminine issue as well. It seems like at a younger
age humping the bed is just that much easier than having to manually
explore and pleasure oneself. This definitely leads to delimmas with
orgasming in sex later; the same problem of "pressure" rather than
"friction" occurs, and then actual penetration and the rubbing of the
clitoris, rather than pressure, does not lead to an orgasm. Until I
read this article I did not realize that it was probably TMS or
something like it that is leading to such issues in bed. Thanks, now I
know the problem is curable!
Anonymous
You hit the nail on the "head"
My
first sexual experience was exactly the same as this writer's, and I too felt
the shame of being unable to get it up in my first sexual relationship at
17. I went two more years convinced that I was impotent, and largely
avoided going further than fooling around with other women for fear of
embarrassment.
<br>
Thankfully,
my next girlfriend was quite patient and after a good amount of time we
discovered that I was not impotent, but did require a LOT of physical
stimulation.
<br>
Several
years and normal relationships later, I have a fine sex life....but even to
this day, I still probably require more physical stimulation than a 'typical'
guy. I had always assumed this was just a random phenomenon and that I
was just a little unusual. However, after reading this article and other
readers' comments, I realize that much of my issues have to do with how I
initially masturbated starting at age 13 ( I too humped the bed and almost
never masturbated in the traditional manner).
<br>
It's
a shame the internet didn't exist back in the early 90's, as I would have
learned in high school how normal this phenonemon is and could have avoided two
years of intentional lack of intimacy in relationships.
<br>
There
are probably a lot of young men out there who assume they have psychological
issues when in reality they merely conditioned their penis in a disadvantageous
manner at a young age. Maybe they should make masturbation lessons a
requirement in Hebrew school....
Aliza
Girls too
When I read this I thought - gee me too! I had conditioned myself to only be able to respond to direct clitoral rubbing - with an object. Now I have relearned how to matrubate - without an object - and with out the hand cream I needed - I just use my own saliva. So I can get myself off anywhere, anytime. Like right now at work if I want to. Or is that TMI?
Anonymous
not TMI at all
so, did you just get yourself off?
Anonymous
Internet Help
What's weird is that there are so many mentions of Google and finding out about TMS online... nobody's mentioned another--much more prominent--use of the internet. I was all about my mattress for years; I knew that other people used hands (though I was confused for years, because my seventh grade sex ed teacher--a woman, unsurprisingly--told us that men masturbate by putting one hand on top and the other on the bottom... and that really doesn't work), but it didn't work well for me and wasn't that great. From about 11 until 17 or 18, I was into mattresses. I could have sex without problems, but I could never get off from oral or manual exercises with girls, and maybe this article has explained why.
But that all changed when I moved to college, had my own room with a locked door, and a computer with high speed internet, for the first time in my life. Moving my desktop over to my mattress wasn't a possibility, so the transition to internet porn meant that I had to learn to masturbate while sitting in a chair. It took a bit of work, but the payoff (free porn any time!) was worth it; have never been tempted by mattresses since. So here's where I'm confused: you were Googling TMS, but you never got around to Googling "big boobed teen"?
Anonymous
what kind of perverted site is this?
I thought this was supposed to be a Jewish site, not a pornographic sex site.
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