Masturbation May
Hello my loyal readers! I know it’s been a while. It took me nearly a month to get Masturbation May edited with all the other things happening in my life right now but it’s finally birthed under the wire (tomorrow is June!) Up until this point I’ve mostly been writing about philosophic musings, sex work politics, my mental health struggles and breakthroughs. Have you been waiting with bated breath to hear hot true stories about my sex life? Well unbuckle those pants buddy, it’s your lucky day as it’s #MasturbationMay!
Mad Libs teaser synopsis: I attended a Masturbate-on-thon event as a voyeur but was convinced by my friends to be a participant in the show and __________ with my ______ ______ . I ____ several times in front a large audience for an hour! Then I acted out an erotic fantasy I’ve always wanted to do. While blindfolded, my friends formed a circle around me and I _______a random stranger and my boyfriend at the same time while a room full of strangers ________ to the messy spectacle on the floor. And after all those happy endings, I took off the blindfold to meet this stranger I only knew with my hands. I was in for a surprise I didn’t see coming…
Shortly before I became professional heaux, I was an amateur slut.
After I moved to the Bay Area, I discovered a playground to open up, explore my repressed sexuality and stop hiding inside my shell. I learned the term “sex positive” at a workshop I attended the Human Awareness Institute where I camped out for the weekend in a nudist hot tub resort, danced naked in the woods with other workshop participants and looked inside each other vaginas with speculums and flashlights like a group of spelunking gynecologists. Then I started going to kink and sex parties at Mission Control, took pole dancing lessons taught by actual sex workers (strippers) and sampled man-of-the-day hors d’oeuvres on Craigslist’s Casual Encounters to figure out what kind of sex I liked. I started working out, lost weight, gained strength and confidence in my femininity. I started letting go of the shame around my body and embracing being sexy, fucking hot and powerful.
I made a few friends and lovers from the workshops who were also sex-positive and enjoyed attending sexy parties and events. In 2011, I heard the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco was having a Masturbate-a-thon, a charity event declaring: May is International Masturbation month, raising awareness and highlighting the importance of masturbation: it's safe, healthy, free, pleasurable and it helps bring sexual awareness. By talking about masturbation we can encourage people to get go of their guilt or shame and embrace the benefits. The shame part really resonated for me. #MasturbationMay is the antithesis to the more popular Twitter conversation #NoNutNovember which challenges men to not masturbate to porn— like they’re giving up something pleasurable but also unhealthy like donuts, smoking or beer. It feels very shame-y towards men (as well as workers in the adult industry) and for anyone who enjoys giving pleasure to themselves and others without having sex (or what some would define as penis-in-vagina intercourse or oral sex. That’s my sex educator geek self coming out to this lecture.)
It’s funny with all this sex-positivity in my life I still harbored secret guilt about using vibrators to get myself off— I had a few insecure ex-boyfriends that felt jealous of my toys and shamed me that it was “unnatural” even though only the majority of women need clitoral stimulation to orgasm, including me. I would try to gently introduce my favorite sex toy, the Magic Wand, to my new boyfriend and sometimes they reacted like I introduced another man into the room to take his place. Why would they feel competitive when there was less work for them to do if I’m getting myself off and less pressure for them to perform? It’s not like I’m going to cum, fall madly in love then ditch the boyfriend and ask my vibrator to marry me. Note: Mr. Wand and I did run off together and we’ve been happily married in an open relationship, celebrating our twenty-year anniversary this year. I did have to trade him in 2012 when he almost murdered me (his cord was bent and frayed and the arc caused a small electrical explosion, but lucky for me my hands and pussy suffered no serious damage and there were no hard feelings between us.)
Still, the Masturbate-a-thon sounded so How Bay Area eye-rolling weird can you be? Would there be prizes for how long you can diddle without chafing? Would there be competitive cumming? But I was so curious of what it would be like to witness this forbidden spectacle. Would women be participating too? Would the whole room be jerking off to each other like an avant-garde performance art show? I knew one thing, there was no way I was going alone to this event without a pack of male friends to protect me like a shark cage from predators. As much as I liked going to events that addressed sexuality and celebrated sex-positivity, I had experienced harassment and unwanted touching at these events (it happened to me at the Folsom Street Fair which was mainly geared towards masculine gay men in the kink/BDSM scene.)
The event encouraged us to bring our favorite sex toys (it was sponsored by Good Vibrations, a sex-positive female pleasure-centered sexuality boutique) so I brought my tried-and true lover toy, the Magic Wand. I figured I would just wave it around like a baton and shout from my seat, “Go team oh! Go team oh!” with my friends. I decided to dress low-key to not draw attention to myself— a long casual skirt, t-shirt, sneakers and no make-up. I think the event started at 7pm and ended at 11, we arrived around 9:30. After we signed a waiver about not touching others without consent, no drugs/alcohol, cameras/recording devices, we walked down a windowless florescent lit hallway to a darker room with sexier mood lighting. The room was pretty packed, about sixty people were in rows of chairs off to one side in the spectator section and on the other side of the room the floor was filled with gym mats with around fifteen participants doing their own thing, two were women. Some guys were strutting around on full display like a peacock, dick in hand and searching the audience for someone hot to make eye contact with. Some were leaning on stools in dark corners in full concentration with their eyes closed.
The room sounded like a rockin’ party with lots of conversations amongst the voyeur folk, sensual bass-heavy music playing over the loud speakers with the wafting scent of Lysol mixed with a little body odor. If you had walked into the room not knowing what the event was was and just looked towards the chairs of watchers, you would have assumed it was a normal social gathering. If you looked at just the other side of the room you would assume it was a group of gay guys at an orgy who were too shy to actually make eye contact and touch each other. One female participant with large pendulous breasts and long gray hair appeared to be in her 60’s, the other one wielded a large pink dildo who seemed intoxicated and was asked to leave the event for inappropriately touching people (she was smacking everyone on the ass.) The inclusive sex-positive vibe I hoped for had a few creepy dudes as it was so skewed heterosexual cis-gendered male. There was this one guy who looked of Indian decent wearing an obvious wig, fake mustache and dark sunglasses. I imagined him to be a Google tech bro by day and an exhibitionist flasher by night. I burst out laughing as he circled around the room only wearing his white running sneakers and stroking his semi-hard cock. He looked like he went to the Spirit Halloween store and got a costume as undercover agent, then ditched the rest of the costume. Every time I looked directly at him he would stop pacing, turn his body towards me like a compass needle and start jerking off rapidly like he was trying to show he had an interest in me, a dog a trick to see if he would get a treat. I wanted to shoot him with as squirt gun and yell, “Bad dog, down boy! No humping mommy’s leg!”
I know, I know. I shouldn’t be surprised I was a little creeped out and I wanted to hide under my chair. I mean, what should I have expected when you’re one the few females at male-centric puppetry of the penis show? After twenty minutes, my shock and awe turned to boredom. I was starting to grow tired of the wiener schnitzel party and I wanted to leave.
My three friends Gary, David, and Rob sat in the folding chairs next to me. I was casually dating Rob at the time. I leaned in, turning towards my friends to call them closer and said in a lowered voice, “It would be so crazy if I just got up and masturbated in front of this whole sausage fest.” They laughed but then they begged me to do it, like a bunch of teenagers peer pressuring their friend into trying a joint. I protested.
“Even if I wanted to do it I couldn’t anyway as my vibrator is corded”, I held up my two foot long Magic Wand with the cord wrapped around the base and the smiley face I drew on the head with a Sharpie. “All the available outlets are way off in the next room and their sound equipment is plugged in here so this just won’t work. Oh well, maybe next year,” I shrugged and laughed, but at that very moment one of my friends ran into the other room to speak someone in charge of the event and voila, there was Gary with a twenty foot long orange extension cord that he unraveled and plugged in for me. My two other friends looked at each other and smiled. Um, I think I’m going to be part of tonight’s entertainment lineup after all. But I couldn’t possibly get this vulnerable in front of a crowd of strangers, especially the naked dudes pacing around with their hungry eyes darting around looking for fresh meat. It scared me to do this, yet I enjoyed the challenge and sought out personal obstacles in my life to be overcome. I think I was the only female masturbator “contestant” left, so I knew all eyes in this room would be on me (the pressure!) We found a little dark corner in the back of the room, huddled together and made a plan. I told Gary, Dave and Rob I would do it but they must form a circle around me to make sure these random guys didn’t get to close to me, like a velvet rope around a piece of artwork you’re not allowed to touch. I needed cage for protection and maybe they would be my jizz shield too (because that’s what friends are for.) I laid down on the mat with my coat balled up under my head as a pillow to get comfortable. No clothing removed but the minute I relaxed into my body the naked dudes came running into our little area and craned their heads into our circle. My friends asked them to step back and give me personal space like they were my security guards. I felt safe. I think I can do this! I was doing something a little wild and dangerous but having a cage of protection. My three trusted friends would be my captive audience. I could feel the presence of a few naked dudes with their anguished expressions trying as close as they could to get a peek at my private jll-off show. Then I realized what I needed to shut out the predator energy in the room. I asked my boyfriend to blindfold me with the sleeve of his jacket so I could go in to the safe space of my mind, block out what squicked me out and bring in what turned me on.
I ask my friends to each lay a hand on me so I could feel their presence, took a few deep breaths and tuned on my vibrator. The Magic Wand is an external vibrator and it’s so powerful I could feel the sensations through my skirt and underwear. I started with running it over my breasts, then snaked it slowly over my body downward as I felt the first little electric shock of pleasure as it neared my clit.
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