I hurt myself while masturbating the other day. Not in that on-purpose, pulling the pussy lips, "You're a bad girl and you like it" kind of way. No, this was more spaztastic, and it happens with saddening frequency; I get so caught up in the enjoyment of touching myself that I forget to notice when my leg muscles have frozen into the same position for about ten minutes, and when I finally release them from their contortions, I have killer cramps in both the front and back of my lower legs. Shin splints and charley horses, and a lingering sense of embarrassment that I can't really explain to anyone why my legs hurt so much.
I remember when I first discovered masturbation, at the tender age of about six and a half. I'd several years before made the intriguing discovery that there was a hole in me, leading, I presumed, to the gay, frolicksome land where babies lived before they lived with us. At least, my mother told me the hole was where babies came out of, so I started to imagine an interdimensional portal, right there between my legs, ready to gape open and emit a baby at a moment's notice. My mother noticed that I avoided my girly parts like the plague, and inquired as to the reason; when I told her I didn't want a baby, she said, "You only get babies when you're older." So now my lady hole was due to squirt out a baby at some undetermined future time. Needless to say, it took a few years before I was ready to brave the dangers of interdimensional travel and go for an exploration down my pants.
Exploratorily speaking, I had no idea that what I was doing was masturbation, of course, nor did I know it was something usually reserved for the privacy of one's own bedroom. Once I discovered that it felt kinda good, I instituted it as a regular pre-sleep bedtime ritual, mostly after my mother had said her goodnights and kissed me on the forehead, although I do recall opening my eyes once and looking down from my loft bed to see her staring up at me with a look that can only be described as blankness on her face. Since she never said anything, I assumed it was all right and continued my habits.
The nursery school I attended featured regular naptimes every day, where the immensely motherly teacher would even come and sit by you and rub your back through your shirt while you drifted off, if you were lucky and asked politely with a please. I have always been a big sleeper -- there is nothing I like so much as sleeping, at least eight hours a day, sprawled in the diagonal comfort of my cushy, be-pillowed bed -- and was usually the last one up from the naproom. This one particular time, I woke up and felt the need for some good old-fashioned onanism; face down on the floor, making tiny movements with my tiny hips, I sort of rubbed myself against my hand in a way I knew felt good...only to open my eyes and find the nap room completely deserted, except for one open-mouthed nursery assistant, frozen in the doorway, holding a stack of blankets. She shut her mouth with an almost audible snap and disappeared into the next room, whence I could hear the shrieks of playing children. A few seconds later, the motherly teacher emerged and gently told me it was time to get up. I went along without complaint.
This was, unrelatedly, the same nursery school where I was discovered to have arrived one frigid Canadian February morning without any shoes on. My mother was in the habit of taking me to school on a sled when it was snowing out, and had bundled me into an all-in-one-snowsuit. I never told her I didn't have any shoes on, and nobody at school found out until it was time to go outside and play at recess.
"I can't!" I announced proudly. "I don't have any shoes."
"Reeeeaaally?" said the teacher, and I am sure that the masturbation incident mixed with the shoelessness probably caused an under-the-table investigation of my mother's parenting skills. If you're reading this, nursery school, it was never her. It was all me. And I stole that kid's comic book, too.
I also got caught at my nightly ritual by a babysitter. My mother was out for the evening, moving to Spain without me or some equally traumatic activity, and the babysitter, whose face I have no memory of, was a teenaged girl. She put me to bed at the normal time, and I can only assume that my mother told her to stop by and check on me -- or she was remarkably conscientious -- because she looked in about half an hour later only to catch me with my hands down my pants. Appalled and screeching, she said, "What are you doing?"
Blinking in the sudden overhead light, I gave the only answer that made sense for how it felt. "Trying to keep the pee in," I told her.
A few minutes later, I found myself ignominiously seated on the toilet as she stared at me with crossed arms from the doorway. "You had to go, so go," she said, and I wondered if she was trying to prove that I hadn't really had to pee after all. I think that was the first time I really realized that other people might find my pleasant night-time activity a little strange, or even potentially alarming.
Young girls often have sexual feelings without knowing what they are -- ask any parent who's watched a daughter ride horses with a little bit too much verve. Horses are big organic vibrators, and many a young teenager has reported having her first orgasm while riding. At the age of twelve, when I'd read my way through every single book on the "Parents" shelf in the children's section of our local library, I was also surprised to learn that many girls actually have orgasms while on swingsets as well; who knew that getting an underdog could be a semi-religious experience?
Since then, or perhaps because of that early introduction, I've always regarded masturbation as more of a comfort activity than a sexual one. When I can't sleep, when I'm sad or lonely, when I just don't have any chocolate ice cream in the house, I slide a hand down my pants for a few minutes and take a relaxing break (now, that could be a good advertising campaign for Toys in Babeland: don't you deserve a break today?). I don't often have dramatic fantasies of pirates or alien ravishers, but usually let my mind drift, although unfortunately, it rarely drifts down into what my legs are doing.
Since I've been masturbating for a while, I sometimes forget that other people view it as an invitation for sex. You can't just have some trouble sleeping and suggest to your partner that you put in a little self-love, because then it's all touchy-feely, and before you know it, there's emotional interaction required when all you wanted was a little muscle tension and then a quick release. And then, as your partner lies snoring and moist next to you, you'll wish that you'd had a chance to just touch yourself to sleep.
