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2004-07-23 - 3:18 a.m. Aunt Agony At fourteen, I am entitled to curiosity. It has to be accepted that within the domain of my inquisitiveness there lies a section which consists of carnal knowledge. A fact of puberty: girls menstruate, boys mensurate. In school, we often tease each other about penile length and projectile distances. From underwear band to navel; from navel to headboard. By subjecting our talk to the lexicon of competition, we create an arena where we can mutually validate our experiences without being identified as perverts. At times I have a creeping feeling that we are only dressing up our ignorance as boasts. While comparing unverifiable personal records for example (nine times in one day, holding it off for three hours), we are only adding myth to mystery. There is no real knowledge that is circulated among us, just daily discoveries made by trial and error, to be broadcast and reaffirmed when we next convene at the back of the class. In our group there are seven of us; surely too small a sample size for any empirical corroboration. I have often stayed awake in bed wondering if those in my group would one day share the same wretched fate—the misinformation sowed during our teenage years would be harvested in the future in the form of deformed children, or worse, a dissatisfied wife. I fervently believe that in matters as important as masturbation, we would need a much firmer guiding hand. I didn’t tell anybody of my decision to write in to an advice column under the pseudonym ‘Confused Boy’. My letter was basically a plea for clarification: first I described the mechanics of how I pleasured myself, and then added details on duration and regularity. It ended with the urgent, naïve query: would this result in permanent damage to the reproductive system? When the next issue of the magazine appeared in the newsstands, I excitedly flipped through the pages and found that they had published my letter. Her reply was short, but did not seem either dismissive or condescending. In her eyes, I was ‘normal’. I detected a flash of genuine concern when she mentioned how she hoped my exercises would not escalate to a point where it became an ‘addiction’, distracting me from my studies. I imagine her opening up my letter; I wonder what she was wearing at the time, whether a blush overcame her as she read through my meticulous descriptions (I must say at this point that my letter had been edited). A precocious seduction had taken place. The worry she expressed about me indulging excessively must have been triggered by an image she held of me pumping myself furiously, desperately, my eyes seeking hers. It was the gift of knowledge that I sought, and to my utter delight it was offered like a glistening apple by Eve, naked in our garden.
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