Last night on one of our non-commercaial TV channels several well-wnown Australian comedians were interviewed about their physical development, specifically, their sexual development. One lady said she had no breasts until she was 18. Several men spoke about their lack of clearly visible penis size and testicles until well into puberty, and how embarrassing this was when they had to display their naked bodies at school. These revelations startled me. I was well into adulthood before I heard about ‘undescended testicles’, and my equipment was clearly visible from infancy. My four sons were born with obvious ly complete equipment, and they also were soon playing with it, with obvious enjoyment. Of course we let them do what they wanted.
Illustration from Wikipedia.
At the age of 9, I started making a collection of pictures of naked women. I was clearly developing an interest in real sex. You cannot imagine how difficult it was in the 1930s for a child to find such pictures, except in untouchable art books. At the age of 11, while playing with my collection and my equipment, I suddenly and to my great surprise, hit the jackpot! There was a delicious surge of feeling, and fluid came from my penis’ tip! Wow! I had discovered masturbation. I practised every day after that.
Until I was in my 20s, I never heard of ‘wet dreams’ or ‘nocturnal emissions’. This never happened to me, as I never developed any pressure to ejaculate. The idea of an uncontrolled ejaculation horrified me, as you may be sure. A mess on the sheets? No way! I had long ago developed my own technique to contain the ejaculate.
I knew well how cruel boys could be about other boys’ bodies. In the primary school urinals, everybody looked at the others’ equipment. The very few boys who were NOT circumcised were sneered at and joked about. At high school, I mananged to avoid any but minimum display of myself. There were no showers at schools in the 1930s and 40s – except perhaps in some pricey boarding schools.
It seems to me that I maintained a high degree of sexual innocence for a long time. Yet with the curiosity of a buddding scientist, I found, fom the age of 12 onwards, plenty of written material to learn all I needed, apart from the experience. Learning from the ignorant conceptions of other boys? No way! I knew stuff that was much more authoritative than their half-baked half knowledge, and I also knew to keep my mouth shut.
