Loneliness is a Sore Nut Sack and a Sweaty Merona T-Shirt
I had just wrapped up my third year of college and I was having lunch with a friend who was a year younger than me from high school. I asked, “So, how was sophomore year? Did you have the ‘sophomore slump’ that all of us had?” “Yeah, I did. It’s bizarre ya know, I feel like all I did was just stay in my room and jack off.” Taken a bit back by his comment, “Really??? That’s…sort of weird, because that’s pretty much all I did my sophomore year…”
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If you’ve been to Target then you might be familiar with the Merona brand, which is Target’s generic brand. I have a couple Merona white undershirts that I wear from time to time. Because these shirts are poorly constructed, made of thin material and have the worst fit imaginable, I limit wearings to mostly yard work and sick days. You would never want to be caught dead outside in a Merona shirt.
That said, there are times when wearing a Merona t-shirt is a sign of defeat. You don’t really have anything planned for the night and you’re not gonna waste a good shirt on sitting around the house. As you toss the shapeless garment over your body, you are painfully reminded that you should be outside doing something fun and taking advantage of your youth; it is a symbol of unused potential and idleness.
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I never really had access to porn in high school; it was a novelty to me. I used to jerk off to unfiltered Google images of porn (I know, how incredibly pathetic). Towards the end of my senior year of high school, this short little weasel of a kid sold me a couple scratched up DVD’s for $5. They were ok…when they didn’t skip. I remember being excited that my parents would be out for the night and that I got to finally watch some porn. Woohoo!
I got my first taste in the variety that porn had to offer freshman year of college. I’m not very computer savvy, so a friend of mine told me to download Limewire and get porn from there. I’d start the download at night, set my computer to the “never sleep” mode and would wake up in the morning with a scene on my desktop. Still, it was difficult to actually get a lot of clips and watching it was tricky due to my roommate situation.
So sophomore year rolled around and it was the first time that I didn’t really have someone in the same room with me. My roommate would go home every weekend leaving me with complete privacy for possibly the first time in my life.
Jerking off in middle school/high school, for the most part, was something I did in the shower. This led to an obvious time constraint as I didn’t want my parents to ask that oh so embarrassing question, “What are you doing in there???” Even when they were gone, say on a trip, I’d never really jerk off for long periods of time. The first time I tried to, I remember saying, “I’m gonna see if I can masturbate for twenty minutes.” I started stroking and after what felt like an eternity to me, looked down at my cell phone. Four minutes had passed. “Jesus Christ, this is fucking impossible!” I thought.
Hence, sophomore year of college was the first time I could really explore masturbating for long periods of time with quality porn. All of those Youtube like porn websites were *just* coming out, which meant getting as much porn as you wanted quickly and for free. The problem, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was that “as much porn as you wanted” part. I wasn’t used to having a lot of it around, so I really had a huuuuuuuge world to explore.
I’d pick a website, open up maybe 15 tabs in my browser of different videos and just whack off. Let me tell you something: four minutes turned into half an hour, which turned into an hour, which turned into…
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Increasingly, I wasn’t happy with my social circle. They were pretty boring and the girls were complete duds. I was beginning to realize how incredibly rare true friendship is and found it more interesting to spend the night in my room alone masturbating than hanging out with people I wasn’t too crazy about. One time, I pretended to fall asleep during a movie we were all watching and then “awoke” fifteen minutes later and told everyone I had to go because I was too tired. That’s how disenchanted I was with that group of college “friends.”
I’d begin by going to a website and open up maybe twelve different tabs of porn. It would be totally dark in my room and I’d wear headphones so my suite mates couldn’t hear anything. I’d get hot and sweaty and there would literally be a pool of sweat under my ass from the physical demands of masturbating for that long. After about an hour, I’d stop to put the trashcan on top of my desk and nut in the trashcan. For some reason I remember those loads being enormous. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t used to jerking it for that long or maybe because I was still new to porn and it turned me on, or maybe even youth, but I haven’t blown loads like that since then. What’s funny is that I don’t have a good sense of smell and that I didn’t realize it then but in hindsight the room probably reeked of cum. By the way, I realized this like two months ago. Anyyyyyyways…
The problem was that I did this routine every fucking weekend sophomore year. The first third of my junior year was my nadir. I was living completely alone, which means I could masturbate 24/7 if I wanted too. Having no friends, not even hang out buddies, I would literally wake up, get ready for class, go to school, come home and then beat off for two hours in the dark. That was the highlight of my day. Later on at night, I’d beat off again. I didn’t beat off so much because I was insanely horny, I beat off that much because I was lonely. No one was calling me up to go hang out and I wasn’t twenty-one yet, which meant few going out options. The only thing remotely fun was cumming, so I did. When I went home for the weekend or over winter break, I literally never thought about porn because I was having fun doing other things. For me at least, it really was just a tool that helped me pass my time.
I went through a three or four month period where I’d beat off two to three times a day, each session lasting an hour or more (my record was three hours and fifteen minutes). The absolute worst was during finals week. I beat off seven times in one day during finals. I just couldn’t help myself. I’d be studying at four in the morning and I wanted to beat off even though I had just blown a load two hours earlier. It was taking a behavior that I was using to make my loneliness bearable and taking it to the limit in an effort to take my mind off of studying.
What’s incredibly sad is that those orgasms were so…dull. There were no fireworks or shooting stars or stadiums full of people singing rock ‘n roll anthems that should accompany a really good load. It was like, “Ok… I guess that’s it…” Cleaning up the cum was depressing too because while you had physical proof that you had busted, you never felt like you came either physically or spiritually. And on top of that, the amount of semen you’d actually produce was pitiful and yet another reminder that you were overdoing it with the whole masturbation thing. Whacking off became trying to chase that orgasm that could never be reached.
By the end of that first quarter junior year, my balls were sore and they hurt slightly when I came. I was actually scared and started researching testicular health over winter break and self diagnosed myself with something I didn’t really have. I then looked in the mirror and admitted to myself that I had a serious problem and that I’d have to return to my normal pattern of five to seven loads a week and to masturbate for normal amounts of time. Most importantly of all, I had to improve my social situation and find friends and girls that I clicked with.
I was pretty embarrassed about the sore dick and balls though. Only fifty year old losers that live in their mom’s basement watch that much porn or whack off that much. What I realized later on, after that lunch with my younger friend, was that every guy (and maybe some girls?) has gone through a whackoffathon phase in their life before, they just don’t talk about it. Every guy, no matter if he’s a total loser or if he gets more ass than a toilet seat, has spent an hour in front of the computer jerking off with a pool of sweat under his hairy ass. This is more true now than at any time before, due to how incredibly easy it is to get as much porn as you want. It’s not just dorks or awkward guys that are abusing it, everyone is or has.
Fitting our generation’s lifestyle completely, this makes complete sense: we frequently experience places and events indirectly, not directly. When we are out with friends, we aren’t really out with them, we are out with all of Facebook. Cameras come out not to capture the moment, but to show everyone online how cool our night was. We go to the Grand Canyon and think, “Man this is gonna make one great album!!! Maybe even Suzie will comment on a pic and that will lead to us hanging out and maybe even a makeout or a blow job!” Wait a minute? WHAT THE FUCK!!! I’m at the Grand FUCKING Canyon! Just enjoy the moment for yourself (and grow a pair and ask Suzie out while you’re at it). We see and experience life via that little fucking screen on our digital cameras instead of with our own eyes.
Doesn’t porn fit right in then? Instead of going out and trying to meet girls, we stay inside and watch another guy get his dick wet for us. And this makes us happy? Even worse is the “I’ll just watch some porn quickly to get aroused so I can pop one off fast.” We need help getting aroused??? I’m in the prime of my fucking life and if I can’t get horny using my own imagination, there is something wrong with me. And, might I add, I’ve been there and back and there again so I can yell at you because I’ve yelled at myself many times over on these subjects. While I am not anti-porn, I am definitely not pro-porn and currently watch it maybe once or twice a month. The ease at which people can watch literally days worth of content nonstop can be really damaging in my opinion and experience. Like everything in life, moderation is key.
Ok, so we go on the internet, open up three or four tabs of porn and jerk off. We’re not yet satisfied really, so we go on a search then for a hot clip that is good enough to “finish to.” Six, seven, eight tabs later, we’re still not satisfied. An hour and a half has passed and the only light that exists in the room is from your computer screen. You’re not even horny, you’re just chasing an imperfect orgasm and what’s worse, your dick is trying to tell you that it’s had enough. It’s about sixty-five percent hard and has lost its enthusiasm for life; it’s red and sore and in pain. But you ignore it because you want to bust a nut, a nut that’s dead on arrival.
And what’s mind blowing is that there are hot girls out there who desperately want to get fucked! Either they’re rubbing one out themselves or they’re boning someone out of necessity to keep them sane, even though they don’t even like the guy. That’s insane!!! But outside the realm of sex, there’s so much to do too that you’re ignoring. There’s music and art shows and movies and great restaurants and house parties. Actually, we should have started off with people: there are other human beings out there that share your interests and are just as bored as you are with their dildo group of “friends.” Find them. Go grab a drink with him, catch a cab back and drunkenly sing the songs you grew up with on guitar till the sun rises.
Wouldn’t that be better than indirect experiences and Facebook and porn? Because you honestly have nothing to show for yourself with those other things, do you? Nope. Nothing but a sore nut sack and a sweaty Merona t-shirt.