I practiced masturbation in my room and found it very satisfying

I practiced masturbation in my room and found it very satisfying. I repeated this most every night and had some fear as to what my parents would do if they caught me. I felt guilty about doing it, and felt that somehow masturbation was going to stunt my growth. I discovered the vast amount of pleasure and release that I could receive from the tensions of adolescence through masturbation. I was unaware of the term masturbation at the time or had the bad connotations that the more conservative segments of our society gave to it.

Soon, through reading books and magazines, I learned that masturbation could be very harmful and even lead to insanity. I also read more enlightened articles, which said there was no empirical evidence for such accusations, and that masturbation leads to no harmful effects except the guilt feelings it causes and the subsequent withdrawal from social life. I could not bring myself to forget what the conservative authors said and accept what the more enlightened ones said. Needless to say, I had many guilt feelings myself.

I tried to hide my masturbating from my mother by using socks, but it was quite useless as she could see the stains on the sheets and the socks. Neither she nor my father ever spoke to me about it or mentioned it in any way. I was not able to open a discussion with them and express my guilt feelings. My deep personal Christian convictions only served to increase my guilt feelings. I got the impression from all that I read and heard that the church condemned masturbation. I began to feel guilty because I was committing a grave sin. Yet, I could not deny the biological drives of my body; my will power was not strong enough to abstain. I was neither desperate enough nor brave enough to turn to someone whom I could trust for guidance.

Fortunately enough, however, I had many responsibilities at home to keep my mind off my struggle much of the time. I also studied hard-and got good grades. Most of all, I had many friends at school and in the neighborhood with whom I could spend much of my time in various school, church, and community activities. While these factors helped to balance out my struggle, they did not relieve it. Gradually masturbation merely became a habit for me, and the guilt began to outweigh the pleasure.

I would stop masturbating all together for a while. Then I would have a day, resort to masturbation, and be left with tremendous guilt feelings. The struggles continued into my years in college. By that time the fantasies did not mean much to me any more. I had conquered all by my secret little seductions and affairs and had no desires to engage in such fantasies anymore. When I got to college, I quit masturbating all together.

It was always connected with fear. I was afraid because I might be caught, and this would be a humiliating experience under the circumstances. I was once caught in my room when my brother was about twelve years old and I was sixteen. I would often include in my evening prayer a plea to "help me forget about sex." The result was a strong emotional conflict that in the end, I believe, destroyed much of my academic effectiveness during my freshman year in high school. I went to great lengths to avoid masturbating. I put myself on a schedule of only allowing it once a week, of getting out of bed and walking around my room, and even went to the extent of applying sanctions upon myself.