People Tell Us About the Guilty Joy of Their First Masturbation Experience

You learn a few things spending a week talking to people about the first time they masturbated: Straight guys remember it well. Who could forget that first eruption and the sticky clean-up situation it left them in. Whether they spoke to their mates about rubbing one out or not, they were all continually reminded of it. The first boner, blast, and mazz of young men are welcome comedy tropes. Even if you wanted to wipe the moment from your mind, Jason Bigg's face wouldn't let you.

But for the rest of us, the event is often less defined. Most of the women interviewed for this piece couldn't point to an exact event. Rather, they remembered rubbing on couch arms, squirming against mattresses and grinding blindly into each. Personally I don't remember the first time I masturbated. I'm not being coy, I've tried, it's a blur of tightly crossed legs, Party of Five episodes and oversized soft toys.

But I do remember the rush of guilt that always flooded in after. I'd lie there, flushed and shamed, promising myself and Jesus I'd never do it again. Obviously I'd always break, first slowly—I can only do it once a week, maybe twice—then I'd crumble—who cares, I'm already going to hell. But two decades later it makes me kind of sad I don't remember that first time. So much is placed on the first time you have sex—yes, it's a defining moment that can inform future sexual encounters. But personally, the first mazz seems like the real identity forming experience. There is no other person to please or perform for, no one else's expectations to entangle with your own. It's just you, sweaty, silent, and begging that one day you'll get a chance to show Scott Wolf the moves you've been practicing on your pillow.

I remember my first mazz experience vividly. I was 13 years old, it was Saturday night, I was home alone watching SBS. The film showing was called Betty Blue. It was about a volatile woman and her boyfriend or something but that doesn't matter because the only thing that mattered was the full frontal nudity. Once the main actor's wang was out I remember scrambling to the VHS player to see if I could record it so I had something to refer back to in the future. I was too slow though, and was left aroused and frustrated.

I didn't have the patience to wait until his next nude scene so I started channel surfing to find some more mazz material. The Pies versus the Doggies were on, after about five minutes of watching these burly men clash each other I excused myself to the toilet and started jacking it.

Having a nurse mother meant that all of my sex education was from a medical and functional perspective, so I had absolutely no idea about masturbation. But I knew from school that if you stroked your cock long enough, spoof would come out. After about four and a half strokes I was in spoof town and I knew that from that moment on I wanted to masturbate 24/7 FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

The first time I felt the joys of the humble but powerful mazz was creepily during Saturday tennis. I jumped on my tennis racket like a horse and rode it around being a goof ball and bam! A very new feeling. I would have been pretty young, like 12 or something. Is that young? Anyway it was a strange and incredible mystery to which I returned from there on. I think I thought the tennis racket had something to do with the sensation though, and I may or may not have associated pleasure with a tennis racket until I figured the whole thing out.

I don't know if I'd call it masturbating the first time, like it ended in an orgasm so I guess it is. I'd worked out that having my erection run against my inner thigh felt nice and I knew that in the middle of my dad's magazines there were a couple of hidden naughty magazines. One day when my family was all out I started reading one of them and wedging my penis against my thigh, it felt warm and nice, and then all of a sudden it just felt too nice and I came all over my school shorts. I wasn't even touching myself, it was a complete surprise, in the middle of the lounge. I came all over the floor through the bottom of my shorts.

Then I had to clean it up and put my clothes in the wash. I'd literally just finished when my whole family came home. Still, it felt great. I just kep thinking about how I could do it better.

But I didn't see it coming at all. After that, I figured out I liked that kind of thing, so pursued that avenue of puberty.

I actually don't remember. I can see how that might sound like I'm lying but I really can't. I would approximate that I was about 14 when I started though, so a bit of a late bloomer. I wasn't a particularly sexual kid during puberty, more romantic. So I fantasised about like, falling in love and kissing people rather than anything erotic or hot. Which is a bit weird. I didn't even really enjoy masturbating all that much really—it always felt a bit like, forced, like a means to an end—until I broke my ankle and my best friend bought me a vibrator to help pass the time. I was holed up in bed, not able to have sex with anyone. That was the like "oh, shit, I get it now" moment. God bless the vibrator.

I can't really remember my first time, or what made me want to do it. It's interesting, sex isn't something you're told about until year 6 or 7, so masturbating is something you discover alone. It's one of the only sexual things that you don't get told how to do, it's kind of cool that everyone comes to the same end point. It would have probably been over boys at school, I probably crushed on boys and just thought about them. I do know my attitude towards it was just, this feels good. I didn't have any shame, I wasn't like, this is a bad thing. I don't think I knew what it was, so I didn't have any reference to be ashamed of. I was brought up in a family where you would never shame someone for that anyway.

Not that I was like super cool about it, I thought it was fine but the thought of talking to people about it was so embarrassing. There was a huge element of, "I wonder if anyone else is doing it?" I wasn't ashamed, but it was still a secret.

I first masturbated when I was like 11 or 12. Guys at school used to talk about it, but not really in detail. They would just pass around porno mags and I would look at them and was like, wow that's boring. I was more into fantasising. I started humping the bed one night and then I just starting wanking thinking about teachers at school and other people I had crushes on, I was like, cool that feels juicy. The first time I thought about my woodwork teacher. When I came I remember as clear as day saying out loud, "I'm a man." I'm pretty sure I said the same thing when I saw my first pubes too.

I had Catholic guilt after, but then I did it again like 20 seconds after that. I saw that woodwork teacher in court years later when I was working there doing the drawings, he had got in trouble for fucking a student. Sadly it wasn't me.

I was 14 and I knew masturbation was a thing but I'd always struggled with the mechanics. The breakthrough happened at my friend's house when we discovered his dad's porno collection. His dad was a truck driver, so naturally he had a big box of porn in his cupboard, but for some reason he was into this very particular niche that exclusively featured naked women with penises photoshopped above their vaginas. I don't think they were trans because all the penises had this very late 90s pixelated look about them. But anyway, me and my friend were poring through these photos and I was looking at all the vaginas and getting a bit steamed up and finally I was like "I need to figure this shit out."

I went to my friend's bathroom and just rubbing it. At first I was bored but I decided to persist. So I did and after a few minutes I was into it and after a few more I was coming all over the floor. I remember thinking "wow, I must never do that again." But of course I stuck to that resolution about five hours, then jerked it fairly consistently for the next 10 years.

*Names have been changed.

All photos by Ben Thomson and Ashley Goodall.

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