Joey Sarajevo is a wanker
NB: Photo choices and captions are all the work of Liam R. Everything else is Joey's work.
Well yes, and here we go again (and again)…
Yes, well-worn Hunter S. Thompson pastiche aside, this is the third time I’ve had a crack at this particular little subject, mainly because:
i) The original piece was actually pretty good apart from one glaringly stupid pisshead error that was never really corrected to my satisfaction, and has now been excised in its entirety.
ii) I promised Liam (and myself) a column and ran out of time, so thought I might as well cannibalise it.
iii) It actually fits in pretty well with two forthcoming pieces, in about four and eight weeks’ time respectively.
But enough with the introductions and on to the matter at hand, which given I have no right to use the original’s supremely well-worked lead yet another time will have to do as the clever pun which leads us to today’s subject: masturbation. Masturbation, and this wonderful resource we call the Internet.
Now I am not about to devote precious column inches (stop sniggering at the back) to something with which even the most casual user of the Web is well aware, namely the astonishing quantity and variety of pornography available for one’s pleasure and – occasionally – shocked revulsion. The superiority of the web as a source of such materials is readily apparent to anyone who has ever walked three-quarters of a mile to find a new corner shop in which to purchase a copy of Razzle. But I digress… and in any case, there’ll be more on that thorny little issue in a couple of missives’ time. No, my subject today is not pornography, but rather those public-spirited individuals dedicated to improving the enjoyment of those who indulge in ‘the world’s most popular leisure activity’ – foremost amongst them the selfless gentleman at JackinWorld.
My favourite pornstar at the moment
I will not trouble you, gentle reader, with details of how I first came across this fascinating little site, which bills itself as ‘The Ultimate Male Masturbation Resource’ – it was about two and a half years ago, back when I had a lot more free time and even more frequent hangovers. Suffice to say that, whilst searching for the more usual kind of masturbatory assistance described above, I chanced across the name and thought ‘Well, why not?’ – at least it wasn’t going to tantalise me with FREE! pictures of some chubby minger with one nipple out before asking for my credit card details.
JackinWorld’s self-proclaimed mission, spelled out on the front page of the site, is “To teach people about masturbation, help them enhance their masturbation pleasure, and fight the guilt and stigma associated with this healthy, near-universal practice”. There’s more, but by this point I’d skipped straight to such fascinating subjects as ‘Techniques’, ‘15 Myths Smashed!’ and the online catalogue of pro-masturbation merchandise. The discussion of various types of lubricant was certainly an eye-opener.
At first, this struck me as the work of people with too much time on their hands, at least until I remembered that I had spent most of the morning fruitlessly trying to find pictures of attractive women (un)dressed as Psylocke from the X-Men. In any case, as I read on, I found the site to be rather heart-warming in its own peculiar way. Leaving aside the ‘Techinques’ section (NB ‘The Vagina’ sounds good in theory but in practice only works if you have the hands of Jimi Hendrix or the penis of Needledick the Bugfucker), there was something that kept nagging at me… something about the reference to the ‘guilt and stigma’ associated with having a quick one of the wrist; something about the idea that anyone really could hold to the Victorian notion that masturbation is an inherently objectionable practice.
Do I need to say more?
But it’s amazing the ideas people can hold to… and given that we’re dealing with the internet, and people who – almost by definition – are going to hold on very tightly to the most lunatic notions (like the idea that an attractive woman might dye her hair purple and pose nude, for free, to fulfil my old adolescent crush on a fictional character).
Now, let’s be honest, having a quick shuffle now and again doesn’t really matter all that much to us lucky modern sophisticates. British newsagents’ shelves are groaning under the weight of several tons of printed nipples every week, from The Sun’s Page 3 (and am I the only person who finds ‘News in Briefs’ their most sensible op-ed section?) through coward’s porn like Front to trainee rapists’ bibles (credit due to, I think, Holy Moly for that description) Zoo and Nuts. Even our puritanical cousins across the pond, Gawd bless ‘em, managed to produce American Pie, with its frighteningly well-observed father/son chat (in fairness, Eugene Levy is actually Canadian).
But still, you have to wonder if the bubbling undercurrent of shame and embarrassment that still surrounds our discussions of sex in all its wacky and wonderful forms has something to do with the bone-headed advice of the Catholic Church, who apparently still contend that masturbation (just like pre-marital sex) is a dangerous vice which undermines relationships, or all the self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of public decency with their unhealthy obsession with all the myriad uses to which simple private individuals decide to subject their genitalia. And if it’s only failed relationships you think they’ll scare you with, give yourself an unpleasant surprise by having a look at True Love Waits – or the God Hates Fags brigade picketing gay funerals with their ‘Got AIDS Yet?’ placards. And consider that the Bush administration now only sponsors AIDS-awareness and teenage pregnancy programmes which promote abstinence.
Now it may be that I’m just a sex-starved pervert who remembers how hard it was to get laid as a teenager thanks to those bastards, but there’s a serious side to this as well. Abstinence programs are no more effective than conventional sex education in reducing rates of teenage pregnancy, and by definition don’t encourage the use of condoms (click here for an article on the subject); countries such as Sweden, with a frank and open attitude to sex education, have far lower rates of teenage pregnancy than Britain. So do we imitate our oh-so-sensible Nordic cousins? Hell no. What do we do? As with our 1970s volte-face on policy towards heroin (Britain had far fewer when it was just doled out to addicts on the NHS – there was no money in it for dealers) we put a vague and unworldly notion of ‘morality’ above the best interests of the people most directly affected. Nice one.
So, a big Straw Donkeys hand to all those dedicated individuals at JackinWorld and beyond. It’s a big bad ‘Net out there, and it’s always nice to find a little sanity.