Been in Muskoka since Sunday and as per expected, it’s a place where I am at my happiest, or perhaps just my safest. You see, I can’t tell if one feeling begets the other or if this is truly my last place of happiness? Maybe those are two feelings that go hand in hand for most people…happy and safe.
Is safe a good thing or does it mean we are no longer challenging ourselves and therefore no longer living life to its best or most extreme? I pose this question because as I get older I know that my decisions should be made based on what will make me the most happy person I can be, yet it seems that too often the happy choice may also be the safe choice which leads me to believe that as we get older, fears set in that guide to make choices based on what we either consciously or subconsciously feel is the safest choice…
I love or am in love with a woman whom I have been dating for almost 7 years. She wants marriage and kids and has been very verbose about this feeling for several years now and I find myself wondering why I can’t make the same decision as easily as she seems to? My only other long term relationship was also 6 and a half years so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that albeit more than a decade later, here I am in the same place I was in my early 20’s yet I am on the precipice of 40 and can’t seem to make the life-long commitment that she yearns for and obviously deserves after 6 and half years of dating and living together. While I have many concerns about making this commitment to her I also fear the concept of being single again at 39 and having to start the whole dating thing all over again. As I take this time away from her in a mildly remote part of Canada that I was raised in I find myself teetering back and forth with the decision making process. I have been in this place many times before over the past decade and no matter how certain I feel when I return to Los Angeles, its only a matter of days after returning that I end up back into my old patterns and lost in the LA haze of indecision and perpetual adolescence.
So what does all this have to do with masturbation?
As I woke with the normal male morning wood I knew I had to take care of things before starting my day. You see, I am getting a massage today from a relatively cute masseuse and the last thing I want is to sprout during the session causing a large level of discomfort for both parties involved. Sure, if this was the full-release/happy ending type of massage this wouldn’t be a concern but I don’t usually frequent those establishments and today is not one of those places. So the only thing I could do to remedy this concern was to take care of things by myself before starting my day. I am currently on medication that makes this process a little more difficult if not downright impossible at times so this morning I had to work extra hard to do the job right. As I fingered through all my mental images, memories, and fantasies I found that nothing seemed to help get the job done and as time continued to pass the only thing I was accomplishing was minor friction burns. This was a little upsetting…
For most men, masturbation is a time when they can experience anything they have imagined without the guilt of infidelity. But for me the mental images must be, at the very least, attainable in reality in one form or another. By that I mean I have to choose a scenario involving someone I know or may have seen on a bus somewhere and the circumstances have to be within the realm of my own reality. In other words, Angelina Jolie, albeit hot and sexy, could never be a deposit in my spank bank. Naturally, in a perfect world it would be nice to be able to use my present partner for all these occasions but since I don’t cheat and never plan on cheating I prefer to find scenarios that don’t involve her sometimes as it helps spice up our actual love-life while quelling any of those desires us men get when imagining what things would be like with a different partner. So by age 39 you’d think I had seen enough and met enough woman that simply running through the mind’s rolodex would be more than enough to find that perfect scenario or situation to help solve this mornings problem…wrong.
So here I was, sweaty from the effort and frustrated with the results, searching for the one mental image I needed to complete the job and start my day. Finally, I hopped out of bed and grabbed my laptop, the modern man’s portable personal customized porn magazine…
Now, despite the fact that I have numerous pictures and videos outlining various fantasies I have built up in my head over the years I found myself on this particular morning drawn towards a number of pictures my girlfriend allowed me to take of her from one of our vacations. So here I was with the world of porn literally at my fingertips and yet I was drawn to pictures and thoughts of the one person who can fulfill my sexual needs in the real world. I won’t go into all the messy details but I will say that within minutes of open up various pictures of my woman I was able to complete the job with maximum satisfaction. Upon completion I found myself wondering if this was some sort of sign that this was the woman for me and I no longer needed to think about the possibility of ever being with someone else. Is it possible that some of us men are so innately built for monogamy that even when seeking sexual gratification on our own we still find it necessary to stick to what we know and stand by the side of our mates? I know that after spending time with my girlfriend that I will find the need to search the net for perverse scenarios that live a little outside of our sexual box but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of it perhaps she is the only one for me both in reality and in my mind.
Is it possible that I have taken monogamy to the next level and can only find true sexual satisfaction both in my head and in my bed with the one person whom I am currently connected with and all other forms of satisfaction will always fall to a close second? I know I don’t believe in cheating and would never do that to the woman I love but have I taken this to a whole new plateau by becoming one of few men who despite their active imaginations can only find pleasure with one partner whether on my own of by their side?
Have I learned where my heart really lies through this simple and frequent act?
Am I so lost in her that even masturbation has become an act of monogamy?
Before I can say this for sure I will have to try a few more times to make sure I have satisfied the needs of the scientific method and truly proved my hypothesis to be accurate. It’s a rough job but if its truly for science than its my duty to complete this experiment from beginning to end before coming to an accurate resolution that will satisfy both myself and the scientific community…
