I didn't always have such a positive relationship towards solo sex. It used to be a bit more love/hate. Back in high school, I used to think that one only masturbated if one couldn't "get any" from another person. That it was not a prideful thing, but one of lonely desperation. This made for some rather silly business on my part, because I would never really use an appropriate time in which to pleasure myself, but would wait until something had riled up my teenage hormones, whereupon I would flee to my bedroom, to use whatever come to hand (pens, pencils, markers, make-up brushes, the non-business end of an electric shaver) in a last minute rush to orgasm. This being high school, my bad timing was often rewarded by my mom calling me to set the table or some other chore, always right before orgasm. There is nothing like your mom yelling up two flights of stairs to break the mood utterly!

I would masturbate like mad for a week, whenever I got a few moments to myself, then swear off masturbation and succeed for a month or so. Now, I didn't take the vows of self-chastity because I thought masturbation was dirty, but because I should be off getting laid, not at home being pathetic. This fabulous mindset nearly got me pregnant a few times, I am sure got me far closer to catching a venereal disease than I want to know about (this, being high school, meant my safe sex habits were at times distressingly shoddy, if not non-existent), and also meant that since I was then sleeping with guys, there's a whole bunch of rather skanky boys that I look back on and shudder about. All because I wanted to be able to tell my "friends" that I had gotten laid the night before, or was going to be laid that coming afternoon. Sigh.

Jilling off became something I was a bit more positive about when I realized I was bisexual. I had a crush on my friend, who I'd confessed to about it, but she was playing that coy game of always keeping my hopes up and yet never actually doing anything. Masturbation was the only way I was going to get any with a woman at that point in time, even if it was in my fantasies. I would lie in bed and think about having this wild summer adventure at P-town (the East Coast gay mecca) with this woman with black hair (long or short) deep chocolate (or gray) eyes, a long, lanky andro body, and a tongue that knew all the places mine could only imagine licking.

During my summer before college, I swore off boyfriends, for a while. I decided I would just sleep with women, until I had caught up in number with the number of men I had been with. I went to the wrong school for that. My college was a teeny 500 student New England affair, with this little joke of a GLBT group. None of the women interested me. Looking outside the gay community, I found and fell for Belle. Belle was curvy and soft as a peach. Much time was spent think about and masturbating over her. Meanwhile, I had gotten myself into a relationship with a boy (Oops) which was just was well because Belle was mildly bi-curious, but not much more than mildly. A good deal of the time I was with this boy (who was really a good guy, and put up with more of my shit than he had to) I was thinking about women. Dream women, who lived in Boston or P-town, and who would roll about in the sand or the bed with me in dreamy Anaïs Nin-like touchy-feely sex. It wasn’t much, but it kept me going for a while.

Then came the crisis. A hot slender bisexual from CA entered our little school with about the impact of a meteor. Rumors flew and re-flew twice their original size. I hated her on sight, and glared at her in the GLBT meetings. Of course, it was not long before I was cheating on my boyfriend with her. And she handed me books (always the way to my heart or loins), most especially Macho Sluts, by Pat Califia. That was the downright end. My world crashed in around me and left me doing the first masturbation I actually really remember: I grabbed a knife from my hidden-under-the-bed-so-the-R.A.-won't-confiscate-it collection and pressed the cold metal against my pussy, hard enough to feel sensation but not to cut, and had the orgasm I'd never had before, visions of beautiful yet terrifying San Francisco Dommes doing things (things I didn't even have words for) to me.

Of course, I eventually cheated on the poor boyfriend with that firebrand who had opened new worlds to me. It was college — that sort of thing had to happen! My boyfriend not only forgave me (eventually) for my transgressions, but supported me in my new interests. He found he did not mind spanking me (he rather liked leaving a red handprint on my ass) but that and some light bondage were really his limits. He was also not adverse to a threesome with another hot babe (what guy is not?!), although we could never find one that wanted both him and me at the same time. He did take me out to buy (du-du-du-duhn!) my first vibrator. Actually, my first two. On that historic (herstoric?!) day I went into Grand Opening! ( a women-run sex-toy-store in Boston) and came out with a smallish purple jelly vibrator, and a pair of those lovely small vibrating "bullets".

They were a smash hit with my pussy! The first time I used the vibrator (having only ever had the rather understated vibrations of the old electric shaver) I held it to my clit for about the count of 1-2-3-4-5, and BOOM! BAM! CRASH! THRUM! And five minutes later I went back for more! I went off to my new college (I transferred to a huge school after my second year at the teeny one) happily bearing those 2 vibrators. I had a huge single dorm room to myself, and I soon had the option of solo-sex in my room, or bringing my new girlfriend in for some duo-sex. It was around this time that it really hit home to me that solo-sex was an intrinsic part of a healthy sexuality — the more often I masturbated, the more fun I had with others; the more I got to know my body, the better I was with others.

Things haven't really changed that much for me in the years after college. I continue to love solo-sex, and I continue to learn about what turns me on. Sometimes I learn a new on-switch with others and use it later on my own, and sometimes I think up some new fantasy, masturbate to it, and then share it with my lover for continued fun.

But I really can't stress how vital solo-sex is to a person, to making them whole. Back in high school I was a pretty useless lover (although at the time I thought I was the fabulous courtesan of my suburb, if not the world) because I did not know what sex was really about. The best way to learn about sex is with yourself, first. I remember how scared I was the first time I went down on a woman, terrified that I couldn't get her to come and I'd never find her clit! But I took what I knew from my own body, and applied it to hers, and, guess what?! I did fine (well, I would like to think better than fine....[grins])

Masturbation is essential if you ever want to get off, yourself, with another person. It is too much to assume (or demand) that a new lover just magically know your magic button(s). If you know them, however, it is just a simple matter of guiding them (subtly or bluntly) to where the X marks the spot.

Now I tend to masturbate about twice a week . . . whether I need it or not! [grins] Seriously, I do tend to crave the alone time with my own body, own sexuality, just as a kind of check-in, to see how everything is going. The days I have my precious solo-time, I am brighter and more bushy-tailed, and far randier than the days I do not.

I have no idea what lies in my long-term solo-sex future, what with post-millennial promises of cyber-sex and porn that you can see and feel, but I assume it will continue keeping me sane in times of stress, helping me sleep when I have insomnia, and helping me pass a boring afternoon when I am sick in bed. In the short-term, though, I have a bright red tool box under my bed filled so full of sex toys of all kinds (vibrators large and small, dildos, butt-plugs, etc.) that I need never fear a time when I cannot reach for a "friend in need" and help myself.