"Seeing your Memorial Day post, I have a question for your readers. Are any in the military or served since like the 2000's? Was is okay to be naked with a boner or jerk off?"
When I was in --- back when dirt was young --- yes. And, yes. The first night of basic training a guy started to masturbate. Someone laughed and was told, "I'm horny, so fuck you, you can kiss my ass." it wasn't long before most were stroking away and the place smelled of semen.
When I got to my first assignment, our barracks were a few miles off the main base and a mile from the golf course. Most of us had high-level security clearance and we called it The Hill. Everyone was single, of course. They were dorm-like rooms; two guys per. The night I walked in, my new roommate was spread eagle on his bunk leafing through porn and stroking away. He told me if I didn't like it I could go sit in the Dayroom for a while. I shrugged and stayed.
Women weren't supposed to be in the barracks but they were there sometimes and the attitude was "saw a naked guy? too bad." So it wasn't odd for guys to walk naked from their room to the latrine or be nude in the Dayroom. The wood waved every morning as guys headed to the latrine and boners were very common in the big gang showers. The occasional masturbation did take place there. Sometimes, a guy would be jacking off sprawled on a chair or the couch in the Dayroom. It was no big deal.
At some point, everyone should realize that young men are young men and will do what young men do.
But, that was my experience.
Readers???
25 comments:
I can see the masturbating be accepted. Men are horny. I also wondered how common it was for oral or full on sex? Did that happen and how was it viewed?
I have no idea because I've never served.
Now, I can imagine that most everybody would do it because, nature, right??
XOXO
In my writer's group there is a 30-something year old Army vet, he appears to have an issue with men being naked as, "I saw enough naked men when I was in the Army." I am 58 and am proud of my cock and being naked, why are these younger guys so afraid of showing their cocks? I thought these men were the supposed Alpha males, gay guys aren't afraid of cock, but the younger straight ones appear to be. Man up...afraid you might be gawked at or are you feeling inadequate?
The weekly circle-jerk was proof enough that masturbation was acceptable - even lending a hand. But oral and full-on sex? Not so much. One guy said he was offered a blow job and, against my advice, turned the guy in.
I would hope so, anyway.
XOXO
I'll bet he did see plenty of naked men in the Army.
I don't understand the issues younger men have with being naked --- especially being naked in front of other men. We may be slightly different, but it's essentially all the same.
Agree wholeheartedly, perhaps they fear they do not measure up or the thought of being sized up like they do women does not appeal to them. I say it is insecurities as they seem to be howling the loudest.
I have never served, so can't comment in that aspect, but I will say, I loved this post and your account of what occurred.
In the 1960s, I was an Officer Cadet in the Territorial Army. At annual camp, we slept in bunk beds in a barrack room. The friend who slept below me asked why our beds were rocking. I was too embarrassed to tell him, and I think he genuinely didn’t know. I was not aware of anyone else wanking – I guess they did it in private, but I always used it as “nature’s sedative” in order to go to sleep. I tried to be more discreet on subsequent nights.
Was there any clarity on where the military drew the line on what was acceptable as men just being men, and what crossed that line into what they considered unacceptable homosexuality? It sounds like lending a hand during group masturbation might have been OK, but offering (and not even performing) oral sex was a step too far?
Thank you.... It sure helped me navigate my time in the military.
At one point I shared a bunkbed. He slept up top and, lordy! did the whole thing shake when he jerked off. I told him it was fine that he was doing it, but slow down and stop shaking the whole thing. Then he tried to deny he was whacking it. Oh, puhlease....who cares? Just don't keep me awake. LOL.
There's the key to it - I think. They don't like being treated the way they do to women.
Probably the association of nudity with sex.
Not done military myself but partner has (mandatory service from his home country) and so has his dad (his dad did it for a longer time). While in the training period you would be seeing dick everyday in the mornings as they had very little time. Bed to showers many would be hard. They had no time to wait for it to go down. The evenings though many would jerk off before sleep it became routine to them.
Outside of the training period it was different as you were given your postings and you were usually in much smaller groups. Depending on posting you would either be still on base or put up in a house with who you were stationed with.
Internalised homophobia and misandry from the growing hatred towards men by women who don't want to see naked male genitals (particularly erect ones) because it reminds them of biological roles and its associated responsibilities they don't want to accept. Young men are being increasingly convinced by women that their masculinity is toxic and they are afraid to be overtly masculine or support overt masculinity in case they don't get any sex.
If women could get pregnant from a dildo and be supported by the state in resources to have children, men's ongoing existence would be extremely limited. There are already feminists calling for men to be culled to 10% of the population: that's how much respect men are receiving these days from the recent generations of women.
Even boys in school have been asked to stand and apologise for their gender's wrongdoings against women.
Telling young men to man up today is just going to reinforce their fear of being masculine, because they are now under attack from both men and women being pushed in opposite directions. It's no wonder so many are taking the suicidal way out, because they can't please anyone, not even themselves.
My ex-Navy flatmate often catches me jerking off. Doesn't bother him as he's seen it all before. He'll say "it's all good, I don't care"
This is common everywhere now--perhaps because that generation grew up taught to fear nudity and associate it w sexual assault? I think they also didn't have to shower together in gym class in school, and were less likely to have to share a room w a brother as families got smaller compared to Boomer/Xers. But go in any health club changing room and the older guys are usually let-it-all-hang-out while the younger ones change their underwear under a towel, even if everybody around them is nude. I don't understand it but it feels sad, like we've turned honest, natural nudity into something to be ashamed of.
It's got to be a generational thing because every generation of (straight) men has basically treated women as sex objects. But still they never minded being naked around each other--OTOH, it was much more common for that to happen, in gym class, sometimes skinny dipping in ponds & creeks in rural areas, or sharing bathrooms with Dad & brothers.
What's changed since the 80s is more wealth & thus more privacy in general, where it's less likely to share a room w somebody or a bathroom, and showers have stalls or even actual changing rooms with doors for each shower stall. So guys don't get used to being naked & realize it's nothing. Yeah, most of us were embarrassed the first few times we got naked around other boys, but in school, we were required to change & shower in front of everybody and by the second week, it was considered weird to still be shy about it. Younger guys have been somewhat "pampered" by more individual privacy plus messages from society that you shouldn't let anybody see your body because they might have bad motives.
Besides the generational thing, there's also the absolute AGE thing, where the older you are, the more you've been around other people naked, gotten undressed for doctors, been poked & prodded by strangers of both sexes while naked, and you just realize that naked is our natural state & unless you are aggressively violating someone's space, it should not be a big deal at all to see someone or for them to see you--ESPECIALLY your own sex with the same genitals!
I think it depended on the persons involved.
Exactly my experience in basic training. Morning wood was everywhere. No one had time to worry about it.
That's the correct attitude, IMO.
To male biology, women are sex objects where the objective is to have sex with them or imagine having sex with them, frequently: it's not a bad thing until you violate consent and it coexists with thinking of women in other ways too (but primarily it is sexual as nature intended). Think of it as affectionate objectivity with subjective pleasurable benefits.
Take sex out of the equation and how many men would still be remotely interested in putting up with "the nature of women"?
A bear is going to see women as a threat object to be eliminated or a food object, so a man seeing them as a sex object is far less dangerous and perhaps even pleasurable. Simply can't understand the preference of women for bear: it's fantasy instead of reality.
I think women have become paranoid about men and depictions of male sexuality, convincing themselves by their in-group bias with other women that every anecdote will not only apply to them too, but will destroy them, when they objectively run little risk of serious harm. I beg your pardon, the deity never promised you a (thornless) rose garden of a life when men were given a briar patch in comparison.
Women willingly go through natural childbirth, yet touch a woman on the shoulder when you aren't Chad in her eyes and it's like you cleaved her shoulder from her body.
Any man who masturbates has seen it all before, and with man on man (self)action, so I can't understand how homophobia continues to linger. Why should it matter whose body you are having sex with as long as it is consensual? If you argue with yourself about consent over masturbation, I think you may need therapy. However, I think this is mostly coming from the female direction, being convinced to hate men and all masculine presentations (except for Chad of course) because of difference.
Yes, my nephew! This fragile generation that’s afraid of interacting with anything other than a computer with so-called "towel dances", no communal showers now and never have to shower surrounded by other people in the army today. in my time, showers starting in 7 grade, and we all have a penis, no big deal!!
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