This International Masturbation Day, Step Up and Do Your Part
Handling your own business might just be the safest thing you can do these days
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
Like millions of others in recovery, I try to blame as many of my personal shortcomings as possible on being raised Catholic.
That’s no disrespect to the billion-plus Catholics still out there — including those near, dear, and kin to me — but the occasional subtle dig is a perfectly reasonable trade-off for lifelong guilt you can’t escape no matter how hard you try.
If you were raised to truly adhere to Catholic doctrine, you are conditioned to believe that something so instinctive as self-satisfaction is potentially worthy of lifelong condemnation. So as we close International Masturbation Month, an institution whose existence I have painstakingly triple-checked, I’m hoping to talk about the world’s favorite activity in a way that ideally doesn’t make you wish my keyboard had caught on fire.
My first education about masturbation was ruined by men who dress like bad bitches but fail to do bad-bitch things. That is, priests. Sadly, much of what I was taught back in catechism classes can now be viewed…
