Jail-bator

Boys and girls, do I have a treat for you this week: It’s been a while since I’ve run a letter from an inmate, and considering that I got a nice one from none other than California’s Folsom State Prison (the one Johnny Cash made famous), I think you punks better take a break from shoving contraband up your asses and listen:

Q The brain in this noggin is filled with filth. I’m a porno hound. I’m a slave to porn mags and videos and I’m comfortable putting dating and relationships on hold, in favor of daily wanking. I’m a 50-year-old guy who’s been serving time since I was 44 (I get out when I’m 58), and I’ve been daily wanking since I was 39. I lived in NYC for eight years and once wrote in to an advice columnist. I explained that I was “stuck in a rut,” unable to choose between jerking off, pursuing love or pursuing lust with whores in Mexico. She suggested that I try to “reach my full potential,” which I assume she meant as a jerk-off. So now, when I finish my time do I: (a) get a life and date women, find a girlfriend/soulmate; (b) buy a ton of porno mags and videos and keep living the jerk-off’s life; (c) find a young whore and marry her; or (d) go into porn in my old age and document for the world to see how good I am acting as a filthy, nasty geezer? Thank you for your feedback.

A I know this is going to sound like a strange thing to say to someone who’s serving 14 years in prison, but I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. If I had to serve a day of prison time for every guy in the world who has a daily wanking habit, I’d be some burly tattooed dude’s lifetime bitch boy right about now. Jacking off once or twice or even three times a day isn’t the problem; the problem is limiting yourself to that one sexual outlet. Basically, you have a self-esteem issue that prevents you from believing that a woman you don’t have to pay could possibly like you enough to want to have sex with you. I’m sure having a prison history is not going to help matters much once you get out, but you sound so bored and frustrated by your normal way of doing things that perhaps you’ll be motivated to try something new just so you don’t have to be in that same old rut again. Right now, for you, there’s nothing worse than that rut. It’s your own emotional prison cell, and even the pain of being rejected by someone would be a welcome reprieve from feeling nothing at all. My advice: no more whores, for the love of all that is holy—no geezer porn, and no more thinking that you’re any more filthy or nasty than any other postpubescent male. Go out and risk getting your heart broken—at the very least, you’ll start to feel like you’re living life again.

Q I’m a straight guy and I met this incredible girl when I least expected it. We immediately hit it off, and for the first time in a long while I felt unbelievable and could be myself with her. She is three months out of a five-year live-in relationship, so we were taking things slow and being friends. I was a little confused about how she felt toward me, and before I had the chance to be alone with her and ask, her best friend tried hooking up with me. I was real drunk and she filled my head with lies that this girl did not care for me. She was very aggressive, verging on a rapelike forwardness toward me. Nothing serious took place with her friend—and I made sure of that—but now this girl I absolutely adore and want to have something more with can’t get over that I hooked up with her friend, and she isn’t sure if we can be anything more then just friends now. So what should I do? Is there any chance we may still have something together?

A Rapelike forwardness!?! Only a guy could possibly come up with that phrase, so let me just point out that there is nothing “rapelike” about anything except rape. To be brutally honest, it’s hard for me to feel empathy for you when your letter reeks of false-victimhood and blame avoidance: “I was drunk,” “I was lied to,” “I didn’t have the chance to talk to the woman I was interested in.” Just face it, you blew it. You were drunk and horny and made the unwise snap decision to focus on getting your rocks off and deal with the awkward “friend situation” at a later point. Personally, I think you’d do yourself a huge favor if you’d just fucking admit that, because you’re probably coming off as a slimy, self-deluded player to the woman you’re actually interested in. I know I’m sounding a bit harsh, but the truth is, I do think you might actually be able to salvage something with this gal (if it’s true that nothing major happened with the other chick and there is a real connection here, I don’t see why she couldn’t ultimately overlook the fuck-up), but it’s not going to happen if you keep trying to weasel out of being responsible for your actions.

Q I’m a 21-year-old male virgin. Sex had never interested me and I had accepted the idea of being asexual. But something has changed in the last few weeks and I can’t stop masturbating, dreaming of sucking, licking, eating and fucking either a guy or a girl. Never having been in a romantic relationship before, I’m not sure what steps I should take next. I don’t even know if I’m straight, gay or bi.

A Wow, just the idea of having a whole new sexual frontier to explore sounds extremely exciting. I wouldn’t worry about pigeonholing yourself and just be grateful for the onslaught of lust. It’s a beautiful thing. Maybe you should use all that masturbation time to figure out what sexual scenario excites you the most right now. It may change over time, but you may as well start ticking off all the things you’ve been waiting so long to do. I would also try to figure out what it is that’s changed in the past few weeks. Some people just take longer to get in touch with their sexual selves, so maybe that’s it, but I also wonder if you met someone in particular who got you going, or saw an image or whatever. As far as taking the next step, I would just keep living your life normally but pay more attention to what kinds of people turn you on the most. It’s a blessing to be free and open-minded enough to move in any direction your hormones guide you, so take as much advantage of that gift as possible. It would also be cool if you could keep checking in and updating us on your new experiences.

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