As I've mentioned previously in this space, part of the fun of having a blog is checking through the referrals in your logs to see what's bringing people to your site.
Recently I was excited to discover I had my first hit from the Middle East. It was in fact, from the Axis of Evil itself: the Islamic Republic of Iran. It seems a young man at the Rizbarf Mineral Company was kicking back and taking a break, and instead of daydreaming about wiping Israel off the map, he went to Google to type in his search keyword: 'jerkoff'.
Imagine his disappointment when the search led him to a posting on my blog about using the Mozilla Greasemonkey plugin to filter out posts by jerkoffs, using some javascript featuring a variable called 'jerkoffs' (and I realize I'm only making things worse for future would-be wankers, but stick with me, the positive after-school special part starts right about now).
Now, I know under a repressive regime ruled largely by religious dudes with a lot of problems with the whole concept of sex and a kind of awkwardness and reluctance in re: treating women properly, there is probably not a lot of open discussion about things like masturbation (I went to Catholic School, so I speak from personal experience), but I can tell you, not only is there nothing wrong with it, it apparently reduces your risk of prostate cancer, which, even though I'm not a doctor, I would classify as a good thing.
However, some people get a little too creative, and they get hurt. I direct you to the Chuck Palahniuk novel, Choke, which features a lengthy section about masturbatory
misadventures leading to emergency room visits (who knew some vacuum cleaners had little blades inside to chop up the dirt? You do, now.)
Another possible problem, which people here in the U.S. in general would rather not talk about (although there was an episode of Six Feet Under that opened with a young man dying this way) is auto-erotic asphyxiation.
In college, I shared a house with several students and a Physics Professor. One of our housemates was brilliant, at least he was an extremely skilled computer programmer, but he was also what people would euphemistically call 'troubled'. He came to the College I Attended after being kicked out of the infamous fundie institution 'Bob Jones University' (his list of offenses included associating with a girl from Lebanon, and possession of a Stryper tape). He got in big trouble for messing with the computer system. He failed math classes he presumably could have passed. He actually paid to have electrodes attached to his arms so he could build up muscles without having to use the weights the Professor had in his basement, like the rest of us did (another story, for another time).
Anyhow, I graduated, and a couple of years passed, and the old woman who lived next door to the house (she was a good friend, we hung out w/ her when we got sick of our other housemates) told me about the tragedy: our old roommate had committed suicide. Apparently, he was deep in debt, and quit a job thinking he had landed another one, only to find the new job had disappeared. Police cars and an ambulance came to the house, and it was a terrible scene.
Even though I wasn't close to the guy, I felt pretty sad about that. It seemed like the sort of problem he could have worked through. Later, while I was discussing it with another alum of the school and house, my friend informed me it was not suicide, actually it was 'autoro...autoerotic...autoerotic asphyxiation' (this friend is pretty religious, too; and his religion dictates that he stumbles awkwardly over terms or ideas that are too repulsive to him).
Apparently this friend had talked to a police officer who had arrived at the scene. The roommate was found with a belt around the neck. Something had gone wrong and the whole thing was an accident. He had no intention of killing himself all along.
It was very sad, and a total waste, so to young people in general, stay away from that shit. You don't want to be remembered for that, and if you go out that way without a long achievement-rich life behind you, that's pretty much all you'll be remembered for by most. Actually, it's probably true that if you cured cancer AND died of autoerotic asphyxiation, you'd be remembered as that scientist who died of autoerotic asphyxiation.
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