San Francisco Blog

Lauren Smiley

This group was not camera-shy, however...

You know what they say about sex and politics -- you just can't separate the two.

Well, the same turned out to be true at Saturday's Masturbate-a-Thon at the Center for Sex & Culture on Mission Street. Now in its ninth year, the event is an outgrowth of the National Masturbation Month started by Good Vibrations sex shop in 1995 after former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was fired for saying youngsters should be taught to masturbate as a form of safe sex. 

While areas were set up for those who desired to do their thing with more privacy, a bleacher set of voyeurs watched humans in varying degrees of nudity pleasure themselves for charity in the darkened "Masturbatatorium." Those behind a special masking tape line who'd signed release forms even allowed us to take their photo in their pleasured state. (More politics: It seems it's against the law to post pictures of nude folks masturbating unless they'd done so. The law doesn't split hairs between masturbating for "education" and porn, the organizers said.)

To check out the full slide show, click here. Still, there's one guy in the camera-friendly zone who you won't see in the slide show. He was the dude who told us off while he was whacking off -- a unique experience even after a couple of years working in this city. He said he wouldn't pose in any photo for the SF Weekly because ... his explanation then being drowned out by the pounding music. We leaned in for clarification and he said into our ear:  "I won't pose for the SF Weekly because you're killing the spirit of our city with your snarkiness," and smiled smugly. All without losing his hard-on.

Spoken like a true wanker.