ABSTRACT
W hen trevor lake (a pseudonym) was growing up in 1940s Indiana, there was nothing more shameful or secretive than masturbation. “My father caught me when I was twelve. I was jerking off in my room. Boy, there was hell to pay. He told me I was a pervert. He used a belt on my behind.” Trevor’s father was a Baptist, though the family went to church only on Easter and Christmas, and sex was a highly charged issue in the Lake household. “He caught me a couple of times after that and every time, he whipped me with the belt.” Terrified of his father’s wrath, Trevor tried to stop masturbating, but he says, “I couldn’t help myself.” One reason he did not stop was that he and his buddies would masturbate together. “We would play games. You know, we’d try to see who could shoot first or shoot the farthest.” Still, his father’s attitudes and actions took their toll: As an adult, Lake would suffer from impotence nearly every time he tried to have sexual intercourse with a woman.
