

That said, for some straight guys who attend jackoff clubs, looking at or touching other penises may almost be beside the point. As Slate writer Kyle Mustain put it, “that’s a lot of not-gay dudes with profiles on a website for men who like to masturbate with other men.” And given the strict and arguably regressive codes governing male sexuality, which dictate that any man who so much as looks at another man has to be, if not gay, probably bisexual, it’s surprising that so many ostensibly straight men are interested in watching other guys touch themselves. There’s even a term for it on Tumblr: “ buddy bating.”Ĭoincidentally, the 10 percent figure Rosenberg reports also squares with data from BateWorld, a website featuring men uploading jackoff clips that has been referred to as “Facebook for masturbators.” According to a Slate piece on the phenomenon, approximately 10 percent of BateWorld’s users self-identify as straight, while 5 percent refused to self-identify either way-a number that pales in comparison to the more than 44,000 gay users of the site (50 percent of its audience 30 percent identifies as bi, while 5 percent would “rather not say”), but is nonetheless significant. Though there isn’t much data attesting to its exact prevalence, it’s far from uncommon for straight men to have had communal masturbatory experiences during adolescence, whether it’s beneath the alpaca blankets in their parents’ basement or behind the bleachers after gym class or in the bunks at sleepaway camp (or at John Lennon’s house). In truth, Brandon is absolutely right: his experience masturbating in front of other men is far from a singular one. “It was tame, fratty, kind of lame,” he said. Yet he says in retrospect, the weirdest thing about the incident was how not-weird it seemed at the time. He had never masturbated in front of another man, let alone a group of other men, before in his life. They never spoke of it again.īrandon self-identifies as straight. “And so we did.” After they finished, they zipped themselves up and proceeded to continue meandering through the caves, as if nothing happened. “It didn't take long for someone to suggest we all jerk off in the darkness,” Brandon, now 35, says. At a certain point, they reached a part of the cave that was pitch-black. When Brandon* was in his early 20s and studying abroad, he went on a trip to Israel with his friends to hike in the Judean caves.
