Roughing It

We had a conversation at camp about the possibility of masturbating in the toilet tents. Well, when I say "we," I actually mean that Mane's little brother owned up to having done so at one point in the past. It was one of those exhausted-every-other-topic points around the campfire on the final night.



Masturbation at camp is one of those tricky issues. Unless you're going to go tribal and wander off into the forest for a wank against a tree, there are very few places you can actually do so. If you're going to wank at all. It's your human right to do so, so I don't actually see why not... it's just doing so without anyone finding out that's the trick. That's the main joy of masturbation, right? The fact that it's a secret...? Right...?



Boys of my generation and in my clique sleep in a massive grey/green army tent. We used to sleep two or three to one orange Vango, but it's far easier to erect one mighty beast and leave the orange Vangos for the younger people. As far as I'm aware, masturbation has occurred in that tent once, although it may have been many more times.

I'm only privy to this information on account of the fact that I happened to wake up unseasonably early one day, several camps ago, and noticed one of our number masturbating in his sleeping bag. At least, that's what I think he was doing. He was making the noises and also doing the hand motions, and I can't think of any other activity which involves those things. I didn't make a sound, nor did I continue to look. I closed my eyes again and drifted back off, and I've never mentioned that to anyone - ever - apart from just now.



Part of me thinks, "well, why not?" If you want to masturbate and everyone else in the tent is sleeping, it may seem convenient, as long as you don't mind cum in your sleeping bag (and I probably would, actually). But in many other ways, one may think that it would be more civil - plus, you don't run the risk of five or so other boys waking up and catching you in the act - to go and do so somewhere else. Which brings me back to the toilet tent argument.



Despite the name - and the fact that a chemical toilet is effectively a bucket with a lid, full of Jeyes fluid - toilet tents aren't as unsanitary as they could be. I know some people would baulk at the idea, but on a large campsite with one toilet block - hell, some campsites don't even have toilet blocks - plus the fact that we've had them for years and it's always worked so far - toilet tents are an intrinsic part of our camps, and long may they reign! Simple square tents with enough space for two chemical toilets in each. Plus one with a bin, presumably for that mysterious thing girls do that I'm not allowed to know about. And why not masturbate in there? There isn't much of an odour, if you don't count the inside of a tent and the slight chemical tang of Jeyes fluid. And if you've ever masturbated in any form of toilet - your own or public - there's no reason why you shouldn't in a camp toilet tent. It performs the same basic function, after all.



I, of course, have.



I didn't over the course of the camp I just went on. I thought about it, but I was too preoccupied with Doing Camp to pull a Blackpool 2003. Plus, it's a short camp. I think I may have masturbated during a spring camp before, but usually it's the week-long summer camp that holds the temptation. Mane's brother didn't exactly stipulate when he had masturbated in a toilet tent.



Thankfully (perhaps, depending on how you look at it) none of us took offence to any of this. More thankfully, the subject wasn't pursued any further, and the conversation didn't have an interesting lull in which everybody looked at me (during which I would have said). See, I may take no shame in my actions here... but put me in that situation and I probably would be shy to say anything, after all!