[sebbie]

I was listening to a news broadcast this morning about how researchers have discovered that hearing your phone go off elicits a response in your brain not unlike what happens in the classic experiment by Pavlov involving a dog, a bell and food. Once a dog becomes aware that the sound of a bell indicates that food is coming, the dog soon finds himself drooling just by hearing the bell, without even seeing the actual food. The dog can’t keep from drooling once the bell sounds and the response by the brain in setting off the initiation of the drool. This has always been one of the most interesting and widely referenced experiments in psychology.

What does any of this have to do with male sexual response and, more broadly, all of human sexual response, anyway? Well, if there is any part of being human (or being almost any animal, for that matter) that is filled with signals of various sorts that occur prior to what I will term, the “main event” yet signals that the main event could occur, it is the signals surrounding sex and sexuality in all its forms. I suppose we could go directly into a case where a guy is watching a porn video or reading a pornographic book or magazine, perhaps with photos, and is jerking off while doing so, but let’s try to be more subtle than that. This is science, pure science.

I was thinking that a closer analog to the dog-bell-food-drool experiment would be what I would call a precum experiment. One might think of precum as a form of drool, given the physical similarity involving tiny droplets of clear liquid. I’ve talked to guys who claim they “never precum” and my normal response is “maybe you are not paying attention”. Guys learn at a very early age that they normally (but is anything truly “normal” about sexuality at a very early age? Every guy thinks he must be the only guy his age facing “problems”) start to precum at the very initial stages of sexual arousal. What sets this off could be any number of things—for a heterosexual guy, merely seeing a beautiful, sexy woman could do it. For a gay guy merely seeing another attractive, well-built, sexy male.

In this regard, the term sexy is really a code word commonly used by guys to communicate that what they just observed “set the precum flowing” without admitting that there was a direct biological response to a situation at hand that was happening outside a guy’s direct control, as in oozing drops of clear, viscous precum. The entire porno movie industry as directed toward a male viewing audience involves creating situations that quickly elicit an uncontrolled precum response as soon into the movie as possible. No point in being subtle in this situation.

This is all enormously interesting in part because this is a response that is outside the direct control of the individual, yet a clear “signal” that the event could lead to significant arousal and maybe even ejaculation. Generally, guys are very fond of being in this situation. Like Pavlov’s dog with the bell and the drool, most guys are keenly aware of when something has happened that is making them ooze, if even only a drop or two. A guy feels the distinct moist droplets accumulating inside his clothing at the very tip of his penis. Yet, normally there is not enough precum to make this visible to others.

So, what does this have to do with Dylan and Josh and clothing items such as swim briefs and athletic supporters? I’ve thought about this a lot. Another aspect of growing up as a young male is the discovery that precum production can be tripped via other than the standard mechanisms involving observations involving a sexy person. Sometimes an article of clothing will do it, but especially an article of clothing that fits snuggly in the penis and groin area. An athletic supporter, perhaps? A swim brief? Guys discover the “triggering mechanism” involving the item of clothing, and that precumming at the very initial stages of arousal can be, well, extraordinarily enjoyable, and usually is.

But guys worry a lot when faced with a “new” situation that could quickly lead to precumming, say coach telling them that they must wear an athletic supporter or swimming brief for the very first time. And nearly every guy that age theinks that he is somehow the only class member who is having this “problem” and therefore this is an indication that he is somehow weird or even gay and what if that should be generally known within the school? What the guy doesn’t know is that his peers are nearly all coping with the same uncontrollable precumming problem as well, and they are doing their best to hide their apprehension and anxiety about the whole situation. Will merely putting on a swim brief or athletic supporter quickly lead to a serious out-of-control arousal with ejaculation being the natural outcome for all the guys to see? This prospect is terrifying for a lot of guys.

Of course Josh and Dylan are older and more experience, and they think theyt are too grown up to not have a better degree of self-control. Further, they are both more comfortable in their own skins with respect to the idea that having an enjoyable sexual experience need not necessarily involve the active participation of a partner of either sex. A guy can have a very enjoyable time just being himself at least for now.

And they are both comfortable picking out clothing items in which the underlying urge to own is tied to the question as to whether or not the item will act like Pavlov’s bell with respect to precumming. The entire sequence of events involving trying on successively smaller swimming briefs just to find out how far each of them could go without ejaculating was an excellent example of the kinds of physical enjoyment each of them could have with all of this even without directly involving a partner. But more fun for Dylan watching Josh struggle with basic male urges, and more fun for Josh watching Dylan struggle to keep his male urges under control. What could that mean in the larger scheme of things, anyway? Every guy is probably going to respond a little different, and yet we are all most interesting sexual human beings seeking pleasure.

To be continued…