Dredging up the memory about beating off while looking at Dad's stash of Playboy back issues -- in my case, with my attention focused not on the centerfolds but on all the handsome men in the liquor and underwear and razor ads -- made me think about the first time ever. Obviously, we all got boners even when we were kids, and I figured out early that it felt nice to rub my hard penis. But I count as the ''first time'' the occasion when I finally understood exactly what the word orgasm meant, accompanied by the realization that the pleasure I'd previously experienced was as nothing compared to this.

I was 12 years old, sitting on the toilet one evening, one of my three favorite reads smuggled in with me: The Sensuous Woman, by 'J', that swinging-'70s paperback classic that I'd discovered on my parents' bookshelf a couple years before, along with its companion volume, The Sensuous Man, by 'M', and The Joy of Sex -- the original hardcover edition, with all the pencil drawings of a bearded hippie guy getting it on with his lady. (I dunno what my parents were thinking, keeping this kind of stuff in plain view on the bookshelf instead of hiding it in a sock drawer or something. Because of their carelessness, I was a lad of only nine years old when I first discovered The Joy of Sex, and I spent many an hour gazing fondly at the drawings of the hippie dude's penis, wondering if mine would ever be that hairy.)

But that evening, as I said, I was perusing The Sensuous Woman, and specifically the chapter ''How to Drive A Man to Ecstasy,'' with its detailed instructions on, among other things, giving good handjobs and BJs. (Actually, come to think of it, that was the only hot chapter in the book, as the rest of it consisted of advice for liberated single gals on how to pick up men in museums, the importance of feeling pretty and feminine, and whatnot.) Reflective of the era, I guess, the advice on making a man come his brains out was a mix of faux-Kama Sutra sensuality -- many of the techniques had names like ''The Silken Butterfly Swirl,'' f'rinstance -- and prim Ann Landers decorum, with 'J' hastening to reassure her female readers that there was nothing unsanitary or degrading about taking a man's penis into your mouth.

Anyway, there I was, feeling my hard 12-year-old dick -- still without the nice manly bush of pubic hair that I envied on the Joy of Sex guy -- and I got it into my head to try to duplicate the ecstasy-inducing effects of the ''The Silken Butterfly Swirl'' using my hand as a substitute mouth. So, I spit on my hand to get it appropriately moist, wrapped it around my erection, and began stroking away vigorously while attempting simultaneously to make circular motions around the head with my thumb (pinch-hitting for a tongue, if you follow me). It felt really good, so I just kept at it, all the while reading and re-reading the chapter's raciest passages, and feeling better and better than I ever had before while playing with my dick. And then... OH MY GOSH, this breathless sensation and a degree of physical pleasure more intense than I'd ever experienced, emanating from my stiff penis and moving through me in waves, and I suddenly knew what 'M,' of The Sensuous Man, had been talking about in his chapter on Masturbation. I hadn't ejaculated, and wouldn't experience that until after several more months of dry orgasms, but from that day, I was hooked.

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