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.