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What best defines "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome"?

· A rare condition present in men after suffering a blunt facial injury wherein they feel a compulsion to jerk-off in public libraries.

· The development of hirsute palms and cracked spines that, according to a strand of thought first spun in late-18th century Switzerland, occurs in chronic onanists.

· What happens when people are so enrapt in masturbation that they fall off their computer-chairs and hit their heads.

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· When a lost memory of childhood masturbation suddenly gets "recovered" with the aid of a therapist, who helps the perpetrator/victim to see that what may have seemed like innocent autoeroticism has in fact ruined his or her life.

Supposing anything the likes of "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome" exists, the answer is "none of the above." The syndrome, say proponents of the concept, is simply what they consider the bad idea of masturbating prone: self-pleasuring by repeatedly squeezing one's cock into bed, pillow, or floor.

From one standpoint, fucking, say, a mattress or balled-up blankets, would seem as close as masturbation can come-- short of a blow-up doll-- to missionary-position intercourse. But the trouble is, mattresses and the like don't have accommodating holes. Guys who masturbate prone tend to do with their cocks what oil-presses do to olives, what mountain ranges do to sedimentary rock. And prone masturbators effect this high-intensity compression, not to the penis tip, designed by nature for smooshing, but-- base to stem-- to the cock's entire delicate neurological and erectile machinery. The result, say some, is gradual loss of penile sensation, erection troubles Viagra can't fix, or inability to have an orgasm through such typical interpersonal means as a partner's pussy, anus, mouth, or caressing hand.

TMS was spelled out in the winter 1997 Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. In case that issue is not on your coffeetable, www.healthystrokes. com, "a site about masturbation and you," is sounding the alarm about TMS all over the internet.

Normally, your correspondent would be skeptical about any attempt to link masturbation with menace. But for at least two guys in his address book, Healthystrokes.com was a godsend-- describing exactly the difficulties their chosen form of getting-off caused in other areas of their sex lives.

Luckily there's a simple treatment for TMS-- involving repeated injections into the eye of an experimental, highly corrosive new acid. Just kidding! But for sex fiends, the real cure isn't much better: abstain from any sexual stimulation until the alighting of a mosquito on your member will get you erupting. Thus primed, doctor's orders are to set to the task of masturbating like most guys do-- on the back, with the hand. And please, focus ministrations on your cock's sensitive tip.

For one TMS sufferer who spoke to The Guide, this was just the trick to help him learn to masturbate perhaps more safely. But like a dry drunk dreaming of martinis, he still pines for the days of smooshing his cock on bunched bedclothes: the physical sensations were so intense, he relates, that he happily masturbated without fantasies or pictures. (Hmmm... this column wasn't supposed to become an advertisement for opium eating!)

Probably masturbating prone isn't bad for everybody who does it. But learning how to reach orgasms in new ways has to be good for growing mind and body, like taking language classes. So if you masturbate prone, consider trying another method, and give your smooshed, suffering cock a breather.