Do all men have a thing for penises? Is the association we develop between how we react to the sight of our own and the sight of others' a universal thing regardless of orientation? I wish we could give a truth serum to all men and find out. If so, then why don't we get honest about it and have some fun together?

No, not all men. Probably more than will admit it, though — curiosity, comparison, and aesthetic interest are common even among straight guys, and the gap between what men privately acknowledge and what they'll say out loud is largely enforced by social pressure rather than actual orientation.

But curiosity isn't the same as desire. Truth serum wouldn't reveal one universal answer, it would reveal a spectrum: strictly straight, quietly bi, closeted, adventurous, indifferent. The "let's all just admit it and have fun" framing skips over that variance. Drop the social penalty and you'd see more casual play among men than the current numbers suggest, but "more" isn't "all," and what any specific group actually wants to do together depends on the actual people in the room, not a theoretical consensus.

I have always wondered if guys who are straight masturbate daily married or not. Do they ever think about masturbating with a friend? 

Masturbation is a common and natural behavior among men, regardless of their sexual orientation or relationship status. Many straight men do masturbate daily, as it is a way to relieve stress, explore their sexuality, and maintain physical health. The frequency can vary widely based on individual preferences, energy levels, and lifestyle factors.

As for thinking about masturbating with a friend, this is less common but not unheard of. The idea of mutual masturbation can arise in various contexts, such as during a particularly intense bonding moment or as a form of exploration and intimacy. However, this usually requires a high level of trust and openness between friends, as it can significantly change the friendship dynamic.

The key takeaway is that masturbation is a personal activity, and thoughts or behaviors around it can vary greatly from one person to another. Open, non-judgmental discussions can help you understand and respect these differences. Do you have any experiences or thoughts on this topic you'd like to share?

I am a straight oriented, married (to a woman) man who has routinely masturbated since age twelve. I don’t masturbate daily, but I have maintained a consistent ejaculation rate of once every two to three days on average the entire time. To be sure, I am passionate about masturbation. I am an advocate.

I do not think about masturbating with other men. That’s just not my thing. However, I have had countless candid conversations about masturbation online with other like-minded male masturbators. 

Passion for masturbation runs independent of sexual orientation and marital status. The choice to masturbate solo or with others also runs independent of sexual orientation, although marital status add some complexity (some spouses consider it infidelity). For the most part, it is simply a matter of individual choice.

That’s an interesting distinction between masturbation as something driven by sexual orientation and masturbation simply as an individual sexual behavior. I suspect you’re right that we sometimes attach more meaning to it than the act itself necessarily carries. 

What particularly interests me is the married part of the original question. I wonder how many men see masturbation as something completely separate from sex with their partner, rather than something they do because something is missing in the relationship. I suspect that distinction may explain why it remains part of many men’s lives regardless of relationship status.

Do all men have a thing for penises?

I can’t speak for other guys on the straight side of the spectrum, @fifthlimbtim, but for me, in general, I would say no. It is a complex no, however.

I appreciate the penis’s central role in pornography when actively engaged in partnered sex or masturbation. I like my own which I have witnessed countless times engaged in partnered sex and masturbation. I think this active penis voyeurism and appreciation rings true for most men regardless of orientation.

But passive penises do little for me by themselves. In fact, I was wholly unprepared for the deluge of dick pics I encountered on BateWorld at first. They became a turn-off.

Part of this is explained from an artistic standpoint. As an artist, I recognize the beauty of the male figure overall (as I recognize the beauty of the female figure). In this regard, dick pics are a bit frustrating. They ignore the beauty and humanity exhibited in the larger male figure. I felt that those who posted them missed the point.

But then a gay friend explained to me that dick pics play a signature role in gay and bisexual identity. With that perspective, I find them much more tolerable. I still scroll by them on BateWorld, but I now understand why they are there.

I think the distinction you’re making between the penis by itself and the penis as part of the whole person is interesting. It also complicates my earlier thought that curiosity about other men’s bodies may be more common than men are willing to admit. Curiosity about another man’s body isn’t necessarily the same thing as being particularly interested in his penis.

Your experience with BateWorld also makes me wonder how much context matters. The same image can register very differently depending on whether we see it as sexual, aesthetic, comparative, or simply human. And I suspect men may move among those reactions more easily than the labels we tend to put on them would suggest.

I also like that your friend gave you a different way of understanding something that initially turned you off. You didn’t suddenly develop an interest in dick pics. You just understood what they represented to someone with a different experience than yours. To me, that kind of candid exchange is exactly what makes conversations like this interesting.

Looking back, most of the questions here have been about bodies and what men do in private. Fair enough. I'm curious about the other stuff, though. The things going on inside another man's head that we don't always know how to ask about.

For instance, how do you know when another guy actually wants to talk about something that's bothering him, rather than just being left alone?

I suspect we've all gotten that one wrong at least once.

My psychosexual development was largely influenced by my urinating with my father until the age of ten.

And by having been handled during a physical examination at school in first grade at the age of seven, along with three other boys at the same time. I would like to know if other men my age (mid-sixties) have ever had a physical at school and been handled, and how they felt about it. I loved every second of it, and have relived it in my mind hundreds of times. Would be fun to compare memories.

@fifthlimbtim Tim, you've just brought back a memory I haven't thought about in years!

I vividly remember those school physicals, too. Several of us boys were in the nurse's office together, shirts off, pants and underwear around our ankles, while they went through the examinations, including checking our privates and looking at our spines. It's funny how clearly I can still picture the whole scene after all these years.

I don't recall attaching quite the same significance to those experiences that you did, but I certainly remember being aware of the other boys around me. Having recognized my attraction to other boys at a pretty young age, I also remember the anxiety of possibly becoming aroused during one of those examinations. Especially when one or two of the boys I had a crush on happened to be there! Talk about adding a little unnecessary stress to an already awkward situation. LOL.

Looking back, I find it remarkable how casually those examinations were conducted. Can you imagine a school doing that today? I suspect there would be a few interesting conversations with parents!

What I find particularly interesting about your question is how differently we remember what was essentially the same experience. For you, it became a pleasurable memory that stayed with you. For me, it was a mix of curiosity, attraction, and fear of being embarrassed in front of the other guys.

Now I'm wondering how many other men here remember those group examinations, and whether their experiences were closer to yours, mine, or something entirely different.

Funny how another guy's question can bring back a memory you didn't even realize you'd tucked away. And that's exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping we'd have here. 🙂

Ever after, I would re-enact the moves with my own hands, as much as possible.
In total:
I was first in line, with Ricky, Jummy, and Buddy to my left. We were cool with shirts off, that was routine. But shoes and pants off, and pull down undershorts? Jimmy asked "How far?" The doctor repllied "Down to your knees is fine." So we all dropped them to our knees sheepishly. 
The doctor was sitting on one of those rolling stools.
He rolls over to me and uses the stethoscope on my chest as usual and back and breathing and coughing. He had a clipboard and a form to fill out so he then jotted something down.
As for the not-so-privates, I am uncut, so first he peeled back my foreskin behind the head, saw that it was looking normal, and retracted easily. Then he took the head between his thumb and forefinger and pulled.
In all my penis play, I had never tried that, so it felt new and interesting. It lengthened, he held it out at full extent a moment and then let go and it fell long and lanky, not the least bit harder.
Then he wrote down some stuff and then he firmly squeezed my shaft with his hand, let go, and saw no unusual response. I never got hard at that age, (unlike some boys I found out about years later, which utterly fascinated and dumbfounded me.)
Then he gently squeezed my left testis and asked me if it hurt at all. When I said yes, he said to point to where it hurt, and I pointed at my lower abdomen. He then repeated that for the right testis, with the same result. The usual finger in the sack and turn head and cough on each side also.
Then after he wrote something down, he took his thumb and index finger and made an "OK" ring shape as he enclosed my entire package, dick and balls, and once enclosed, gave the whole package a firm tug, which I had never done and also felt interesting. As all this was going on, the other boys were not toeing the line, but had curved around to see what would be done to them after me. I also wanted to see them get handled, but I was not able to see much, as their parts weren't as big and harder to see.
In hindsight, the pulling awakened something deep in my phallic identity.
In the next months I fantasized about an ideal world where all men and boys could frolic naked and handle each other any way they wanted, as long as it was enjoyed by all. I even gave this paradise a name, Penisia, pronounced "penis-see-ya". I longed for buddies to do that kind of thing with ever since.
I still have some of my personal records from that elementary school and one where that doctor signed his name, so I looked online and found old newspaper articles about him. I thought "lucky bastard', to get paid to handle and get a good look at all these boys! Other men have gone to prison for less! I doubt my parents ever knew about it. So as you said, what would they think? Today, it would be unthinkable.

@fifthlimbtim

Tim, you really do have a remarkable memory! 🙂 What interests me most is how differently we remember similar experiences, and how much meaning we attach to them over the years.

Your story raises another question for me, related to the source question. Did you ever want to ask Ricky, Jimmy, or Buddy what they thought about the experience afterward? And if so, what kept you from asking?

I wonder how many of us have carried questions about other men's experiences for years, simply because we weren't sure how they'd react if we asked.

Posted by: @tony-admin

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@fifthlimbtim Tim, you've just brought back a memory I haven't thought about in years!

I vividly remember those school physicals, too. Several of us boys were in the nurse's office together, shirts off, pants and underwear around our ankles, while they went through the examinations, including checking our privates and looking at our spines. It's funny how clearly I can still picture the whole scene after all these years.

I am a little younger than you two are @fifthlimbtim and @tony-admin, but not much younger. I went to public school in the northeastern United States. I never had an examination like that.

It’s possible that I simply don’t remember, or I blocked the memory, but I don’t think so. I think I would have remembered something like that.

@proud-archer

That's interesting, Proud Archer! You got me curious enough to dig a little into the history of school physicals. Turns out, it varied a lot depending on where and when you went to school.

I even found a historical study describing group examinations where kids were partially undressed for posture and scoliosis checks. Some school physicals also included hernia and genital examinations, although I couldn't find much documentation about how common those were.

So it's entirely possible we simply went to schools with very different practices. What I find fascinating is that something Tim and I remember so vividly might never have been part of your experience at all. Same generation, very different memories. Makes me wonder what other childhood experiences we assume everyone shared, only to discover they didn't!

Yes, and I was friends with Buddy until I moved away in 8th grade, and it never felt safe to ask about his viewpoint. He was the youngest of five brothers and was more of a sissy than I was. He came out later. The risk of not getting a positive response was just too great. He was Catholic, as many of the boys in the neighborhood, and I wonder if any of them were abused and kept quiet.

I asked AI a few months ago if it thought I may have been part of some kind of study, or if it was a common physical, after giving the same detailed description, it justified each action and gave plausible reasons for each, and that it was a common physical for that age and time. It would have been equally fun if my Dad or another male relative were to have done those things, but having a stranger authority figure do it was also a bit of a rush. 

I was generally penis-shy that year at school. The teacher used to take the whole class to the lavatory (restrooms) at the same time to get it over with instead of the constant interruption of one kid after another raising their hand to be excused. While other boys would have pissing contests to see who could pee the farthest at the urinals, and other comparing, I was so afraid that they would make fun of my uncut that I always shielded it with my hands. In my heart of hearts I wanted to play and see what I could.

@fifthlimbtim I think what you said about never feeling safe enough to ask Buddy resonates most with me. You were friends for years, yet you still wanted to understand something about his experience that you couldn't quite bring yourself to ask. I can certainly relate to that.

And I think that's something a lot of men experience, particularly when we're younger. We're curious about each other, but we're also terribly conscious of how that curiosity might be interpreted. Sometimes the fear of asking a perfectly innocent question becomes a bigger obstacle than the question itself.

Your comment about being self-conscious because you were uncut also caught my attention. It's remarkable how early we start worrying about whether our bodies measure up to everyone else's. And how often we assume we're the only ones feeling that way!

I keep wondering how many conversations we missed out on simply because we were afraid of what another guy might think. I know I've had my share of those moments, and I suspect a few of those questions are still rattling around in my head decades later. 🙂

Thanks for sharing this, buddy. It's exactly the kind of curiosity about other men's experiences that I hoped this discussion would bring out.