Parting Glances: No Onan! Oh, No!

Years ago there was a physique magazine, Tomorrow's Man, that for 50 cents newsstand purchase could be discreetly hidden in a hip pocket for private enjoyment. (Considered pornographic it was a federal offense to send copies through the mail.)
There was no full frontal nudity and well-oiled models wore posing pouches — the varying capacities of which left to viewer's imagination. It wasn't a problem. With Clark Kent gaydar comes Superman X-ray vision.
In spite of erotic tameness by today's standards, Tomorrow's Man did the trick as a pictorial adjunct to self pleasuring in the bedroom, on pocket-pool, public transportation, in back row church pews, and in the occasional unattended telephone booth for Ma Bell's "it's your nickel" sex sessions.
Little wonder then that out of nostalgia I zeroed in on a glossy magazine titled, Today's Man among hundreds of magazines at a second-hand multi-media record shop. For old time's sake I took a gander, expecting to find pecs, 'ceps, boners, T-shirted demigods. I was mistaken.
There was no nudity, period. What there was were conservatively dressed guys in three-button suits, dotty bow ties, lapel gold crosses, baggy pants, all smiling as though each had just won a rub off lottery for Jesus.
Said publication was a power-of-positive-thinking glossy for Born Againers.
My curiosity however was aroused by its featured op-ed piece on onanism — masturbation. It was concocted by a thirties something Jack of(f) All Trades — grinning like the cat who had swallowed the proverbial canary, and the canary seed as well — who'd gone without diddling his didjeroo for 15 years, or 2,340 times, whichever came first. Or, so he claimed.
Whether this entitles our enterprising handyman entry into the Guinness Book of Records or a succinct passing mention in the New York Times Sunday sports section is not for me to say; especially given my own non-existent celibacy track record. (52 times last month,)
Apparently 80 men showed up for his first workshop. Presumably they saw, they conquered — whether they actually came is debatable — and probably left a love offering at the door. (Women, for reasons of the usual male social shortcomings, were excluded.)
What prompted our ex-JO to keep his holier-than-thou trousers buttoned was the guilt that he had wrestled with — not unlike Jacob and the Old Testament angel — after doing the devilish deed "three times a week behind behind his wife's back" (figuratively speaking).
To those of us who find a JO session both salubrious and a good way to get the old heart pumping without benefit of excessive caffeine intake or token exercise, this sex phobia is just a tad pathological. (Sex is for these jerks a convenient way to make people feel guilty and in need of being saved.)
Shelving Today's Man I imagined our intrepid halo polisher standing at the Pearly Gates. Says St. Peter, "I've got good news and bad news, my son. The good news is there's an Olympic gold medal for cold showers. The bad: we've assigned you to an eternity of hands on workshops on Cloud 9." It sure beats strumming the harp.
(By the way: just kidding about the 52. It was 38. But who's counting?)