Glad you could come!

Europe’s first sponsored Masturbate-a-thon event in London

If you busy on the march in London yesterday you missed the chance – if you were going to come – well your chance has been and gone.

2 American sexologists, Dr Carol Queen and Dr Robert Lawrence, have run a Masturbate-a-thon in the US for the past 6 years and claim to have raised over $25,000 for women’s health initiatives and HIV prevention, education and treatment organisations.

In aid of global sexual and reproductive health agency Marie Stopes International obtained sponsorship from ID Lubricants (UK) ("ID Lube creates a more sensual experience" –Glamour Magazine) to sponsor the first such event in Europe on Saturday 5th August.

Odd timing, since San Francisco's Good Vibrations, the “big mama of the funky sex shop universe,” declared May National Masturbation Month five years ago.

Participants were invited to obtain sponsorship from friends and loved ones to financially sponsor them for every minute they masturbate during the Masturbate-A-Thon, or simply for having the courage to turn up and take part! Funds raised will benefit HIV and sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust.

All participants should have been 18 or over which is odd because when we had competitions ( a regular nocturnal event at school camp in Ladram Bay, Devon) we were a lot younger and the object was to be the first to ejaculate.

2 stars , both in terms of speed and, if I remember correctly, volume , emerged - one ended up as a Professor of Physics at a leading UK University and the other runs a very successful building company. Neither are bald or blind .

The publicity was beguiling …..

Drop Studios in Clerkenwell Road, London will be transformed into a safe, comfortable and welcoming environment for participants, with soft lighting, softer furnishings, relaxing music and dedicated areas to suit all tastes, from solo booths, to men only and women only spaces, and a mixed sex area for the truly adventurous. - no touching of other participants and no fake orgasms !!

Things you might want to ask but didn’t really want to..

1. The organisers claim current masturbation records are eight-and-a-half hours for a man and six hours twenty minutes for a woman.

2. No. Flikr does not have any photos tagged Masturbate-a-thon .

3. Yes. The event was filmed by Channel Four as part of a series of shows entitled Wank Week.