Charity used to be about sitting in baths of beans or doing a sponsored silence. First there was Comic Relief then came Sports Relief, now comes relief of a completely different kind in the name of charity. On August 5th, hundreds of people are expected to gather in a hall in Clerkenwell to pleasure themselves to raise money for safe sex groups.
The organiser of the event, the San Francisco-based Centre for Sex and Culture, has run mass masturbation events in the US for the past five years and plans to replicate their success in the UK.
Prizes will be on offer for those who clock up the most orgasms (current record, thirty six!) and those who can masturbate the longest (the current record, eight-and-a-half hours. Hats off.)
To qualify for the record, the organisers say, "at least 55 minutes of every hour shall be spent self-pleasuring by manual or sex toy stimulation". The remaining five minutes are set aside for the participants to "replenish and renew".
Looking at their website, the rules are pretty stringent, this is no casual mass public wank. For example,
All soiled materials collected shall be removed by qualified cleaning personnel wearing at the least: shoes, clean examination gloves and Jock Strap or Garter Belt.
NO FAKING ORGASM. Do not waste our time. If you have an orgasm we are happy for you but this is not our goal. The first detected faked orgasm shall be reason for a 15 minute penalty against accumulated time. The second detected fake orgasm shall be a thirty minute fine against accumulated time and the third will disqualify the offender from further competition at that event.
It's not all onanism either, it seems masturbation need not just be for one. It's a team game too,
Teams shall consist of a minimum of 3 persons.
Tag Teams shall consist of a maximum of 5 persons and a minimum of 4 persons. Tag teams are allowable only if there is another tag team to compete... Tag will be brief but obvious in nature. The callers hand shall be used for the purposes of a such tag.
We band of brothers.
What's more, Channel 4 has commissioned a documentary about the UK's first "masturbate-a-thon" as part of a series of programmes dubbed "Wank week".
Zig Zag, the company making the program, writes, "This year it's time to bring the event across the pond to see if the great British public can embrace mass public masturbation. It's time to find out if the only things allowed to be stiff in Britain are upper lips."
Yes, very funny.
