The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I've been waiting for this moment all my life: a guilt-free wank.

Every wank I've ever had has come with feelings of shame and guilt. From the first time I discovered that rubbing my crotch on the bed felt good, to my discovery that I could use my hand to stimulate myself, to today when my wanks have become more elaborate, using niche fetish porn and an artifical vagina: all my wanks have felt shameful. I have the vague feeling that I've done something wrong.

Obviously this is absurd thinking. Who cares if I'm having a wank? And if anyone did care - like the vicar who thinks masturbation is a sin, or the woman who finds any mention of masturbation distasteful - then why should I let it bother me? The problem would be with them, not me.

But still: every wank makes me feels guilty.

But not today. Not today! Because today, just for once, I get to do a guilt-free wank! You see, today I'm giving a semen sample at a fertility clinic so they can look for any fertility issues. It's Girlfriend's idea. It's all part of this IVF she's got us doing so she can get pregnant. And as part of the IVF, I have to give a sperm sample.

Which means, ultimately, that today I get to masturbate into a cup knowing that it's serving a purpose, knowing that my wife and doctor want me to jerk off into a cup. They need me to jerk off into a cup. So it's a state-sanctioned wank. I can wank knowing I'm doing the right thing.

I walk into the fertility clinic. And I already feel dirty, like a pervert.

"I'm here for an appointment," I say to the receptionist. To my disappointment, she's not a big-boobed blonde woman like from a porn film. She's just a middle-aged woman. "It's for a... spermogram." I add.

She does some stuff on her computer for what seems like half an hour and then she leads me upstairs to an empty waiting room.

I'm sitting alone in the waiting room, waiting to see what will happen next. My mind is panicking like a cornered rat. Who's going to come and get me? Will it be a man or a woman? A man would be a relief. Then I can just treat the whole thing like a bonding exercise between two buddies. The kind of bonding exercise where one man masturbates into a cup. But then again, if it's a hot young nurse, I wouldn't mind.

A man comes. He’s a friendly man, a bit like a Butlins entertainer. Is it wrong to say that I think he's gay? My gaydar's giving off faint pings.

He takes me to the room. In my head, I call this The Wanking Room. It's a tiny room with a TV, a table and a small pile of porn mags.

"If you turn on the TV, there are adult films," he says. "I recommend watching them because they'll stimulate you and help make the sample a good one."

This is all a bit awkward. But I try to treat it seriously as if it's not just about me wanking into a cup.

He hands me the sample collection pot. It has a red lid. "I suggest you take the lid off before you start," he says. "Some men get a little excited and forget about taking off the lid until the last moment. That's when things can get... messy."

I nod.

"When you’re finished, press the switch over here and I’ll come and get you. But oh - take your time, because the longer you take, the better the sample will be."

He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

I get the weird feeling that I’m in an escape room. I feel there should be a clock on the wall with a 1-hour countdown timer and that I should start rummaging around for clues.

You know what? I will have a look around. Since this is the only time I'll ever be in a Wanking Room, I might as well see what a Wanking Room contains.

So first I turn on the TV. First the word Acer appears for a few seconds. It's soothing and helps to settle my nerves. Then suddenly on the screen is a man and woman fucking. There's no sound, thank Christ. The man's enthusiastically fucking the woman from behind. She's making exaggerated facial expressions.

This porn doesn’t turn me on at all. It's just vanilla porn. It turns me off if anything. My penis is more flaccid now than when I first walked in here.

I turn the TV off and have a look at the table. On the table are instructions (laminated, to make them easy to clean) for how to masturbate into a cup:

• Pull back your foreskin and carefully wash your penis with water and soap. Then rinse your penis with water.
• Collect the sample by masturbating into the sterile cup you have been given.
• Try to catch the entire sample in the cup.
• IMPORTANT: Tell the staff if any semen lands outside the cup. If this happens, you may have to come back to give another sample.

Under the instructions are three porn magazines. I flip through them. They're like porn mags from the 70s, the kind truckers read and then throw in a hedge for schoolboys to find. None of it turns me on.

I check the dates on the magazines. They're all at least two years old. So other men have been masturbating to these magazines for at least two years. With their sticky masturbation hands.

I figure it's time to get down to business - to get my dick out and start masturbating. After all, the guy who brought me here is probably wondering why I'm taking so long. But first I make sure the door's locked. I don't want him walking in on me.

Then I get my dick out. I pull the foreskin back and wash it with soap and water like in the instructions. So far, so good. I remember to take the lid off the pot too.

Now begins the wanking. I grasp my dick with my hand and start to pump away. But I feel nothing. There’s no sensation. It’s like my penis is numb.

So I pump my dick harder and still nothing. Literally nothing. No sensation. I might as well be pumping a sausage. At this rate, I'll get rope burn before I ejaculate.

I've read about men having trouble giving semen samples. I laughed at the idea - how can you have trouble masturbating? It's the easiest thing in the world, surely? At least, for me, it is. Look, I've been practising since I was eleven.

But now the problem's become very real: I can't wank and I'm not aroused in the slightest.

Not to panic though. I can just get out my iPhone and load up a niche fetish porn video. I'm a millennial and so all my porn has to be niche.

So I get my phone out and load up a porn video. The opening titles load but then the video freezes. The 4G signal can't reach the inside of the room. This is no good; no one's ever wanked over opening titles before.

Oh Christ. It's come to the worst: I’ll have to rely on my imagination to make me horny.

So come on, imagination. Think of something sexy.

But my imagination can't do it. It's run off into a corner of my head in a blind panic, along with the rest of my brain. I've not only lost the ability to masturbate, but also the ability to imagine too.

But then I remember something: I bought an erotica ebook recently. So I look for it on my phone and there it is, thank God. I start reading it while pumping my cock at the same time. I can feel pleasure in my cock at last.

I don’t know how long I’m supposed to masturbate for but I’m worried that I’ve already been here long enough already, and I think all the nurses are outside sniggering, so a couple of minutes later I finish the job by ejaculating into the cup. It's a big cup and my ejaculate looks small, like the disgusting last dregs of a vanilla milkshake. I try to squeeze more semen out of my dick but that's all there is. I’m a bit disappointed.

I feel as humiliated as a Japanese gameshow contestant. But at the same time I feel relieved. I’ve done it. I've ejaculated into a cup.

I press the button for the man to come and get me. A minute later, there's a knock on the door. "Are you done?" comes the man's voice, through the door.

"I'm done," I say.

I open the door. There's the man standing there. I hand him the cup. He looks at it and says, "That's a good-sized sample."

I leave the building, feeling relieved this is all over.

So it turns out that a guilt-free wank wasn't the peak of enjoyment I thought it would be.