Steve Jobs/Hand Jobs

Horatio writes: Regular readers know we are in the midst of some important research in the name of science, reuniting a cadre of plucky volunteers across the country with the formative material that used to catalyze their fantasies in the days before the internet. A long way of saying, we have invited 25 friends to toss one off to a vintage copy of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition to see if it was as arousing an experience as we remember it to be. This just in from the amazing Mike of the Upper East Side of New York:

When I had the opportunity to take part in this very scientific self love study I knew I would be a great subject. I take a quiet pride in the fact that one of my greatest achievements in life is the extent to which I have taken "beating it" to an art form. From the age of 13, whether I was single, involved with a girlfriend, or even now as a married man, I have always made sure I have had quality time to love myself. Daisy Duke, Susan Somers from Threes Company, the chick from Weird Science, Big haired girls in glam rock videos, Olivia Newton John (I am sure I was not alone in wanting to Get Physical with that naughty Aussie), my 8th grade bio teacher etc etc. The girls who have starred in my mind as my lubriderm coated shlong danced in my hand is as long as the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

My formative beating years were late '80's and early '90's. As a result, I was not afforded the technology enhanced luxuries of todays youth. Easy access to hardcore porn was just a dream of mine back in '87. Yeah I had access to my dad's BETA porn collection but the pressure to make sure the tape was at the exact spot my dad left it was psychologically too much for me to bear. Even with the BETA numerical counter I still thought my father would eventually confront me about his beloved "Inside Seka" tape not being at the scene he left it at. I was forced to rely on the interactions between my fertile imagination and the periodicals of the day. Obviously Sports Illustrated Swim Suit was a beating gold mine and so I should have been the perfect guinea pig for this True Beat test. But when I heard about it, I was originally skeptical about getting back into the game and picking up a 1987 SI Swimsuit Edition now that we are in 2008. Full disclosure: I have an extremely carefully curated DVD collection that really never fails me. Once the wife and kids are asleep I know all I have to do is press play and 30-45 seconds later I can wipe up and go to sleep. Wouldn't using an '87 SI be like turning off my computer and going back to a typewriter? Should I turn my back on all the self loving progress 2 decades have afforded me?

That being said it is really hard to describe the feelings I had when the February 9th 1987 Elle Macpherson SI arrived in my mailbox. Now that I am a family man I could not just run to the bathroom and go to work on myself. In fact before I had a chance to test drive it, I had many nights where I would just thumb through the pages as my wife read her Us Weekly on the couch beside me as I waited for her to go to sleep. I saw so many ads and articles that transported me back to my childhood that I almost forgot what this project was about. An ad for "Mannequin" starring Andrew Mccarthy and Kim Catrall as well as those ugly black Reebok hightops that were famous in those glory days almost brought a tear to my eyes. I was entranced as I thumbed through the pages feeling transported to back to the days of Aiwa Walkmans, Gordon Gecko cell phones, and basketball shorts that ended just below the pubic hairs. I was actually suffering from some sort of masturbatory a.d.d as I was seriously getting way off topic. Finally my wife and kids went to my in-laws on a Thursday evening and I could get back to the project at hand before joining them the next day. The million dollar question in my mind was "Can Elle, Kathy Ireland and the chocolatey Karen Alexander still get my huevos in a tizzy. Well I am glad to report that some things are timeless. I am a nostalgic guy and I seriously don't know if it was the ads, the typeface, or the bad aqua netted hair in the pages of the mag but something clicked. Elle and the girls helped me bag a hat trick in approx 20 minutes. Here I am a 35 year old man with my suit pants pulled to my ankles enjoying masturbatory bliss I have not felt since those lazy days of my past. I felt like the skinny geek of my past using an SI in the bathroom when I should be practicing my haftorah. The fact that you can only see a hint of nipple just works for me. These kids today never had to use their imaginations to project what lurked behind that soaking wet white bikini top or experience the giddy bliss on the rare occasion we got lucky and could actually see the outline of the nipple. But it was magic nonetheless. I sat in my bathroom exhausted yet content and as I looked down and saw my i-Phone sitting on the floor next to Ms McPherson circa 1987, appreciating that despite the technological revolution that we have lived through, some truths have never changed.