Is Masturbation-Induced Blindness Just a Mexican Fear?

Dear Mexican,

I was 13 years old, and I was jacking off, not knowing I left the bathroom door ajar. Just as I blasted onto the shower curtain, my mom walked in. Aghast, she shouted, "¡Cochino, te vas hacer siego y se te va enchocar el pito!" ("You pig! You're going to go blind, and your dick will get crooked!") Scared the hell out of me, and I stopped choking the chicken for at least a month. Is the threat of going blind from jerking off purely a Mexican belief, or is it universal?Gracias a Diós por laser eye surgery.

Pito Chueco

Dear Crooked Dick,

All American boys have pickle-pulling hang-ups, but Mexican chavos suffer doubly, graciasto two anti-masturbation schools of thought: the Puritan view that monkey-spanking is dirty because it leads to pleasure, and the Catholic insistence that wanking is a mortal sin because it doesn't lead to life. For a history of the former, the Mexican recommends Thomas W. Laqueur's fine 2003 book, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation, an academic tome with many interesting tidbits. For instance, did you know the Protestant war against beating your meat didn't begin in earnest until the 1712 publication of Onania: or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and All Its Frightful Consequences in Both SEXES, Considered, With Spiritual and Physical Advice to Those Who Have Already Injur'd Themselves by This Abominable Practice? Catholic theologians, on the other hand, have maintained for millennia that masturbation is evil incarnate: St. Thomas Aquinas claimed in his epic Summa Theologica that dancing the one-fisted tango is worse than rape because rape at least can lead to pregnancy.

But thanks for sharing your plight, Pito Chueco. It's further proof Mexicans assimilate into this great land. The dual dogmas of Protestantism and Catholicism, America and Mexico, old and new country, truly screw with a horny brown boy's mind. The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality says "self-pleasuring is still one of the most anxiety-provoking of all sexual issues" for Mexicans, and I can attest to that -- I continue to promise God that the last time really was the last time, that I defile myself because I'm a sinner. And then I do it again.

Dear Mexican,

Why do you portray Mexicans as liberals when the majority are conservative?

Jorge P. Bush

Dear Half-Wab,

Don't you read this column? Week in and week out, ÁAsk a Mexican! portrays Mexicans as perfect Republicans: homo-hating, Jew-baiting, Negro-bashing, chino-trashing religious fanatics who believe in free markets and self-determination and want to wipe Guatemalans off the map. Various polls identify this Mexican GOP gene. The most comprehensive, a 2003 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, found 80 percent of Latinos disapprove of abortion, 40 percent think divorce is unacceptable and 72 percent hate gays (by comparison, 60, 24 and 59 percent of gabachos felt the same regarding each respective topic). But even the most Neanderthal Mexican becomes a Democrat once Republicans start babbling about immigration restrictions. See, Mexicans support open borders not because they want to take back the Southwest but because they're students of American history. They know that Los Estados Unidosexploits wave after wave of immigrants, and that these immigrants willingly suffer through the toil with the understanding America will allow their children a chance at better lives, a chance at becoming Americans. Stop Mexican migration, and the children of Mexican immigrants remain Mexicans -- and what Mexican in his right mind wants that?

Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at garellano@ocweekly.com.