1. Hatchet is a book about a disaffected thirteen-year-old city boy who survives a traumatic plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and learns to survive using only on his own wits and a crude hatchet given to him by his mother for fifty-four days.
I do not believe this is realistic; I believe the average teen who found themselves alone in the woods would do the following: masturbate and try to roll joints out of oak leaves.
2. Lord of the Flies: See Hatchet, but centuple the number of thirteen-year-olds. I think most teens are more interested in touching themselves than murdering each other’s heads, just my opinion.
3. Walden: Honestly, if you think Thoreau did not mostly retire to Walden Pond in order to masturbate in peace, you are living in a fantasy world.
4. Pilgrim At Tinker Creek: I’m just being realistic; if a book is set in the woods, it’s because the protagonist went there to jerk off.
Also, come on. Tinker Creek? Open your eyes, people.
5. Kon-Tiki. There is one reason, and one reason only, to try to sail across an ocean by yourself on a raft. (The reason is jerkoff-related privacy.)
6. I Am Legend: This is just a given, because everyone else normal is dead? You would have to, if only as a pressure valve to hang on to your sanity. Hang on to your sanity, and also your genitals.
7. Island of the Blue Dolphins: It would happen at least once, that’s all I’m saying.
8. Life of Pi: After he stops starving and starts catching fish, obviously. I’m not suggesting that a terrified person on the brink of death would be interested in self-abuse. That’s not realistic. It’s also not realistic to suggest that a creative young person alone in the ocean would not eventually seek to celebrate the fullness of life by masturbating. Just a bit, and then back to the business of catching fish and filtrating water and finding islands and so forth. But to clear the brain, and to relieve the anxieties of living on a tiger’s boat; it’s only human. If there is one thing you learn from this list, it is that people alone on a boat or in the woods are going to jerk off. They’ll do other things, too, yes, but jerking off is a not-insignificant portion of that.
9. Robinson Crusoe: Unless you are willing to re-title this book Thirty Years Without Touching Myself Even Once Or Having An Accidental Wet Dream Which Definitely Counts, I insist that you acknowledge that Robinson Crusoe masturbated on the island. IF YOU PUT PEOPLE ON ISLANDS, THEY WILL MASTURBATE.
Am I arguing that all of these books should be re-released with functional, practical, non-erotic masturbation chapters for the sake of verisimilitude? No. I am just saying that as they stand now, they do not stand in the truth. And the truth is always the right choice. I don’t have anything else to say about this.
