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I’m at a red. The lone Honda Civic driver pulls up beside me, and I unwillingly cringe. The light changes and I casually let my vehicle lag a bit behind. Then, I gingerly crane my neck to cop a semi-aerial shot. Cool, the driver’s left hand is steering. But what I desperately wanted to know was which stick he was clutching onto with his right. Was he a male masturbating motorist, or triple M’er as I like to call them?

Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand don’t get you nowhere, it don’t make you a man — John Lennon, “I Found Out”

For many years during my 20s and 30s, I was paranoid that I would catch a driver jerking off, his hopes of running into some slow-moving road prey answered by the unlucky likes of me. I mean, it has happened 11 times over the course of my life. Yup, that’s right. I’ve caught that many men whacking off behind the wheel in several cities across North America, including Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

Wouldn’t you instinctively scope out crotches too if that many male masturbating motorists had stroked your life? Fortunately, professionals seemed to think that my behavior was to be expected.

“Sometimes when a person has been traumatized, they pay more attention to their surroundings, scanning for things that have scared them in the past,” says Dr. Dean Haddock, an expert on sexually violent predators. Haddock began his career 40 years ago at Atascadero State Hospital, working with mentally disordered sex offenders.

And before you even go there, let’s make it clear that I was never been the one to inspire the men’s miscreant behavior. Their hands had cruised south to Orgasmville several streetlights before I had ever come onto the scene. ’Nuff said.

As you can imagine, the first handful of random masturbating motorist occurrences were highly disturbing — the site of an, alas, always yucky-looking man beating his boner whether I liked it or not.

Take Jerk-Off No. 1 for instance.

You Give Love A Bad Name

Jerk-Off No. 1, we’ll call him Benoit, stained my mind with lucid clarity back in 1986 — a year when banana clips were in, Bon Jovi’s “ You Give Love a Bad Name” was topping the charts, and I was but a mere chubby and nerdy 13-year-old. There I was trundling to the neighborhood tennis courts, for what would turn out to be a pathetic game, when a rusty tuna can — an’84 red Civic — huffed by. And before I could classify him a weirdo, there he was again, conspicuously close to the curb.

Inquiring minds want to know, right? So I peaked, only to find him frantically tugging between his legs at some purplish-red sausage. Ugh! I had never seen a real-life phallus before — only in magazines. In fact, I had glimpsed tons of paper penises in the smut rag collection my father stashed in his bedroom closet. But that’s another story in itself — one that involves little dogs, my grandmother, and a fat Egyptian neighbor named Habib.

Anyway, horror quickly spread across my cheeks, and that’s when he conveniently located the gas pedal. For weeks, that indelible image flashed before my eyes, always followed by an eerie jolt, much like the sensation of being startled out of sleep by a nightmare.

“You were the perfect victim,” says Dr. Renee Sorrentino, a forensic psychiatrist and the director of the Institute for Sexual Wellness. “Not only were you by yourself, you were a kid, so vulnerability was increased and detection less likely.”

Girls around the age of puberty, between 10 and 14, are the most common victims of inappropriate behavior,” adds Sorrentiono, who is also an expert in the evaluation and treatment of individuals with problematic sexual behaviors.

She was right. As a young adult, I would have yelled, kicked, called 911 on my cell (although there were no cells back then), or — at the very least — taken down his license plate number. But none of that happened. Instead, Master Bator revolted me, violated me, and used me as some sort of live ammunition in order to unload. And so did the second and the third and the fourth.

And then somehow, somewhere between the age of 23 and Jerk-Off No. 9, my paranoia climaxed into an unmanageable and morbid fascination. What the hell was it, after all, that compelled a man to whip it out on Ventura and Vineland during Tuesday morning traffic? And moreover, why was I crossing all these mobile monkey-spankers? Why was I subject to this weird-ass serendipity?

And then it became clear: I was the journalist destined to spread the news about this underground movement of onanism and the loads of men throughout the world who belong to it. My story would demystify male masturbating motorists, or Triple M’ers as I’ve grown to call them, and release the floodgates of discourse once and for all.

Come on. Humor me. There has to be a deeper reason as to why I’ve come across more cocks in cars than any of you?

Masturbatus Interruptus

To fully come to grips with the phenomenon at hand — pun partially intended — I decided to conduct an informal poll by posting an add on Craigslist. Many women I spoke to either applauded me for outing the subject matter or shared similar stories. Accounts came streaming in from San Francisco all the way to Seville, Spain, proving that male masturbating motorists were indeed an international bunch. One woman even stumbled upon a Triple M’er in a Hassidic community in Brooklyn. I actually got some responses from some male masturbating motorists, too. Slowly, I began noticing the subtle variations.

Hypersexuals

First there is the maniacal lot — chaps so desperate they’ll do anything for a rise. They’re just as content rubbing one out in a phone booth as they are in a Porsche. I couldn’t possibly hold anything against these guys. They are benign. I just view them as troubled and/or sexually deprived.

Sorrentino, who has more than 10 years experience working with sex offenders and has served as an expert witness in numerous trials, agrees that Triple M’ers fall into different psychological categories.

For instance, the ones I just described suffer from a “hypersexual disorder,” which manifests in the form of compulsive masturbating. This obsession gets in the way of relationships, careers, and normal everyday functions.

“So in lay terms, a hypersexual is someone whose sexual appetite is higher … when compared to others that fall under that same sex, gender, and age bracket.” she said. “They are thinking about sex and engaging in sexual behavior a whole lot more than their peers.”

Basically, these guys are not getting an erection because of seeing a female target, “they just need to be masturbating, and it so happens that they are in the car and that you’ve seen them.”

Hypersexuality has become so prevalent in our society that there’s a proposal to include it as a new disorder needing further study in the appendix of the new Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, out May 2013.

Faux Triple M’ers

These guys are self-righteous. They don’t really thrive on getting caught. Take the marketing executive from New Jersey who emailed me, claiming to have a self-awarded doctorate in masturbation, “if it were an academic field of study.” He readily admits to keeping a towel — crusty, no doubt — in his backseat for convenience and cleanliness. According to him, being found is irrelevant. To drive himself over the edge, all he needs is to masturbate to the thought of being surrounded by thousands of unsuspecting commuters.

Another one of these types wrote to me from London, arguing that whoever catches him stroking and steering is asking for it. “Everyone in their car expects a reasonable amount of privacy,” he said. “People eat, put on makeup, and get dressed in their vehicles. What I do there is my business. Whether or not you choose to look is yours.”

Maybe this guy also harbors some burn-the-witch hatred against women?

Even Jimmy Kimmel is one of these faux flashers. Below is what he stated, in response to American Tea Party politician Christine O’Donnell’s public stance against masturbation:

“I’m not a political person. I keep to myself. I’m not one to get involved in these things. I’m not proud to say I’ll stand by as our leaders drag us into wars based on false pretenses. I’ll stand by while our oceans are polluted by greedy corporations who only care about money. … But I’ll tell you something. When our right to masturbate is threatened, that’s where I draw the line. What goes on between me in my own bedroom, and car sometimes, is my business, not the government’s.”

Come to think about it, there must be a sub-subcategory of faux masturbating motorists who are rebelling against the anti-masturbation Christian-based movement. These freaks launch programs like “Operation: Infinite Purity” and teach their kids that masturbating is a “gateway sin” that causes weakness, depression, forgetfulness, and nearsightedness.

You have to explode somewhere, right?

Class-Act Exhibitionists

The most hazardous breed of Triple M’ers are the guys who get off startling strange women. Be assured that by the time they’re handling the wheel with sticky hands, they’ve already flashed their swollen cocks and mischievous smiles to dozens of others. These guys are exhibitionists.

“In his fantasies he believes that people and/or women want to see his penis. The effect on women who see this is unique to each person’s psyche, experience, and age,” says Haddock, who is also licensed as a clinical psychologist and marriage, family, and child counselor.

Exhibitionism is the most highly reported paraphilia, which is defined as an act that involves sexual arousal and gratification, involving a sexual behavior that is atypical or extreme. If you ask women if they’ve ever been subject to a male exposing himself, half of them can share a similar experience. Go on, ask your sistas.

Exhibitionism is considered a mental disorder characterized by “sexually arousing fantasies or behaviors resulting from exposing one’s genitals to an unsuspecting individual,” Sorrentino explains.

“What surprises me still is that many of these men are professionals,” Haddock adds. “They are intelligent and know better, but the thrill of shocking other people is just too much for them to control.”

Perhaps as a young boy of 4 or 5, he took out his penis. His mother scolded him. He got excited. A sexual imprint was born. Or some rendition thereof.

Vroom Vroom Vroom

Why is the car such a convenient place to masturbate?

While exhibitionists don’t always masturbate in cars, studies show that a large percentage choose the vehicle as a favorite place to unload, Sorrentino says. “Cars are a popular place to expose,” she says.

Think about it: These quintessential exhibitionists possess certain savoir faire. Why expose your wiener to the elements when you can take refuge inside a moving hulk of metal? In a vehicle, you can cover more terrain and elude pursuit. It’s brilliant, really.

Sorrentino agreed. “I am also impressed by how guys can drive and masturbate at the same time. But that’s a side note.”

In a car, she added, “you choose your victim, make a large sweep with one go, and there’s the sense that you can get away with it,” says Dr. Sorrentino. “There is a sense that you’re in control, that you can drive to and from your victim. And they think they may not be seen as easily. I can’t tell you how many guys give this sob story to the police, saying that they were looking at their cell phone or going for a cigarette. It’s easier to come up with an alternative behavior.”

Test Drive

These guys — of all the Triple M’ers I encountered over the years — just rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t get what was so thrilling about alarming someone. Perhaps it was an acquired taste. Perhaps, in order to understand this subset, I would have to take matters into my own hands and test drive freeway-fingering.

But no, the truth is, it wasn’t as premeditated as that when I tried my hand at the matter. The notion popped into my mind years ago as I cruised that long, manure-fragranced, stretch of asphalt along I-5 North from Frisco to El Lay. The tune box was broken, I had no AC, and I was bored as hell — it was the natural thing to do.

Little billowy clouds hung low in the sky and my pine freshener swayed gently in the warm sultry breeze as I hiked up my skirt past my hips and placed my left leg on the dash. By the time I reached Los Angeles County, I had orgasmed four times. But it’s not like the motorists helped any. Frustration was the only thing they had added. I had to stop each time a trucker crawled by. I didn’t want or need to involve their looks of surprise to get off — I had a stockpile of my own titillating fantasies to sift through.

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Male Masturbating Motorists: Facing Demons

No closer to understanding, I decided that the only option left was to confront the next jerk-off that pulled up into my life. Certainly, they weren’t all wicked demented fiends.

I ran into the blessed bastard outside Sears in an underground parking lot in below-30 weather in Toronto, Canada. I was 26. I walked right by his vehicle and 10 feet later, stopped in my tracks. Something felt odd. My internal homing device, my mastobatoradar, if you will, beckoned me to turn around and investigate a white Honda Civic. (By the way, chances of you being a Triple M’er are heightened if you drive an Asian car. Six out of the 11 men drove Hondas. WTF?)

Sure enough, the silhouette’s hand was bobbing up and down.

“Should I stay or should I go,” I sang to myself. My twisted humor at work. I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t back down now. I had been preparing for this day.

For precautionary reasons, I approached some clueless lad having a smoke outside, his nicotine cravings unabated by the freezing cold.

I walked up to him and just started talking at him, adrenaline pumping through my body.

“Hey, dude. You’re going to be my witness, OK? This is the 11th time I’ve seen some guy masturbating, and I am about to face my demons.”

“What? What do you mean? With the same guy?” he shouted back, mortified. “Fuck, do you want me to call the police or something? What kind of neighborhood do you live in, anyway?”

Clearly, Marlboro man was not into carburetor sex.

“No, sorry. Look, it’s happened to me in different cities. Anyway, this is a big moment for me, and I just had to share it with someone.”

Meanwhile, behind the wheel, Autoerotic Man clumsily fumbled for his zipper. But I still knocked, the gesture somehow empowering.

I had literally caught someone with his pants down.

He had barely rolled his window down a crack when I snarled, “Hey, buddy, are you whacking off in your car?”

There was no time for beating around the bush.

“Yeah. Why? Do you wanna join me?” he drawled.

The effin’ prick had nerve.

“No, I don’t want to join you,” I gasped, disgusted.

Are any of you wondering what he looked like? If so, I have no clue. Common sense had completely cracked. I was running on sheer adrenaline. Truth is, that moment’s a tad blurry. But my lasting impression seems to be one of a 20-something white boy. He may have looked like the red-haired boy in the film The Breakfast Club. The kind of kid who had a secret thing going for Britney Spears and hid nudey magazines under the mattress. And I do recall a strewn Burger King wrapper on the floor and a box of Kleenex perched atop the parking brake.

“You know, on second thought, I think I will join you,” I added as I scampered around and helped myself to his passenger seat.

No, I didn’t really do that. But it would have been cool, if I was that ballsy of a chick.

Instead, I gave him a piece of my mind on motorist masturbating.

“There are a just a few things I need to get off my chest. I just want you to know that you can severely disturb a young girl, it’s very invasive, and it pisses some women off — like me. And I am not even against masturbation.” I blurted all this out in one fell swoop. My words seemed to freeze and linger in the air as I watched him slowly wither away.

“Besides, what the hell do you use to get off? I mean, I just don’t get it. Everyone is bundled up in heavy coats, and it’s the dead of winter. Don’t you have any better place to jerk off than in front of a cheap department store?”

“I just like looking at beautiful faces,” he answered solemnly, his gaze affixed on some pile of snow in the distance, his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel.

“OK then,” was all I could reply. I felt sorry for him. And with that, I spun my heels in the icy snow and quickly strutted away. My chosen victim was no class act. In retrospect I was lucky, since according to Haddock, I would have simply encouraged him.

“The more the woman reacts, the more exciting it is for the masturbator,” he said. “If at all possible, it is better to ignore him, as it not reinforcing his bad behavior.”

Likely Jerk-Off No. 11 felt into Sorrentino’s last category: people who have personality or cognition issues, mentally disabled people, impulsive disorder suffers — basically people who simply don’t know how to manage their impulses. “Not a lot of folks fall into this category.”

Or perhaps he was simply young and horny.

Nonetheless, the encounter with this masturbating motorist was highly cathartic. Not only did it eliminate any lingering terror, it helped me put a face to the motion. And maybe I planted a seed in his head. In that fleeting moment, I realized that I was never as helpless as I had thought.

So for all you masturbating motorists out there about to hit the road, remember: Every move you make, every slap you take, I’ll be watching you.

Maryam Henein is an investigative journalist, professional researcher, and producer of the award-winning documentary Vanishing of the Bees.

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