Yesterday morning, I know many of you opened your gamer prezzies to discover new games. You were then left waiting while God of War Ragnarok installed itself on your new PS5. There’s probably room for three more games so get them while you still can. Many of you may have purchased new VR headsets and fell, got tangled up in the wires, or poked a hole in grandma’s TV. Gaming can result in embarrassing injuries. So for your grandma and me, I thought I’d share my most embarrassing gaming accident. This was the time that I had to go to the hospital after jerking my Xbox controller too hard.
2008 is the year I turn 15. This is a terrible age to suffer a masturbation injury. Let’s face the truth, these are all embarrassing, even if you don’t use your Xbox controller. There are many ways to masturbate with an Xbox controller. Gamers as a culture are isolated and parasocial and interact primarily with media via the internet. This means that the sexualization of the ‘gamer girl’ image and the incorporation of gaming paraphernalia into sex workers’ performance has become commonplace online. The edgy 1990s ads for gaming used explicit imagery and slogans. There were double entendres to joysticks and handhelds as alternatives to masturbation. One confusing advertisement said that gaming was’more enjoyable than a ferret in your pants’.
Some people have more vivid imaginations and may picture a controller inserted into an orifice. It could be that controller vibrations are involved or chemical burns caused by battery acid. Not quite so extreme. The fact that 2008 is relevant to my age is also significant because it was the year of the Beijing Olympics videogame. Although the game wasn’t great, it was simple and genius. I have enjoyed every Olympics game since, but none has matched the magic of 2008. It’s partly due to getting older, playing more games, having higher standards and caring less about Achievements… but also because subsequent games have more complex mechanics, making it harder to pick up the games and play them.
The Beijing game felt more like a Wii than an Xbox game. Many Wii sporting titles required you to play the sport. You had to swing the controller as a bat, curve it as a bowlingball, shake it to sprint and so forth. While most non-motion games rely on pressing or holding buttons in the correct order, the Beijing game required you to jerk off. Do you want to run Run! Place your palm on the joystick, and rub it as fast as possible. You want to throw? Throw your fist in a fast, furious rhythm. Do you want to swim? Use two strong fingers to hold the joystick. You can swirl it faster and faster until you finish. It’s like Bop-It! and a dildo had to have a baby.
While I’ve said that I don’t care as much about Achievements these days, I used care to a great deal. This is probably why I was more prone to injuries than out kissing girls. For the sweet, sweet 1,000GS, I bought horrible tie-in games such as Lost and Avatar. Beijing had a 1K limit, but it was not easy to attain. You had to earn it not with skill but with blood, sweat and rug burns on your palm. You shouldn’t be 15 if you want to have friction burns on your hands and an inexplicable pain in your right arm. People make assumptions, and the worst thing is when they try to do 1K Beijing Olympics for tokens that no one else cares about.
My hand was red and blistered, and I had to go to A&E with my parents, sit there with a sore arm and a fiction burnt hand, and explain to the doctor – even act out – what had happened, all to get a simple bandage, a nod of despair, and a don’t let the door hit you on the way out. As you read this on your phone in A&E, waiting to see what will become of granny’s face, just know you’re not alone.
