I’m glad Matthew Toyama (“Penis: Every Man’s First Love,” Daily Nexus, Nov. 24) wasn’t afraid to speak the truth about the insecurity many of us feel when learning of the sexual exploits of our fellow Gauchos.

It’s true the Wednesday Hump is often a turn on, but I stopped reading it because every time I finished the column I felt as if I wasn’t having as much fun as everyone else in I.V. When we guys feel our sex life isn’t what it should be, it’s easy to console ourselves with some Internet porn, as Toyama points out. His description of fulfilling a spontaneous urge by scrambling to load a porn site seems hilarious, but such panicked behavior does in fact occur in real life.

Pleasuring oneself is wonderful, and erotic images can help, but if you find yourself frantically rushing to the computer and climaxing before you even know what you’re doing, you could be exhibiting signs of an addiction. I looked at pornography for years before I realized that the sudden urges I experienced arrived when I was anxious or stressed.

Not only was masturbation distracting me from my problems, but afterward I always felt unsatisfied, angry and depressed. If you can’t resist going online for porn, and beating off doesn’t make you feel great, you may need to treat this addictive behavior with some counseling. Addiction is not a joke, even when it’s the seemingly harmless activity of watching people have sex.