I've always wanted to torture my penis, but I never wanted to go so far as to hammer a nail through it. I mean, I know that such hammering and nailing could easily be done: One or two well-aimed shots would drive a spike through the soft, bulbous part in a second.

I've seen this done on film, in a documentary. There, a supermasochist kept talking about nailing his guilty organ to a board. He built up to the deed by hanging himself overnight in a closet. As he hung in the dark, he spoke into a tape recorder about his upcoming cock carpentry. Sure enough, he later laid his meat stick over a piece of wood, placed the point of a nail against the bulblike part, and whacked the nail through his salami and into the plank.

All of this makes me wonder: Where did the nickname Hedda Mydick come from? Is there anyone actually named Hedda Mydick? Or do lots of men just like to make jokes about the heads of their dicks?

Anyway, I thought that even if I were able to nail my penis quickly and cleanly, it would hurt like hell. And what would happen if I missed the nail and hit the head o' my dick instead? Would I enter the zone between composure and insanity? Would I jump around, clutching my damaged dingus and yelling my head off? I don't know, but I do know that the pain would drown any pervy pleasure to be had.

Even though the spike treatment isn't for me, I still need some light CBT, that is, gentle torture for my C and B. So I leave the hammer in the tool chest and pick up a rubber band. I find a thick one and wrap it once around my entire basketry, then twist the band and snap the small loop onto the shaft. This causes an urgent straining, beginning in the prostate, then a buzzing, seated in the gonads, and finally a throbbing, centered in the tool itself. The good news is, my poor peepee isn't attached to a board, and no blood is let. My circulation might be slowed or stopped, my shaft skin may turn purple, but that's precisely what I want.

One time, when I asked my partner to give me the rubber band treatment, she refused.

"Why won't you do it?" I asked.

"It would cause gangrene," she said, "and your penis would have to be amputated."

So I had to do it myself, quickly and easily, with no muss and no fuss. Save for the loss of a few pinched hairs, I was fine. I didn't think my banded root would die. In fact, whenever it started to wilt, it bounced right back.

Now, I know I could achieve the same swell effect with a string, a hospital tourniquet or a doubled hair Scrunchy. But I prefer to use a standard office paper cincher on my genitals.

You might say I've invented my own personal slingshot. As often as possible, I grab my handle, loop up the sling, snap the elastic, and let the ever-tightening wrapper do its work.