Unlike the millions who casually masturbate in solitude while looking at girlie pictures in Playboy and similar magazines, the massage man preferred an accomplice, an attendant lady of respectable appearance who would help him reduce the guilt and loneliness of this most lonely act of love.

I am writing about people who are alive in the city of New York during mid-20th-century America. And these people are like a character in a play or they are figures in a short story or a novel.

The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being alive on that day and all the tomorrows of microfilm

News, if unreported, has no impact. It might as well have not happened at all

Many male habitues of massage parlors, like Talese, did not like solitary masturbation; in the parlance of the younger generation, it was a "downer." And yet to be masturbated by an appealing masseuse, to be in the physical presence of a woman with whom there was some communication and understanding, if not love, was gratifying and fun.

The real problem is what to do with problem solvers after the problem is solved.

People dress up for funerals. Why not dress up to celebrate that you’re alive?