Chapter 2 Summary

"Whacking Off" This chapter introduces Alex's principal concern—his obsession with masturbation (see "Quotes", p. 18). He describes in graphic, comic detail the number of times he masturbated as a child and young adolescent (up to four times a day) and the various ways he masturbated (at school into a urinal, between courses at dinner, wearing his sister's soiled panties over his head). He narrates an occasion when his mother interrupted him masturbating while he was in the bathroom, insisting that he come out and explain to her why he has what she thinks is diarrhea. As they are arguing in the living room, Alex says, his father went into the bathroom and desperately tried (again, and futilely) to move his bowels. Eventually he comes out, Alex's mother collapses in what he (Alex) says are guilt-inducing tears, and his father tells him to...