How Not to be the Next #ZoomDick: 8 Wanking-it-at-Work Tips from a Pro

Welcome to Brain-Throbs & Blow Jobs, a column highlighting the great minds and perspectives of Bay Area sex workers through interviews and photo portraits by Maxine Holloway.

Yesterday Twitter was rocked by the hashtag #ZoomDick. Legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer Jeffery Toobin was recently caught masturbating during a Zoom call with New Yorker and WNYC radio staff members. During the video call, he appears to log onto a separate call, possibly a pornography or webcam site. His colleagues reported seeing him touching his penis and masturbate himself on his video feed.

“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video,” said Toobin.

Toobin’s Conde Nast email has been disabled, and he has been suspended from the New Yorker magazine while they “investigate the matter.”

This #ZoomDick fiasco has brought attention to the fact that many people jerk-off at work. As a professional sexy-time girlfriend, this is not surprising to me. Even before Covid-19, I have had many sext and video sessions with clients while they were working. I’ve even met clients in-person during their lunch breaks at the office. It’s taboo but also part of the excitement. The only real surprise is that it took this long into the pandemic for a dude to be publicly caught touching his penis on Zoom.

But the moral of this story is not to shame, scare, or stop your mid-day wank. Masturbating during the day has many physical and mental health benefits. Masturbation relieves stress, increases endorphins, releases muscle tension, clears your head, and resets your mood – all things that can assist you in a productive workday. 

Let’s all learn a valuable lesson from Toobin’s embarrassing public fap. I give you, Eight tips from a professional: How to Appropriately Pleasure Yourself at Work (and not become the next #ZoomDick). Happy wanking!

1. MUTE IS NOT THE SAME AS TURNING YOUR VIDEO OFF. I’m looking at you, Jeffery. If you can see yourself on a video call, so can everyone else. Practice this when you do not have a boner.

2. Don’t multi-task. You may be a pro at navigating two monitors and twenty-seven open tabs on your browser. But one unintended double-click could put you in a compromising position. Treat yourself and give your orgasm the undivided attention it deserves.

3. Use a separate device. Viewing arousing material on a different computer, tablet, or phone reduces the chance of showing your throbbing erection to your co-workers. This is especially important if you are using a corporate computer that is most likely full of spyware. Assume your work computer watches every single stroke. 

4. Tape it. When jerking during work hours, simply put a piece of masking tape over your webcam to ensure you don’t share your five-knuckle-shuffle. It’s also surprisingly easy for anyone to hack into your computer’s camera and turn it on and hit record.

5. Don’t show your underwear meat to the camera. There’s less of a chance of accidentally showing your business to a business colleague. Professional webcam performers might say they want to see your cock…but this is generally an exaggeration. 

6. Watch actual smut. Never use your professional Zoom call as masturbation material. It’s not consensual. If you think it would feel embarrassing getting caught spanking it by your co-workers, just imagine if they could tell that your spooge-launch was dedicated to Gail or Paul, or Gail and Paul, from the office. Don’t be that creep.

7. Never forget about audio. Imagine your boss listening to you lube it up, grunt, hum, heavy breathing, and “ooooohhhhhhhhh, yaaaaaaaaaaa baaaaabyyyyyyy.” It’s almost as bad as them seeing it.

8. Pay for your porn. Mid-day porn views are on the rise, but most sex workers are still struggling during the pandemic, so stay off the free tube sites. If you are making a salary while you pleasure yourself to an OnlyFans feed, a webcam performer, or phone sex operator, tip generously. You are basically getting paid to cum (and so are we). Make it rain as we make your workday more barrable. We may even save your career by reminding you to double-check your Zoom feed before you unzip.