A most unusual event was held in San Francisco: the city's annual "Masturbate-a-thon", organized to help raise funds for the center. The organizers hopped there will be more the 120 people to participate.

Carol Queen, director of the Center for Sex and Culture, said the competition is too much even for the San Francisco's standards, who allowed a debate on gay marriage last year and tolerates many sorts of sexual behavior.

"Even people who are sexually frisky ... might have the bias that many Americans do, that it's second-best sex, that it's something you do if you can't figure something else out," Queen said.

Last year's record is held by a man with six-and-a-half hour. You are allowed to a five-minute break every hour. The last year female marathon winner declared that after few hours of masturbation the experience was "about as pleasurable as rubbing an elbow."