Through the date-night anxieties of New Year’s Eve, “engagement season” and Valentine’s Day, it’s easy to forget that not everyone is looking for “the one”—or maybe they’ve already found it much closer to home. For masturbation enthusiasts, it can also be a time to celebrate a topic that’s too often kept hidden. Earlier this month, Nicholas Tana’s documentary “Sticky: A (Self) Love Story” shed light on how masturbation’s been treated largely as taboo by our culture. Now, self-love is getting another powerful advocate with the publication of Jason Armstrong’s memoir/manifesto, “Solosexual: Portrait of a Masturbator.”

In the book, the 40-year-old Toronto-based pseudonymous author, who’s blogged about his sex life since 2012 at Hunting for Sex: Cautionary Tales from the Quest, explores the roots of his love of masturbation, the profound effect masturbation has had on his life, what it’s like to masturbate with other men, and his dual coming out processes (as gay and as a masturbator). For Armstrong, masturbation is a core part of his identity, and is so meaningful to him he even does it online at the decidedly NSFW Xtube.com.

Armstrong makes the case for treating solosexuality with as much seriousness as we treat any other sexual orientation, and writes about “bating” with reverence, calling it “a way of life and the conduit through which you connect to you inner divinity and your inner pig” and stating that “The first cataclysmic crotch grab is the equivalent of a bong hit. The effect is instantaneous.” Here, he reveals what “bate fuel” is, why he’s posted his own masturbation videos online, and why the online world of “bators” might be less prejudiced than the gay ma...