Paul Reubens Defends Masturbation Arrest

Paul Reubens is right-handed and thinks this information would have cleared him of the public masturbation charge on which he was arrested in 1991. In a new interview with Playboy magazine the actor speaks about his arrest at an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Fla.; he eventually pleaded no contest to the charge to avoid a trial.

“Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her non-dominant hand,” Reubens says. “I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.”

Reubens will don his famous ill-fitting plaid suit to play his alter ego when The Pee-wee Herman Show begins a limited engagement at New York's Stephen Sondheim Theatre October 26.