Do you have a fear, or shame, around masturbating? That’s understandable, me too. In honor of Masturbation May, let’s work through it.
I don’t know about you, but I learned I could pleasure myself very young. I’d use stuffed animals, arm-rests, jacuzzi jets, and massage tools to rub on myself pleasurably. Even though it felt good, I knew it would be bad for me if anyone found out. They’d call me a freak, or give me a look that made me want to die. So, I kept this practice to myself.
Of course, this wasn’t entirely possible. My sister once walked in on me masturbating, and I screamed. despite my mother’s attempts to tell me it was okay, I didn’t believe her. I remember telling my high school boyfriend that, before him, I had a habit of doing something bad, but that I stopped since we were together. He guessed I smoked weed and was shocked to find out I was referring to masturbation.
So, if my mom thought it was okay, and my boyfriend thought it was okay, why did I still feel such shame? I’ve chewed on this for a while, but today I was reading Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s book Women Who Run With the Wolves, and it clicked. Here’s what she said: “While much psychology emphasizes the familial causes of angst in humans, the cultural component carries as much weight, for culture is the family of the family. If the family of the family has various sicknesses, then all families within that culture will have to struggle with the same malaises.”
Yes, culturally, even in the relatively-sexually-free United States, masturbation is not okay. We learn this as we see masturbation routinely treated as shameful and laughable in television and movies–American Pie, There’s Something About Mary, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin come to mind. Remember watching those scenes? How did you feel? And how did you feel for the character being exposed? I know I felt cringe. As if there could be nothing worse than being exposed as a person who loves masturbating. Certainly, we also learn that it’s shameful by how it’s treated by those we know: does anyone talk about it openly or fondly? Growing up, I did not have a single adult in my life who did so.
And sadly, this makes sense living in a culture that generally devalues pleasure. Hard work? Sure, destroy yourself. Sacrifice? Aren’t you a good person. But pleasure? You hedonist. We are not taught that maximizing pleasure is a worthy aim for our lives, despite it being a very reasonable (and easily quantifiable) metric for success!
To awaken your body and make it perform well you must train like an athlete for the act of love.
I know, it’s supposed to be very wicked. But it isn’t a bit evil, and don’t you let anyone tell you it is.
Smart women masturbate quite a lot, because they have discovered that it opens the doors of sensuality to them, for it strengthens and increases the flexibility of love muscles, helps the body to coordinate fully at demand, and teaches women to have orgasms–many orgasms–easily.
I’ve done so much inner work around feeling ashamed of masturbation, and still I have a far way to go. But here are some things I try to remember that have helped me:
First, the more pleasure I experience at my own hands, the better lover I am. When I practice touching myself and touching myself in new ways, I train myself to orgasm more easily and also learn how to guide others into helping me orgasm (which feels good for them)! In this way, it’s an honorable practice and one that serves my relationship.
We were recently soft-swapping with another couple, and the man quickly made me orgasm. I said, “Wow, you’re really good,” and he responded, “Eh, you’re really easy.” I smile just thinking about it. All those hours I’ve spent on myself enhance both my pleasure and the pleasure of the one pleasing me, yay 🙂
When you’ve educated your body to the point where it can reel off several orgasms at your command, you will be able to guide him when you are making love to positions that give you the maximum sensation. After all, if you don’t know what sets your body off sensually, how can you expect him to know?
Second, how bold and rebellious I was and continue to be for masturbating despite the shame. I remember masturbating as a child, and I try to sit with how I felt doing it then: this queasy feeling and meaning I made up that I lacked self-control because I couldn’t help doing something wicked. Then, I breathe into that feeling and replace it with a new one: pride. Thank goodness I did it anyway! That was the first time I bucked a trend, I said no to a familial and cultural expectation of me, and it built the muscle for me to be able to do again and again, now over more controversial matters such as my relationship style, my values, my career choices, and how I live my life. Masturbation was a rebellious act that helped shape me into an independent, resilient person who listens to herself over all others. I give my six-year-old self a loving hug and Hoo-Rah!
Third, because I love a logical argument: How can self-pleasure, which harms no one, be bad? I just sit with that one.
The truth is, as J expounds, there is nothing wicked about masturbation. Orgasming is a learned skill, and if we want to be able to do it, we need practice. It’s not fair to you or your sexual partner(s) to limit that practice to when they are around. Especially for women, arousal isn’t instantaneous. If we want to be available for sex when our partners seek it, we have to find ways to stay aroused throughout the day. Think of women like a pot of water on the stove: it’s much easier to get to a boil if we start at a simmer than starting cold. Touching ourselves and connecting to sensual pleasure throughout the day and the week is a way to keep ourselves at a simmer, and our sexual partners will thank us for it.
Set aside several hours a week for masturbation so your new response pattern will become a stable one. Remember, you are training your body to become a superb instrument of love. You’ll never accomplish that with sporadic lessons. You can’t learn to play the piano if you only go near it a few times a year. If you masturbation only once or twice a month you can’t possibly expect your body to learn and retain much.
I used to get wary about what my partner was masturbating to, or even worry that if he was masturbating too much he wouldn’t be up for sex with me. In some extreme circumstances, we know this can be true. But I think it’s way overblown. The real problem with excessive masturbation is overstimulation. If we always masturbate in the same way, with a lot of stimulation of our clitoris (or, for men, typically the head), then we can desensitize ourselves to methods of pleasure that involve less stimulation like hands and tongues. Similarly, if we overstimulate our minds by only masturbating to certain images that are not replicable in real life (think florescent-lit porn with people who don’t look like the people we fuck, or angles that would be impossible to witness in real life), then our minds may become too attached to certain imagery and unable to relax and orgasm to other scenes. All this means is that we be mindful of how we masturbate, not that we don’t do it. Be playful with it, change it up (both in terms of physical touch and mental images), and you have nothing to fear.
Once you have mastered the vibrator, you should move on to the use of your hands. Now that you know what an orgasm feels like, it is time to expand your ability to achieve full arousal and orgasm with a less probing touch. The vibrator will have spoiled you, and it will be harder to transfer your response pattern to the less stimulating manipulation of your fingers, but persevere, because you are teaching yourself to reach a higher plateau of sensitivity. With your hands you will discover shadings of sensation you would never know existed with the vibrator.
I am a big fan of not becoming overly reliant on a vibrator. I know this is controversial. I used to love my vibrator. But I found it made it harder for me to come with cunnilingus, and it limited my masturbation practice to times and places where I could use the toy. Using my hands set a natural limit on stimulation (they can only move so fast, and they get tired), made it easier for partners to make me orgasm, and required me to get a bit more creative. You can make yourself easy by training yourself with your hands. Just consider it!
Now that you have permission to masturbate, I hope you’ll feel confident that doing it more doesn’t mean anything bad about you. It makes you a sensual person, a playful lover, and probably, a more pleasing person to be around. J recommends that, for women, it can be fun and useful to keep upping the number of orgasms you try to achieve in a single session: “The minimum you should settle for is three or four and you should try for ten to twenty-five.” That’s a new target for me, even as a serial masturbator, I can’t say I’ve ever hit 25 in a single session!
Come on and try it. it won’t take you long to realize that masturbation is a happy, healthy, normal act that can contribute to your well being and sensuality enormously.
J, The Sensuous Woman
You heard her! Get those hands down there as soon as possible.
Lovingly,
Honey