Self Pleasure versus Masturbation

Masturbation, the process of touching oneself in a pleasurable way is a normal and amazing thing in our lives until it gets muddied with societal, parental and/or religious repercussions and puberty.

Once we are told that this is bad, evil, or we are shamed or embarrassed, or we are caught and given a lecture we no longer have an unbiased experience. The experience has now been charged with a negative expression.

Then this once innocent expression of joy and awareness of our body becomes something we should hide and get over with quickly, and most of the time with very mixed emotions. The physical pleasure   mixed and combined with the emotional fear, shame, guilt, or other negative experience.

Over time we come to experience this mix of physical and emotional as a normal feeling. We have no idea that we have muddied the water and now we seek to expand both the physical pleasure and the negative emotional component.

This can lead to looking for ways that increase the negative emotional feelings, be that fantasies of pain, humiliation, shame, guilt, past abuse or anything that increase that charge that has become associated with pleasure. For some people even just the act promotes the negative feelings over and over again. Especially when porn is used, as it has it’s own charge built in.

Most of the time as teens and adults masturbation is associated with sexual tension release.  We get feelings in our genital region and we have no knowledge of how to move all that built up feeling to other parts of the body, no understanding of a way to dissipate the intensity.  It feels too intense to keep it there so we release it.

Sexual tension builds up and getting off is getting rid of that irritating feeling in your genitals. This process then becomes associated with a feeling of relief. Frequently it also becomes a self medication tool, as especially for men it will shut down energy and make them get drowsy and uninspired.

In today’s’ intense society there are even young children excessively masturbating to find relief from stress as well, and yes there is such a thing as excessive.

Masturbation that uses fantasy or visual stimulation does not allow one to feel all the nuances in and of our own body. Using stimulus that isn’t your own experience shifts focus away from self. It is also a way for most people to get artificially induced arousal and rush the pleasure along. It limits our capacity to feel the vast amounts of pleasure that we are capable of.

As women we can learn to get off in less than 2 minutes by ourselves but never even get any vaginal engorgement or wetness. We then transfer that expectation to partner sex where frequently this is not serving us or our partner.

What’s wrong with masturbating for sexual tension release, self medicating, creating artificially induced pleasure or perhaps being addicted to negative feelings?

When you anchor an intense feeling (orgasm) with a certain visual, emotional or thought over and over again you create a neuropath way in your brain. Do it enough and your body will believe that’s the only way to get from point A to B. In other words a habit can be formed, and later perhaps an addiction. Porn addiction is the most prevalent addiction there is worldwide right now.

On the other hand self pleasuring is about being the present with your body.  You are fully engaged in the moment, having pleasure in the hand that is touching and the body parts being touched. There is no agenda, no goal to get off. It is an experience made to expand your personal ability to feel more.  Feel more pleasure, more self love, more sadness, more of what you are authentically feeling right then.

Sometime self pleasuring is sexual and sometimes sensual. It can be healing, loving, poignant or spiritual. That’s just the point. When you self pleasure you do not attempt to orchestrate your journey though artificial means, you just simply enjoy the journey.

Why would you want to do this?

If you become your own best lover, if you become proficient in the art of self pleasure, you are one step closer to being a master at loving others as well. This is a crucial lesson in achieving movement up the levels of sexual mastery that I talk about.

Once you destroy the habit, or addiction of touching in a certain way, (yourself or others) or having to fantasize or removing yourself from the authentic experience, you will start the path to the most amazing loving and pleasure.

Once goals and negative emotions are gone, all that is left is you, being the fully engaged human you were meant to be.  The amount of true personal pleasure you can encompass is limitless. Trust me the end result is so worth it.

 To experience the first steps to self pleasuring as a man, take a look at my men's guided self pleasuring mp3