Healthy Masturbation Exercise

Moving toward integrating masturbation into healthy sexuality means moving away from the typical form of masturbation. It is also about moving from shame to self-exploration and discovery. To do so, the following exercise will help expand your experience of masturbation from a quick and dirty activity (on average, lasting 3-5 minutes) to a sensual self-affirming opportunity. This applies to both men and women.

Make sure you have the time for the following exercise. What follows is one example, but you can adapt to your personal interests. For this example, I assume you are in your bed (but experiment with other locations/positions). Start by making sure you’re comfortable, including any music, candles, aromatherapy, oils, bath, or any activity that can help you relax. The fun is in the experimenting.

First, start by being aware of your breath. Breathe in-and-out, slowly and steadily. As you move through the experience, it is important to maintain your breathing. Sometimes as a person becomes aroused, he/she may forget to breathe. When you sense that you are holding your breath, gently remind yourself to keep breathing.

Next, continue by touching your body with your hands (without lubricants). At this point, don’t focus on your genitalia. Touch your face, ears, massage your neck, arms, fingers. Feel your chest, moving to your stomach. Massage your thighs, and include your legs and feet (and toes!). The slower you move through ALL of your body parts, the better. Vary the intensity, and type of touch. You can use your thumbs, palms, fingernails, back of the hand, tips of the fingers, back of the fingers, etc. Repeat the touch and be mindful of what you enjoy. Perhaps gently tug at your hair, or pinch your skin. Each of us has erogenous zones that vary in sensitivity. Find the zones and types of touch that are most pleasurable to you.

As you continue touching your body in different ways, include touching your genitalia, nipples, and buttocks. Continue varying the touch. Move back and forth between all your body parts. You may find that your genitalia will change in the level of arousal throughout the experience.

Optional activities might include using other pieces of clothing or items. Various items might be different fabrics, cold/hot items (not too hot!), feathers, or sticks (such as a dowel). The key here is to experience a range of touch.

As you go through the experience, vary the type of touch of your genitalia (for example, the grips of the penis, or the massage of the clitoris, etc.). Each type of touch will lead to different experiences. Experiment and enjoy. If you don’t like something, or it feels unpleasant, do something else.

Remember to breath.

After you’ve felt your body, repeat the full body touch but this time you might consider the possibility of adding lubricants such as oils, waters, water based or silicon-based lubricants. Each will create different experiences. Some might be sticky, slick, sensual, etc.

Continue to breath.

Your body will increase in excitement simply due to the stimulation. Depending on how long your want to prolong it, you will notice that if you are very genitally stimulated moving the touch to other body parts will extend and slightly decrease the overall stimulation thereby prolonging the experience.

At some point in the experience, particularly if you are focusing your touch on the genitalia, you may get to the point where you might experience an orgasm. Continue to breathe. But remember that orgasm isn’t necessarily the goal. Understanding what you like and providing self-pleasure is the goal.

Practice and repeat.

After your experience, review how you felt, what you liked, and talk about the experience with your support network. Often in the struggle with sexual compulsivity, we have to UNLEARN unhealthy patterns of masturbation (often associated with shame, guilt and frequently linked with problematic behaviors)

The transforming power of community.

A powerful instrument to help individuals move toward sexual health is the support of a community. Often in the early stages of addressing sexual health issues, the isolation a client feels is profound. With so many fears and secrets, the expectation that a client share his or her secrets in the sexual timeline is the first hurdle to overcome. But often, it is the sharing of the secrets that leads to the beginning strands of connection and community. By sharing secrets an individual deconstructs the illusion that he/she is alone. Yes, breaking the silence starts with one disclosure, and leads to additional disclosures. Slowly what was experienced in isolation disappears in the developing connections that occur through the sharing of secrets. As the process of disclosure continues, a community develops. Believe it or not, what was once a secret is joyfully acknowledge in community and leads to a sense of transformation. From this transformation, powerful new opportunities are created. All of which starts with sharing a secret with one person.

We are simultaneously the source of our own pain and joy

One of the foundational beliefs/approaches in my work is the assumption that we are simultaneously the source of our own pain and joy. Often an individual experiences pain as a result of attachments, expectations, desires or other thoughts where I think either I need “this thing” or “this needs to be a certain way.” Different traditions/theories have different words for essentially the same thing. I use the concept of “thoughts” to integrate many of these approaches. These thoughts often are unconscious, hidden, or habitual patterns of thinking. They are always occurring, and individuals/society knows how to manipulate these thoughts.

The economic field of marketing is about creating thoughts of desire that feed consumption. In other posts, I talk about the primary thinking error that is simply an elaborate illusion personalizing the existential fear we all experience. Assumptions are other examples of these thoughts. In my experience working in chemical dependency and sexual health, our thoughts around sex, body image, relationships, and success are examples of these thoughts.

The pattern goes something like this. On some level, we have a thought that having these desires fulfilled will lead to happiness. When unmet, we experience the pain. An individual might feel sad, fear, anger, hurt, lonely, disappointed and so on as a result of these thoughts/desires. It is easy to see how these thoughts are the source of our pain. When met, we may feel a type of happiness that is often temporary.

Recognizing these thoughts for what they are, that is, “thoughts,” allows us to reshape our view of the world and respond in different ways. The dilemma is that I don’t know what is a different way for you to respond. Your response to thoughts/pain needs to be your response. What works for one person, doesn’t necessarily work for others. This is often an individual approach and reflects our personal journey toward meaning in life. One direction to consider however is the wisdom of service. All of the major religious traditions focus on service. The 12th step emphasizes service.

The type of service is more than simply doing things for others. In my opinion, we each experience moments of transforming joy. Reflect on those moments when you felt most alive, experienced timelessness, and/or transcended your own self-imposed limits. Finding the key elements underlying these experiences is the key to finding your expression of service. I label these key elements values/virtues. When we live a life that connects us to these values, we experience the transformation of pain into joy.