So, what is all the fuss about masturbation?

I have to be honest and say that I have been postponing writing about the above subject for couple of weeks now.  Just the word itself is often avoided and brings up different feelings for all of us.  But really, what is all the fuss about?

If you search the internet for the word “masturbation”, Wikipedia has a very good analysis from different angles and viewpoints – that being the case, ask yourself when was the last time you heard somebody talking about masturbation?

I often have to stop and think before talking about sex, let alone masturbation, when socializing.  I often need to remind myself that what I do for living makes it easy for me to talk about a broad range of sexual topics, but this does not mean of course that other people find these topics “easy on the ear”.

But let’s just think and imagine how much fun it might be if we could talk about masturbation to our male and female friends.  How liberating might that feel?  We could share our knowledge and experience and they could share theirs; we could all learn so much more.

By not talking about it we are leaving it covered in a veil of secrecy, something that does and should remain hidden and as such often interpreted as naughty, dirty, sinful etc.  So where does the notion of “some things are better left unsaid” come from?  Of course, we could look at different cultures, religions, the way we were brought up, and our families’ attitude to masturbation.  All of these would give us some answers to why this attitude pervades, but not the whole picture.

So, could it be that the answer lies within us as individuals, for not giving ourselves permission to engage with our feelings?

When clients speak to me about their masturbation history and habits, they often use expressions like “I feel dirty” or “it feels sinful”.  When I explore these feelings with them and try to examine what that might be all about, they often get stuck in dissecting why they might feel that way. They might not be particularly religious, and therefore would not have been given negative messages about masturbation while growing up.  So what’s up ?

I often try to put it in very simple terms “Why is touching your own body bad?” We touch other parts of our body for comfort and pleasure, we have massages and pay other people to touch our bodies but we somehow judge ourselves for allowing ourselves to touch our own genitals and erogenous zones.  If touching our own body to give ourselves pleasure is bad, then what about eating chocolate, or cakes, or drinking wine, or having a massage or a pedicure?  Those are things we do not need to do to survive, but we do them for pure enjoyment and pleasure.

So what I propose is to think about, and talk about, the simple pleasure of self-pleasuring - because if we don’t tackle this most natural desire in a pragmatic way it will remain hidden, secretive and something that “dirty old men do” for generations to come.

And we all know that is not the truth, don’t we ?