Masturbation

What does it mean if you are masturbating too much and when is masturbating unhealthy? Learn what healthy boundaries are for masturbation and how to best serve your sexual health.

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Unhealthy Masturbation
          How Much Is Too Much?

As long as you can still function in the world, at school, your job, with family and friends, there's nothing wrong with a high frequency of masturbation. Red flags include masturbating instead of taking care of your day to day "life business" that needs tending. Other red flags are- masturbating to the point of compulsive behavior, obsessing over the next time you can do it, or doing it to the point of causing physical damage to your genitals from constant stimulation.

Lisa S. Lawless, Ph.D., C.E.O. HolisticWisdom.com Founder

A common concern is the frequency of masturbation. 'Normal' ranges from several times per day, week or month to never masturbating at all. The frequency of masturbation isn't a problem unless it is linked with an obsessive compulsive disorder, where the same activity must be repeated over and over.

Is It Normal In A Relationship?

There's nothing inherently wrong with masturbation in a relationship unless it is taking away from the intimacy of it. The vast majority of people who are coupled continue to masturbate, perhaps not as frequently as they did when they were single, but they often still do it. Masturbation and partner sex are both sexual, but they fill different needs. Masturbation is about communing with yourself, and partner sex is about communing with someone else.

Benefits For Men

Ejaculatory Control: You might be interested to know that to learn ejaculatory control, sex therapists typically recommend... you guessed it... masturbation. Men can masturbate to practice their control and to identify what it feels like to approach their point of no return when ejaculation feels inevitable. So if you want to start learning control, practice while you masturbate: Approach your point of no return, then stimulate yourself less so you back away from it, then approach and back off repeatedly. That should help you learn control.

Benefits For Women

Increased Sex Drive: Believe it or not, masturbation helps to increase sex drive as it provides blood flow to the genitals and thus allows for a healthier vagina! Anxiety and stress greatly reduce the sex drive, using masturbation to relax and release, the body will certainly crave more of the same rather than less!

Better Sex: Also, women often find it more difficult to orgasm and masturbating affords women the opportunity to learn what pleasures them, which can be communicated to a partner during sex play, thus making their sex lives richer as well.

Many women say that masturbation causes longer, more intense orgasms than they can experience during lovemaking.

Increased Health
Many women report that it helps ease menstrual cramps.

Benefits For Both Sexes

Stress Release

Masturbation gives you pleasure.

Rich & Creative Imagination

This allows you to explore sides of your sexuality that may be taboo to your partner or embarrassing to you.

Increased Health

There is no risk of disease, pregnancy or emotional trauma from masturbation.

Better Sex

Masturbation sessions allow you to be less inhibited than you would with a partner.

Myths About Masturbation

Masturbation has been wrongly blamed for a host of human ills, including:

Blindness
Feeblemindedness
Madness
Physical decrepitude
Sexual perversion
Reduced sexual function
Neurotic disorders