How Masturbation Could Improve Your Sex Life
11-minute read
If you’ve ever struggled to experience pleasure during sex, sometimes find sex uncomfortable or awkward or have yet to experience an orgasm, it makes sense why you might not feel in the mood for partnered sex or why you may experience a lower sexual desire. Prioritising self-pleasure can be an effective way to exploring your sexuality and reigniting your sex life.
When You Don’t Feel Like Sex
Not feeling like, not wanting or finding it hard to get turned on for partnered sex is ok and absolutely valid. Sometimes the distress that comes with this often relates back to feeling abnormal or dealing with intrusive thoughts that tell you’ve failed your partner(s) because you’re unable to meet their sexual needs.
Desire fluctuates and changes over your life and closely intersects with the things going on within it. When desire for sex is low now but wasn’t always this way, you could be dealing with stress, anxiety or life changes that are ongoing or fall outside of your control. Your brain and body may not have the resources to connect on a sexual level or have the time and energy to experience arousal and desire.
The list of reasons why your desire for partnered loving may be absent is extensive. Sometimes its about dealing with anxiety, oppression, discrimination or trauma. Sometimes it’s about intense shame or being stuck within sexual scripts that just don’t suit you. Sometimes its because you’re feeling less than attracted to your partner, you’re disconnected or not dealing with disagreements that result in increased conflict. It might be related to changes in your body; being taught you’re not worthy of pleasure; having a baby and dealing with exhaustion and touch fatigue; carrying a heavy mental load. It could be about experiencing pain or not having the kind of sex you want to be having. Sometimes it comes down to sex being boring, not slowing down and spending time becoming aroused or not knowing what works for you. For others, their minds and bodies may no longer be open to sex and an identity shift might be a better fit. To learn more about the factors that could leave you feeling uninterested in sex, read my article When You Don’t Feel Like Sex and Why That’s Ok.
Masturbation Shame, In And Out Of A Relationship
Masturbation is a type of sex; it’s sex with yourself and it’s totally ok to do for people of all genders and those in and out of relationships. When you figure out how to have sex with yourself, work out what you like, don’t like and what feels good for you, it can translate to sexual enjoyment with someone else.
Yet an increasing number of people find themselves feeling guilty and ashamed for focusing on their own pleasure while they’re in a relationship. They may be holding on to scripts that say masturbation is only for singles; is a hair away from cheating; or is shameful and means they’re prioritising their own pleasure over their relationship. Sometimes they wonder whether they should continue to avoid it because what if they enjoy it more than partnered sex?
There is incredible power in cultural myths and scripts and these beliefs folx hold onto are seldom accurate and frequently limiting. If these myths leave you feeling ashamed or conflicted about meeting your own sexual and pleasure needs, then they probably aren’t serving you and may be exacerbating the challenges you’re already dealing with. Ask yourself, do you really want to keep tolerating these scripts when they don’t support your sexuality and pleasure?
To start learning about the impact and unpacking masturbation beliefs on your sexual encounters, check out this post I wrote to dispel masturbation myths and emphasise the benefits, and this blog on 7 Ways To Deal With The Pain of Sexual Shame.
Masturbation Is A Massage (For Your Erogenous Zones)
You might be wondering how masturbation could help? If you’ve dealt with a lot of shame around solo sex or its been responsible for issues within your life or relationships, then the ways masturbation could benefit your sex life or enhance your desire may be doubtful.
While you might have a relationship with a partner, you also have a relationship with yourself. That means that its ok to prioritise your sexual relationship with yourself and doing so can enhance (rather than detract from) your relationship with your partner(s). When masturbation feels awkward or pulls at your guilt, its helpful to reframe it and refer to it as self-pleasure or call it what it is - a massage.
It’s acceptable to get a full body massage by a professional, to give yourself a massage and to give your partner a massage. There are enormous benefits in prioritising massage in your life because it directly impacts your wellbeing; it helps you to relax and release tension, it allows you to deal with pain or trauma, it can help to reconnect with your body if you’ve dissociated or disconnected from it and it’s a way to thank your body for all it does for you. Your body is made for pleasure. Having a regular massage supports you to work out what types of touch, pressure and techniques feel best for your body in all its uniqueness. Then you can use this information to inform your partner of your preferred touch and what helps to get you off. When you get comfortable with massaging yourself and realising you’re able to be the source of your own pleasure, you’d probably be less likely to tolerate experiences that are less than satisfactory.
There will be times when your partner doesn’t have the energy or desire to massage you. They might’ve hurt their hands, maybe they’ve had a super long, exhausting day and the last thing they want to do is spend it massaging you for the next half hour. They might not even want to do it if they knew there would be getting a massage in return. Instead, all they could want to do is curl up in bed and read their book or binge YouTube until they pass out and that’s their right.
Neither you nor your partner is not responsible for meeting all of the others pleasure and relaxation needs; its up to each of you to get creative and explore all the different ways you could address those needs yourselves. Think of your and your partners willingness to help out as a gift you choose to give that should always be a choice. It’s not something anyone is entitled to just because you decided to get together and be partners. If you’re able to massage yourself, even when you have a partner, you’re doing your sex life a favour and taking that pressure off your relationship while you advocate for your own pleasure.
Deciding to massage yourself from time to time does not mean you prefer solo massage over receiving a massage, nor do you necessarily prefer it to giving your partner the gift of massage. It does not mean you won’t ever want a partnered massage again. Instead, taking care of your own needs is one of the many options that can occur alongside mutual massaging and is neither less than or better than, but different to and another choice that can help you diversity your massage experiences. It’s the decision to not put all your eggs in one basket.
be your own pleasure advocate
The Power Of Masturbation
Masturbation (or massage, if you prefer) can be an incredibly important part of ones sex life and one of the easiest way to boost and explore desire. Folx that prioritise regular self pleasure are more likely to have a positive perspective of their sexuality and feel comfortable in their bodies, believing that their bodies deserve pleasure and touch. Solo pleasure has the potential to expand your repertoire of sexual encounters, increase novelty, create opportunity to have creative experiences and acquire new skills that you can share within your relationship and try out together.
For some, masturbation is a way to rebel against or resist the social scripts and structural messages that teach folx in fat, trans, disabled, queer, chronically ill, intersex, Black or Coloured bodies that their bodies don’t deserve pleasure or aren’t entitled to pleasure until they change or stop being who they are. Prioritising self pleasure means recognising your body is made for pleasure, regardless of how it looks or functions. When we’re able to normalise self-touch and solo sex as a valid part of relationships, we’re able to change the culture that tries to control the pleasure of everyone else who has a body or sexuality the falls outside the dominant experience.
When pleasure or sex is on your mind because you’re engaging with your sensual or sexual side regularly; when you’re watching porn, reading erotica, looking at sexy photos, thinking about what feels good for your body and making time to massage your body in all the places it feels good, then your mind and body become better able at noticing sexual stimuli and each time you have a pleasurable experience, just like any positive or rewarding behaviour, you’re reinforcing and strengthening this connection and are more likely to want to come back to it. You’re giving your desire something to respond to and grow from. In most cases desire is not spontaneous but requires a trigger to activate.
Change Your Goal
Masturbation does not have to equal an orgasm nor does an orgasm have to be part of your massage or self-pleasure experience in order for it to be satisfying. It may seem counterintuitive, yet being goal oriented and expecting an orgasm at the end of your solo sesh might make it harder to get there. When your goal is to have an orgasm, rather than to focus on your pleasure, you’re shifting your attention to the end result, becoming future orientated rather than being present in your pleasure journey. This tends to result in frustration, distress or hopelessness when an orgasm doesn’t happen.
When you shift your goal to noticing pleasure, you’re able to have 20, 30 or 50 minutes of pleasurable sensations, relaxation and endorphin release compared to 20 minutes of frustration and worry about whether there’s something wrong with you and your body and wondering why can’t you orgasm. Your goal doesn’t have to be an orgasm but if you do have one, what an excellent bonus!
How To Increase your Solo Pleasures (if and when you want to)
Meet Your Erogenous Zones by @queersextherapy
It can feel difficult knowing where to get started if giving yourself a massage/solo sex is something you want to do but solo pleasures are tied up with shame, guilt or anxiety.
Explore More: Masturbation, self pleasure, solo sex or massage, whatever you prefer to call it doesn’t only have to look like one thing and doesn’t necessarily mean playing with your genitals. As you get use to this, spend more time on your erogenous zones - for some that’s their genitals, their breasts or chest, their inner thighs, their neck, lips, behind the knees, their butts and more. Focus on stimulating the areas that feel good to you. Use mindfulness to continue to notice the thoughts that move in and out of mind and gently bring your attention back to the sensation. The more you’re able to focus on the physical sensations, the more you can be aware of the pleasure you feel in your body and the greater the chance your brain will recognise the sensation as rewarding and sexually relevant, in turn, turning your body on and building up your sexual desire. Pleasure doesn’t come from one place, it’s a full body experience.
Try This: The next time you have a shower or a bath, notice the pleasure sensations that come from the hot water that flows over you. Move your hand and gently stroke or massage different regions, from your scalp all the way down to your toes. Pay attention to which areas of your body feel most sensitive and satisfying to touch and spend more time there.
Connect with Nature: If you’re finding it difficult to find pleasure in your body, connect with nature instead. Being among plants, trees, sunshine, water or wind can be an incredibly pleasurable, calming and safe experience. Being in nature or within ecosystems can support you to connect with something larger and take small steps to figure out your relationship with yourself and your body. Pleasure can come from many sources and being creative and open to all these posbilities increases your opportunity for joy and connection. Laying in the grass and noticing the sensations it brings your body or dipping your hands and feet into cool water can be satisfying and help you regulate your nervous system.
Talk It Out: If you’re feeling guilty about prioritising your solo pleasures and you’re in a sexual relationship, talk it out with your partner(s). Use the massage analogy to explore how solo pleasure and giving or receiving a massage can fit together and compliment each other rather than being at odds.
