Shame and Other Confusing Feelings About Masturbation (AMAB, Woman)

Posted on August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 by Anon_Submission

[Content Warning: self-harm, aphobia]

As a child, I discovered masturbation accidentally while home alone. I didn’t even understand what had happened until I later tried to replicate things. And when it happened, I had been watching let’s play videos for most of the actual action, but the unexpected (and at the time, distressing) climax happened after I’d moved on to somewhat suggestive commercial compilations. This was after I’d been consuming both written and visual porn for some amount of time, so even though I’d had a non-sexual interest in erotic material before, that climax event ended up tying together masturbation and erotic material for me. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what would have happened if it had happened differently, would I connect gaming to sexuality? Would I not connect erotic stuff with it, despite the seemingly clear connection? What it tells me is that, at least for me, it was arbitrary; I didn’t start masturbating because I was attracted to people or representations of people, it just felt strange and I was curious enough to keep experiencing it until something happened.

And that’s another thing, I don’t know if I ever really thought of it was feeling “good” just “interesting”. It felt like masturbation, and there wasn’t really anything else to compare it to, good or bad. I kept doing it, so probably not too bad, for a time anyway. U to high school, I masturbated regularly, ot really thinking twice about it. I recognized it was something I wanted to hide from my (religious) parents at some point, but there was no real shame inherent to the activity.

Then in high school, I realized I was ace, and my best friend started asking questions about what I looked at when i touched myself, and since my answer was not “nothing”, that was reason enough to invalidate my identity. But the thing is, I don’t really think I used the images or videos to get aroused as much as I had that association, Maybe eventually my body tied those things together and that’s why now I can get aroused seeing erotic imagery, but that’s not how it was growing up. It didn’t matter though, I had reason to doubt my asexuality and I started to be ashamed of how much I touched myself. I wanted to stop completely as far back as grade 10, but it had become such a habit that I never got much progress there.

When i got really depressed and lonely in university, I felt like one of the only things to do in my life was masturbation, and I already wasn’t able to fully enjoy that because of shame that had been in me for years at that point. And Maybe it was a manifestation of taht shame, but evernually it just, literally started physically feeling bad. And after that, I began using it as self harm Like, a lot.

When i got a therapist and worked hard on stopping all of my self harming, I was able to make some real progress on quitting masturation, and when i was abstinant, I felt pretty great, but when i relapsed, the shame was even greater.

I eventually did stop, and I felt pretty good about that. I reframed things as doing things if they felt ok, and not shaming myself for doing anything at all, recognizing when it was self harm and when it wasn’t, trying to be as sure as i could when which was which. I worked through recognizing that masturbation doesn’t negate my asexuality in any way. But then I found out that because I was transitioning with hormones, if I didn’t keep using my bits, they’d atrophy, and then I would lose the choice to use it. I didn’t like having my choice taken away, so soon after regaining it. I wasn’t ashamed anymore, i clould touch without it just being self harm, and now i have to masturbate whether I want to or not.

At least things are more neutral now. Maybe it’s the estrogen, but i can kinda almost maybe get into mastubation now.

Thoughts on Masturbation (AMAB, Cis, Man)

Posted on June 17, 2020June 20, 2020 by Atomic Goat

I’m asexual and I masturbate. I do it because I like it. It feels good.

I never feel like I have to, there’s rarely even a phone call from downstairs demanding attention. It’s a bit like deciding to turn on the TV or deciding to eat a piece of candy, it’s just something I want to do at that moment. I pretty much always have to kickstart the arousal process, because that rarely happens on its own, and even more rarely at a time when I can do anything with it.

On average, I do it once or twice a day, usually once in the morning and again before bed. I used to do it exclusively in the shower, but now it’s far more common to be at the computer or in bed. Sometimes it’ll take just a couple of minutes, other times I might stretch it out for an hour.

If I don’t do it for a while, nothing changes: No spontaneous erections, no nocturnal emissions, no rising lake of libido building up. Just a slight bit more sensitivity downstairs. Maybe the skin’s a little softer? I don’t know. But no genital explosions from unreleased sexual whatever.

These days, I typically use toys. Most often, it’s a Fleshlight, but it can be another type of sleeve. I like the way they feel, and they help to contain the situation for easy cleanup. Occasionally, I’ll use a vibrator, but those don’t work very well most of the time. Very rarely, I’ll try something else, but I’ve had very little success outside of my hand or sleeves.

I do not need to be turned on before I start. It’s rare that I ever feel particularly “turned on”. Even if I get a spontaneous erection, it’s typically more of a nuisance than something that makes me think “I’d like to do something with that!”. Since I don’t want to wait around for random arousal to kick in, I usually need some deliberate manual intervention to get started. Gently tugging, softly pinching and pulling around the frenulum, combined with muscle tensing will usually do the trick.

I would say that libido does not play a role in what I do. I don’t really think I have one. Feeling “horny” is a really rare experience, and it’s definitely not a driver of my masturbation, nor is it required. Most often, I do it because I feel like it, not because I feel compelled to and not because my body is saying “Hey, do this now!”. Nothing builds up if I don’t do it, and there isn’t any kind of nagging sense of whatever that gets temporarily relieved when I’m done.

As for orgasm, well, the sudden spike in pleasure, the rhythmic pulsing of muscles, and ejaculation are a fairly clear giveaway. Then again, I have ejaculated without orgasm and orgasmed without ejaculation, so… And orgasm is a distinctly different sensation than anything else going on. It usually feels good before, but then there’s a sudden shift to a sort of automatic mode. There’s a surge in how good everything feels as the orgasm takes over. I let muscles do their own thing, as there’s pleasure in the tension. And afterward a drift into relaxation and either oversensitivity or slight numbness downstairs. It’s much, much more than just a simple muscle twitch.

For me, orgasms are definitely the point. I don’t do it for stress relief or to get to sleep or to scratch an itch or to avoid wet dreams (does that even make a difference?) or anything like that. I would have no reason to do it otherwise.

In general, I think the entire topic should be more openly discussed, or at least not be seen as some sort of embarrassing secret. Lots of people do it, so what? I think sex toys should be sold in a common drugstore. (I know some already have vibrating rings in with the condoms, but those hardly count, since they’re typically not good as either cock rings or vibrators. And the “back massagers” should just come out and say what they’re really for…) I think people should stop with the harmful myths about hairy palms or eternal damnation or making you go blind, and then stop with the even more harmful myths that masturbation is somehow “artificial” or “replacement” sex for people who can’t get “the real thing”.