The joys of solo sex

Masturbation is not popular – well, officially – with Christians. Indeed, a new website, Dirty Girl Ministries, has been launched to encourage girls to give it up! But why? As someone who has been “doing it for years”, Anne Sexton argues that it is a healthy, safe and pleasurable pursuit…

Anne Sexton, 14 Sep 2011

One site, called simply enough ‘How To Stop Masturbating’ argues that, “once the brain experiences the neurochemical stimulation of an orgasm, it pushes for more. Suddenly, masturbation becomes all-consuming, a sensation the sufferer must complete at any time of any day, whenever the fantasy arises.”

In fairness, it is true that once you discover masturbation you do tend to do it a lot. Young men in particular may jerk off several times a day. But is there anything wrong with that? Many people worry there is.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been on the radio and someone has phoned in to ask me how much masturbation is too much. The answer is simple – as long as you don’t end up with friction burns, you’re fine.

This site also argues that self-abuse can be a lifelong problem that never goes away – even seniors, especially if they are widowed, may be tempted to do it too! Yikes!

It’s funny, you’d think that since masturbation doesn’t result in unplanned children, doesn’t spread disease and doesn’t have any negative health implications, it would be encouraged. Instead it seems to be more of a taboo topic than sex, even in countries like ours where there are no laws against it.

You rarely hear people – except perhaps teenage boys – discussing their masturbation habits. Sure, they’ll tell you locker room tales of successful one-night stands and horror stories about pulling while wearing beer goggles, but you rarely hear stories of self-induced pleasure. Instead it’s a dirty secret, akin to an admission of sexual failure, and that’s despite the fact around half of all women aged 20-35 own a vibrator.

So here goes: I own four vibrators, but I only ever use one. My much loved Jessica Rabbit. The others are crap. Sometimes I prefer to masturbate the old-fashioned way. Some weeks I’ll masturbate every day, some weeks I won’t bother at all. On occasion, but not often, I’d rather masturbate than have sex.

Can masturbation become an addiction? The short answer is no. Yes, there is a small handful of people whose masturbation habits become unhealthy, but it is very rare. Very, very rare indeed when you consider the fact that most people masturbate on a regular basis. You have more chance of winning the Euromillions than getting addicted to masturbation.

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