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Master the art of self-love.
By Jordan Gray — Written on Mar 22, 2016
Whether it’s the religious shame, fear of getting caught by our parents when we’re young, Western society having a tight ass around anything to do with sexuality… or who knows what other reason… masturbation gets a bad wrap.
Because the truth of the matter is…
Masturbation is awesome. It’s pleasurable. It’s natural. It’s healthy. It helps you have a better relationship to your body. And masturbating regularly can also help you become a better, more self-aware, and sexually connected intimate partner.
If you have any resistance to masturbation, whether from past/recently imposed sexual blocks or just because you don’t find it all that fun, then this might just be the article for you.
I’m going to keep this short and sweet.
Here are seven steps you can take to fall in love with masturbation.
1. Set aside time
It’s a rare and highly well adjusted person that doesn’t have *some* level of resistance, discomfort, or nervousness around settling in for a masturbation session. So this point is for the majority of us who have some sexual neuroses to melt through.
Whether you put it in the calendar or just mentally block out some time for yourself one evening, set aside some dedicated time to your sexual exploration.
Sex/sexuality/masturbation deserves a good solid chunk of our time and attention in our lives. It is a major driving force in essentially every person on the planet and it deserves to be treated with the love and attention it deserves.
2. Get comfortable
Now that you’ve set aside time in your busy schedule, it’s time to lean into the process by getting comfortable.
Do whatever you need to to get yourself in the right frame of mind. Take a bath. Shut off all of your digital devices. Turn on some music. Lie down on your softest quilts. Get as many pillows as you need.
Do whatever you need to relax to the greatest extent possible.
3. Use your imagination
While the temptation for some to use pornography might be compelling… there’s a lot of research on how consuming too much porn can actually cause some damage to our mental/sexual circuitry. It’s also highly external… meaning that it takes your attention off of the pleasure you’re feeling and puts it more on the images that your eyes are taking in. And this process is largely about re-sensitizing you to your body… not numbing you to your body’s sensations further.
So dream up whatever wicked fantasy you can think of and use that (or those) for your extended masturbation session. And if you really want to watch porn, then go for it! No one’s stopping you.
4. Touch yourself all over (not just the obvious areas)
One of the most common unconscious processes that occurs when we first start masturbating again (especially if we haven’t done it much in a while) is that we just focus on our genitals… usually because we’re highly climax focused as opposed to holding the intention of re-sensitizing ourselves to our bodies. And while there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, there are a lot more erogenous zones than just our genitals.
Let your hands roam free and explore areas that are often neglected.
How does your body respond to being touched in other areas when you’re already somewhat aroused? Try exploring your thighs, neck, lower abdomen, upper chest, breasts, scrotum, anus… all over. Literally every part of your body is able to experience pleasure. But some will be more pleasurable than others depending on your unique pleasure map.
So go exploring!
5. Use toys, lubes, props if you feel like it
This might not be as relevant in your first few masturbation sessions after a hiatus, but once you start re-establishing a good relationship to your body with your hands, you might want to try adding in some toys.
You can use different textured lubes, vibrators, butt plugs, or any other toys you can think of (as a man or a woman).
Set aside the social stigmas and do whatever you want. It’s your pleasure… it’s your body… you’re allowed to do whatever you want with it.
6. Take your time
One of the best things you can do when either sexually reawakening your body or consciously exploring your sexual pleasure responses is take a lot of time. There’s no need to rush. It’s so difficult to really get a good read on what our body likes or doesn’t like if we’re tensed up because we think that our friends/room mates/partner might walk in when we weren’t expecting them to.
So make this time a sacred practice. Sacred as in uninterrupted… and long. Nice and long.
7. Treat it as a practice
Like anything in life, we can either do it once and see some fairly limited results, or we can do it a few times and/or make it into a continual habit.
The best lovers that I’ve ever met, interviewed, or been friends with were all highly sexually self-aware. What does that mean? It means they put in the time (in the past, and regularly in their present lives) to discover and explore their bodies through masturbation.
As one of my clients (who was a decades-long tantra and Taoist practitioner) once put it, “If you want to hit a home run with your sexual performance, you have to have already stepped up to the plate in the batting cages a few hundred times. You must always practice… as all of your results come from that inner comfort with yourself.”
Remember… masturbation is supposed to be, above all else, fun and pleasurable. There’s no need to take it too seriously. If one or several of the steps listed above don’t resonate with you, then ignore them completely. It’s your journey. You know what you need.
Sex and relationship coach Jordan Gray helps people remove their emotional blocks and maintain thriving intimate relationships. You can see more of his writing at JordanGrayConsulting.com
This article was originally published at Jordan Gray Consulting. Reprinted with permission from the author.
