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Question:
The problem: I'm 20 now. When I was 13 or so, I started masturbating,and I developed a habit of doing so whenever I was extremely stressed. I
found it to be of immense relief.
I've since tried to break this habit, but I've found that I can'tmasturbate when I'm relaxed or happy or say, thinking of a certain boy I
love. And this has had terrible consequences. For instance, When this boy tried to masturbate me, I wasn't in the least aroused. I'm very
frightened that I'm frigid. And I'm not sure as to what to do.
I see all these images of sex and love everywhere, and it seems so easy, especially if you love someone. I'm so upset that I'm like this.
Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
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Answer:
by Georgan Gregg: (06/02/2004)
I’m glad that you contacted us. Society’s alluring fantasies about sex & love can easily make us doubt our normalcy. In reality, little factual information is offered by these images. For instance, we rarely hear that masturbation is a normal, healthy human behavior. Let’s cover some issues that may help you sort out what’s going on.
It seems that being “frigid” is your biggest concern. Most people use the term to mean sexually unresponsive &/or unable to orgasm. Sex counselors don’t use the term because it’s neither descriptive nor helpful. What you seem to be experiencing is situational, that is, only in certain situations are you unable to become excited or orgasm. It’s not that masturbation causes problems with partner sex, it’s simply that a different set of the skills are needed to have good sex with a partner. Communication (spoken & otherwise) is vital for most women to “teach” a partner what excites her. When you pleasure yourself it’s undoubtedly a different situation than when the young man tried to excite you. And just to clarify terminology, masturbation means self-stimulation for sexual pleasure, so what he really did was (probably) manual stimulation. Unless you told him or used your hand &/or body to show him precisely what you enjoy it’s understandable that you weren’t aroused.
You say that you see masturbating for release from stress as a problem. Is the problem actually why you masturbate or that you feel guilty to be using masturbation for stress relief? Masturbating is not harmful unless it's an unhealthy substitute for something lacking in your life. If you have no other coping methods when you’re stressed, then you need to seek counseling to broaden your coping abilities.
Masturbation has many benefits. Among other things, it helps women learn what they need to have an orgasm. Many women can’t have orgasms during vaginal or anal intercourse unless they stimulate themselves manually or get their partner to stimulate them manually. This is true whether they’ve masturbated or not because intercourse just doesn’t give the right stimulation in the right place for these women. It’s very likely that women won’t be orgasmic with or without a partner until they have learned to be comfortable with their bodies through masturbation.
It might be useful for you to read through a long list of advantages of masturbation at http://www.solotouch.com/res.php?t=a&num=17. Albert Ellis, a famous sex therapist, lists 50 advantages of masturbation (sexual, emotional, physical health, relational, & other) & notes that the list could be doubled.
Please feel free to contact us again if you have further questions.
Reviewed by: Kathleen VanKirk DHS
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