by Dr. Denise Renye, Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Sex Therapist, MEd, MA, PsyD, in San Francisco, CA

The Shame Around Masturbation

Many of us are indoctrinated with shame. It seems to be a readily used societal mechanism to control and dominate when someone or something is perceived to be out of control. A place where that shows up a great deal is with sex, including solo sex, or masturbation. Shame is the instilled belief there’s something bad or wrong with you — fundamentally. It’s not the feeling that you made a mistake, but rather the feeling you are a mistake.

The Status Quo

Mixed Messages About Sex

When it comes to sex, and particularly solo sex, we’re often bombarded with a multitude of messages that can leave us feeling confused. Messages may include: “There’s something wrong with you if you don’t masturbate, something wrong with you if you do. And if you do masturbate, there’s something wrong with your frequency, no matter what it is.” It can feel overwhelming and almost as though you can’t win.

You’ve likely heard the jokes and myths around masturbation: “If you masturbate too much, you’ll go blind!” or “Masturbation can lead to hairy palms/insanity/erectile dysfunction/etc.” (Note: Those are all false.)

There’s also the more overtly religious “God is always watching you” or something similar. This last one boils down to a judgment. And judgment is at the root of shame.

Religions often have numerous messages surrounding sex and pleasure, and sometimes those messages turn into how countries regulate not only sex work, but also sex toys used in masturbation such as vibrators and dildos. About 45% of the world’s countries prohibit the import of sex toys because they fall under the umbrella of pornography.

Self-Ignorance Around Pleasure and the Body

Pleasure is not normalized and learning how to touch our own bodies is not something most people have even considered consciously, particularly if there has been conditioning that masturbation is dirty or sinful. All of this keeps people from knowing themselves, of getting to know their own bodies (if they’re masturbating alone) or someone else’s body (if they’re engaging in mutual masturbation). Fundamentally, shame keeps us from honoring ourselves. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and the world is to honor and love yourself more deeply than you may already.

If you notice a lot of shame showing up for you, I encourage you to look at it, gently shine a light onto it. No need to push yourself too much as you enter into this important self-inquiry. Are these messages worth perpetuating, or are they outdated and inherited from someone else?

The Importance of Releasing Shame

My hope in all of my work is to help people to be more fully themselves and releasing shame can help them do that. Also, the thing about shame around masturbation is it has the consequence of you not only feeling bad about yourself, but also being less likely to openly communicate with your partner or partners. If you don’t know what you like, what feels good to you, how can you express what you want or communicate your boundaries to someone else? Furthermore, you may end up having boring or painful sex, which you don’t ever have to settle for. Mediocrity and sex do not go together and neither do shame and sex, whether it’s solo sex (masturbating) or partnered sex.

Getting to Know Your Body

If you take the time and care to attune and learn how your body likes to be touched and pleased, it can be a great contribution to your life in general. If you’re struggling to wrap your head around that, or perhaps you feel shame around being shamed, that’s okay. Even if you can’t take the message in right now, there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation; there’s nothing wrong with pleasuring yourself. You can’t masturbate too much unless you’re finding it’s problematically interfering with your life  (e.g., your work or relationships are suffering, it’s consuming a lot of your time, etc.).

Human beings are designed to seek pleasure – it’s inherent in our brains and bodies. Masturbation is just one way we experience pleasure.

Trying Out a New Approach

If you’re interested in masturbation, I have an exercise for you. Take yourself on a date. Mentally note you are placing boundaries around this time just for you. Create a sensual space: light some candles, plan out a menu for a special meal, put some pleasing music on. Have the mindset of slowing down and really smelling the candle (and/or add some incense if your body desires that). Also, smell the delicious smells of your meal and taste each bite as it hits your tongue.

After dinner, see if you are in the mood for sensual or sexual touch. Really take your time to see how you like to be touched. Be with yourself without rushing to the goal of an orgasm. Instead, take things slow and sensually, focusing on pleasure itself. How does each touch feel in your body? What do you notice with each touch? What happens as you vary pressure or intensity? Perhaps an orgasm will emerge naturally.

This is a time for self-exploration and self-love. There is no right or wrong way here — instead you’re learning what feels good to you and no one else. Masturbation is a natural, normal behavior to engage in, or not engage in. You’re the one that gets to decide that – no one else.

If you need support around this topic, by all means, reach out to me or another therapist.

Dear GoodTherapy.org,

Some people masturbate to thoughts of faceless figures. Some people masturbate to porn. Some people have fantasies about characters from fan fiction.

Me? I tend to masturbate to thoughts of people I actually know, ranging from friends to coworkers to professors to the guy next door to my boss’ husband and everyone in between. Is that healthy? I mean, in most cases I would never actually have sex with these people (it would usually be taboo or inappropriate), so I wonder if it’s healthy to even imagine it or if I should be trying to redirect my fantasies elsewhere.

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I personally would be flattered to know that a friend or coworker or whoever was masturbating with me in mind, but I feel a little guilty about it sometimes, like I’m using someone’s image for my sexual gratification without their knowledge or consent. When I’m around these people I don’t act any different; I don’t get weird or creepy or anything. So is there any harm in what I’m doing? Is this normal and healthy? Am I some sort of deviant? —Thinking of You

Submit Your Own Question to a Therapist

Dear Thinking,

Thanks for your question. First, a quick remark regarding your question of whether this is “normal.” I gently discourage people from using this word in therapy, though I understand why they do. Perhaps because I tend to work within an existential-humanistic viewpoint, I have discovered there is no normal. I mean this within the context of understanding a specific person’s psychological and emotional life. So many behaviors or emotions are confusing from a distance, but then make sense as you understand them empathically.

Often the word “normal” often gets conflated with “rational,” or within the bounds of acceptable socio-cultural definition. Thus, it is defined by social norms, which change over time.

But consider that it is not necessarily “rational” to watch a pretend series of moving images on a screen, with actors dressed in costume and special effects generated by computer, in such a way that emotionally involves us with the characters and story we’re seeing (even when that story is called Star Wars or Wonder Woman). It is not rational to be engrossed or frightened by an obviously “fake” science-fiction novel or TV series. All of this is, however, quite human in our need for narratives and fantasies that serve a variety of emotional and psychological purposes. Certainly, sexual fantasies can go beyond the bounds of “rational”—and wouldn’t life be boring if they didn’t?

It seems to me fantasies, even dreams themselves, are often closer to the emotional or psychological truth of our existence than logic or rationality. Rationality is necessary, but too much of it becomes constricting; it’s the non-rational, creative, or unbounded energy that brings color and, frankly, gets the party started (so to speak). It’s hard to imagine a line of people lining up to see a movie about lives which remain rational or “normal” throughout.

Were you in the therapy room with me, I would be curious to hear more about these fantasies of yours, as a window into what might be happening on an unconscious or soulful level.

On the face of it, your fantasies and masturbation, even wondering about the social ethics therein, don’t strike me as unusual or alarming. Having said that, you don’t mention the frequency or intensity of said behaviors. It’s hard to tell whether they happen enough to warrant being considered compulsive. When a compulsion is present, a person often feels they ought to “get a handle” on things, and may feel guilty the behavior (or set of feelings driving the behavior) is hard to manage.

Hard to say, in other words, whether this behavior is relatively harmless (to yourself or others), a way of blowing off some sexual steam, or if it is somehow getting in the way of real-life relationships.

We all sometimes wonder about our own private habits, of course, and may secretly want validation we are not “beyond the bounds” of normalcy (whatever that is), or wonder, “Is this a problem or isn’t it?” Your question does intimate danger or risk in such self-pleasuring, since these fantasy scenarios are possibly “taboo or inappropriate.” This makes me especially curious.

What is the taboo you might be breaking? You don’t mention the specific content of your fantasies, which I am guessing are compelling or captivating in some way. In many cases, the intensity of sexual scenarios relates to some emotional intensity—pain, desire, fear—in our psyche that has not been fully explored or understood, or relationally shared, but which can create turbulence, even shame, until better understood. (That’s not a bad description of the purpose of psychotherapy, incidentally.)

You may know the content of sexual fantasies and desires so often symbolizes or “disguises” a person’s deepest wishes, hopes, and fears. Sexual fantasies are dream-like, and can be interpreted as such, much as Sigmund Freud hinted (though he stubbornly insisted on only one valid interpretation). These fantasy and dream images become a kind of “map” of yearnings or deeper desires not easily expressed consciously, for all manner of reasons.

Sometimes such needs become “eroticized” or take sexual form. The person who feels they are never noticed or truly seen may have exhibitionist-type fantasies in which they are finally “noticed” by others; the “nudity” in this scenario may correspond to a desire to feel unbounded, spontaneous—as young children are often unabashed about their own nudity.

I would suggest paying attention to the emotional hopes or wishes suggested by your imagined scenarios. The only true “taboo” I can imagine is stifling further exploration toward listening to or observing more closely the needs, wants, or hopes your psyche may be trying to communicate.

Within such scenarios, we may see or be “seen” in the most unencumbered and exciting ways. Urges or impulses that are usually kept in “storage” are free to roam. Pushing and playing with boundaries is part of the excitement, in whatever form that takes. This holds true, of course, for both masturbatory and shared sexual activity.

As another example, S&M scenarios are commonly enjoyed by those who (for instance) struggle with feeling overly compliant during their “real” life, but are then empowered to dominate in the bedroom. Meanwhile, those who enjoy being tied up or submissive might struggle with a sense of over-responsibility in “real” life.

Is it possible your fantasies are a way of asserting yourself and your needs in a way that feels elusive in your actual relationships? Are there needs or emotions that are hard to share or communicate in your interactions with others?

Clearly there is an aftermath here of guilt or self-doubt. Again, in what way is this activity “taboo” or possibly “deviant” (a strong word)? Is it that you are somehow “exploiting” these folks without their awareness? In what way might it be wrong to do so? Have you ever felt exploited in any parallel way? Are you concerned such fantasizing might somehow lead to taking action (if there is anything “edgy” or dangerous about your fantasies)? Is there something shameful about the desires symbolized by the fantasies themselves?

I can’t escape the feeling that, at the bottom of all of this, there is something emotional and very human hoping to be more deeply understood.

There is a rather significant detail left out of your note: you don’t mention if you are single. If you are, does it mean your partner would be hurt or offended?

I’m imagining for a moment you are single. Is the “taboo” an offense against yourself, in not seeking an actual sex partner and depriving yourself of an intimacy that may be overwhelming or anxiety-provoking? Or in “permitting” some (possibly sexualized) desires or needs to take shape and find expression, even if privately?

Or, if you are partnered, is there a sense of guilt or “forbidden-ness” around attraction toward others? People are often surprised to learn one can be married or monogamous and still be attracted to others. How far to take such an attraction does subjectively and culturally vary, of course. (There are cultures or traditions, for instance, which allow bigamy, and there has been quite a bit of discussion lately in social and mainstream media about open relationships.)

In short, your question is a provocative one and is worthy of further exploration in therapy. I would suggest paying attention to the emotional hopes or wishes suggested by your imagined scenarios. The only true “taboo” I can imagine is stifling further exploration toward listening to or observing more closely the needs, wants, or hopes your psyche may be trying to communicate.

Kind regards,

Darren Haber, MFT, PsyD