Tag: masturbation

Sex and relationship expert, Dr. Trina Read, is ready to answer your questions.

My wife doesn't like it when I masturbate and recently asked me how often I do it. I said daily. She thinks this is too much. Thoughts?

As the old saying goes, about 98% of people masturbate and the rest are just lying.

People vary tremendously in their sexual needs and therefore no amount of masturbating is the wrong amount. That said, for those in a romantic relationship overplay might lead to some complications.

So, how can you tell when enough is enough? Here are some indications:

"Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it’s a cure." ~ Thomas Szasz

Although there is no chapter dedicated specifically to masturbation in my new book Sex that Works, I refer often to why self-pleasure is so essential to moving towards a healthy relationship with pleasure itself. In fact, sex educators the world over call masturbation the cornerstone of all other sexual acts, because the more attention you have for your own sexual response the more sexually competent you become in partnered relationships.

The only thing about masturbation to be ashamed of is doing it badly.” ~ Sigmund Freud

Shared pleasure depends on one’s capacity to pleasure themselves, which is why most sex therapists refer to the practice of masturbation as the foundation of sexual health. And just for the record, masturbation is the most common sexual practice on the planet. It is not just for lonely people either: surveys conducted by the Kinsey Institute show that people of all ages masturbate both in and out of relationships. Kinsey’s data reports that almost 40% of men and 30% of women in relationships masturbated.

"Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it’s a cure." ~ Thomas Szasz

Of all the sexual acts on the planet, masturbation leads the way as not only the most commonly practiced and safest ways to have sex, but also as the one that most frequently and reliably ends in orgasm. Not terribly surprising when you consider who would know better than you, the mysterious pathway to climax.

"The only thing about masturbation to be ashamed of is doing it badly." ~ Sigmund Freud

It’s been over 20 years since May was named National Masturbation Month by a group of hip sex stores in response to the firing of then Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for suggesting that masturbation would be a healthy addition to educational curriculum.

It was a reasonable suggestion given the cloak of shame and secrecy that masturbation has long carried, being derided and not considered "real sex."  And yet, solo sex is, without question, the most common of all sexual acts on the planet and arguably one of the safest.

The idea that all men are raving sexual beasts who never say "no" to sex is widely accepted. Both men and women have bought into the popular notion that men are, for the most part, highly sexed. On any given day, what normal red-blooded male turns down the opportunity for sexual connection with his partner? And what exactly is up when he does this repeatedly?

After decades studying human behavior, I had a revelation that has since colored my perception of infidelity: Almost everything that happens to an addict happens to someone who has an affair.

  Think about drug and alcohol abuse for a moment: Not only does the syndrome result in abuse of substances, but it includes hiding behaviors from others, lying about activities, investing time and money seeking a chemical high, and changing just about every aspect of one’s life. Moreover, most of these individuals have wished to break away from their substances of abuse, but doing so has proved very difficult. Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like what happens when someone has an affair?