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MASTURBATION FOR COUPLES

Sexual Compatibility

One of the best foundations for building and sustaining sexual compatibility and mutual orgasms is based upon each person’s acceptance of masturbation. In a sex-positive society both partners would start off with some degree of sex for one skill before attempting sex for two. Once they establish a committed partnership, they understand that masturbation will be an ongoing process throughout their lives together. They know that self-sexuality is a way for each of them to privately explore their erotic minds through sexual fantasies. They both agree that sharing masturbation in each other’s presence is the cornerstone for creating an even deeper level of sexual intimacy.

While this might sound like a futuristic scenario for the year 3000, sophisticated couples of all sexual orientations are living this way today, including myself. Due to the restrictions of censorship, this more liberated view of partner sex never sees the light of day. Instead, we are shown a sexual conformity of Mr. and Mrs. Normal who are happily married, sexually compatible, monogamous, raising at least one child, and remain together throughout a lifetime. This is only true for a very small minority, so we need to cut the majority of us a little slack. We are all entitled to be sexually fulfilled.

Change is inevitable; it is a natural part of the human condition. More than half the population will have several marriages. For many, sexual variety remains the spice of life, and they like being single. There are people who choose to be celibate; others prefer self-sexuality. I know an older couple who say they still enjoy partner sex after forty-some years of marriage, and they have never included masturbation. So even the inclusion of masturbation for every couple to be happy is not etched in stone.

At the beginning of my first postmarital relationship, with Grant, I decided not to lie about my adult masturbation anymore. I spoke openly about how masturbation had kept me sane during marriage. He admitted masturbation filled in for him, too. Gradually we started telling each other about our different experiences with masturbation. This required trust. I had to trust that the person I claimed to love could handle the truth about my masturbation history, which centered around clitoral stimulation. That put an end to the idea that I’d ever been able to successfully transfer my sexual pleasure from my clitoris to my vagina—so much for coming from Romeo’s penis.

SHARING MASTURBATION HISTORIES

My first memory was riding in the backseat of the family car when I was five years old. Daddy had started a new job in California and we were joining him there. Adventure was in the air. While Mother chatted with my older brother in the front seat, my two younger brothers were asleep next to me on a pile of blankets in the backseat. At that moment I must have felt that it was safe enough to pull a pillow up between my legs and rock back and forth on it until “the tickle” went away.

In my forties, while writing my first article about masturbation, I called Mother to confirm this memory. Yes, she remembered the incident clearly, because she had seen me in the rearview mirror. She said that wasn’t the first or last time she’d seen me with a pillow between my legs. I told her I still slept with a pillow between my legs, but now when I masturbated I used a vibrator. Not long after that conversation, I sent Mother a Magic Wand to soothe her sore muscles. She later told me that the machine I gave her was absolutely marvelous for “You know what.”

Today I believe my happy childhood masturbation shaped aspects of my life. First, I was not punished for the innocent act of self-pleasuring. Maybe having my first memory anchored in the security of my family explains why I was able to exhibit drawings of people masturbating, teach masturbation in workshops, and write several books devoted to this otherwise taboo subject. For me, self-stimulation was a natural act until I learned differently once the social conditioning of school began.

Our sexual beginnings give us valuable insights into ourselves as well as one another. It’s very informative when couples can talk about their first memories of masturbation, the kind of technique they used, and what it felt like. Grant doesn’t have a first memory of masturbation. He remembered his dick getting hard and rubbing it felt really nice. However, his first orgasm at thirteen is clear as a bell, with precise recall on the room, the furniture, time of day, and how it felt when he shot his first ejaculate. I, on the other hand, have no memory of my first orgasm. For me it was a tickle that went away until the sensation gradually grew more intense.

Getting caught in the act of playing with our sex organs by a parent or a sibling can be traumatic. Children who are severely controlled, punished, scolded, or humiliated can develop sexual problems that last a lifetime. One girlfriend grew up with a serious masturbation taboo. When her mother tucked her into bed at night as a toddler, she slipped the cardboard rolls from toilet paper over her daughter’s little hands so she wouldn’t touch herself “down there.” For her, even saying the word “masturbation” out loud was difficult. She was able to masturbate when she and her husband were apart, but she was never able to share masturbation in his presence. After hearing her gruesome history, he understood.

Another friend had a nanny who placed the rubber sheet that protected the mattress over his little penis and rubbed it—an acceptable activity to calm a crying child in some cultures. As an adult, touching or wearing rubber gives him a strong erotic charge. Fortunately these days, fashion has normalized the wearing of many fetish-type clothes, such as leather and clothes made out of high-quality latex. Another girlfriend remembers going into her parent’s bedroom whenever they were not at home and masturbating while wearing one of her mom’s silk slips. To this day wearing silk arouses her.

MARITAL MASTURBATION

Of the many couples who have shared the truth with me about their sex lives, the ones that are the most comfortable with monogamy usually enjoy masturbation for sexual variety. Even those couples that share sex with other people either openly or surreptitiously agree on the important role that sex with oneself plays in keeping sexual interests healthy in a primary relationship. Connoisseurs of the erotic know the importance of continuing to have sex with themselves, while the sexually traditional think there will be no need for solo sex once they have a partner.

During a conversation I had with Mr. Macho, who had already gone through three wives at forty, he made it abundantly clear that he never had to masturbate. Yet he also claimed he was faithful to every woman he loved. When I asked what he’d do if he was separated from his current girlfriend for a month, he said he’d just get a blowjob and remain monogamous. For him, having to do himself was a sign of weakness or sexual failure. There will always be those men who believe that once they are in a committed relationship or married, masturbation will not figure into their lives anymore.

Having sex with oneself within a committed partnership solves a myriad of problems such as temporary periods of separation, having a baby, health issues, and work-related travel. For a multitude of reasons, our patterns of desire also differ greatly. No two people will consistently want sex at the same time and with the same frequency year in and year out. A woman may enjoy sex twice a week while her husband wants sex every day. She might make an effort to accommodate him at first, but in time resentments will grow. If he’s free to masturbate on the five days she’s not interested, they will both enjoy sex more equally when they do get together. The reverse could also be true. She wants sex more frequently than he. Masturbation allows each partner to satisfy his or her own individual sexual needs and appetites.

The year Eric and I began living together, we had sex nearly every day. By the second year, I was happy with partner sex once or twice a week. He still wanted one or two orgasms a day. At night he sometimes watches porn in his room doing some Jo, or jacking off. (For women, Jo means jilling off.) During the day, he likes to masturbate sitting on the bathroom floor—a habit he developed at college, where the bathroom was the only place for privacy. Since he’s been living with me he rarely closes the door. Every time I happen to walk past the bathroom and see him sitting on the floor intently playing with his peter, my heart swells with unconditional love. Once again I’m filled with gratitude for a partnership that is based on the complete acceptance of masturbation without any reservations from either of us. It offers us both a great deal of sexual freedom and comfort.

Over the years, I’ve had women tell me that when they discover their husband masturbates they think something is being taken away from them, or they feel like sexual failures. If they discover he’s watching X-rated videos, looking at pictures of naked women online, or going to chat rooms while he masturbates, many spiral into a jealous rage. This hard-line definition of sexual fidelity destroys any chance of a man’s enjoying a little harmless sexual variety through masturbation and fantasy. The same is true of men who feel threatened when they discover their wives are enjoying orgasms by masturbating with a vibrator.

This kind of possessiveness is based upon a great deal of sexual insecurity. Do we really feel so sexually inadequate that when our partner has a few private moments of erotic pleasure alone we believe the worst—they are on their way out the door to dump us for someone who is better at sex?

Sex with oneself tends to be easier than partner sex when it comes to having an orgasm, a fact few of us want to acknowledge. Not all couples desire penetration sex all the time. She might have her period. He might be tired and prefer masturbation to intercourse for an easy climax. Perhaps a recent illness has lowered his or her energy and the idea of making love seems like too much effort.

Far too many men have been brainwashed to believe that fucking is the height of eroticism and masturbation is kid stuff that doesn’t count. Not true. Having an orgasm with oneself can often be the most satisfying sex of all. Women know masturbation gives them the most sensation, but then that’s not information they want to share for fear of being looked upon as frigid or, more recently, sexually dysfunctional.

COUPLES SHARING MASTURBATION

Revealing our sexual selves in each other’s presence will gradually diminish self-consciousness, shame, and embarrassment—three of the biggest barriers to sexual intimacy. When I didn’t feel comfortable touching my own genitals in front of my partner, I was full of inhibitions that limited my ability to fully enjoy myself. Coming from the traditional romantic image of being sexually awakened by my prince, what on earth would he think if he saw me whacking off all by myself? That would totally destroy any semblance of romance. Or so I thought.

My sexual healing took place in stages. First, Grant and I admitted we had relied on sneaky guilt-ridden marital masturbation for a good portion of our orgasms. Although we wanted to masturbate together, getting around to actually doing it took several weeks of agreeing that “tonight is the night,” but then canceling at the last minute to have intercourse. Before I could get up the courage to share an activity I had kept hidden my entire life, I first had to watch myself masturbating in front of a mirror alone. What did I expect? Maybe I thought I’d look weird, but what I saw was a woman being intense and sexual. As an artist who painted nudes, I saw an image I knew I had to capture at some point.

Once we made this breakthrough, our intimacy deepened. We were able to be more honest about when and how we wanted to share sex together. When I had my period, or his back was bothering him, we could now masturbate together. It greatly lightened our sex life by eliminating the idea that we had to please each other through intercourse all the time. That demand often turns partner sex into a performance to keep the other person happy.

We also learned how each of us handled our own genitals, and that improved our manual sex technique. During intercourse, if he came before I did, he could now do manual sex for me nearly as well as I did. Or I could do myself while he did a little hot talk. Again the reverse was true. If he needed more direct stimulation to come, he didn’t have to fuck faster and harder struggling to get off. I could do him by hand.

It can be very exciting to watch a lover masturbate. Taking turns being a voyeur, watching while your partner is putting on a live sex show, is first-rate titillation. Lying side by side doing it simultaneously, or both of you standing in front of a full-length mirror watching yourself and each other, surpasses most pornography. Sitting in chairs opposite each other in the living room will leave sexual memories lingering in the room. Lying down feet to feet facing each other in bed inspires a little hot talk as you intensify your erotic gaze. One of my favorites is lying side by side with my head opposite the hand that’s working his dick for my preference of a close-up. I love to watch a man’s dick blow out a load of semen.

Sharing masturbation can be extremely challenging for many women. One example of an inhibited forty-something wife comes from a man who wrote to me saying that both he and his wife masturbate privately. Although she is finally able to talk about it with him, she is not able to masturbate in his presence because of her embarrassment. He wondered if I could offer any help.

I suggested he reach down with well-oiled fingers and massage her clitoris the next time they are having intercourse. After doing this a few times, he can put her hand on her clitoris and encourage her to stimulate herself while he continues to slowly move inside her vagina. Once she is comfortable touching her clitoris during partner sex, it’s not such a big leap to masturbate in front of him. Several weeks later he wrote again and thanked me, saying it had worked.

MAINTAINING PRIVATE SOLO SEX IN A PARTNERSHIP

It’s important when two people are living together that masturbating separately remain part of each person’s sex life. While it’s true that masturbating privately will probably not happen during the first months or year, when sex is still new and hot, eventually things will cool down no matter how much we love our partner. Resuming sex with ourselves will benefit the partnership. Those moments of sexual solitude allow us to focus on our own sensations of pleasure without having to be aware of the other person.

In order to grow and develop sexually, this private inner journey is a time to explore our erotic minds in solitude. Some might want to practice masturbation as a sexual meditation to quiet the mind. Those who are learning new skills prefer to practice alone, like a dancer working out at the barre. After all, our partners are an audience of one, so sex for two is similar to a performance. Instead of denigrating the concept of “performing,” I say get better at sex and enjoy the applause from an enthusiastic lover.

For those women who are looking for a first orgasm after being in a marriage or a committed relationship for however many years, I recommend they first practice alone. It is essential for a woman to focus entirely on what she is feeling. No matter how well-meaning her partner is, chances are fairly good that he will be a distraction. Women have been caretakers for centuries, so it’s difficult for most of us to put ourselves first. The other problem is that men have been programmed to be the provider—of the family’s home and hearth and women’s sexual pleasure—so it is nearly impossible for them to remain supportive without taking some degree of control. When we are alone, there is always more freedom to concentrate while we are practicing any art form.

One client was in her early seventies when she finally learned how to have an orgasm with an electric vibrator. Following my advice, she and her husband discussed her need to spend time practicing alone. Whenever she closed the bedroom door, he respected her privacy. A year later I got a call from her husband to thank me. He told me how they had incorporated the vibrator into their sex lives. Although she was never able to masturbate in front of him because of her inhibitions, she would masturbate while he sat outside the bedroom door. The sound of the vibrator humming became very arousing and he would also masturbate. When she had her orgasm, she would cry out his name. Whereupon he bounded into the bedroom with a hard on and penetrated her now ready vagina to have his orgasm. They were ecstatic with their new orgasmic sex life.

PARTNER-ASSISTED MASTURBATION

Some of my very best orgasms have been the result of masturbating while a lover does wonderful things to my body. Sometimes it’s licking or sucking my nipples; other times it’s doing slow in and out penetration with fingers or a dildo. Especially for women with short arms like myself, having a lover work my dildo is highly enjoyable. Or the addition of two extra hands caressing my body all over while I use my vibrator is absolute heaven. The assister gets the visual of his or her partner consumed with the combination of sensations.

On some days when Eric pulls on my robe with his teeth like a little doggie, tugging me toward the bed, he’s irresistible. I stop whatever I’m doing and join him. If I’m not in the mood for intercourse, partner-assisted masturbation is always fun. By the time I’ve reached for the massage oil, he has a hard on. He gets pushed over on his back and I start oiling his cock and balls. While he takes over his penis, I massage and lick his balls or stroke his buttyhole while he masturbates. Being close to the pungent smell of his testicles and watching him shoot a big load gives me more energy than a coffee break.

With my first ongoing woman lover, partner-assisted masturbation helped us through our feelings of tentativeness. We were both new at having sex with women, but we were proficient masturbators. Instead of doing oral sex or strapping on a dildo, which would have been a more advanced form of lesbian sex, we took turns heightening each other’s masturbation. During our five-year relationship, Laura and I ended up doing everything. As it turned out, our favorite form of sexual intimacy was sharing hours of massage and masturbation. The nondemanding sensuous touching of massage and being in charge of creating our own orgasms was healing us from years of feeling we had to please our lovers even if it meant sacrificing our own pleasure.

PARTNER-ASSISTED MASTURBATION. A woman is using her electric vibrator to stimulate her clitoris while her partner heightens her experience of orgasm with some form of erotic vaginal and anal touching or penetration.

The freedom to satisfy individual sexual desires frees men and women to get closer and be more in touch with each other, literally and figuratively. When it comes to affectionate touching, we can never get enough. One friend wishes her husband gave her half the affection that he lavishes on the dog. Another hesitates to hug her husband for fear he will misconstrue her show of affection as an invitation to have sex. Once couples incorporate masturbation into their partner sex and both know they are free to have an orgasm at any time, displays of affection with touching, hugging, and kissing can take on a life of their own.

THE HISTORY OF MASTURBATION

We would be wise to ask ourselves why people are so terrified of masturbation. When we take into account the entirety of humankind’s recorded history, the masturbation taboo is relatively recent. Touching one’s own genitals for sexual gratification has been practiced since the Stone Age. Small clay sculptures of masturbating figures dating from that time show acceptance of this human activity. Greek pottery from the fourth and fifth centuries b.c. depicts both women and men joyfully masturbating, along with graphic images of dildo use.

In ancient Egypt, the most popular creation myth was based on a daily masturbation ritual that took place in the Karnak temples built over four thousand years ago—information long-suppressed by scholars and religious authorities due to the embarrassment it still causes. The following text was taken from a wall at Karnak:

In the beginning there was chaos. Chaos was darkness, the waters of the abyss. The first God, Amon, arose from the waters using nothing but his own strength to give form to his body. Amon existed alone. All was his. Yesterday and tomorrow was his. Alone he took his penis in his hand. He made love to his fist. He made his exquisite joy with his fingers, and from the flame of the fiery blast which he kindled with his hand, the universe was formed.

At dawn every morning, priests and priestesses passed through the processional hallways that linked the three temples, arriving at the last room, the one that held the shrine of Amon Ra. There they reenacted the original creation of divine masturbation to raise the sun god for another glorious day. These ancient Egyptians self-created the source of their own spiritual power on a daily basis with divine masturbation—quite a departure from the majority of religions, which profane the human body and all forms of sexual pleasure.

In ancient Ireland, the Gaelic word for masturbation meant “self-love,” but with the arrival of Christianity it was changed overnight into “self-abuse.” Religious leaders had successfully turned a natural human activity into a sin for which God would punish them. The biblical story of Onan, who spilled his seed upon the ground and was struck dead by God, was interpreted as a warning against masturbation. However, later scholars reinterpreted the story of Onan and concluded that his crime was disobeying God’s order to fulfill his duty by getting his brother’s wife with child. Actually, masturbation is never mentioned in either the Old or New Testaments.

DOUBLE PENETRATION. Here we see a close-up of simultaneous vaginal and anal penetration while the woman uses a small battery-operated vibrator to stimulate her clitoris. Using plenty of massage oil, her partner heightens her pleasure by penetrating her vagina with his finger and then holding still. He then eases the Barbell inside her anus as she squeezes and releases her PC muscle. Once she is relaxed, he gently and slowly begins moving his finger and the Barbell in a counterpoint rhythm.

In both Europe and America, women healers were wrongfully accused of being witches and were burned at the stake. As witchcraft gradually lost its reputation as the major cause of madness, medical professionals took control by establishing masturbation as the next symptom of insanity. Naturally, these new priests of medical science had the only remedy. Cruel restraining devices, electrical shocks, deadly injections, and male and female circumcision were used to stop children and adults from touching their own genitals for gratification. This next fact belongs in Ripley’s Believe It or Not: It wasn’t until 1972 that the American Medical Association declared masturbation a normal sexual activity.

While politics can be an art or a science and religion a way to develop spiritual principles, more recently both have been used to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, and power-hungry way. Once a person realizes how the prohibition of masturbation has been used as a strategy to control us, it becomes clear why people are sexually repressed. Many Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Protestants, and Muslims still believe masturbation is a sin. Quite a few of these people are sitting in Congress enacting and supporting laws that directly affect our sexual liberties.

The most common complaint at the top of the list for most married couples is incompatible sex drives. If I could pass a law that says all couples must take a sexual compatibility test before marriage, I would do so. It would also have a clause that says young men and women must be sexual with at least half a dozen partners before choosing one to marry. Most young couples today who have been married for about ten years have lived with the fear of contracting AIDS, so they ended up going steady throughout their twenties. There was little opportunity to experiment with different sex partners.

On top of that, children grow up with a sexual double standard for masturbation. Boys are expected to ejaculate as part of a biological need. Meanwhile, young girls are sexually repressed and masturbation is never mentioned or encouraged because girls can have an unwanted pregnancy once they hit puberty. Once a woman gets married, a sex fairy is supposed to come along, wave a magic wand, and turn her into a sexpot, but the lack of masturbation keeps her from having orgasms in partner sex. The only magic wand I’ve come across plugs into an outlet. My advice to men married to women who have little interest in sex is to get a Magic Wand along with my books and read them together. Talk about how to include masturbation in your lives.

As I head into my fourth decade of teaching and advocating the acceptance and advancement of masturbation, many people still think the idea is hysterically funny, and some think it’s downright disgusting. Yet more and more people are embracing masturbation for couples. They agree that the repression of masturbation is indeed the bottom line of sexual repression, and that the uninhibited practice of masturbation can often reverse this stifling sexual tyranny. As we become more at home in our sexual bodies, we will enjoy a more lighthearted form of pleasure in our relationships.

Share the good news with all of your close friends: Embracing masturbation is the foundation for mutually orgasmic partner sex. That statement will at least start an interesting conversation, I promise.

SHE WANTS MORE. After an hour of hot partner sex, she is still turned on and wants to come again. He is stroking her genitals while she uses the vibrator to have another orgasm. He’ll probably get another erection and they’ll have another round of penis/vagina intercourse.