tell me about: sexual health – masturbation

I wonder why masturbation became such a shameful activity? It’s healthy, good for mind and body, is a simple way to inject pleasure into one’s life, and doesn’t need anyone else or anything but yourself to accomplish. (Well, most times it doesn’t need anything – some folks do need or prefer mechanical or other physical aids to get themselves to orgasm. I’m one of them. I can make myself come with my fingers, but it’s so much easier with a vibrator, and one vibrator-style in particular – a Hitachi-type – so I almost always use it, with or without various other toys.) But I – like so many other people – am filled with embarrassment and shame about masturbating – even though I find it super sexy and hot when others do it! The topic is even hard for me to write about (which is why I am writing about it.)

What is also challenging for me is getting into the mental space to have a self-pleasuring session. Without a dominant in my life telling me to do so, masturbation takes a back seat to everything else, and I often don’t think of it until I can’t sleep at night (another benefit t of masturbating – it can be a sleep aid.) This use of masturbation would probably be the one I would do, dominant or no, but unfortunately I’ve swallowed the “feel shame for masturbating” kool-aide, and so can’t bring myself to do so next to my sleeping partner. So now, living with Ad, I seldom use masturbating to help me sleep. I even talked to him about it (red-faced, embarrassed, trying to adult and failing), and asked him if it would bother him if I did. He of course said no – but I still can’t bring myself to go there. So I get up and go to my bedroom, but by that time I’ve woken fully up, and lost the half-asleep-jerk-myself-off-into-full-sleep mental space.

In preparation for this piece, I masturbated yesterday in the middle of the day. Even home alone, though, I had to go up into my bedroom, shut the door and get under the covers. Ridiculous for a grown woman! But that’s how deeply the feeling of shame and embarrassment runs in me. I tried again last night, in desperation when I couldn’t sleep, but couldn’t get to an orgasm. It was frustrating and ultimately more unsatisfying than if I had not tried at all. I really needed my kink-partner- on-hiatus’s words in my ear, his nasty stories in my mind, his instruction and direction, to get me there.

I remember some delightful sessions where my kink partner and I played with that shame – he was very good at those games, ordering me to masturbate in deliberately humiliating places and ways, and it was defininitely not the effort it is to get to orgasm the way it is now, when I do it without his direction. A lot of my mental kink is playing with those edges, those things that feel taboo, and he used those spaces a lot in our psychological play. I miss those games with him, acutely. I wonder if he misses them too?

I thought about doing a “daily” masturbation session for this piece, each time with a different toy, and reporting on them, but I am not sure I could commit to it. For one thing, I’d have to do it during the day if I wanted privacy, or tell Ad what I was doing and go off into my bedroom of an evening, and that feels embarrassing – the kind of embarrassing that doesn’t get me off (shame games don’t work with he and I because we don’t have that dynamic.) And because he is not in a sexual space right now, that notion is even more fraught with anxiety for me (what does he think, is he sad I’m not sharing it with him) – not a good place from whence to start a sexy session.

But maybe I should do it anyway to normalize it? Okay, so he’s not in a place where he wants sexual activity, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being sexual (this goes for my kink partner’s headspace as well) so maybe I need to take back that space for myself. I dunno. Sounds all gung-ho and strong, modern woman, but the reality is what I’ve said up there – it just doesn’t work very well without being directed to it.

Anyway, in anticipation of maybe trying to do a “once a day, different toy,” marathon, I thought I’d get an establishing shot – here’s my sex toy stash! If it happens, I won’t be reporting on it daily (way too much pressure that I know I’d never make good on!) but I might do “round-up” posts. Keep an eye out for them – and let me know if any of these look particularly interesting – that might help get me over the “hump” late at night when I need something extra to get there!