Can you masturbate too much/little?

[Catdog]

Masturbation tends to be a fairly common topic of discussion among guys, at least in my group of friends. I’ve always found it interesting how people differ on this topic. Some people masturbate several times a day, whereas others hardly do it at all.

I think most people can agree that masturbation is a normal and natural thing. However, is there a norm in terms for health for the amount that one does it? Can doing it too much or too little affect an individuals libido or health in general? Also what’s a females perspective on this?

[Aunt_Flo]

I don’t really discuss how often I masturbate with friends, but definitely have conversations about what we’re into, how we do it, what toys we like and don’t like etc.

I think how about people masturbate is personal, and it’s probably not the same answer every time. I don’t think there’s such as thing as doing it ‘too little’. There are benefits to masturbating, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with doing it infrequently, or not at all. It’s not everyone’s thing.

I think it becomes too much when you start to experience negative side effects, either physical (like tenderness, chafing etc.), or in your life, like if it starts to interfere with your social life, working life or things you need to get done.

[kitkat]

Heya @catdog, awesome question which I think personally we don’t talk nearly enough about. It’s funny, despite most of my friends being pretty sex-pos in their own ways, I think there are still a lot of stigmas and taboos talking about masturbation, at least amongst women my age. It’s definitely seen as a personal or private thing, but sometimes I feel that this can slip too far into it becoming a shameful thing – which it definitely shouldn’t be!

Healthwise, personally, I’d only think it was starting to get a problem if it was actually CAUSING you problems, whether physical, emotional or social, like @aunt_flo said. I feel like it’s an important part of someone’s sexual development and getting comfortable with their body – to paraphrase Ru Paul, if you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love anybody else? :p

I think when masturbation can get a bit tricky too is when we’re tying porn into it – I know a lot of people I’ve spoken too have developed kind of a ‘resistance’ to masturbating or porn, in that they get used to using porn or desensitised to increasingly graphic stuff, so it gets harder to come without it because of the chemical reward circuit we set up in our brain. But that’s not saying masturbation is the problem itself – it’s all contextual! And all porn certainly isn’t the problem either.

I dunno I feel like I’ve overcomplicated my response here ??

[Catdog]

I think you guys raised a good point about the social impacts it may have. I’ve chatted to a bunch of my mates over the last few days about this and they’ve said if anything its affected socially. A lot of them found that when they thought they were doing it too much they felt much more anti-social and felt far less incentive to try to meet people (both romantically or not.) On the other side of the spectrum they mentioned that when they weren’t masturbating much they found there were quite a few benefits in terms of motivation and energy. However, they also found that at times they would put too much emphasis on finding a sexual partner because of maybe their increase libido.

@kitkat @aunt_flo Yeah I think I agree with both of you. For the most part its a healthy thing to do but like with everything else in life there must be a balance.

@kitkat Great point.I agree porn can make it wayyyy trickier. It is adds a bit more complexity because at times porn can be an issue in itself.

[tea]

I don’t think you can masturbate TOO much – like, it would really only be a problem if it were interfering with your daily routine. Cancelling plans to masturbate. Not eating to masturbate. That kind of thing. Otherwise, I think it’s okay to go all out as much, or as little as you like!

[Catdog]

@tea Haha I agree. As long as it doesn’t stop you from doing other things in your life there isn’t really a definitive limit to it.

[tea]

I really love how the artist, Aurora, talks about masturbation. Have you heard of her/seen her @catdog? She talks about it so casually during interviews and it catches people off, guard. It’s just so natural to her, I love it!

[Catdog]

@tea No I have never heard of her. I’ll have to check her out. Can you recommend any specific interviews?

[tea]

@catdog Yeah! there’s a recent one she did with triple j when she was on for like a version a couple of weeks ago! It’ll be on their YT page! 🙂 One of my faves from her, she’s so, quirky and fun!

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