Thank you for some awesome comments on my last 2 facebook posts, the ones about masturbation. For those who have not seen them, if this topic interests you, check them out for different viewpoints from different people. Here I’ll try to answer another question:
What would you consider a healthy frequency of masturbation? Once a week? Once a month?
For men, if you don’t ejaculate, you can masturbate as much as you like as long as it feels good. So the question is really, how often is it healthy to ejaculate? It depends on many factors, age being a big one, but it also depends on how it makes you feel, during the hours after and the days after. That is why I recommend that people pay close attention to their mood and overall energy level in relation to when they orgasm. And I recommend this not just for men. In women, too, a whole cascade of biochemical changes occur right at orgasm and in the hours and days afterwards. Some research indicates that even for women it may be advisable sometimes not to climax, to keep their relationship flowing smoothly, because certain chemicals that occur after climax and in the days following can actually make a woman turn away from her partner. You will have to watch it over a period of time. For a man, say you start masturbating daily, you may not experience any negative effect for weeks, but then you may find a gradual lessening of your passion for life or you get grumpy easier or feel kind of flat. This may be depletion creeping up on you slowly. So if you don’t pay attention you may have no idea that your low grade depression is actually a depletion due to frequent ejaculation. To give you a crude guideline of frequency, I would say once a week for young men and once a month for middle aged men and a lot less for older men. But really it is how it makes you feel that should be your indicator, but to know how it makes you feel, you have to pay attention not just over the course of hours and days, but weeks and months. For men who have masturbated daily since they were teenagers this is especially important. You may have no idea what levels of vitality you are capable of till you stop ejaculating. Try not coming for a few weeks and see how you feel. Yes it might be hard not to do that, but it is really worth the experiment. Watch what happens to your energy level and overall sense well being after a few weeks of not ejaculating. For some men they notice within hours or days the effect of their ejaculatory habits, but for others it takes longer to notice what it really does.
If you want to delve more deeply into this topic I recommend Marnia Robinson’s books “Peace between the sheets” and “Cupid’s poisoned arrow”
For women, who have been taught that a woman must be able to have orgasm during sex, who are often preoccupied with wanting to have orgasm, the idea that it might be good not to orgasms every time may seem preposterous. Please remember, there are no hard and fast rules. I just want to open you up to the idea that it is good to observe yourself and what happens to your energy level and to your relationship as it relates to your frequency of orgasm or ejaculation.
FYI: Men can have non-ejaculatory orgasm. How does that fit into the picture? My honest answer: I don’t know. I invite comments from those who can speak to this from experience. But once again it comes down to being attentive to what any experience does to overall feelings of wellbeing and vitality.
