Masturbation

Hello everyone and welcome back to Gay Men Going Deeper. This is a podcast about personal development, mental health, and sexuality. Today I am your host. My name is Michael DiIorio. I am a life and wellness coach, and I specialize in helping people build self confidence from the inside out, which includes sexual self confidence. I work mainly with gay men on the topics of sexuality,

dating and relationship relationships. Today though, I’m excited to welcome back to the show, Craig Cassie. Hi Craig. Thanks for joining us today. So happy to be here, Michael, everybody. All right, guys. Today Craig and I are going to be talking about masturbation. Yes, for dedicating an entire episode to jerking off. Welcome to the podcast.

So what we wanna do today is answer some of your common questions that we get on this topic, such as what are the benefits of masturbation? How much is too much? How about masturbating? Well in a relationship, What are some ways we can navigate that? And then at the very end we’ll give you some tips for mindful masturbation. So Craig,

you’ve been on the podcast before, but for anyone who has not had the benefit of meeting you, why don’t you go ahead and give yourself a little intro. First off, hey everybody, really grateful to be all of you again today. Name Craig Cassy I to be an executive life business and a sex coach. That sex and relationships, hence, I’m here today,

talk about masturbation and my real commitment is to help you and all my clients build lives filled with pleasure and is authentic life’s way too short to not be enjoying your relationship, your job, your life, or even just yourself. So grateful to be here. Happy to share more my dms if you have any questions. Pretty open book support wise for everybody.

Awesome, beautiful Craig. And yes, I will be putting in Craig’s information in the show notes, and towards the end you can also share how people can contact you. Okay, so let’s jump into today’s topic. While I was preparing for this podcast, I decided to conduct a highly scientifically accurate poll on Instagram, on my, on my Willies mo coaching Instagram.

So at last check, first of all, we had almost 300 voters a vote on this poll, and I had asked about masturbation. So 3% of my followers said they don’t do it at all. 3% said don’t do it. 28% said they do it too much, which we’re gonna get to that. And then 69% said they do it just enough.

Now, in addition to that, I had asked my followers to submit some of your favorite questions, which we will be talking about here today. We picked the ones that are the most common, not only just from this poll, but even in Craig’s coaching and my coaching questions that we get from, from you guys. So some of the ones that I got in the pool,

and I don’t know if we’re gonna have time to go through all of them today, but if not, that’s okay. We can do another one. Or you can check us out on ig. How much is too much? Is it bad to masturbate when you have a partner? Is masturbating addictive? Is masturbating with porn helpful or harmful? How can I use it as a way to connect with myself instead of simply as a habit?

So these are just some of the questions we’re, we’re gonna try to get to, to these ones, but there were a lot more. So what we noticed is for most people, I mean at least the 69% of you who said that you masturbate just enough, masturbation is a very fun and perfectly healthy activity, but in some cases it could be a problem.

Now there’s a lot of conflicting information out there about whether masturbation is good or bad or what’s too much and is it a, is it an addiction? And so on and so forth. But I really wanted to start us off today with a quick summary of some of the benefits and there are many benefits. And then what we’ll do is we’ll get into answering the most common questions that we got.

Okay, so here it is, my list of 10 benefits of jerking off. No particular order, by the way. Number one, it’s a stress relief. Come on, who hasn’t had a nice whack off at the end of the day after a stressful day? I just instantly felt that, right? It’s a really nice way to relieve stress. It improves your sexual awareness.

And what I mean by sexual awareness is that understanding your own sexual desires and your own body without having the pressure of someone else there to perform for or to meet their needs, it’s a really fun, easy way to just do this on your own. Sexual self discovery is what I like to call it. Similarly to that. Number three, it’s a safe way to explore your sexual fantasy.

Craig just took a picture of us guys for, for those of you who can’t see, it’s a safe way to explore your sexual fantasies. So sometimes you may have some sexual fantasies that you may feel your partner or partners might not be open to. And so jerking off and, and using your mind and imagination allows you to explore those fantasies in a very safe way without having to have someone else there.

Number four, this one’s very scientific. I got it from a study. It actually lowers the risk of prostate cancer. This is a proven study done in 2004. The the basis is they found that men who ejaculated 21 or more times a month lowered the risk of prostate cancer by 33%. Now, that number for, for men who ejaculated eight to 12 times per month,

the risk reduction was 10%. So I will link the study in the show notes for those of you who wanted dive deeper into that study. Number five, masturbation is a workout for your pelvic floor muscles, which, which helps prevent erectile dysfunction. So every time you jerk off, you’re kinda like working out your, your dick muscles as it were. And it helps,

it helps prevent erectile dysfunction. Similarly, along the same vein, number six, you can train yourself into lasting longer in real life scenarios. So if you orgasm in let’s say two to three minutes on your own, you can start pushing that to four and five and six minutes and learning how to edge a little bit more and just training yourself into different paces and different ways to touch yourself.

And you can make your in real life sexual sessions last a bit longer if that’s something that you wanna do. Number seven, it is a natural mood booster. So when you ejaculate, you release dopamine and oxytocin, which are very happy, feel good chemicals in your brain that get released in your body. And you do this without the use of drugs.

So it’s a, it’s a natural mood improver. Similarly, number eight, it is a natural sleep aid. I love jerking off before bed, especially if I can’t sleep. It releases serotonin and prolactin which occur naturally in the brain and it relaxes you again without the need for medication or or other sleep aids. Number nine, it is the safest sex possible if you’re worried about sti,

hiv, monkeypox, all these other things, tracking off is a very safe way to do that without having to worry about those things. And finally, number 10, perhaps my favorite one, It just feels fucking good, right? And that is a good enough reason my friends to do it. It feels good. Okay, so that’s my list of 10 benefits.

There are surely more by all means, if you have other ones, please put them in the, if you’re watching us on YouTube, please put it in the YouTube comments and let us know what they are. Okay? But for all the benefits, it’s interesting that the most common questions you guys asked was, how much is too much? Am I doing it Too much?

So for this, I wanna pass it over to our distinguished guest today. Craig, over to you. When is it too much? Well, so this is an up in the air question objective for most of us. But I will say this, the majority of people that I talked to, even myself way back when, the reason why we question whether it’s too much is we’re grounded in a purity culture.

This idea that there’s only a certain way to express your sexuality or some consequences help as a kid, you might have heard that you’ll get hairy hands, you’ll go blind. If you jerk off too much, you’ll become impotent or whatever it might have been in your household. The reality is though, we look at if something is a problem, not by the quantity or the frequency of how much you do it,

because if you say have a weekend off, you decide that across seven hours on a Saturday, you just wanna pleasure yourself and jerk off a ton and take out your toys that has completely kosher, that can actually be really healing. Therapeutic can be a great way to relax and do stress. And some of you might be hearing a seven hour, you know,

master patient session sounds like a lot. And others might be like, Oh, that’s great, I should use that next weekend. So just to know there’s not one amount of frequency that is too much or too little. The real questions asked though, are this, is this amount getting in the way of me getting what I want out of life elsewhere?

So am I masturbating so much to the extent where it’s taking me away from work activities, my relationship or something else? It’s kind of question number one, if that’s the case, there’s some work that you might wanna reduce your masturbation frequency or find it different way to go about doing it. But the second one is also are you actively choosing to masturbate or is an automatic habit you have whenever life gets really stressful or you get triggered?

We want to be a cause for choosing when we masturbate and self-pleasure and we can do that too. De-stress. It’s a totally valid option, but if you ever notice yourself being drawn to it without choice, then that’s a chance to actually question what is it that I really want that has me going to masturbation and maybe there is an alternative practice that could support you better at the time.

Beautifully said. Yeah. One way I like to describe it is like, if it feels like it’s in control of you more than you’re in control of it, right? So if, if you don’t want to be doing it, but you find yourself doing it anyway, that might be a sign that might be a bit of a flag. What else?

I mean in, in the professional sense, you know, similar to, to what you’re saying, I think, let’s try to give some concrete examples, right? So like, if it’s getting in the way of your personal life, how do you know? So a calm example comes up when you masturbate in place having sex with your partner, you want sex with your partner,

but you find yourself masturbating to the point of maybe not being able to get it up with your partner or you just drop your libido because you’ve been getting off so much on your own. Now I’ll put a little, you know, asterisks here because this is actually a pretty normal experience to have if there’s been a disruption in your relationship. If life is stressful,

you’re in the middle of a move, there’s been a recent breakdown in your relationship, somebody cheated, there’s a pain point, it can feel very vulnerable to actually have sex with your partner, especially if you’re still going through it emotionally. If you don’t feel like you can show up fully present and safe with your partner emotionally or otherwise. So we might trend towards self-pleasure and masturbation because we still have sexual desire and that’s far more comfortable than actually doing it with your partner.

So this is less of like a, a problem, but more of a chance reflecting say, okay, I realize there’s a gap holding me back from being able to, or being willing, wanting to actually get off with my partner. So maybe I pause masturbation and see what other work is there for me to do here that helps me get back in.

Or you give yourself permission to enjoy yourself, pleasure as a part of the healing process to lead back into your relationship and not leaving your own joy up to your partner. Yeah, yeah, very well said. The thing that I’ve, that I’ve heard a lot from in this, in this scenario is people who will ask, it kinda goes with the conversation about porn,

right? So if I’m always watching porn and always jerking off to the same kind of porn and doing the same thing the same time, very routine, very habitual. Kinda like the, the one of the questions I had asked is at the beginning what happens is we kind of train and condition our minds and bodies to only get off in that one way.

So while I don’t think jerking off is the culprit, I think there are lots of ways to jerk off without necessarily you could do it with or without porn first of all. And you can diversify your portfolio of what’s getting you off. You can do it with without porn. If you are gonna watch porn, you could watch different kinds of porn, you could do it alone,

you can invite your partner. So there are lots of ways to do this so that you’re not conditioning yourself to only get off in one specific way. Totally hard agree with you there and it’s a great tool to actually score what you want out there, whether you’re on porn hub or you know, gay or wherever you like fantastical desires be expressed or to be witnessed.

Very true point. Yeah, I think at the very beginning, you know, we really wanna get this point across is that it’s not about a number, There’s no absolute magical number that’s like, oh you hit this number, it’s too much like that does, that’s not how, that’s not how this works for somebody. You know, once a week could be too much and for someone else five times a day it could be just perfectly fine,

right? It’s really not about that. And I know as humans we really want to have this, like these absolutes. So I think asking those questions that Craig posed really could help you. Now let’s say you’ve kind of been thinking about this and you’re listening to our conversation, you think, you know what? Maybe my sex life is suffering. Maybe my professional life is suffering.

Actually I take a little tangent here for those of us during the pandemic, while I always work at home. But for those people in during the pandemic worked at home, you will find you probably jerked off a lot more during work hours than you did maybe when you’re in the office. And so one of the things that I think has come out of that is people who are like noticing that it might be affecting their work life.

So they should be in the meeting at at home, like logged in home, but instead they’re, you know, jerking off. So I think that’s another way to look at it is, is it affecting your professional career? Like are you making, are you not meeting deadlines? Are you late for meetings because you’re busy in the other room jerking off instead of being on zoom?

Okay, that was my quick little tangent. So yes Craig, what do you say to people who are listening to this and saying, Oh wait a minute, maybe, maybe it is too much for me. Maybe these things are suffering. What can they do about it? The first I’d ask you is what are you avoiding? You know, even in the workplace example,

the clients I find who are jerking off where they’re either not showing up to every meeting or is impacting their professional performance potentially, I think we typically gauge the impact as either being much greater than it is or much lesser than it is. So this is all relative, but for those individuals you’re typically avoiding some kind of stress or some type of tension maybe at work it’s not enjoyable,

you’re not engaged there of conflict and this is actually how you alleviate and lessen that pressure in your life. So I’d just be curious, what might you be avoiding? What’s the vulnerable thing out there in the dating world with your play partners that maybe you’re choosing the far less vulnerable, safer option of jerking off to avoid, Then I’d also pause, you know,

what is there actually game? This is a pleasure game totally. We can have pleasure at home, but there’s also pleasure that we can only have relationally when we’re with other people and we really need to anchor in the vision for, but what could happen, what would make it worthwhile to pause, jerking off and actually save your load for boyfriend for the people you’re dating to give yourself the desire to go out and meet more people.

So it’s really a question of making it saucey enough to want to pursue changing your behavior. You gotta have the carrot, you wanna be able to go out the way, have your comfort zone and also being present too. What is actually drawing you back into that repeated that behavior Something. Yeah, what’s, what’s one of your favorite replacements? Also work from home,

and I will say this, when you have never ending global anxiety, I think a lot of us learned some patterns of self-pleasure that we now have to like unwind a little bit. So if you’re listening to this, you’re not alone by any means. One of my favorite things back then was actually just going for a walk in nature. This means that my phone was down,

I’m staring at the leaves in the trees, I’m being very present in the moment, not thinking of what’s coming up for work, not looking at what happened last week, but really just letting the experience fill my cup. And I chose that because A got me out of the house and I’m up putting my deck out in the middle of a park in dc not my thing.

Also always daylight for these walks, not safe, appropriate and it really forced me just to be and not escape, right? Reality, it’s I have to savor the reality of being in nature. Yeah, beautiful. So actually one of mine as well, I would say for me also would be getting that same dopamine, that same pleasure from working out,

like doing something else with my body. So I love a good workout, whether it’s going to the gym, if if they were open, but also just, yeah, a walk, a brisk walk putting on music, kind of just getting, getting the dopamine hit of that. We’re going for a bike ride. I love biking and Toronto’s a great flat,

mostly flat biking city. So just go for a long hard bike ride, get, get those endorphins going and get the testosterone up and then that’s the same dopamine release at the end. Okay. You know what I was just thinking as you were speaking, I, I was thinking to myself, when do I go for it? Like for me with work when I’m at home,

it’s definitely a procrastination tool. It’s like I could build this course which is gonna require mental effort and you know, all that good stuff or here’s my dick and it’s just like waiting for me to just do something with it. Obviously that’s gonna be the easier option. So for me it very much is a procrastination activity at times and I’ll kind of like file it under,

oh I need to do this now so I can focus. And by the way that actually works Once I, once I jerk off, I can focus so much better because I’m not getting hard constantly all the time or I’m not reaching for my phone. Like I can just focus for a little bit. So it actually does make me more productive. You’re laughing at me,

why? So I don’t think that was your top 10 benefits. And I was, I was thinking when I was hopping on this like one of the benefits I would really tell and one of them happens would be that when you do like ejaculate, when you do actually orgasm, it increases your focus. If you’re someone who happens to have a lot of thoughts at one time and when you get horny it’s even more amplified than actually coming can be in service of you improving your focus,

being grounded before you go into a work meeting. You know, we talked about how masturbation can get in way of work. Well masturbation can also be in support of work. So focus for me is a big one. I tend to feel drawn to it when I’m experiencing overwhelm in my emails. For example, a tedious, boring, frustrating task that doesn’t bring me pleasure.

I can quickly masturbate and get right back into it. But I do find that overwhelm is what typically brings that desire up. If my libido isn’t already doing it for the day, Yeah I added it to, so now there’s an 11th, so thank you for that one just came organically as I was listening to you speak. I’m like why do I do it?

You know, that’s a good question for the listeners and viewers out there. Ask yourself like is there a trend or is there a pattern as to when and why? Right? Like for some people’s very habitual before bed helps me sleep. It’s just a thing I do for some people might be in the morning you wake up that morning wood and it’s the easiest way to kind of get on with your day.

Yeah. So that’s a, that’s a good reflection question I think. All right, so the next question that we had that was a big one was masturbation. When you have a partner, is it healthy? Is it harmful? How do you do it? Should I feel guilty? Craig and I have both heard this many times and it came up in the most recent poll we had.

So Craig, let’s start. Let’s start with you. What do you think? So yes, no maybe is the answer and here here’s where I, I really see this come up a lot of times a person masturbating is not the one who has the biggest emotional response for my clients. I typically see it being the other partner who wants more sex and is wondering,

but why is my partner m what I want to fuck more? Like am I not enough? Is there something wrong? So I wanna put this out there. You and your partner or partners are not the sole recipient and conduit for each other’s sexual expression. Like you get to be a part of it. Totally. We love that there’s something really essential about being able to have alone time to express your sexuality,

to experience your fantasies in your head to make your body feel good. And not every desire has to include a partner. So one of the first conversations that I would have is what if it wasn’t about you? What if it didn’t mean anything about you that your partner was jacking off? Right? Then what or what about when you do it yourself, does it mean anything about your partner when you’re jerking off at eight in the morning and they’re still asleep in the other room and they’re soaring and you don’t wanna wake them up?

No, typically, typically it doesn’t. So first thing I’d say that is happy healthy relationships. Everybody masturbates together in separate like there’s, it’s a norm. It is something that we see across the board and it’s not one that we have to fear. Where it begins to become a hangup is the meaning making that comes from when the other person’s doing it and what I make it mean about me.

You know, especially if I have like an anxious attachment, it might be very normal or very common to see my partner masturbating or to see like the come cover tissue or towel somewhere and to think well fuck am I not enough? So if that’s you, great practices to separate that experience for meeting anything about you and check in with yourself about what are all the signs,

my relationship’s going well, right? What about how sex is going? Well, sometimes we become myopic. We focus on the masturbation and not the fact that well he fucked you twice yesterday or you fucked him twice yesterday. Yeah he masturbates a day but you’re heading about 20 times a month. Like there might not be anything wrong or bad there. Yes,

a hundred percent everything you just said that was perfect and I couldn’t agree more. It could also just be something similar to what we had said. So if your partner is masturbating and you you, you find out when it’s upsetting you, it could just be that they were stressed out and they just needed to just to get off. It could be like they retired and they needed to sleep.

Like it doesn’t necessarily even have to be sexually, but they could just be like, I need to do this thing just to focus like we all talked about. Yeah, you can actually check in with your partner too. I find this is a vulnerable conversation that many people avoid cause it feels almost like judgmental or accusatory but like you can ask this question over coffee and just go for breakfast or pop tarts,

whatever y’all are eating these days we do oatmeal in my house. So like what do you use masturbation for? And just come from curiosity, not from a, I need to figure out who done it experience like what am I lacking or, or if this is good or bad but just you know, what has you masturbate? How are you using it to get off?

It’s a great sexual health question to check in and if you do wanna be a part of it, you can always ask if there’s room in the future where you could masturbate together. Now if they are doing it to fall asleep at night, I’m totally that person. See if they’d be open to doing it alongside you or with you. You know, masturbation is a great way to have sex together that doesn’t involve penetration so we’re not always in the place for it.

But you’ve gotta have that conversation to begin to move that ball forward. In fact, this may be tmi, but the last time I jerked off was this morning with my partner. Oh Everything Craig is saying is very front and center for me right now. You came prepped for the call. I did well that, that’s how I brought it up too.

I was like, hey I have a, I have a podcast recording today about jerking off. What do you say we, what do you say? We do some research And he was, he was game. So yeah a hundred percent you could make it part of part And I think that that it’s a very important point that you said at the beginning that your sexuality is yours and yours alone and you’re entitled to that and your partner does not own your sexuality and vice versa,

you don’t own your partners. Yes there are elements for you share together of course, but then you’re entitled to have your own solo sex life and I think that’s a good and healthy thing and then you can share that if you want sometimes and sometimes you don’t have to. Right? Yeah, I will say, I mentioned for those who were on the anxious attachment spectrum,

there might be fears about what does it mean if someone’s doing it without me On the other end, if you happen to trend the avoidant attachment style life, you might actually be more prone to jerk off more often without your partner because it feels safer for your like nervous system. It’s not always be so internet or vulnerable. So just like for people who are anxious,

they check in with how’s your relationship working? You might also check in on how’s working for you and where you might lean in to be, you know, more open and share about this part of your experience. Knowing that you can do it alone when you want, but like the growth on the other side of the spectrum is to actually lean in and see if you wanna do it more together and be the agent of change yourself.

Yeah, I think Craig, it boils down to exactly what you said about vulnerability. There’s that we avoid vulnerability, right? It doesn’t feel good, it makes, it’s scary, you know, it brings up our fears of rejection, abandonment, all these things. But oftentimes this is just all it is is a vulnerable conversation for both of you to show up,

be open, be honest, you know, the question that you had posed was a really good one. It doesn’t have to be a big scary conversation. Why are you jerking off? It’s just like, hey, like you know, we both do it or we both wanna do it or we both have this solo sexual life. Let’s talk about it.

Like what do you do? How you know, what do you use it for? What, what kinds of things turn you on? And I think that actually is a form of intimacy like share, like not necessarily doing it together but just verbally sharing it improves that closest, improves the bond and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Yeah, totally. Before my partner and I had those kinds of conversations,

I will say I know my partner felt ify if he ever wanted to masturbate without it being together or us having sex and he happens to be a 12 outta 10 at his libido. Admittedly during the pandemic my libido took a hit was not rocking near a 10, outta 10 or eight outta 10. So once we began talking about it, I like specifically asked him to said,

Hey, I’m just not there all the time and one of the things that would make my life easier and would help me not be be stressed out by trying to meet your high bar of special needs is if you just gave yourself permission to jerk off. He said, Well I feel bad if I’m doing it but if you want it. And I said,

well realistically, here’s like my pie chart of how often I want it and then here’s your double extra large pie chart of when you want and we’re just not gonna match up every day. That’s okay. So please, in service of our relationship and me feeling like I don’t have to build my libido up to meet your need, give yourself what you want and feel good about it,

the better you feel truly for everyone. I find this is true, the better we feel as individuals, the more open we actually are to have sex with each other or to lean back into a relationship. So masturbation, if it fills your cup, if you feel good, if you feel nourish as a result, it can actually be really supportive for a relationship.

Couldn’t agree more. Yeah. And there, there are I think lots of couples who, it’s not just pandemic related but like just have mismatching sex TRIBErs, right? And what would a safe, easy, comfortable way of having that partner with a higher drive have a release that doesn’t involve having to, you know, open the relationship up necessarily. If that’s not what you want to do,

you can just go in another room, get it done and however long it takes and come back and, and then you’re both good to go, right? Yeah, totally. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about these conversations. I think there’s a lot of people out there who would have a hard time opening up a conversation about sex in general or masturbation with our partner.

What would you recommend are some super helpful ways to just bring up the topic in a way that isn’t necessarily as scary? Yeah, so first I would say consider context and location. If you’re sitting down at a dinner table saying you wanna have a talk, I already feel the spot come on. And it feels a little bit like an intervention or an interview.

So you might just choose locations where you and your partner feel naturally at ease. One of my favorites when we walk our dog in the morning or at night, right? We’re happy we’re content, there’s an error of levity present. And so these faces tend to help us actually ease into conversations that we might naturally bring an extra he dose of seriousness too.

So location context is key. No, there’s no one right time either. Sometimes people really enjoy having this chat after sex. It’s a form their pillow talk, just checking in. Hey that was really amazing, just checking in on what has you get off when you’re masturbating alone. I’m so curious, you know, this is after you’ve both already come together,

even the scene of set that you’d like each other, that things are safe, that things are good, could be really awesome opportunity to share without any added layer of intensity or curiosity. That would be my, my suggestion right after. Yeah, unless like you’re trying to sleep. But everything, everything they said that, that’s probably for me my safest for me,

my partner, like as you said, it’s already done so you don’t have kinda worry about it taking away from, from the experience cuz it’s done. And plus with all the chemicals that just got released, you’re just naturally a little bit more open and calmer. So I, I do think that that’s probably my favorite time in place for me. Totally.

For partners who might not be having a ton of sex and that feels like a part of the, the barrier to ask me these questions. You might instead look at work and you touch base about how your relationship’s going. Well first, you know, not every conversation task begin with how are you masturbating when I’m not home? What’s getting you off? You might just do a little relationship check in and say what’s working and actually build up that connection first.

Yeah. Cause you’re not having sex, sex to feel like a very heavy vulnerable conversation. So begin the foundation building by checking what working and to see are you open to, you know, having a chat about our sex and exploring each other sexuality more. I’d love to do that with you and then see if they lean into it. We don’t wanna chase someone questions I don’t want to answer,

but we do wanna be a stand for intimacy and vulnerability in our relationships. Even when at first it’s uncomfortable, it’s a practice, it’s a muscle, but we actually have to use and build for it to feel easy. So if you haven’t been having these conversations for a minute just now, it might feel awkward. Great. That’s no reason not to do it.

It’s a skill that you haven’t really practiced. So no wonder Yeah, a hundred percent it’s, it’s supposed to feel awkward anytime you do anything new it’s gonna feel awkward anytime you, you know, the first time you get behind a car to drive, it’s gonna feel awkward and scary and then you realize, oh yeah, okay I can do this. Like as you start doing it.

So very good points. I think also when it comes to having these conversations for a lot of couples who just don’t communicate well in general, it’s gonna be a very hard ask. So similar to what Craig was saying here, like you know what I took from it was, you don’t have to to jump into that right away, but I think it’s just indicative of how you guys communicate in general.

How often are you just talking about your relationship period? Not even just about the sex, about your feelings, about how things are going or are most of your connections and communications, mundane kind of staying out of each other’s ways, just coexisting together. Which I think a lot of couples have have been in that situation where they don’t connect, they just kind of exist sep separately in the same house.

All right, so let’s then pivot and let’s give the audience some tips on mindful masturbation. So these are things that you may already be doing, which is great, but you might not be doing. And there are wonderful ways to explore and deepen your relationship to self and in a sexual way. So I have a few here and then I’ll, I’ll pass it over to Craig to add some more color or maybe add a few other ones.

Okay, so here are someone that I have, when you’re masturbating, explore your entire body instead of just making it about your penis. Your penis is wonderful but your entire body is a sexual apparatus. So there’s lots of ways you can do that as well. You could use toys, you could use massage, you know, just touch different parts of your body to see how you respond.

I have a quick story. I was laughing about this earlier. I remember the first time I discovered my nipples, I was, I think I was like 14 or 15 and I was at like the dinner table and I was just like, for whatever reason, just like, you know, you’re a teenager, just sort like touching my nipples. I think my shirt was like rubbing on it some way that just felt good and I started rubbing it and I was like,

well I was like, oh my god, I need to go to the bathroom. And it was just the most random thing. But again, my point here is just, just try touching parts of your body. You never know where you’re gonna find a wonderful neurogen the zone. And then of course you could, you could share that with your partners,

right? Okay, another one, don’t make it only about the orgasm, right? Make it about arousal it, it doesn’t have to just be like, okay, I’m gonna touch my deck and come. Sometimes it can be if you’re in a rush or that’s what you’re going for. But if you really wanna do this mindfully, take the time to just make it about arousal,

like what arouses you in general and make the intentions simply about connecting with your body, not necessarily just coming. All right and then of course this is one that I want to dig a bit deeper into is using porn. So yes, absolutely use porn for all the same reasons we talked about earlier. Discovering your fantasies, getting to know yourself, getting to know your body,

but also do it without, use a mix of both. Try putting the porn away, shutting that down. Close your eyes. I love fantasizing about either things that have already happened, like some of my best sexual memories like that was so fucking, I don’t wanna, I wanna relive that experience again and that will get me off or fantasize about people that I already know that I want to do stuff with or people that are kind of in my orbit that I’m like,

oh this would be a super hot experience. Like almost like re realistic fantasy is what I call it. And so I’ll use that. But either way, whatever works for you, just close your eyes and let your, let your imagination run wild and see where it goes. Another one, make noise if it’s appropriate to do so. Make noise. Oh my gosh,

if you just let your body in your mouth, just make all the noise. And if you’re, if you are gonna have an orgasm, let yourself like contract and you know, do all the wonderful wild things your body does, just lean into that and let, let yourself loose. Put your whole body into your orgasm if that’s, if that’s what’s gonna happen.

Okay, so those are some of my tips from mindful masturbation. Craig, what do you got? So things will add to it. Feel free to make it feel as good as you want by setting the scene. So some of us like lights out some light candles. I am a huge texture person. I want to feel I really enjoy feeling. So I’ve got soft,

fluffy blankets when I also mindfully masturbate with partners, we bring in a ton of like experiential toys. So I’ve got feathers I’ve used on my partner before I’ve had ’em use on me ice cubes as well. Electro play can be fun and I will say this is interesting, we can talk about like masturbation solo, but you can still like be masturbating while somebody also does something to you that especially turns you on.

So for those who really enjoy nipple playing, maybe you have your partner suck or twist or tease your nipples while you jerk off cuz maybe you both don’t want to, you know, top or bottom or it just is what you desire in that moment. So look at what feels really good, what you’re curious about and bringing into it. And I’ll say this,

the mindful part of masturbation is when you actually shift from being in your head to actually just being in your body. So I do find if you’re having a difficult experience shifting from like work into a self-pleasure mode and you typically just masturbate to reduce stress and it’s not about pleasure, it’s about getting the orgasm to move on with your life. This can be a really important practice,

a game changer for your self pleasure existence. But to actually slow your breathing down and to focus on one sensation first. Maybe it’s the lube on your penis, right? Maybe it’s your own hands just stroking your body, feeling your arms, feeling your chest. And the more they’re able to become present to that cessation, the more deeply enriched and orgasmic your actual masturbation can become So GOs low,

you know, there is no timer. I will say that the average male in America apparently gets off around like the five minute mark in sex, which means like over 50% get off in less than five minutes. So there’s no one right time in which you have to spend actually enjoying sex penetration or masturbation. But I do find there’s something especially pleasurable, almost naughty about taking even longer time.

Yeah, do you have a toy in your butt while you’re masturbating? Are is your cock and you’re actually masturbating through anal play only or vibrator? It is October. So you know, happy October to those who celebrate and experientially to, if you wanna make noise and it’s uncomfortable to do it in a quiet space, play some music and then make noise along with the music.

Hey, I’m not saying you’re gonna be listening to bring spirits while you jerk off, but you might find some EDM mixes or whatever gets you going that allows you to actually make noises in a comfortable way where you’re not worried about your neighbors here. Yeah I have Brittany gets there so, so be it Into it, you know, if that doesn’t for you,

kudos play that remix. Enjoy some Brittany. I’m not mad about it. All right, those are awesome, awesome tips. Thank you so much Craig. Okay, we have a little bit of time here left. Let’s, can we do some rapid fire? Can I just ask some of the questions that we got in the chat here and then you can,

can answer these as quickly as possible. Is masturbating addictive? Anything can be addictive. It’s not the masturbation itself that is addictive. It’s usually our nature way of being around something we’re resisting anxiety, stress, whatnot. You’ll find Christian articles that are anti-sex or that are, you know, looking at purity culture say that it is in the sex community, sex therapy world and sex coach world.

We debate that and argue that as not necessarily addictive. It’s something else where masturbations on the expression of that thing. Yeah, think of all the other things that could be addictive that are perfectly harmless. Like shopping or working. No anything. Anything could be addictive food, right? Harmless thing could be addictive. Okay, great answer. Is it normal to feel guilty after?

Yeah totally. If you grew up in a purity culture, you were told that it was bad wrong, should be saving it for your partner only should be waiting until after marriage or that sexually be for procreation and not for pleasure. So strange, given how good our bodies can feel then yeah it’s normal. It’s to be expected that you would feel guilty or bad or wrong.

And even if you’ve done some work around that and you find yourself in a really juicy relationship, this might be when the guilt comes back up because now you have chance to do it with your partner. So it’s normal and not necessary. You can begin to let that go cuz it might not be your truth and it’s not reality. Yes, I come from that purity Catholic culture and I remember being a kid feeling guilty every single time I did it,

but of course I was a a kid so I did it constantly and it just felt like the worst and, and it was around the same time I started fantasizing about men. So I had this like double whammy of guilt, like I shouldn’t be doing this thing, I’m making a fucking mess and I’m thinking about people I, I know that I shouldn’t be thinking about.

So I a hundred percent and I agree that there’s, there’s almost trauma to that, right? Like, like you said, it could come up again if I’m doing it, let’s say if I’m in a relationship where it’s not something we talk about and I find myself doing it again, I can associate jerking off and ejaculation with guilt. Yeah, okay,

good answer. What else? Is it okay to use it to numb emotions? Oh, so my personal take is this, 90% of the time we do not want to numb our emotions. We don’t, our body has emotions. Their only desire is to be expressed when they’re not expressed, they affirm it, they become bigger, we express ’em through other means because of lies gonna get them out one way or another,

maybe through an outburst, maybe through mean words. And when life gets really wild sometimes what we need is to not be overwhelmed by an emotional experience. In this case I look at masturbating not as a way to numb it necessarily, but to let off some steam. So if I were you and I found myself consistently using masturbation to numb emotions, I look at what space you can make to actually feel them,

you know, actually get a therapist or a coach or along with friends, you know, do an angry cardio session that’s my go to. But also can be healthy if we’re feeling really maxed out my life to make space for pleasure because that actually isn’t optional for your mental wellbeing, for your physical and emotional wellbeing too. Creating space for you to feel good can actually be a great gateway to maintaining health and for getting it back Men.

Two that for those of you who listen to this podcast regularly, that will sound very familiar. We, we love to feel our emotions, that’s what they’re here for. But there are lots of ways we could cope and and deal with them. So this might be one way to deal with it in the short term knowing that it is a band-aid, not necessarily the solution.

Okay, last one, Craig Masturbating with porn. Is it helpful or harmful? Both. So many of these answers are, I know right today so can be really helpful, right, to explore what you want to get you going. I recommend that people build up a toolkit of erotic kindling and this means imagery, stores, experiences that turn you on.

So, because for most of us, not everybody has a an automatic sexual drive or attraction, right? Some of us are responsive, we need some experience and some visual, some sounds to get us going. So porn can be a great way to actually get some erratic kindling in your head so that when you do wanna have sex with your partner but you find your libido or your dick is not there,

you can go back to these videos to get your body in the mood so you can have the sex that you want. Sometimes the body is a bit slow to follow. So in that regard, porn can be great, it can just be fun to watch. I feel like almost all the snow people now friends who have only fans who are doing great jobs performing,

creating really amusing work where we get to support and enjoy that. And the challenge would just be when we become excited and our only expression of sexuality and pleasure is with porn to the extent that we now think we need it and we can’t do without it. So if that’s you, Michael mentioned earlier some practices are to start masturbating outside of porn, you still get your porn,

get about it, do with other people, do it with other people, not just alone or can watch porn with your partner and create a different experience that way. Yeah, hundred percent to all of the above. I think also with porn, we’ve done a few episodes on porn on this very podcast so I can also link those as well. But I think you know,

something that I see a lot of is there’s, there’s ways to use porn mindfully similar to masturbation mindfully. And so again, like I talked about in the beginning, if you’re only going to the same thing over and over, maybe the same body type and the same scenarios, let yourself give yourself permission to explore different body types. Like maybe you know,

you want to explore porn with people who are enjoying sex that have the same body type as you or your partner just to like switch it up a bit instead of you know, the typical whatever you may be watching young, muscular, white, whatever that might be, flip it around like there’s porn other for all different kinds and it could be really fun to see your own body type reflected back to you in porn.

Please, please, that is much a big one Michael, I love that you mentioned that it wasn’t top of mind for me, but find porn that not just represents you, your body, your shape, your size, whatnot, your interests as well. And also include in there porn that varies the kind of sex you see people have. So for some people I know we trend towards the porn that we don’t get us off high kink or high impact or very specific fetish and that means that we look at like,

pardon me, more loving sexual relations. It doesn’t really get us go as much. So we actually need to create space to reflect, to experience clearly. I’m getting choked up I difficult topic here, but yes, what Craig is saying makes a lot of sense. We want to make sure that we are seeing things that are not just what we go to,

but also diversify that portfolio or that can link as Craig likes to call it, of different experiences. So you could find, again, this is maybe one of the great things about the internet these days is there they legit is pour out there representing all kinds of different relationships and body types and so on. Okay, Craig is back. You can take it away.

Everything you said I totally co-sign erotic can be great too that written not visuals. Yeah, yeah. All right, awesome. So we are almost at time here Craig, before we wrap up, if you’re able to, do you have any last words This tickle in my throat? So final words here, masturbation can be great. I know we’ve talked about it who have,

but there are men also have ways to do it of course. And my invitation for everyone would be to actually reflect on how you want to create pleasure in your body, period. Whether it’s through orgasming with your dick, a facial massage you can do every morning and we become the champions of our own pleasure sexually. It can bleed into every other part of your life.

So one, invite you to treat masturbation not just as like a means to get off, but also a means to explore, to express, to really feel good from a creative and empowered place so that the rest of life no longer feels like a big mountain, right? Even feel more manageable. That really comes from nurturing your seat of pleasure. Beautifully said.

This is why I love having Craig on the podcast is I think, is this your third time Craig? It’s my bay happy third anniversary. Yeah, good job. I’d love having you on this podcast. So thank you again so much for joining us today. Where can the audience find you? Totally. So if you want more of this on the regular,

I post videos on this daily at Craig Cassie Jr on Instagram, that’s c r A i g C a ss e yj. And [email protected] or my new web show Coaching Naked is launching shortly, so I will be wearing clothes. It’s more about naked vulnerability, but maybe the promo material shots will be a little more skin than not. So I welcome you all there and please once again sign to my tms a few further questions,

interest in coaching, happy to support and happy to help you get off. Awesome, well thank you so much guys, viewers, listeners, I’ll be putting all this information in the show notes, so if you’re on YouTube, go ahead and look at the description. If you’re listening to this on a podcast, go to the episode notes, there’s a lot of goodies there.

And, and that’s it. That’s all we got for you guys today. So thank you so much for joining us and have a great rest of the day everyone. Bye.