My Dirty Secret: I Hate Masturbating
It’s not that I don’t like having orgasms. I do. It’s not even that I don’t like taking the time to do something so purely, blissfully animal.
It’s that I tend to only need to masturbate when I get stressed. On a regular day, if my body acts up, I can usually ignore it and move on.
I’ve often wondered why I seemed to masturbate so much when I was on antidepressants; the opposite of the story you usually hear. Now, I masturbate 1–2 times a week. Then? Every day. I think the answer was my body trying to give me its own form of anti-anxiety medication.
But now that I’m again off medication and have my mental health under control, I find it extremely difficult to really enjoy masturbating. Me and my vibrator have a love-hate relationship. I find too much stimulation on the clitoris extremely uncomfortable, so I have to go in small spurts. This is less of a problem in partnered sex, when you’re already turned on and natural breaks occur, but when it’s just me, it can quickly add up. The orgasms are never as good as I want them to be. It always takes me longer to come than I want it to. I may set out to satisfy myself in 15 minutes, and I may end up with my vibrator for an hour.
I think of time like currency, and when I have to stop everything I’m doing to satisfy my body for 30–45 minutes, all I can think of is how much time I’ve wasted. I could have read 5 chapters of a book in that time. I could have checked a task off my to-do list. I could have gotten almost an extra hour of sleep!
It’s not that I don’t like sex. When I’m partnered, I love having sex. But orgasm has never been my priority. To this day, I’m the only person who has ever brought myself to climax. But I much prefer having an all-around good time with my partner than coming to orgasm. I like feeling hands touch me in places I can’t do myself. For me, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex, but it is the goal of masturbation. And I always feel like I’m failing when I can’t or don’t want to reach that goal. When I’m alone, masturbating feels like a chore — a way to say to my body Here, now be quiet for a while.
I didn’t start masturbating until I was 17, partly because I was a really sheltered kid who straight-up did not know what it was, and partly because I just couldn’t be bothered to keep going whenever I pressed against something the right way. And that’s how I often still feel. A few times in the last few months, I’ve started masturbating and stopped because I just didn’t have the commitment to follow through. The elevation of female masturbation has often felt like a mystery to me. Orgasms are nice to have, but they’re not amazing. Most of the time I’d rather get a nice massage. Of course, female masturbation is totally natural. I just wonder if it’s a bit overhyped.
I often wonder if this is what men feel like. Are they always ready to go as soon as they get hard? Or do they, too, come down with this sense of dread and responsibility? Oh, fuck. Here we go again.
I’m not sure I’ll ever really enjoy masturbation. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive it for the time it’s taken away from me, just like I’ll never forgive pooping or peeing or needing to sleep. Basically, if I could escape my corporeal form completely, I would. But until then I’m afraid that I am slave to my vagina and her whims.
I just wish she’d be a bit kinder.
