When Masturbation Is a Spiritual Tool
Taking unmet needs into my own capable hands
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Allow me to set the scene. I’m watching porn by myself in the near-empty apartment I used to share with my ex. I slip my right hand under the waistband of my pants with a single, deft maneuver. I bite my bottom lip, tense my legs, and go to work.
If that sounded even a little bit sexy, it’s only because I’ve omitted certain crucial details. But I want to go on record here to let you people know what’s actually going on behind the scenes.
Yeah, there’s that pic of the hot chick up top and I tricked you into reading this essay with my clickbaity title. But what I’m talking about here is not sexy masturbation.
This isn’t your fantasy of what happens when a woman masturbates. Or the video results returned by your Google search for “solo female masturbation.” This, my friends, is the sobering reality.
And right now it involves me, either still crying a little bit or in a state of near-robotic numbness, probably in my disgusting pajama suit, pausing the Netflix show I’m currently binging long enough to wash the Cheeto (okay fine, it’s actually Barbara’s Baked White Cheddar Cheese Puff) dust off my fingers.
It involves me opening Pornhub in an incognito window on my laptop (since my browser history is bad enough already) and turning the sound way down because, let’s be real, I’m watching porn by myself at 3 pm on a Tuesday. No need to upset the family downstairs.
Now I have to find the right video. No, I’m not trying to watch a 17-minute blow job. Or a dude jamming his entire fist into some poor lady’s vagina. (Yes, we get it, that’s how your sexual organ works but it’s 2020, you guys. There’s no longer any excuse for approaching vaginal stimulation this way.)
But even when I’m feeling the video I’ve finally settled on (shout out to my boy Owen Gray), I’m still working way too hard to block out the creepy ads (read: disturbing animated masturbation games) that flank the right side of my chosen video.
What I’m trying to say is that, like so many other parts of life, this is an imperfect practice. Be that as it may, I’m serious when I say that I’ve found a real spiritual tool in masturbation.
The benefits of masturbation are many. Like, did you know you could burn between 5 and 6 whole calories per sesh? (I’m basically doing CrossFit in bed.) Plus there’s the oxytocin and dopamine, love those.
But the benefit I’m concerned with today is this one: masturbation punts my impulse to text my ex into the future, at least for a while.
The thing is, most of the time I can remember why texting him wouldn’t be a positive thing for either of us. But when I get hijacked by those waves of grief (or my suddenly overactive libido), I forget all the reasons I shouldn’t text.
In fact, it actually starts to sound like a pretty great idea and I wonder why I’ve been working so hard not to. Maybe I’m making too big a deal about it? Maybe just one last text? Maybe just one last time?
But here’s the thing: the relationship didn’t work and that’s why it ended. The fact that my libido is currently en fuego does nothing to change that fact.
Dragging out the end of this relationship for selfish reasons (i.e. because I’m horny AF), is harmful to us both. And I don’t want this to hurt more than it already does for either of us.
So this is why masturbation has become a spiritual tool for me. It’s helping me do something I struggled to do in our relationship: take full responsibility for my own needs.
I forget that it’s not his responsibility to comfort me when I’m sad or make me come when I’m in the mood. Indeed, my pull to be rescued from very normal human experiences was one of the reasons things couldn’t work between us. I played the victim, he the hero.
Oh, there were the little everyday ways I looked to our relationship to fortify me and make everything else in my life feel okay. And over the course of our relationship, those little pulls to be rescued had big emotional consequences.
It wasn’t conscious, but I remember how much emotional stock I’d put in the tone he used to say goodbye when he left for work in the morning. If he sounded loving and cheerful, then I could calm down and trust that all the other parts of my life would be okay.
Or how he’d respond when I told him I didn’t feel well. If he sounded patient and concerned, then I was allowed to be suffering as much as I actually was from the chronic illness I’ve lived with for years.
But if he sounded irritable or responded with blame, there was suddenly no room for my pain and it was my own fault I was sick.
That plus, if it wasn’t too much trouble, could he also just rescue me financially? Not like rescue rescue. But like, just pay for stuff? Groceries, dinners out, that coat rack I found on Amazon and decided we needed right away for the apartment (it really tied the room together.)
And, while he was at, could he also please not feel too resentful about it? Oh, and promise never to bring up money or earning capacity in conversation…ever?
It was a dynamic that left both of us bankrupt emotionally.
So this is the part where instead of texting him, I, ahem, take matters into my own hands. And like I said, no part of this feels sexy. In fact, it’s become rather perfunctory. But that part doesn’t really matter.
Because after I come, I can remember why I’m not texting him. I can focus on taking 100% responsibility for everything in my life (don’t worry, I want to argue with that percentage, too.)
And when I approach my life and my needs with that attitude, I feel safe. I can trust myself and the life that’s right in front of me. I can stay connected to my integrity and self-worth.
As I’ve often suspected, the path to enlightenment is paved with orgasms.
So each time I close out that incognito window, I’m left spiritually fortified. It’s further proof that I can trust myself to show up and attend to my wants and needs. In the big and little ways, I’m taking responsibility for myself today. And boy, does it feel good.
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