In my last blog post, Shame Was Ruining His Life: Damon’s Story, you learned about how shame can be an insufferable burden on your mental health. A few of you wrote to me, saying you saw yourself in Damon.
As a sex therapist, my core message to people struggling with shame is always the same: sexual shame ruins your life. Sexual shame warps us, makes us negative and anxious, self-doubting and self-loathing. Worst of all, it can lead us to make bad choices in life.
My clients almost always start with sexual shame. Massive, unrelenting shame about their bodies and bodily functions. Shame about their sex organs. And huge shame about the kind of sex they enjoy, especially if it’s nonconformist.
Perhaps you have these problems as well, so I’ll share some techniques that have helped my clients overcome shame and find relief by building a sex-positive attitude towards masturbation, porn consumption, kink, fetish, and all things unconventionally SEXY.
Disclaimer: My tips for clients are tailored to them. The tips provided here do not guarantee they will work for you. My hope is that some of these will work for you. Give them a try.
Four Techniques to Train Yourself Past Shame
Call it Solo Sex and Own It
Long ago but not that far away, the Kink Community changed our names many times over. When I got into The Scene, it was called Sadomasochism. Then it was called B&D. After that, D&S. Finally it was suggested that those old terms, and particularly sadomasochism, were too off-putting, and had too many negative and wrongful psychiatric assumptions. So we came up with BDSM, a mysterious and less controversial acronym.
We need to do the same with masturbation. That word is irredeemably steeped in 18th c. quackery, Victorian-era prudery, and religious tomfoolery. We need to sever that heavy chain by all means necessary.
The first step is to change your point of view on self-pleasure — and to do that, you need to change the term you use to describe the act. By using the correct language you’ll help your brain naturally shift to a more sex-positive perspective.
From now on, call it solo sex. It’s both easily understood without being explicit and it is free of negativity.
Start each self-pleasuring session with this mantra:
“Solo Sex is Me Loving Me.”
Feel the Healing
It’s funny how our society latched onto the expression “no pain, no gain,” yet has no universal cliché for experiencing the delights of healing. Whether you love getting a massage, feel completely restored after a solid meal, or have rapturous sex, we don’t have any expression to describe the powerful sense of healing that each ritual provides.
Open your mind and you can shift to a full experience of the healing effects of sex and orgasm. Whether you are having solo sex with a long and satisfying browse through the porn of your choice or just rubbing out a quick one, aim to stay present to the rush of good feeling that accompanies arousal. Isn’t it amazing that you, just because of your lusty thoughts, can feel so high on brain chemicals? Focus your attention on these good feelings and watch them grow.
It doesn’t matter what kind of porn you watch. (Though I hope it is ethical.) It doesn’t matter where your fantasies carry you. You can use any and all toys or equipment too. It’s all good because it’s what YOU need and it harms none. It’s you servicing your body through pleasure, in ways that only you completely understand.
Take your sexuality to the next level
FEEL THE HEALING.
Remember, no pleasure, no gain either! You can put on Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and groove while you play. Or, just allow your beautiful brain to get lost in your physical responses and the sweet bliss they bring.
Reward Your Wins
Any behavior you’ve learned can be unlearned. If you’ve harbored bad habits or mental anguish around watching porn, being kinky, or touching yourself, it’s time to turn the training around. You’ve been victimized your whole life by sex-negative thoughts. Now, take the opportunity to retrain your mind by rewarding yourself for having good solo sex.
I’ve seen the most success with clients by having them create a new positive-feedback loop to shut down the old demons who are still renting a room in their heads. I ask them to introduce something that gives them a true “happy ending” to the experience. For some, that means watching a favorite rerun on TV. For others, it could be listening to music. But for most, food seems to do the trick!
Bribe yourself with yum.
Keep a delicious beverage and a favorite snack or treat close at hand when you’re enjoying solo sex. Afterward, reward yourself for this act of self-care by sipping and nibbling your yummies happily. Little by little, knowing that a delicious treat awaits you at the end will help your brain forge a positive new association with sex instead of the old negative one.
Hey, who knew, orgasm + yum = smiles after sex!? It’s a little Pavlovian, but that’s why it works.
Build Your Body/Mind Connection
Your mind and your body are one whole entity. Society may train us to draw a big red X across our genitals but contemporary science draws a big red heart around it. Why? Because genitals can tell us a lot about the overall health of a person (especially heart health); because genitals are an important indicator of the health of the human circulatory system. Every doctor who knows about human sexuality also knows by now that regular sexual relief is beneficial to the ENTIRE organism (i.e., your body), starting with the brain and involving many of your major organs.
It’s all connected – your brain, your heart, your genitals.
Shame interferes with that connection on a psychological level. It keeps you from enjoying the many benefits that come when you enjoy your sexuality in a healthy way.
You begin to move into this healthy connection when you learn to accept that “you” doesn’t mean “you, separate from your genitals”. “You” means an interconnected system filled with endlessly unique features, including a feature that allows you to feel pain and a feature that allows you to feel pleasure. Hey, maybe you even like the pain feature! Intensity is an amplifier, after all.
End each session with this mantra:
“I am my whole body. Every part of me is alive.”
Live in The Body You Have
I want you to gain the benefits of enjoying your body, free of shame. Go ahead and try out these techniques I share with my sex therapy clients. Give them two weeks, and watch what changes for you.
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