Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Private, Not Taboo: Masturbation Unzipped

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

In this episode, we unzip masturbation without the awkwardness, the myths, or the shame.In honor of International Masturbation Month, we take a candid look at one of the most common, and most misunderstood, forms of sexual expression. We talk about what masturbation actually is, why it shows up differently for everyone, and how it can be a powerful tool for stress relief, self-discovery, and connection with your own body.We break down the myths that have lingered for generations—from physical harm to relationship fears—and where those ideas actually come from. We also explore the real benefits, from improved sleep and mood to increased confidence and body awareness, along with how masturbation can play a role in relationships, healing, and self-care.Along the way, we talk about sex toys, generational shifts, and the reality that for many people, this topic still sits at the intersection of culture, religion, and personal values.At the end of the day, this isn’t about telling anyone what they should do, it’s about making space for informed, judgment-free conversations so you can decide what feels right for you.Because something this normal was never meant to be taboo in the first place.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to explore questions you've always been curious about, but don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. We talk about these things with no judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, we're going to talk about masturbation. May is masturbation month.

I feel like if we were better at post, we could have the canned woo sounds in the background. But we are a humble production, and I love our humility. So before we unzip masturbation, that really works well this time, I am here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going today? It's going well. That's good.

It's going well. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, I could always complain about something, but I can't, we all, I love them. No, I love people. I can't complain. I'm like, then you're obviously not trying. What bubble are you living in? Um, would you like to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we get started? Sure. So, um, I have a PhD in human sexuality education. Um, and I did what a lot of PhDs do after they get their PhDs, they decide they want to stay in academia because it's familiar and i'm sure there's a lot more psychological reasons but

um i actually stay there because there's less censorship than there was k through 12 because i wanted to be a k through 12 health teacher that's a lie i wanted to be a 7 through 12 health teacher i don't the littles and i but that's a whole nother story that's that's an origin story um so i work in academia i do the teaching thing graduate undergraduate level i publish i speak I speak places but I speak more places through my own work so I also have my own consulting firm which is where I do a lot more work in the community and for organizations um and really I just talk to anyone who's willing to have me talk to their people so I've talked to youth groups I talk to youth and parent groups which is always really amusing when you put parents and youth in

the same room and talk about sex um I speak to people who are 60 and older and then people who provide services for people who are 60. So basically anyone. So when I say I speak, like if you've ever sat next to me on public transportation and asked me, and made the mistake to ask me what I did, we probably had a good conversation about sexual health. So what else should I say? Oh yeah. So in addition to doing work in the community, I also let the community come to me. So folks who have sex questions can submit them to my website anonymously. And then every Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern I post one question and one answer I am still very far behind I was just working on this week's question before we started recording and I'm like I am like a good six months behind in

questions oh man yeah so if you're submitting questions I will get to them I will get to them and we will put a link in that description if you want to submit that right after the link in the description if you want to submit something to me and Charlie yeah my way of segueing to you so i like how i did that though yeah well done um for those of you who um don't know charlie i don't know what's wrong with your life i know what's wrong with you at this point um for those of you who do and don't know charlie charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to have the really the really tough question the really tough conversations about the topics that we talk about and actually more than just the topics on this show just just all topics

yeah that's tell us more yeah that's me um I am a woman who has always challenged um challenged societal expectations um didn't really see my womanhood as a barrier to anything growing up and so I think that was advantageous in many ways and then was quite the awakening as I became an adult, what the world was really like. We have to come back to that. Remind me to come back to that at some point. Okay. And so because of that, I tend to just have this innate curiosity and I wouldn't call it contrarianism, but just as I've said on a couple of my introductions that why I think of a three-year-old in that loop of why no but why but why because I want it to make sense in a way

and I think the motivation there is thinking about this the other day I think the motivation there is um my my perception of a sense of justice and equity and fairness and when I see things that don't balance that ledger then I'm gonna I'm going to try and unpack where is that coming from? Who is telling us that? What systems are we buying into to continue to perpetuate some of these things? And then with my friends, I'm making it sound like it could be exhausting to be my friend. But when we get in those types of topical discussions, no matter the topic, because I think that's one thing that I am really good at is I won't shy away from a topic. And I don't have to know everything about the topic because that's why I'm having these conversations with people

and trying to unpack and understand the roots of where this grew from. So that's me, just all around curious and and like to challenge status quo where i can so i'm charlie okay there we go all right masturbation may is masturbation month dr sue international masturbation month because it's worldwide worldwide masturbation month i remember the first time i heard about masturbation month someone i was following on social media at the very beginning of social media so like not really what it is quite now they were doing a wankathon and I'm like first of all I love that idea that like your cal I don't remember how they were calculating like is it minutes is it I don't know yeah I was like a wankathon that sounds

fantastic why are we doing a wankathon and then it's like it's national master it's I think it started as a day and now it's a full month um so I yeah so it's you don't have to just because it's may you don't have to not in other months like yeah just but if you are doing a wankathon we don't need to know about it um but enjoy if you enjoy i was gonna say unless you have some really cool promo stuff um but in case you happen to be on social media and seeing a lot of stuff i don't know what you i don't know where you get your information on social media or how much charlie and i have influenced what you now get in your algorithm um but if you're starting to notice a lot of stuff about masturbation that might be why it is national international masturbation month

i mean how did this i want to know how this came about yeah i don't know i just i literally remember seeing this thing for what it was for a college campus no surprise was they were doing a wankathon and i'm like this is this is fantastic i've never worked in a university where i felt like we could get away with that um but that would be that would be awesome so quick search on earth that to likely no one's surprised it started in the united states as a day an annual event held to protect and celebrate the right to masturbate the first national masturbation day was held in 1995 on either may 7th or may 28th that's quite well back then we didn't really have the internet to like to like document things i mean

yeah after sex positive retailer good vibe your favorite term sex positive retailer good vibrations declared the day in honor of surgeon general jocelyn elders who was fired by president bill clinton in 1994 for suggesting masturbation be a part of the sex education curriculum for students ironic that bill clinton would fire her for that i know i know and i remember when i think but that's a different type of podcast yeah joycelyn elders is amazing and has continued to do really important work and i had the absolute honor of meeting her a few years ago um i don't really remember it because i shook her hand and she was holding copy of my book and i forgot the english language and yeah that was the end of that but joycelyn isn't

like i'm on first name basis with her um dr elders is an amazing woman who's continued to do the work and i remember her getting fired because i was actively working in the field not in academia yet but i was actively working in the field and i remember like what the fuck is wrong like we're telling we we don't want to include we were trying to limit unintended pregnancies we're trying to limit stis and so we're not telling people about the safest sex they can engage in like yeah i'm glad you look at all the 90s now i'm angry all the 90s yeah well shout out to dr elders yeah she's she's amazing i really wish i could re-meet her so i could remember the english language

she walked into a session i was doing and luckily someone had come in to give me a like a hey heads up she's coming into it was at a conference someone gave me a heads up that she was coming in which i thank you profusely by the way if you happen to be um hearing this because if she had just walked in i don't know what would have happened she would have glitched i mean i don't i don't often i don't have a lot of idols in my world but yeah yeah she was definitely one of them she's amazing amazing woman um yeah and she continued to talk and she continued to do the work and even after she got fired like bill clinton i i mean yeah oh what's that irony is that what is that anyway again different type of podcast

um yeah we'll stay focused we should we should get we should hook up with us with a history podcast and do some of these things we should we should if anyone has a favorite history podcast or something else that would handle something there's a there's a podcast i really um enjoy i'm just gonna give free press to her it's called um who did what now i was just thinking of her she's amazing and love her i would love yeah so if you know anyone who if you know anyone who you think we would ever be and this goes just in general if you're ever like hey i was listening to this podcast and they do really well with you like let us know um and when you send me email please include all all of us yes please and don't forget she is dr sue

for those of you unfamiliar i hate telling a joke right so those of you unfamiliar we have been getting as we've been on the air longer and longer on the air is that even the right term i don't know i mean i suppose as our podcast is going into it's almost second well year and a half and as we've got as we approach 100 episodes yeah in two years um we get these emails from pr people who um let's just say that the template they use is not is friendly for two first name or even friendly because i don't know if you saw the one we got this week but it was just like hi oh hey hey doctor hey doctor period comma and i'm like wow you your merge did not do a good job okay anyway back on track back to masturbation so uh now we

know why may is masturbation month yes and uh and we just want to highlight the normalcy of masturbating yeah and not and also i was just gonna say and also if you don't enjoy it that's normal too yeah or if you don't even want to try it because it's against your morals or your values i've run into people there's space for all of that well that's what you talk to so i've i've come talk to me everyone i'll make space i've run into um for those of you who are not watching there's some air quotes going on here um i've run into some sex positive people who are like everyone should masturbate and if they don't do it there's something wrong with them and i'm like oh that's not really oh that's not positive yeah that's not positive at all and it's incredibly

um uninformed when it comes to people's religions and cultures and fears and backgrounds and baggage and like no so our our stance here even though i didn't talk to you about this ahead of time we're going to come out with a stance and our stance here is that if if you want to great just don't do it in public um yeah don't do it in public and if you don't want to that's fine too yeah and and you don't owe anyone an explanation for why ever yeah yeah and and when we strip when we strip away the layers of um of society and religion and cultural upbringings the fact of masturbation is that it is again neither good nor bad it just is there there are some actual positives to it well but i'm i'm saying you're saying from an ethical standpoint

okay or a moral standpoint when yeah when you strip all of that away their masturbating does have benefits but the act of masturbating again like many things is neither good nor bad it's the layers that we start to attach to it that we as individuals as society as um communities and kind of these little micro cultures um that you know like our friends or whatever that's when we start to attach the meaning to is it too much is it the right amount is it um are you addicted air quote um I threw in the air quote I promise um I was rolling my eyes too hard to see an air quote sorry yeah yeah I know I did you sprain your eyeball I may have um so I just I like I want to start there that the very basic fact masturbation just is it just is yeah and it's all the other

crap we put on top of it well we learned about it or didn't because we fired dr elders um although to be honest with you i can't think i've ever seen a curriculum being enacted i've seen it in writing in curriculums where they talk about masturbation but i've never seen a lesson done live where they were talking about masturbation um I don't yeah I have my ideas of why um so it just yeah it's it's what we learn or don't learn that taboo of what we don't learn about it and that should be something we shouldn't be embarrassed by but yeah I mean I know uh for me personally and I don't mind sharing this for me personally what I learned about masturbation was all kind of self-discovery. Like I didn't understand why something felt good or why something didn't

feel good or why I preferred one thing over another. And it just kind of was just kind of found out on my own. So I want to ask you a question and keep in mind that no is a complete sentence. Yeah. Or pass as a complete sentence here. Do you remember how you learned about it? Like if you ever learned about it or how you first learned about it or how it entered your life? well what do you mean by learned about it so because I learned the word masturbation and what that meant and it largely attached to males okay yeah so do you remember where or how you learned about it was it a book was it a movie was it tv was it no it wasn't social media we were before social media no it wasn't uh I I don't know I don't have

a memory of learning about it I I will actually show this I don't usually talk about my own life but my parents did not have a sex talk with me until someone I knew when I was in college got pregnant and then they're like well what would you do in that situation I'm like holy shit okay let's have that conversation apparently yeah they gave me a book called what's happening to me what's what's happening to my body is that what it was no it was what's happening to me okay okay because it was very like what's happening to me and I'm like oh my god what's happening to me yeah um that i was allowed to read once apparently i had to like commit it to memory because you would never have any follow-up questions because then it was hidden um

and the word masturbation was in there and described and described well enough that i understood what it was so for me it was this book that i read once i feel like that was the only thing that stood out to me and the pictures i remember the pictures were like over the top character drawings yeah um oh that reminded me you have it i might actually because i like stole the button i borrowed a bunch of books from my parents house i should see if that's one of them um so that was how i like and i don't i can't remember the next time i used that i heard that word because no one walks around talking about masturbation they talk about jacking off or whatever it may be like and i think someone was using a euphemism for it and i didn't get it

i was just like for female masturbation no for male masturbation it was a very but i remember the term it was a violent term it was like jerking or spanking or beating or hitting or i don't remember what they were doing it was a verb and it was it was it was angry and i remember i may have been i may have been something i saw in a movie that's feeling right i remember i was like what the fuck is that like i don't know what that means but i think i want to look cool with all my friends and just like nodded along right yeah but yeah mine was in a book it was actually in the book which is amazing yeah but yeah all right all right so masturbation continues to be taboo even in sex education don't you think yes not my class but yes right yeah i mean that that is kind

of a broad statement of sex sex education not dr sue's class i mean there are curriculum yeah a baseline curriculum there are curriculums that have it in there um there and there are really good curriculums that have it in there the problem is that if a curriculum is supposed to be run you know like 15 classes and they're cutting health down to six times a semester like all of health to six times a semester and you've got to cover social emotional learning because that's a big thing right now social emotional learning and nutrition and exercise and heart disease and you know suicide and mental health and this and this and this and this and sex oh and sex and drugs and alcohol and you've now cut it down to six classes it doesn't matter if you have the

best curriculum in the world if you get one day on sex you're not doing masturbation right you're probably going to do something that relates to sexual health which is going to be pregnancy prevention and sdi prevention so it does exist like i've seen it in disaster death disease and dysfunction, all the Ds. I've seen it in curriculum. I could probably open, I think I have one open in the background right now that I was working on looking something up recently. So it's out there. The problem is it either doesn't get through because there's no time because we keep cutting health every year. I feel like we cut it even more. And then if you're going to get any pushback, it's probably going to be around that. And you're going to be asked to cut that lesson.

And then you have to make that decision. And I work with enough teachers who are like, i don't want to cut this but i i need a paycheck like yeah so i don't know how hard i want to push or especially my newbie teachers who are like i can't push back like i can't push back i'll i i'm new in my career i don't have any power behind me i don't have any friends in the district like i have no way of doing this so um but there are i mean there are lessons out there if you're if you're not comfortable teaching it i can send you lessons um yeah yeah so if in a perfect world so well i i think this is a good place to start in in dr sue's ideal state what would a curriculum highlight like what would the masturbation lesson plan be well i feel like we skipped defining it

again this is like the second time we've been bad and we've been using terms because we're so excited because yeah some people may not even know what it is all right dr sue yes what is masturbation i'm trying to think of a good way of summing it of summing it in like less than five words it's usually touching your genitals in a way that brings you pleasure but for some people it's not just about their genitals for some people it may be about anal play for some people it might be about nipple play for some people it might be would you like to know what the cleveland clinic defines it as hold on like i want to be like if you get off on your right elbow like elbow being i don't know but like touching whatever part of your body that or yeah so usually we talk about

touching your genitals and bringing yourself to whatever it is you're trying to bring yourself to and it's not always orgasm um but i do think that we i want to make sure that i'm saying for some people they just especially for women because we still teach them that their genitals are dirty a lot which is so wrong um so they may get off on other parts of their body being touched not not specifically their genitals yeah yeah what do you got from the cleveland clinic i mean pretty much what you just described um the sentence on that under masturbation the opening sentence is masturbation is a normal healthy part of your sexual development it involves the use of your hands fingers sex toys or other objects to stimulate your genitals and other sensitive

areas of your body for sexual pleasure masturbation and here's a value statement masturbation has many document documented health benefits it may reduce stress improve sleep ease pain among other benefits did you say that was a value statement no i think i did and i don't that's not the thing that the phrase that i meant i was like no that's not the phrase that i meant that's so yeah um yes i do just want to throw that out because i had and it doesn't mean you have to actually touch yourself because again i'm thinking about the women that i've worked with over the years you've been like well i'm not supposed to touch and like you know then we get into where did you learn that um so it may it may involve rubbing against something we're using water like

streams of water it does not always have to be touched um and i think that's the thing that gets loss because so often when we talk about masturbation people think automatically about male masturbation and there's usually a hand or a sex toy involved or both um it it does not have to so if you're like i don't bless you if you're like i don't want to touch myself you don't have to you can use a sex toy you can you can just rub um you can use uh water streams of water if you have a handheld shower or you can cozy up to the water coming out of the you know when you start the bath and it's just coming out the nozzle if you want to cozy up to that which could be awkward depending on the size of your bathtub um the placement of the faucet yeah so

so just just things to think about is that i i know a lot of times we just kind of go towards male masturbation but it doesn't a it's not just men and b it does not always have to involve touching if that's problematic for you direct touch i mean you're something has to usually touch it yeah well so would you for masturbation the stimulation the kind of the because we can talk about mental stimulation and all of those things that get you in the mood do you do you see that part as like the ramp up and the masturbation there has to be some kind of touch with something it's a really good question um because there are people who can think themselves off there are people who can get off just by having a really good fantasy you can also

have a wet dream which is a way of your body being like hey we have feelings and we need to express them um i would consider the masturbation to be the actual touch i think the thinking yourself off i think that's masturbatory and i don't want to get into like i don't want to sound like i'm trying to do the semantic things um i think that's masturbatory in the fact that you're self-stimulating but it's not that you're self-stimulating through touch but that's a really important piece of it for some people like they have to really be in the mood i know i've known people over the years who've had like they have to set the mood for themselves like lighting and music and this and that and their own little spa day yeah all that's important

but I don't think I would consider it masturbation until you actually had the contact with the genitals or the nipples or the anus or the any sensitive. What did I say? Right. Elbow. Yeah. Any sensitive area. I don't know why any area on your body that stimulates arousal. Yes. And Peugeot. So from there, where benefits of masturbation, or am i jumping too far ahead no it's funny because i have them right next to i also have

something on this sheet and i don't actually understand what it is because it's just four letters does it do it no so it's funny because i have i have the the myths about masturbation right next to the benefits on my paper because i wasn't sure which one i wanted it like to me let's go through the myths first let's go through the benefits yeah what are the myths that you because i always do this with my students and i i don't know if it's just this crop of students these last couple of years or if these myths are actually dying off have you have you heard any myths about masturbation i mean they're so funny to me now but you know when you're a kid um and parents or adults are in your life and are uncomfortable with the subject matter there's uh

you'll get hairy palms that is disappearing uh you'll go blind yes which is fine because then you won't be able to see the hairy palms and maybe the hairy palms isn't the deterrent you think it is because maybe that's the thing i'm into right so um hairy palms you'll go blind you won't be able to enjoy sex with a partner as much if you masturbate air quote too much you won't be able to get off with a partner

if you masturbate again air quote too much those are the only ones I can think of those are just general insanity is usually the one that i hear too you can just yeah um yeah there's one that's sort of true none of the ones you just mentioned but there's one that's sort of true for men specifically that you won't be able to get someone pregnant this is not a contraceptive method by the way um but well let me write that down in words that make sense and not yeah

so a lot of these ideas come from really bad science and research sorry i'm writing and then i'm writing what i'm actually saying imagine my shock i sorry do you need a minute you got you got to really check with me before you say stuff like that you know so i don't fall over and hurt yourself from the shock wave yeah um so if you know anything about research in any field and sexology is not different from other fields of science it is a field of science and if you are studying one human you cannot generalize to the rest of humankind that is that is not how that that is not how that works it is how it works if there's no check of your science um there was this there was a couple of incidences where someone was

like relating fears and dreams and it was the idea that if you masturbated too much then you'd get bored so you'd have sex with animals i'm like whoa whoa that's a big that's a leap yeah big jumped there yeah um but a lot of what we especially the ones because i had someone actually submit this as a question to hey dr sue it was about where did the myth about going blind come from and that was fun that was a fun rabbit hole to go down yeah for days i need a lifeline sometimes when i do things like that and really what it comes down to is in 18th century europe the church believed that anything that could not lead to babies was no good and so masturbating can't lead to babies and so they basically just started making a lot of things

up and then people wanted to hear that they wanted to hear that they were right and what they were hearing you know if i tell you like hey charlie like if this is you know if this happens and that happens you're like oh is that true i want to hear someone else say it and then somebody else was saying it and then they're putting it in print um not that everyone could read um but it really was there was no science basis it was really just uh oh we should all say that yeah yeah that'll like get us fame i'm sure they weren't thinking it that way but yeah yeah well this is what we know this is what this is the facts of the times we'll get more people to the church we'll get more people to the church we'll get more people saving their soul you know so it was it was really put

into writing and we don't really actually know who the original was because well we know who wrote it but we don't actually think he thought it we think he was the first person to write it down at a time where lots of other people were just repeating the same thing but it was really meant to scare you out of masturbating that was i was supposed to scare you like all things yeah like all things church um you're based it's not going to make you go blind unless I want to say something, but I don't want anyone trying it at home. I don't think I've ever said that before. There was a time where men were putting things inside their penis, which doesn't sound pleasant.

It doesn't, but there are definitely people who do it. Yeah, there's people who do urethral sounding and they get off on it. And I'm not trying to yuck your yum. To me, that just sounds like a very big object, small hole. so i'm not i'm not judging you for what you're doing i just it yeah it doesn't sound comfortable to me but i have done a whole post on urethral sounding if that's fascinating to you let us know we'll do an episode on it um and so it was like things like coffee starters don't do this at home because putting things in your penis can actually cause tearing and that's dangerous

and then they would masturbate and the thing would go shooting out of their penis so theoretically i guess if you were like looking down at it and shooting out and like blinded you that'd be quite the story dude so theory i mean i feel like that's the only way you could get go blind um it's not going to grow hairy palms no unless you were putting like minoxidil on your hair and then you you know don't use minoxidil as lube no don't um it's not going to cause you to go insane unless you cut off your air supply and i'm i don't usually tell people what to do. That's just not my job. I am going to strongly encourage people not to engage in autoerotic asphyxia. Let's do that one again. I'm not spelling that, by the way,

for the record. Autoerotic asphyxia. Yeah. It's basically where you choke yourself while you're reaching orgasm. I don't usually tell people what to do, but there is a high risk of death from that there's a high risk of injury and if you are choking yourself with like a rope and something goes wrong you can die from it so if you were to cut off your blood supply through aea that could make you have some brain damage if you cut off your blood supply for too long but i mean we're going like such extreme cases to try to prove extreme cases but yeah but also like the masturbation wasn't the thing that did it it was it was the yes it was the thing you were doing around it was the peripheral the additions yeah additional acts not the act of masturbation yes keep that

in mind also if you're having your partner choke you like yeah if they cut off your blood supply for too long that can be dangerous same thing for tying you up i'm thinking about all these ways now different episode let's rein me back in shall we yes yes yes yes the one that's half true is the one about um not being able to get someone pregnant if you are struggling especially with low sperm count and you are masturbating regularly and not having penetrative intercourse with your partner well i'm sorry not not i didn't mean to not there let me do that sentence again from the beginning so i we all know i do editing so i'm not editing that out it's too hard if you are having problems getting your partner pregnant because of low sperm count and you are masturbating

a lot and then having vaginal intercourse you're there's there may be decreased sperm so if you are struggling getting someone pregnant because of a low sperm count i would actually tell you to hold off for masturbating and resolve reserve all that for the penetrative sex um but that is the only way that so that is partially true to have to yeah yeah but again that's not because of the masturbation though that is because of a physiological issue right of low sperm count right but it's the masturbating where you're using up your sperm right yeah but your low sperm count wasn't for the masturbation yeah you talked about not wanting to have sex with your partner we talked about that i'm trying to

remember there was one more in there and i didn't write it down yeah that you wouldn't be able to orgasm from partner play no well not because of masturbation though because your partner's not listening to you or you're not communicating yes it's more of those things than anything else so maybe we should talk about the benefits we're starting to kind of work our way into that a little bit. Yeah. So I think with benefits, what I'd like to, what I'd like to discuss first is maybe overall benefits that are gender neutral, if there are any, and then male masturbation benefits and female masturbation benefits. Because I feel to my, to my mind that helps chip away at the taboo from the gendered normalcy of masturbating so overall benefits it feels good

it feels good then releases dopamine which releases a whole lot of hormones um it feels feel good hormones yeah it feels good i mean that's the at the end of the day it feels good um it can help you relax it can help you to sleep so if sleeping is a challenge you can't get your mind or your body to settle because of the dumpster fire of the world around us you may find that you're masturbating more right now because it's a way of like calming down like you have till whatever not everybody I have to say this not everyone masturbates to orgasm or ejaculation some people just do it to kill some time like boredom is one of the reasons why people tell me that they masturbate so to help you sleep to calm you down to relax it feels good

helps you learn about your body and this is what I was getting this is where I was like well it's not from the masturbating you might find that you like certain types of touch and this goes for people of all sexes so you may find that you don't like hard touch or that you do like hard touch or that you don't like direct contact with like either your clitoris or the head of your penis like you may find that there are areas of your body that you like more when I mentioned before about butts and nipples and other parts of your body feel good sometimes you find that on your own um and so you might find that there are things that you like that you've never never experienced with a partner and so that that's a really good way to figure out like what do I like

what turns me on what do I want done and then that's where it can become a problem if your partner isn't willing to if you're not willing to communicate because it's a two-way street you're not willing to communicate your partner is not willing to listen and they're just doing a b and c and you're like you forgot j k and l like i like that too um yeah so it's it's a way of really getting to know your body um and what you do don't like because we don't come with owner's manuals and what you do like now may not be what you like in a year or five years or for people who've had major illnesses or injuries where their body isn't functioning the way it used to masturbation can be a great way of reconnecting with yourself and figuring out like okay maybe i

don't have feeling down there or maybe i do have feeling down there maybe i like different feeling now because i've had nerve damage or maybe because surgery changed something i find i need something else but it's a great way of figuring out what you enjoy um which could be a fantastic process if you give yourself the time and the space to do it um yeah so that's for everyone i think Can it help alleviate or prevent anxiety or depression? Yeah, I mean, anytime we do anything that makes us feel good, whether it's going for a walk or spending time with loved ones or having physical touch, or in this case, possibly orgasming or just having pleasure. Yeah, all those things can help with depression and anxiety, as long as you don't feel like you're going to hell. Because I do want to acknowledge that.

If you really do believe that you're going to go to hell if you touch yourself, please don't touch yourself. I don't want you doing anything that's going to make you feel like you have compromised a piece of you And it's really hard to enjoy yourself when your body's saying yes and your brain's saying hell And that cognitive dissonance can be really hard to deal with So as long as it's not playing into any of that, I think that's really important And it can be a good way of reintroducing yourself to your body After you've had either a not great partner or a partner who was abusive like learning like I have needs and I have wants and I can explore my body and I can explore touch

with myself that's not threatening all right I think that's all that's all really good stuff and and a couple of the other benefits I think you meant you mentioned in passing earlier in the show is there's so for solo play solo masturbation there's no risk of getting pregnant and there's no risk of STI. So some other benefits there. Sorry, I'm writing. That's okay. I feel like when we start getting famous,

we should just save these note sheets for like the archive. For the Smithsonian. Yeah. I love that you think we'd be in the Smithsonian. Yeah. That's the optimism I need from you, Dr. Sue. Because that's my native state.

Yeah. That's your default setting. Maybe there'd be a whole thesis on what these four letters are. I have no idea um can I do some things that are a little more specific to guys that's exactly right so I wanted to talk about male specific benefits of masturbation yeah see I mean there are some of the same things like feels good um helps you relax helps you figure out what you like because if you've only ever had a partner who's like I will just touch you here and you're and

one day you grab your balls while you're masturbating you're like oh those things feel good too um it gives that ability to play and get to know your body but also part of that sometimes you feel things that are off i think just finished talking about testicular cancer recently in my class um the number of times people or their this isn't masturbation if it's your partner obviously but the number of times people or their partners find a lump in a testicle during sex play it's like i love everyone to do testicular self-exam but sometimes it's like they're grabbing their own balls and like what the hell is that like i've never felt that before and sometimes it's a partner so that's not masturbation um but yeah it's like it can be

early detection for things like cancer especially in the testicles um same thing with boobs like if you do boob play as part of what gets you off you might feel something one day and you're like I don't remember that being there before um anytime I feel like you get to know your own body I feel like it's a good thing so I just I should go ahead no no go ahead I cut you off no I I uh what you were just talking about gave me an idea for another show so I would can you imagine writing that up as an official like for testicular cancer because it's amazing to me I have all traditional college age students the last couple years of my classes I think i may have had someone who's in their mid-20s um and i talk about testicular cancer

and they're in like that prime age range and they're just they're like do you whatever and i'm like dude we'll cut off your nuts like that's what we do like you think they'd be concerned and i'm like go go play with yourself and i'm like well wait wait wait like that's not what you're doing every day it's a different playing with yourself yeah um but yeah sometimes people find it because they're grabbing their nuts and they're like huh yeah that's a little strange right there the tangent i see here is this is one of the ways that we fail men and men's health is because we normalize that i mean from the time girls are girls they start learning about breast self-examination as they're approaching puberty and how far back the breast tissue goes

And I am fairly certain that testicle self-exams are not taught as rigorously as breast self-exams. So that's my tangent coming back to the show though, coming back to today's topic. So it could be good for finding things. And not just what you like, but also like lumpy bumpy stuff. Yeah.

Is there, is there any evidence that, uh, uh, that it could reduce prostate cancer risk coming off our episode with Dr. Burnett? Deep sigh. So there is, there are some studies that have shown, and I'm very careful with these because of the whole scientific inquiry and how many people you need in a study and looking at who

the participants were. There are some studies that indicate that if you are ejaculating more frequently which is often never explained when they measure it but that's more frequent that frequency is yeah um that if you are ejaculating frequency it can reduce the risk of prostate cancer does not specify if that is through masturbation or through oral sex or through anal sex or through vaginal sex it does not specify that um so in some ways ejaculating often could be good it also did not take into account by the way by the way wet dreams um And I think the research is important. I just don't think it gives us a full picture yet. I don't think we're ever going to see a study that says that if you're ejaculating, that's going to increase your risk of cancer. Whether it definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, decreases your risk of cancer, I think as we get more research, we'll be able to answer that more concretely. But there is some evidence that would suggest that. But again, it doesn't have to be through masturbation. It's just ejaculation. yeah um are there any other benefits for male masturbation not specifically for men that i

can think of okay and not for women other than just getting over the society telling you that your body parts are dirty which i don't agree with um it can be a great way of exploring and it can be a great way if your partner has never learned how to pleasure a woman for whatever reason it's their first time they've never cared whatever it may be i mean again we don't we don't all come with um with owner manuals and we talk often about how bad porn is at teaching you how to do things so if you can learn about yourself and what you like it can make your sex life better because you could be like hey here here honey try this um and that could that's like cheat code like oh touch here touch there touch there woohoo like that's a great way of making

your sex life better um yeah there's something else i was going to say but that's off tangent off topic it's a tangent going off topic we're just going to mix words today um so for female masturbation way more common than we think yes and normal yes way more common than we think um i do anonymously ask my students their sexual behaviors um and almost 90 of my women report having masturbated recently um some women don't answer the question some women say they never have or it's been a while um same thing with the men though it's usually over 90 but very frequently i don't get 100 saying that they've masturbated frequently uh so women do you masturbate more than we report

in the media yeah i will i will put it there because i don't want to put a number on it because i want you to imagine someone saying hey will you take the survey great tell me about your last masturbatory experience and you're like this isn't worth a ten dollar gift card um so so i want us to keep in mind that our numbers on sexual behaviors are are based on self-report because we're not following you around to see how often you're masturbating yeah so they're based on self-report and they are often people who are more sexually experienced than the general population so there there is some there are some samples there's some sample studies sample issues when we look at sex research. And in general, it's just people are more open and more sexually

experienced. So I don't trust the numbers. What I do trust is that women masturbate more often than we think they do. And some of those benefits for women masturbating, because of, to my mind, from from a non-academic standpoint um you know we we aren't it's not air quote normal normalized in media in society uh women masturbating that's more like a level up of taboo within the masturbation taboo i think um but women who who do masturbate and and discover i i feel like and I've certainly experienced this personally like it I feel more confident sexually I I know exactly if if I am engaging in partnered play I know myself well enough to to help make the experience enjoyable for both of us um and and for a while you know it

can increase your libido if you're if you're having like does if you're with a partner and your desire level there's a desire discrepancy there and maybe you have you feel like you have a low libido or sex drive as dr sue was saying rediscovering yourself can reawaken that that desire and that libido and that drive um and and really for me um it's it's the it's the confidence and the self-esteem boost that that was really affirming yes and I want you to affirm that pretty sorry so many no that's okay you were taking notes I got you no but I do want to affirm everything you said and it's it's a lot of what we hear from folks especially for people who've either been celibate for a while or their sex drive is tanked

for whatever reason med stress new role in their relationship or new role as a parent like it can be a way of being like oh i'm not dead like yeah we still have these needs and then you're gonna find yourself thinking about it more and more um so yes and thank you for sharing that yeah yeah happy happy to to normalize it it's not taboo yep um what are some things i've been writing yes those um one is the use of sex toys um very much like we we did a episode recently on lube and one of the things we said was that lube is normal right using lube is normal whether you need it want it like it whatever it's normal to do it and i feel like a lot of times people are like oh i shouldn't need something to get me off sex toys are totally normal um they're a little

expensive please don't buy a used one um no yeah no no no no um please don't buy a jelly one those aren't really safe um but sex toys are really they're really common um and we know that the generations coming up now are using them and talking about them more than others and so if you're using sex toys it doesn't mean you won't be able to get off with your partner but maybe you like what your partner does and you only have so many hands right so i can just put a sex toy in this place and use my hands for my other things um there are also sex toys out there that specifically for women will simulate like puffs of air on your clitoris which is what you may feel during oral sex you can't do that on your own like that would be a lot of flexibility yeah i'm like

thinking about the logistics of that so there are toys that can help you and sometimes it's just easier and if you have some if you have if you have arthritis and you may not be able to manipulate eat your fingers easily and like masturbate like that like sex toys can be really helpful sex toys for men can also be really helpful one of the things i hear from men after a while especially those have been single it's like i get tired of my hand i'm like there are sex toys for men yeah um so the only thing i would say about sex toys is is some of the things i've already said if they feel weird to you or they feel unethical to you for whatever reason they feel dirty to you then don't do it like you don't want to introduce anything in your space that's going

to make you not feel good um it is possible that your partner will feel like you're trying to replace them it's not an irrational fear given that we don't ever talk about that yeah but i don't think it's actually grounded in what's happening for people who are masturbating i don't think people masturbating being like i don't need my partner anymore um i think what they're thinking is like i've got a few minutes to do this let's make it as enjoyable as possible or i haven't seen them in a while so right or we're gonna get through this this spell yeah right oh yeah how many things going through my head um yeah so i don't i think that's one of the fears of people and that's actually one of the other things that i have kind of written down

here is this idea that people use it as a replacement for sex maybe if they're not partnered but very often when you're partnered it's more like i want to my partner doesn't or my partner's not coming home for a bit or my partner's really far away from me um most of the time people are not using it as a replacement for sex especially with a sex partner when they have a sex partner it's that they're using it in addition to having a sex partner i can go two ways from here do you want door number a or curtain number b letter b i uh i would like curtain letter b okay for those people and so this is no i'm gonna do i great so glad you asked sorry well because it goes better with the other thing on my thing

which i just saw secret door number d um so one of the questions i get is and how do i know if i'm masturbating too much now unless you're trying to get someone pregnant and you're male and you are using a lot of your semen and sperm i'm not really worried about the too much piece you're not going to go numb you're not unless you're using a lot of numbing cream um you're not gonna change the shape of your penis right you're not gonna pull it out of shape your clitoris is gonna survive um if you're using a vibrator it may feel a little like buzz numb if you're using a vibrator but that'll go away it's not going to cause nerve damage it becomes a problem when it's a problem for a partner well and if you're doing in public that's

illegal if you are masturbating and your partner feels threatened by it then it's a problem in your relationship and it's not about how much is too much it's about the fact that it's a problem in your relationship if your partner's like if i'm with you i don't think you should be masturbating that's something the two of you should talk about yeah um if you are masturbating and then when you do see your partner you're like not in the mood anymore that's a problem for the relationship so it's not like it's just masturbating in a relationship is bad or wrong it really depends on how you're using it and how it's potentially impacting your partner and your relationship the dynamics of the relationship those would be a much easier way to say it than what I was trying

to is there are there things to watch for to understand if if it's becoming a compulsive behavior for you so if you are masturbating at the expense of anything else you're supposed to be doing and i don't mean like housework like if nobody just has that yeah if you're gonna avoid housework and it's not because of masturbation yeah but i mean think given the choice of like cleaning the toilets or jacking off like most people are gonna yeah i'm gonna go masturbate yeah um if you are not going to work or not being social and going out with friends or you're missing school depending on your age and your responsibility if you are giving up on your responsibilities because you are masturbating so much if you're not getting work done that's a

problem yeah so that's where i'd say it would be more compulsive if it's interfering with other things that you would do in a normal day-to-day and and when dr sue when you say a problem that's not coming from the judgmental it's a problem it's because it is impacting the life of the person and the livelihood of the person correct yeah good i just wanted to clarify thank you yeah um now we can go to door d and l and whichever ones i have over i mean i'm along for the ride because my answer didn't matter so well the the thing i was gonna say is that sometimes we can oh there's two things oh now we have oh no not the spanish inquisition okay listeners if you don't know that reference go to youtube look up monty python spanish

inquisition um so there's one more thing i want to make sure we get to and i know okay you can also masturbate in front of your partner because we talk a lot about solo masturbation um you can also masturbate in front of your partner you want to talk about vulnerable masturbate in front of your partner and just have them watch that is incredibly vulnerable um and can make a really meaningful moment between it's incredibly intimate and connecting yeah especially and first they could see what you like um or you can be like i don't need you to learn from this like i can teach you another day this is not the hands-on but like watching you pleasure yourself is an incredibly vulnerable moment that can be very intimate with a partner

yeah especially when many partners um enjoy watching just your body and your face and hear your sound your pleasure sounds um it's it's incredibly connecting yeah and then and then even like masturbating together yeah yeah um i actually recommend this sometimes for people who are going through desire discrepancy it may which is where one person wants a lot of sex and the other one doesn't want as much it may be like a you know honey i'm not in the mood i'll be in the room while you get off and sometimes that's enough to create that intimacy where everybody you know i person a doesn't feel like they have to do something they don't want to do but they're still being with their partner and you can hold them while they're doing it or have touch while

they're doing it i was just gonna say touch while while masturbating is also incredibly connecting which if you didn't want to have sex this could still be a way of being sexual and intimate with your partner without engaging in behaviors you don't want to it could also be like so turning you on that you're like i know i said no but like now yes yeah um so i and it's not the idea that going to do this to try to convince a partner who said they don't want to but if you are having desire discrepancy issues it's one of the ways to stay intimate and connected without you having to do things you don't want to do um still being there holding them touching them telling them how excited you are to watch this they're not going to get that while they masturbate on their

own yeah so it could be a great way for for couples to kind of navigate some of that desire discrepancy stuff the other thing is that it's really um this this was original curtain b that i didn't want to go down because i wanted to bring up this piece first um for folks who are in long distance relationships this can be a great way of maintaining that intimacy especially absolutely yeah um and there are there are sex toys that can be that are bluetooth um that your partner can control by app from a distance and it's funny because we were having this conversation and i used to teach a sex and technology class and we were having a conversation about whether or not that's still masturbation if someone else is controlling it i was like i

don't know if we need to get in the in the that's a fascinating question to unpack yeah totally like we have three minutes left in class like why did you bring it up now um but so the so if you have two people and one person is controlling the other person's sex toy by app i don't know the answer i don't know yeah because it's still masturbation and that you are self-pleasuring yourself but it's not because someone else is doing the pleasure and kind of controlling the throttle so to speak yeah so i don't i don't actually know nor do i really care to be honest like i mean if you want to deem it masturbation deem it masturbation if you want to deem it something else deem it something else yes um for people who are in a long distance relationship that could be

a great way of maintaining that bond um if you are doing this by video please make sure there are not other people around or that your videos are not being watched by folks because you know military um and if possible that you're not being recorded without consent yes that was the last piece i was gonna get to is not being recorded without consent um because you don't always know when someone's recording what's happening um yeah so there and you don't have to do long distance either like i know people who have um wearable sex toys and they'll wear it out to dinner and they'll give their partner the controller it's like in the middle of dinner all of a sudden um see to me that doesn't feel like masturbation whatever i'm not gonna we're not getting yeah

that's not this episode um but it is a great way of of maintaining intimacy when there's distance or or when there's fatigue or when there's so many other things just a discrepancy between the two partners right yeah yeah but um i have physical emotional whatever i have folks who have done this who've been in long distance relationships and they the whole you know it was one of these like we should talk about it and then we should do it and then it was like no let's not maybe next time and it became like a satire and then that like accommodate like a rom-com like over 10 episodes of yeah um so it's a but it's a great way of maintaining that intimacy when distance is a real thing and we know right now some people are being split because of jobs like one person has

to move for a job and the other person can't and yeah or military or um deployment or school or whatever it may be for long distance or you're going home to take care of a family member and you you're going to be away for a while yeah so yeah i don't i remember that student asking the question they're like so is it still masturbation i remember looking down and being like dude class is almost over like good question but i'm not fielding this right now and i don't think we ever got back to it which is my my bad if that person's listening but yeah all good things oh one more thing yeah do you have anything else to say before i just randomly change the topic again no go for it so there's a a sex toy company called tenga t-e-n-g-a and they do i haven't

seen their study in a while they do they do global studies on masturbation and sex toys and this generation i don't remember what it is alpha y z no not x millennial i think it's z z gen i think it's it's x millennial z alpha okay gen z is reporting sex toy use and masturbation as self-care in a way that no other generation has labeled it self-care before i love that because of what it is it really is um which may be one of the ways that we start changing the conversation because if i don't label it as mass you know sexual behavior it's self-care not that i'm ever putting on a brochure being like go home and self-care masturbate um but yeah we're seeing that then why not right but we are seeing that this generation um is labeling it

as self-care in a way that we've never seen before and i think that's going to change the conversation and I'm really excited to see the positive impact that can have because that's amazing it's amazing first it's amazing that they asked that question on the survey because we our data is only good as the questions we ask and then you can see on the chart like do you think of masturbation as self-care and like you can see over the generations it's like no maybe yes and it's it's it's fascinating to see the difference yeah that was my last thought I know that was I couldn't figure out world's just put that so i like that um one thing i do want to wrap up with is the space for those that don't enjoy masturbation for a variety of reasons and and we said it at the top of the

episode and i want to because we spent a lot of time on the benefits and and touting it and but there is there is a reality that there are people who aren't aren't curious about it that's okay You've got community, religious, cultural attachments to the perception of masturbation and what that can mean for your soul, your being, your role in your community. But I think that what I want to highlight is that the curiosity is normal. and you have to live your life in a way that aligns with that makes you comfortable and aligns with where you are what communities you're in what your culture is what your religion is there is space for all of that but if you feel curious that's normal and if you don't engage

that's not that's normal too and if you've tried it and you're like yeah i'm just not into it that's you didn't do anything for me yeah also totally normal there's no right answer when it comes to masturbation except not in public right right and not in front of someone who doesn't want to watch it right that's it yes yeah otherwise as frequently as you want as infrequently as you want sex toys no sex toys mood music no mood music whatever whatever whatever gets you whatever gets you off quite literally and if that's not doing it that's okay too yeah yeah there's there's space for all of it, except for the illegal stuff. All right. Well, with that, I want to thank everyone for joining us on this episode of Unzipping Taboos. We hope today's episode sparked some

new thoughts, maybe gave yourself some space and some grace for thoughts you've had about masturbating or not masturbating, and that it opens up conversations worth having. Remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships with yourself and others. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who you think might need to hear this. If you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip, reach out to us via the link in the episode description. We want to give a very special shout out to best friend of the show, Ali O'Brien for our incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Allie. I did it again. Best friend and composer

of the show, Allie O'Brien. Thank you. And until next time, keep the conversation going. Keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care.