I Was Masturbating All Wrong for 30 Years

Here are the different tools and tips I’ve learned to spice up my self-love sex life.

The New York City Health Department recently announced: “You are your safest sex partner”. Yet as I stumble around my kitchen, trying to fish an egg-plant shaped vibrator out of my ass, I can’t help but wonder: am I really though?

Up until a year ago, I was a normal guy, just like anyone else. When the urge struck, I’d grab a roll of toilet paper, put on my noise-canceling headphones, lay down, and pleasure myself to the sound of Stephen Fry reading Greek Myths.

Then, after the end of my last relationship, I decided it was time for me to start exploring more of myself, with myself. It didn’t take long before I realized: dry masturbation with nothing but your hand is the missionary position of diddling yourself.

It started innocent enough. I’d always heard of guys masturbating with a variety of creams and lubricants but I never wanted to manage the extra mess. So, for me, it was either a shower session or a dry rub over a platter of tissues. Lotion changes everything. It really does make the experience a whole lot better and introduced me to the realization that I was treating masturbation the wrong way. I was treating masturbation the same way you grab fast food after a long day at work. It was quick, clean, and all I had to do was throw away the greasy paper at the end. But I was cheating myself. Masturbation shouldn’t be a quick bite to eat, it should be a home-cooked meal with all the fixings.

I am the type of person who decides to start drawing and goes out to buy a dozen different notebooks, three sets of different pens, an easel, and a back-lit drawing board. My thought process normally tends toward: If I’m going to do it, I’ll go the whole nine yards. So, when the seed was planted that there was more to explore in the realm of masturbation, it got me googling, which quickly escalated into an Amazon shopping binge.

Prostate Massagers

As you might have guessed, I would not, under any circumstances, recommend substituting a vibrator for a prostate massager. I discovered this through trial and error — granted, mostly error.

When I told my partner I’d finally started experimenting with a vibrator, she said: “Oh? Where did you use it?”

“What do you mean where?”

“Like, what part of your body?”

I frowned, “I mean…you know.”

“Your nipples?”

“No…uh, why would I do that?”

“Well, what else are you going to do with it?”

“I mean,” I started, and motioned to my butt, “there.”

“There?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Don’t you know they have prostate massagers?”

I did not.

It was only after my ‘oh-fuck’ snafu with my vibrator that I started investigating prostate massagers and discovered a key feature is that they are specifically designed to not fall in.

Prostate massagers come in a variety of shapes and sizes with one target in mind: your prostate. This little acorn of pleasure not only brings an orgasm all it’s own but the added pleasure of having something up there while you masturbate should not be understated.

It’s time to empty out that tackle-box, toolbox, or whatever other boxes of manly paraphernalia you’ve got laying around and start filling it up with prostate massagers. Some have strong vibration settings. Some are large, some small, some with a remote and all sorts of settings.

Of course, not all butt-play has to involve vibration. There is any number of plugs and inserts that can spice up your date with yourself. While butt-stuff might not be everyone’s shindig, it can’t hurt to try. Okay — caveat, it can’t hurt to try when you have the right tools for the job.

“Assistants”

I don’t think I will ever purchase a squishy fake butt, or mannequin head with an open mouth, or even a full-on fuck-doll. Then again, I also used to say I’d never get a Fleshlight, and look at me now! Wait, no, don’t look at me, look away.

Fleshlights aren’t a one size fits all. There are big ones and small ones — open and closed. There are machines like The Launch, that you can plug your fleshlight into for the ultimate lazy masturbator that does the up-and-down bit for you. I’ve written more extensively on my experience with these tools in the past but the main conclusion I’ve come to is that my hand is not a carefully designed fuck-toy.

Yes, you can eat with your hands, but why not use a fork? Sure, you could hand-write everything, but why not use a laptop?

Science and technology have been making everything faster, easier, and more convenient in the background of society since the dawn of time. Yet also, in the background, they have been working to make things more pleasurable, not just in the bedroom with your partner, but also when you’re all alone with the blinds rolled up trying to make eye-contact with the old man who lives in the building across the street while Stephen Fry educates you on the birth of Athena.

Endless Possibilities

There is no limit to the ways you can rekindle your relationship with yourself once you start accepting that it is not weird, or even unnatural. Despite the taboo embargo on people talking about it, it isn’t even that uncommon. Once I became comfortable exploring these things, I started talking to other men more openly and found that a lot of guys I know have dabbled in different self-love paraphernalia, but we had never talked about it.

I first learned to masturbate at the ripe old age of seven. A friend and I had a sleepover and him, having a cooler older brother than I, told me he’d been taught this amazing new trick.

“You take it like this — and then go up and down!”

Gee-wiz, I was hooked. Yet it took me another 23 years before a thought: Hey, maybe this could be even better.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Your pleasure awaits.

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