Masturbation: The personal touch.

SELF-STIMULATION (Auto-eroticism) has been revered and defiled by differences in culture worldwide. Such attitudes are sometimes rationalized on the basis of reverence to a god and other times used as a sign of male peer group membership --- they is as old as history. Girls in various Indian sects and African tribes have been variously encouraged to methodically masturbate in the belief that genital enlargement, a social characteristic of beauty, would develop from such practices.

Hindus, Arabs, Egyptians, Turks, Syrians, Persians, Cossacks, Greeks --- have treated masturbation and fellatio as superior to sexual intercourse. Asian intellectuals have described it as a "Western" practice while European and North American intellectuals have termed it an "Eastern" practice. Excessive male masturbation was used centuries ago by ascetic religious sects to injure the genitals so that future erections became impossible. At differing times, the same culture has both applauded and criminalized individual sexual satisfaction regardless of whether such participation was the result of self-responsibility, or, self-obsession.

AS RECENTLY AS 1959, in an American survey of college students and their professors, 50% of college students believed that masturbation would lead to insanity. Of their professors, 20% also held the same belief. No scientific studies have affirmed this belief. Indeed, with moderation, the opposite appears to be the case.

MANY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ILLS and three increasing and endemic forms of cancer (usually a chronic and hypersensitivity disease) in modern North American society are linked to an inability of the individual to balance his/her sexual behavior.

LIBIDO (desire for sexual intercourse) is often intensified when access is limited. This is acknowledged in every culture yet idealists continue to express shock and disbelief when gender confined groups become homosexually involved or lose self-control and carry out sexual abuse or rape. These are often authoritarian environments such as penitentiaries, religious orders (priests and nuns), military organizations, labor camps.

DEPENDING UPON THE SITUATION, the response of the individual and the peer community. Severe traumatization can lead to addictive behaviors in an attempt to quieten intense feelings of guilt, abandonment, shame, fear, rage. Mob cohesiveness can support a subculture value system of denial, justification, and power. When a person's emotional and spiritual needs are met, obsessions with the physical are lessened and manageable.

DEVOID OF SENSUAL STIMULATION from others and functioning on a taboo which denies self-stimulation and sensual appreciation --- many such individuals eventually break their stringent codes of conduct and abuse others. The guilt arising from this toxic shame induced outburst often produces deeper feelings of abandonment, depression, and self-hatred --- which lead to more intense self-denial, and, further incidents.

SOME MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS acknowledge this by the practice of putting saltpetre in food provided to the troops. This mineral-chemical has the influence of reducing the males' ability to have an erection --- a form of forced impotence. Not all armies follow this policy and not all do so consistently. This is why all wars of any duration have given rise to the raping of civilian women by invading troops, regardless of culture, race, or decade. These incidents have been particularly reported as committed by soldiers coming from cultures which practiced taboos against masturbation, or, cherished attitudes of revenge, hatred, intolerance, and racism --- also, unfortunately, often of an institutional religious origin.

FEELINGS of abandonment, rejection, depression, and spiritual loss frequently encourage a normal human desire for sexual experience to become obsessive: sexual addiction. This is a trauma-induced behavior pattern which can be inherited and which can be cured through balancing. It is most easily understood within the context of energy blocks. You are encouraged to visit the Self-Balancing Website for more detail on balancing and energy blocks. Persons with such a heightened libido are likely to have to endure promising yet frustrating and often abusive intimate relationships which end in divorce, or worse.

MORE INTENSE BEHAVIORS ARISE if either of the participants has been brainwashed to believe that masturbation is unnatural, or, is barred by their religion. Masturbation could serve the addict on those occasions when the partner is not inclined to intimacy for many reasons not connected with the addict. Without the option of masturbation, the partner of the sexual addict becomes the only, the first and the foremost tool or vessel by which sexual relief and intimacy are sought to be satisfied and found.

For the sex addict, sex is a symbol of acceptance and a confirmation of personal value. It provides a sensual experience as a side benefit --- even though it is the main focus --- because the mind has been programmed to reject sensuality as evil. Sex becomes the excuse for sensuality denied.

SEX IS A POOR EXCUSE FOR SENSUALITY.
Sensual experience is often much longer in duration than a sexual experience. Sensuality often demands a giving and taking: a shared component. While sexual experiences can also provide a shared experience, they can also be redirected into dominant-passive interactions which disproportionately serve one participant first, or, only. The obsessive nature of sexual addiction conveys disrespect and a lack of empathy for the partner of the addict. In return, the partner gains disrespect for the addict ... forcing the addict to a greater intensity of abandonment and rejection.

OFTEN REPORTED are instances in which a marriage continues in which one spouse continually makes excuses in order to avoid sexual contact. It has become socially acceptable during the late 1980s and 1990s for rejected spouses to seek physical sexual expression outside of marriage. Psychobabble and pop sociology is often used to justify such behaviors. Such justification provides no understanding and no solutions to the difficulties and once promising relationships continue to disintegrate.

A DOUBLE STANDARD EXISTS in the mind of a sex addict.
The addict, unfamiliar to any expression of love other than the physical believes that the quantity and intensity of THEIR physical expression is relative to their love for the other person. The expectation of a similar response from their partner seems often not to be received for a variety of reasons.

The focus of the addict may take the form of an emphasis on technique and an obsession with making their partner as passionate as they are. Resistance on the part of their partner, or lack of performance --- signals rejection for the addicts. Feeling more like an object than a lover, the partner of the addict can begin to feel unloved, used, and cold --- and their libido drops.

PERCEIVED REJECTION only feeds the unresolved negative feelings of the addict. Physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse may follow and be traded between the addict and his or her victim. Or, the addict may simply add affaires in order to add more opportunity for a "fix" to the equation. Many times, the outcome can be depression, mental confusion and nervous breakdown, infidelity, family abuse, social disgrace, business complications, divorce.

The more religious (obsessed, committed) the addict is, the greater the guilt for lack of self-control and the greater the shame experienced for these confusing feelings. While masturbation could assist this equation, it is a poor fix --- particularly if deep-seated emotional patterns or intolerant religious or cultural beliefs make such an option demeaning or unthinkable. The best approach: Balancing.

ARTIFICIAL INFLUENCES which raise a person's libido are much more within our day-to-day control. Increased sexual need is also a direct result of lifestyle choices.
Consider these:

• constant use of aphrodisiacs (spices/perfumes contain hormones);
• irregular physical exercise result in libidinal hormone toxicity;
• most cosmetics and some prescription drugs contain hormones;
• hormone feeding = residual in dairy foods, beef, chicken, pork;
• lack of relationship skills results in a multiplication of partners;
• chemical pesticides encourage libidinal hormone release;
• stimulation by erotic representations in advertising and movies;
• meat, starch, and synthetic oil foods clog the intestines and colon resulting in a feeling of fullness and exerting pressure on the prostate and other organs.

CONSTIPATION and DEPRESSION are the most frequently reported medical complaints of North Americans ... and have consistently been for decades. Sexual activity relaxes the abdominal muscles and stimulates peristaltic intestinal and colon evacuation resulting in a cleansing of toxic buildup in the blood. Symptoms of a sluggish digestive system or a malfunctioning ileo-cecal valve include depression, lethargy and tiredness, headaches, muscle and joint arthritic symptoms, increased anxiety, shortened attention span, increased parasitic problems, increased incidence of expressions of anger, frustration, confusion.

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of advertising have persuaded North Americans to clog their digestive tract. There is little awareness or motivation about cleansing it. For the sex addict, their pattern-dominated Reptilian brain structure associates physical sex with symptom relief. The result is an addiction: a promise that seems to deliver but never quite does with any permanence. There is no conscious awareness or conscious choice in the making of such a pattern.

Even as there is usually no conscious awareness or association between the symptoms of toxicity and the intestines. Our intestines do not have sensory nerves. If they did, we would be so consciously distracted that we could think of nothing else. Cleansing the intestinal tract and improving one's dietary habits would help. Undoing the pattern of associations constructively requires some form of re-balancing.

RELEVANT INFORMATION CAN HEIGHTEN ONE'S AWARENESS.
That awareness can expand their options, understanding, self-acceptance, and self-direction. Long-term intimate relationships suffer greatly from constant distractions. A lifesystem robotized by ENERGY BLOCK compulsive associations, encouraged by mass commerce, and destabilized by inherent toxicity ... are a sure recipe for disaster and failure. Why are so many people apparently rushing into intimate relationships which result in very negative experiences more than 90% of the time? Here are a few reasons:

1. peer pressure to get married, or be excluded from "parents" groups;
2. mass media promotion that always shows sex as a focus of adulthood;
3. religions which promote childbearing to increase their congregations;
4. marketing which mythologises child-rearing in order to sell toys;
5. parental pressure to marry and provide familial social acceptance;
6. parental pressure to have children to extend their sense of identity;
7. parental pressure to regain their independence by getting you out;
8. ego pressure to demonstrate virility by fathering a child;
9. ego pressure to demonstrate femininity through pregnancy - birthing;
10. too damn sexually frustrated.

MASTURBATION THREATENS to control a lack of self-management and the destructiveness which compulsive sex-associated behaviors brings. That done, a massive source of guilt and shame over compulsive sexual thoughts and acts generated by sexual and sensual inadequacy is lessened. Perhaps that is why some mothers, priests, and psychiatrists-psychologists and political leaders preach against masturbation. It brings independence to the maturing individual and self-control.

MASTURBATION IS NOT A REMEDY, simply a possible coping behavior.
It enables persons with deep-rooted health problems to cope in a constructive manner which can eliminate frustration mediated abusive and violent behaviors. Remedies can then be sought and implemented for a longer-term healthfulness. It may provide an opportunity for one to approach the gender which is sexually stimulating to oneself without a sexual agenda and to interact with that person as a valuable individual who has feelings, a history of experiences, and skills. Perhaps getting to know the other person before having sex with them might result in longer-term intimacies --- and truly happy persons do not require authoritarian leaderships to build co-dependencies around.

CHOICE OF EROTIC MATERIALS is important to the success of later hoped-to-be long-term intimacies and marriage. One must be sexually stimulated if one is going to reach an orgasm --- and that is what masturbation is about. Whatever stories, visuals or thoughts you choose to raise your sexual excitement with, the repetitive nature of the act and the positive reinforcement of the orgasm will serve to make such selections part of your personality. So consider what type of person you want to take into a relationship with a loved one later. If you do not want to "educate" yourself to be sexually abusive, obsessive, or impotent --- the following guidelines can help:

USE

1. pictures or images of persons you do not know;
2. in inviting positions and orientations;
3. which are not abusive or painful;
4. involving attractive average body forms;
5. receiving respectful attention;
6. suggesting mutual happiness;
7. in hygienic surroundings;
8. with adequate lighting;
9. afforded privacy;
10. and comfortable temperatures.

Whomever you visualize and how you visualize your interaction become a part of your Ego strength and an extension of your personality. If you choose images which demean or show persons who are being demeaned --- you are weakening your Personal Spirit and encouraging the development of someone who is self-centered, selfish, manipulative and abusive. If you become such a person, what kind of person will you attract? How emotionally and spiritually adequate will you be.

SELF-CONTROL is BEING AWARE.
If you fantasize about someone you know, you trick yourself into projecting your feelings on them. That may even include your spouse unless free and assertive communication between the two of you confirm the attraction in spite of differences of libido. The potential problem is that persons you know may not share your feeling of sexual attraction. Patterning yourself to believe such a lie places you in the same position as some rapists and stalkers. Do you really want that? Is it likely to bring you any respect from them? An inappropriate sexual advance toward your male or female friend may end all possibility for a continued and emotionally deepened relationship. Do you really want such disgrace and loss?

RELEVANT FANTASY REALITIES.
IF you fantasize about a hero or heroine who is going to bring excitement, power, wealth, stability, possessiveness, or, ... into your life --- you are setting yourself up for one long emotional depression. If you are connecting sexuality with a Cinderella or James Bond form of romantic resurrection, the sophistication of the image keeps you passively waiting for the Mr. or Ms. Perfect who does not exist or would not associate with Mr. or Ms. imperfect YOU. It is easier for some persons to distance themselves from their fantasy than others but patterning still remains a potential danger.

THE MORE DEFINED your fantasy, the more depressing is everyone whom you date, or marry ... because reality can't match fantasy --- which is intellectualized perfection. Reality can be better than fantasy. But if you are always comparing the sexual reality to the sexual fantasy, it is as if you are comparing two lovers --- and only the real one is being held up for judgement.

If you want life to happen, YOU have to make it happen.
Don't connect your weaknesses, frustrations, denials, fears, or idealism to your erotic visions and stories. Be brave enough to share your need and desire for self-improvement with someone else who can also be humble, self-aware and self-directed.

REVERSE YOUR FANTASY.
Is your erotic image pleasant in reverse?
Sexuality is an activity in which one person enters the physical identity of another person and the other person invites that entry. The concluding and interim joys shared and expressed by each participant largely depend on the actions or invitations of the other person. Whether these prove to be pleasurable or not has a great deal to do with how well each participant is aware of their own needs and how well they express these to their partner.

TECHNICAL VS PERSONAL.
Can the other person satisfy your needs and preferences in a manner which they do not feel endangers, injures, abuses, demeans, or victimizes them? If you can visualize yourself being treated by them in the way that you see them erotically --- you may have a positive image with which to interact.

Other people don't know how you feel or what you like unless you give them feedback. Sometimes you have to experiment together to find that out. Each person has their own sensually sensitive, insensitive, and over-sensitive areas. This is the biggest failure of masturbation ... there is no one there and no feedback.

LUBRICATION helps simulate natural intercourse.
Without it, direct rubbing or other stimulation is more likely to chafe and irritate than to pleasure.

SALIVA is commonly used for this purpose but is a poor choice. It's wetness dries quickly and it is often laden with bacteria --- especially if one's gums are diseased.

BUTTER has hormones and chemical coloring agents added while margarine has synthetic substances.

PETROLEUM JELLY and other synthetic oils have a tendency to tougher and desensitize the erogenous zones and result in an impotent response.

OLIVE OIL
The safest, cheapest, easily available, no negative side effects lubricant is simply extra virgin olive oil. This is a natural oil so if it is not kept sealed, out of sunlight and in a cool location --- it will go rancid and be unhealthy.

SEXUAL LUBRICANTS like K-Y Jelly --- with its high water content are also very effective. A sexual lubricant is to allow stimulation, not deny it.

THE STRUCTURE OF OUR CULTURE has increasingly forced poor health, poor relationships, poor sensual and sexual experiences upon us --- leaving a requirement for masturbation. Many of the above decisions are taken with a belief that poverty will be avoided, or, wealth accumulation will be facilitated. The inequality of poverty and dependency is sought to be remedied by the inequality and supposed freedom of wealth. The youth of today, and often their parents --- know from experience or by example the difference between the political mythical ideal and the social status quo reality.

COMMON EXPECTATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS in North America which remain unspoken include the following. Where once these were stereotypically applied to certain races, nationalities, classes or occupations --- today they apply to all individuals. Everyone hopes that they will not be included --- that it is the problem of other people --- and so it grows.

• married students don't get government financial support;
• young marrieds must make a home apart from their parents;
• status quo material requirements of a new family: $40,000+;
• marriage/formal intimacy triggers childbearing expectations;
• childrearing average material costs exceed $15,000 per year;
• financial costs of formal weddings average $50,000 (1997);
• high frequency of relationship failures = why try/why persist;
• taxation, investment, loan, grant advantages to being single.
  • poor persons can't afford or can't get ---
    1. cars and jobs that require a car;
    2. house, condominium, apartment,
    3. bank account, savings, credit, loans,
    4. dinner/ night out for entertainment;
    5. cable TV service and home computers;
    6. cottages, weekend holidays, vacations.

  And either single people seem better able to afford some of the above, OR young marrieds seem never to be able to afford the above.

ECONOMIC TRENDS fed by political mismanagement, business greed, and personal irresponsibility have given the average North American a constant conflict of choice between time demanded to be valued at work and time for a quality life at home. Most of all, relationships fail because the participants do not make quality time for one another. Remaining single or uncommitted provides more time within the control of oneself.

PART OF THE PROBLEM, or PART OF THE SOLUTION?
If you are not lobbying for a family-based society with the social and political will to back it --- don't complain about masturbation and don't allow others to make you feel negative about it. Good masturbation is better than a doomed relationship or a doomed marriage. Just do it with awareness for your health and self-control.