Masturbation, solo sex, self-love, what's the deal with it? Is it good for you or is
it causing all your problems in bed? I'm Dr. Rena Malik, urologist and pelvic surgeon,
and today I'm going to talk to you about the pros and cons of masturbation and I'm
going to debunk some of the biggest myths of masturbation that I hear every single day.
Over 90 percent of men and 75 of women report masturbating on a regular basis so that's not
surprising because there's lots of benefits to masturbation in addition to pleasure. People
report improved mood better sleep and even more focus and why is that and this is not
surprising because when you masturbate you release a number of feel-good hormones including dopamine,
oxytocin, serotonin and even the feel good endorphins and masturbation is the ultimate
form of safe sex it not only allows you to experience pleasure but also allows you to
familiarize yourself with what makes you excited and gives you pleasure so that you can communicate
that with your partner it also allows some people to experience pleasure without the added stress of
intimacy or needing to perform under pressure the number one myth that I. hear about masturbation is
that masturbation will make you go blind or have hairy palms and this is just in fact not true if
almost 90 of the population is masturbating well then we have a lot of blind people and a
lot of hairy palms so basically that is just not true a lot of this is perpetuated by thought
leaders that believe that masturbation is sinful or represents a person being out of control of
their own body and while i'm not here to judge anyone's religious convictions these myths are
just not true the next thing is something I hear all the time I get messages all the time asking me
I masturbate every day am I ruining my erections am I going to ruin my ability to have a normal
sex life well that brings me to myth number two masturbation does not cause erectile dysfunction
in fact it's quite the opposite masturbation when leading to orgasm actually causes contraction of
the pelvic floor muscles and these pelvic floor muscles are super important for having orgasms
and also being able to experience pleasure so when you're actively exercising these muscles
you will have better orgasms and probably a better sex life however there are two caveats to this the
number one caveat is pornography so there has been an increase in erectile dysfunction in young men
which correlates with the rise in accessibility to pornography meaning that it's everywhere you can't
go anywhere without bumping into it if you wanted to find it and so what what does that even mean
well watching pornography can actually desensitize a person to normal sexual stimulation and lead
to unrealistic expectations of what a sexual encounter should look like that can also lead to
a significant amount of pressure and performance anxiety which can lead to erectile dysfunction
I get a lot of young patients who have performance anxiety and have issues with erections and when
you think about it the stress of performing then leads to poor ability to have erections when you
have sex which then compounds that performance anxiety and you keep going in this vicious cycle
so actually if you're able to masturbate and get yourself to have erections that can actually give
you some confidence so that when you are going forward within a sexual encounter you will have
the confidence to know that you are capable of getting an erection and the next caveat
is guilt if you experience guilt from masturbation because of your personal beliefs then that can be
really detrimental to your sexual function and in fact has been linked to depression and anxiety and
it is totally okay to abstain from masturbation if it makes you feel bad but if it's something that
you want to work through you may seek out a sex therapist to help you work through those issues
of guilt associated with masturbation myth number three is that when you masturbate too much
it reduces your sensitivity and that's not exactly true so there's a couple things that can happen if
you're masturbating a typical normal way then if you use a certain device or a certain motion
that your body can actually become habituated or get into a habit of feeling that particular
sensation resulting in orgasm and when you do something differently it can make
it harder for you to orgasm so it's important to use similar techniques to what you would do
in a sexual encounter or consider using less pressure or less vibration if that's not what
you're going to expect during intercourse also sometimes if you are using a significant amount
of pressure stroking or folding the penis one way or the other this can affect the sensation of your
penis or your clitoris in women so you do need to be careful and thoughtful in how you masturbate
number four you can masturbate too much and in fact this is not true for the large majority
of people even if you're masturbating daily for pleasure or for stress relief or enjoyment that's
okay the times when it becomes problematic is if it's interfering with your day-to-day
life if you find that you have a strong compulsion to masturbate that you can't ignore or you're
skipping out on normal activities to masturbate or skipping out on being intimate with your partner
just to masturbate these are signs that you may be masturbating too frequently however interestingly
although there's not a lot of data to support this in some men with chronic pelvic pain or
testicular pain we will actually recommend that men masturbate a couple times a week as kind of a
stress relief mechanism it sometimes does help people with chronic pain relieve that stress
myth number five masturbating means that you have a bad relationship this is not true many people in
partnered relationships masturbate separately or together and this is not a reflection of
the amount of love your partner has for you or vice versa this is a activity that actually may
improve your sex life overall and should have no reflection on your level of intimacy or bond
as a couple and our last myth myth number six is that masturbation lowers testosterone and in fact
there is no data that suggests that masturbation lowers your testosterone level in fact when you
orgasm or during masturbation your testosterone level actually goes up and after you complete the
orgasm the testosterone level goes back down to a normal level it does not actually deplete the
amount of testosterone you have in your body this myth has actually gotten a lot of traction even
in ancient greek and roman times they found that men would hold off from having sex or
masturbating before big tournaments because they thought they'd be more aggressive when they were
sexually frustrated and similarly athletes have done the same but there's not really
a lot of data to support that so there's no reason to put yourself through that torture
thank you so much for watching and always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it