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This Is Us
Keep Touching Yourself, Even if You Have a Partner
Masturbation isn’t wrong. It’s freeing.
Masturbation isn’t selfish.
Maybe that’s not much of a shocker for the sexually enlightened. Touching yourself, and making an effort to know what you find delicious, is a wonderful expression of sexuality.
But I’m writing this for the people like me, the people who’ve been told that sex is something that you give to someone else and not its own reward. Even if you have a partner, taking time for yourself can be delicious — and freeing.
I’m not entirely sure how I came to believe that masturbation is selfish. That was just the vibe I got when I started my own explorations. Lots of people might do it, but talking about it felt dirty. Masturbation was a pressure release valve for all that bubbling, horny tension I didn’t know what to do with, that I couldn’t do anything with, but it was something immature and self-centered. Masturbation was cast as junk food that I might ruin my appetite with before I got to enjoy the meal of a partner.
At this point, we could go back into a history lesson involving centuries of church-perpetuated guilt. Masturbation is also known as Onanism because of Onan’s perceived sin of pulling out, the basis for endless…
