Pound Pup Legacy

 From, Reuniting:  Healing With Sexual Relationships

If you are on your own, it is extremely unlikely that you will be able to avoid masturbation (or wet dreams) indefinitely. However, you can cut back so you don't allow it to become an obsession. Regular meditation, energy circulation, and breathing exercises can help balance sexual energy safely. So can heavy physical exercise, dancing, and therapeutic body work.

By now even most Catholics have freed themselves from the nonsensical notion that masturbation is sinful. But, as the saying goes, "there is no free lunch." Masturbation, like all fertilization-driven sexual behavior, has unsuspected costs.

Masturbation appears to decrease sexual magnetism. The more you retreat into your own private (emotionally "safe," readily available) world of self-gratification the less likely you are to attract a partner of the opposite sex for intercourse.

In fact, frequent, casual orgasm actually can actually cause you to repel the opposite sex subconsciously (or attract partners who also believe that the point of having genitals is "getting off," not union). At an energy level you send out messages like "I don't need you. I can take care of my sexuality by myself - thank you very much," "Relationships are just too much trouble; I can't be bothered," "Sex is just a physical thing, so getting off is all there is." or "It’s hopeless….I’ll never have a loving relationship." In doing so you repel what you most need to sustain a sense of well-being: healthy intimacy.

Medical research is now confirming that caring attention is perhaps the most precious gift of intimacy. It benefits both giver and receiver, countering the stress hormones your body pumps into you when you feed it messages of longing and isolation. For example, the caregiving primate parent (whether female or male, as in the South American Titi monkey) tends to live significantly longer than the non-caregiving parent.

Dr. Dean Ornish's book, Love and Survival, and [Marnia Robinson's book] Peace Between the Sheets both contain lots of scientific research about the health benefits of loving companionship. Love and intimacy are, in fact, more protective of your health than exercise, improvements in diet, or stopping smoking.

Masturbation, rather than truly satisfying, increases your aching longing for wholeness. Moreover you can easily become addicted to its short-term "comfort." Then, even when you have a partner, your routine can interfere. Even if you repeatedly exhaust yourself with physical stimulation it doesn't truly satisfy. It also sets off a sense of depletion or deprivation - for both men and women. When you masturbate regularly you may find interacting with others stressful. Yet your loneliness may drive you to seek more comfort in the form of addictive behaviors.

Masturbation also tends to promote the use of sexual fantasy, carrying you away from deep emotional union with others. When you do have a partner you may even be convinced that you "can't get off" without your chosen fantasy - or without your partner playing a certain role. Sadly this traps you in shallow waters as far as your relationships go. In frustration you may tend to seek even harder for true satisfaction where it will never be found, i.e., in more intense physical stimulation.