The Importance of Variety in Sex and Why Repeating the Same Thing Isn’t Enough | Rena Malik

0:01This is a Be Well Moment, the most replayed moments from my latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider episode, which you can find linked in the show notes below. Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to living well and being well.

0:22So that kind of takes me on to something which we do not talk about in sexual education. Anyway, we don't talk about this here in the UK I don't know what it's like when you're in the US you can tell me if this is included but it's masturbation and it's something that I think has come up on our podcast actually we did a whole topic on shame with somebody called Africa Brooke and she said her shame started when she was eight her mum found herself rubbing herself up against the sofa and she was told that she shouldn't do that and it's naughty and it's dirty and never to do that again and so all of a sudden from a very young age she had this like shroud of shame around her And I'm sure many, you know, when you're thinking about when you're growing up, you'd always kind of run away.

1:00And, you know, if this is something you're exploring yourself. So I want to talk about it because we just don't talk about it. I don't think I've spoken about it since that episode six months ago. So how important is masturbation? Seeing as we're kind of like talking about sexual dysfunction there, let's just move on to things about how we get to know ourselves more. How important is it for men and women to masturbate? So masturbation is, you know, there's many benefits. It's a safe form of sex. It's a way of body exploration. Having orgasms have significant health benefits, right? Like it reduces blood pressure, improves sleep, improves focus.

1:38So ultimately, masturbation is completely normal. We see babies in utero like masturbating, right? So it is a completely - way. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you, you know, it's a completely normal phenomenon when you have babies, you will see them like grabbing their genitals or rubbing soft toys, whatever, right? Like they're trying to explore and that's completely normal, right? Like that's a normal response to, you know, exploring your body. Now I think that shame is, it's a real problem, right? Like what, what we tell our kids, it's like these sorts of things you just do in private, but it's okay to do, right?

2:20Because I think that's what we really want to tell our kids, but people are like shocked, right? Like, oh my God, what are you doing? Don't do that again, right? But you're the parent and you're the adult and they believe everything you say. So when you say it like that, they are like, oh no, that's a bad thing, right? So shame starts very, very early. And a lot of times people are masturbating to things they feel are maybe unsavory, right? For the public consumption, like they might be watching pornography and then they feel shame around that and around masturbation. So I think ultimately like their, you know, masturbation is healthy.

2:57The only time I would say it becomes problematic is when you are like doing it in lieu of spending time with your partner or spending time with your friends or your family. And like you, that's all you want occurrence. Like it's not that common. So I would say that most people are masturbating just fine and it's good and it's totally fine. And I will say the shame is pervasive. It is one of the most common questions I get. Like how often should I masturbate? What's too much? I'd say it's fine. There's no like right or wrong amount. People always want a number. They want to know like what's okay.

3:29Like once a week, three times a week. I'm like, no, there's no number, right? Everybody is uniquely different. Are you masturbating and like helps you go to sleep at night? Are you just masturbating to like, you know, have pleasure like a few times a week or it doesn't matter. Like it's just about as long as you're doing it in a normal, healthy way, it's not creating problems in your life. There should be no shame around it. Thank you for pointing out there should be no shame. I love that you're also talking about numbers because so many things when I pop into YouTube, it's like, how long should I be lasting in bed?

3:59What is the average length to masturbate? And it is honestly, everything is so numbers focused it's the same with you know nutrition it's the same with so many conversations I have on this like how long what's the average everyone wants to kind of know they're in this like normal range and what you described that sounded like quite an addiction towards masturbation where it's kind of like stopping you living your normal life and actually in general you know if we're actually engaging in this within the week even if we're in a relationship between ourselves then this is really healthy and normal some of that we aren't told and I'm just going to chuck it out there and just see how you respond to this.

4:35How should we masturbate? How do people know if they're doing it right? Because as you said, I guess we're starting what I did know. It's blown my mind that we're starting this in the womb. How do we know if we're masturbating correctly and how should we masturbate for men and women? So is it pleasurable? Yes, then you're doing it right. Okay, so that's one. Two is, are you doing it the same way every time? Because that can make sort of challenges when you're with a real person. So you want to use different techniques. So use different stimuli. So don't always watch porn. Don't always read a book.

5:11Use fantasy. Masturbate with different techniques. And don't always use the same, whether for men it's hand positioning, for women it might be a toy, right? Like try different things so that your body doesn't get accustomed to one way. That's called idiosyncratic masturbation. Like some people do it the same way every single time. And then when they're with a partner, they can't climax because they're so used to climaxing a certain way. Okay. And so that actually leads me into my next question, which is like, how may masturbation harm our sex life? Because I also speak about all the benefits here, but can masturbation actually harm our sex life in any way?

5:47And I feel like you've just made a really valid point on how it might do, but is there any others? You know, you can, if you're being very aggressive, like for particularly in men and you're masturbating with like, um, not a firm enough erection, you can create some micro trauma to the penis. But generally speaking, I think as long as you're doing it, you know, in a normal, healthy manner in the terms of like, you're not like being super aggressive and you're doing different variety, there should be no problems. Okay. So generally I'm taking from this that we should all be masturbating. We should be making sure that it's feeling nice and actually there should be no shame connected to it but there could be a couple of times that if we're just doing something I feel like it's similar to exercise you know and it made me just think like should we do masturbation like we just want to go and do it to yoga you know we go to yoga and sometimes we're not always feeling like when we do it we feel better and reducing that change should we be thinking about sex or sex lies and masturbation in that way similar to how we think about yoga but actually making sure that we're doing different types of yoga that's important rather than just doing the same things when we are doing the same technique every time well I think you don't want it to be like a chore.

6:55You don't want to be like, I need to do this today because it's good for my health. Like, no, you don't want to do that. But you can. There's definitely people out there that are doing that, Rina. There's definitely people out there that are doing that. Yeah, no, you shouldn't be forced to masturbate. But if you, in terms of like, you don't always want to do the same thing at the gym every day, right? You don't want to lift just your biceps and not your, you know, like you need, you need to use opposing muscle groups, push, pull, whatever, right? So same thing you need to have variety and not do the same thing every time thank you for listening to this be well moment if it resonated the full conversation is linked in the show notes and i hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect to living well and being well if you loved it please do leave a review follow the show or share this maybe with someone you love