Masturbation

[Marc]

I was introduced to masturbation when I was 8 yrs old. Of course I couldn't ejaculate at that age but I still masturbated a few times a month which is quite a lot for being so young. I was introduced to pornography at age 12 and then I went through phases of masturbating a ton and then feeling guilty about it and living in shame because of my christian belief system. Interestingly enough, my mom once had a talk with my brother and I and told us how it was a natural thing to do and to not feel bad about it if we did it every once in a while. I still felt guilty about it all through high school years and would go for 4-5 months with out it and then I just had to release the build up. I thought of it as an addiction and asked God to take it away from me and made so many promises to quit... I even met a christian mentor who talked to me about it and told me how God told him to stop and that he went 7 years without masturbating until he got married.

Eventually I just accepted it and told God to fix me if he wanted me to change but I was done. I then came out from under condemnation and shame and started to see it as a normal human activity. After coming out of christianity I was much more freed from condemnation, and I came across the book "The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity." In the book it went through many different taoist ideas and actually the consensus was that when you're young it is ok to release the buildup of energy via ejaculation through masturbating, but as people get older that energy is not something to throw away. The ejaculation chart was roughly something like this:

12-16 yrs: 4 times weekly
17-24 yrs: 1-2 times daily
25-30 yrs: 2-5 times weekly
31-40 yrs: 1-2 times weekly
41-50 yrs: 2-5 times monthly
51-60 yrs: 1-2 times monthly
61-70 yrs: maybe once a year
71-100 yrs: never

*note: The chart is completely relative to each individual's sexual libido and isn't set in stone, but rather a guideline.

It also said that ejaculating through sex was ten times more detrimental to our vital energy storage than masturbating, so recommended that we learn how to orgasm without ejaculating with sex and gave many techniques to do that.

About 7 months ago I went about two weeks without ejaculating and during that masturbating using the technique of orgasm without ejaculating. Eventually I was just like f*** it, I'm cuming and that was the end of that. I didn't notice much of a difference from refraining other than I had a much more active libido as it was dying to be released.

Now I masturbate about once a day. Right now I'm sick with a cold and I'm not masturbating as I want to be careful with how I use my vital energy during this time so as to help with a speedy recovery.

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Now on a spiritual psychological level, the drive for sexual gratification comes from an unconscious desire to pro-create in other words it is the desire to be creative. I try to be aware of that within myself when I get horny and I try to be creative in some outlet whether that be music, photography, writing, etc... I look forward to masturbating after a day of work before I go to bed. I find that I can still lucid dream as I usually do. I also feel generally more relaxed in life when I consistently masturbate. I am separated right now and I do miss sex, but the trade-off in personal freedom is much more important to me than being able to have sex.

Right now I'm trying out a philosophy of non-repression. I just make an effort to be aware of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, and that becomes a wonderful way to come to greater understanding of myself. I'm a kind of hedonist at the present but I look for the greatest pleasure not just the immediate, personal one. It's been a great way of self-discovery these last 5 months of trying it out, and physically and spiritually I feel pretty well. =D