Masturbation & Relationships

Are you wondering what she’s really thinking? You’re about to find out. This is the last in a series of four articles stemming from studies Lulu conducted where they polled women on topics relating to sex and relationships. You can see more polls like this by downloading the free Lulu app for men in the App Store or on Google Play. 

While opting for burgers instead of a workout, a good buddy and I started discussing the adversities of masturbation. For many, this may seem like questionable dining conversation, but he and I both felt we’d been employing the five-digit love clutch a tad to often, and — pardon the pun — things were getting out of hand.

The reason for thinking about limiting our meat-beating, besides enriching our social lives, was to influence our desire and propensity to get laid — because what boosts a man’s confidence more than a fully-loaded libido? It had been a while and I, in particular, had been flirting with carpal tunnel courtesy of a certain Lisa Ann, adult star extraordinaire.

But that wasn’t my only concern. I worried about my future ability to achieve an erection as well, particularly after a recent study discovered a link between over-stimulation to porn and erectile dysfunction. My friend and I are both relatively young, single guys, so the last thing we wanted was to lay flaccid and defeated as someone worked us like a Shake Weight.

Not to mention, it’s not exactly a turn-on for her, as a recent poll by Lulu (an app that collects user-generated reviews of dudes) warns. The question posed on the app was whether a boyfriend’s masturbatory material concerns her. These are the results:

Thankfully, the majority of women were fine with his solo sessions, as long as she was left out of it. Yet, when taking a second glance at these numbers, you may find that there’s a considerable percentage of women who view masturbation as a form of betrayal.

I compare this jealousy to how we feel when our girlfriend uses her vibrator. Naturally, we’re going to feel a little offended because it leads us to believe our god-given parts aren’t good enough for her. But the thing we all need to wrap our heads around is that these orgasmic alternatives are not used because they’re better — they’re just different.

You see, masturbation is purely fantastical, says Lulu’s advice columnist “The Dude.” Some things are best kept private, and maybe our dreamy perversions are one of those things — unless, of course, you’re willing to accept and even incorporate these fantasies into your sexual repertoire.

Besides, his hand-play shouldn’t serve any threat to your sex life, according to science. A study by the Kinsey Institute found participants (in this case, college students) who masturbated more frequently also engaged in excessive intercourse. As with most things though, this can go off the deep-end and one could become dependant, and even addicted.

With regards to which masturbatory material dudes consume most, Pornhub, the world’s No. 1 free porn website, did all the work for us. The results revealed that the most commonly searched terms in the U.S. were “creampie” and “college,” which remains consistent with The Dude’s logic, as creampies are something most women would never commit to and, as of this posting, we don’t yet have time machines to re-live college. Fantasy.

As for how often we masturbate, results from Indiana University’s Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior produced those exact numbers last year regarding both men and women in every age group. The highest-frequency masturbators (20.1%) were men ages 25 to 29, who go at themselves four times a week, while 25% of this age group confessed to two or three solo sessions a month. Personally, I feel a number between the two would be more accurate, but that’s just me.

Perhaps most interesting, though, is that women trailed only 10 to 15% behind men in each category, so it seems the issue has less to do with masturbation itself, and more to do with confidence in the relationship and jealousy. Talk to each other about it. If your relationship is strong, you should both should accept that you each need your solo time every once in a while — and that’s not only OK, but also healthy.