dysphoria around masturbating, please advise

[nevermore-guy]

first time using these boards but i think this is my best option for this sort of question.

i (pre-anything perisex trans man) have been masturbating for a few years now. i have also, unrelatedly, been doing a lot of introspection and working towards understanding my own feelings better, which has been going great.

one of the things i've been understanding better is my own gender and how i experience dysphoria, and i've semi-recently figured out that i experience dysphoria around my genitals. while masturbating feels good physically, it doesn't feel good psychologically.

is there anything to be done about this? i don't know if there is (i am interested in pursuing medical transition but i'll only be able to start doing so next year). i know that if i just stopped masturbating i'd stop experiencing as much dysphoria but i would also stop having that as an outlet and i don't think it'd make me feel that much better.

[KierC]

Hey nevermore-guy, and welcome to the boards! This is a perfectly good place to post this question

I’m sorry to hear you’re experiencing dysphoria around your genitals, and that it’s making masturbation feel bad psychologically. It can be really tough when you’re doing something that’s supposed to make you feel good, and it’s not feeling that way. You’re certainly not alone (from a search on our boards you can see we’ve talked with many other users about this, and we’re happy to talk about this with you as well), and there are definitely things you can do to try to help manage the dysphoria you experience around your genitals.

You’re right that simply stopping masturbation probably won’t solve these feelings, because that would be ignoring the feelings, not stopping them. Know what I mean? But yes, there are definitely things you can try! If you’d like I can help brainstorm some ideas and we can also talk about some of these feelings too.

If that sounds good, I think it’ll be helpful to start with how you’re experiencing dysphoria. Do you find these feelings come up or are exacerbated by touching or seeing your genitals?

I also want to ask (and then I’ll pause for now), are there any things you do in your life outside of sex and masturbation to manage dysphoria that you might be able to translate here?