Question about masturbation

[pelican]

Hello. I'm female, 24, and I'm afraid I'm becoming addicted to masturbation. Normally I'd only masturbate 1-2 times a week but since I got a vibrator I’ve been doing it every day, sometimes several times. During the day I often find myself spacing out and thinking about how I’ll masturbate that night, it’s distracting. I also watch porn and even though the stuff I watch is relatively tame (I only watch videos of people masturbating, people having sex just grosses me out) I still feel bad about it and I worry about getting addicted. I’m afraid that at this point I can’t get off without porn or a vibrator. This is keeping me from doing other fun things like watching show or playing games because I know nothing will feel as good as masturbation. To make things worse, I have depression and the antidepressants I take make it harder for me to reach orgasm, I often spend 1h-3h masturbating and I end up going to sleep very late. What should I do?

[Siân]

Hi pelican!

So we don't really talk about masturbation or sex as addictive (you can read more about why here: Are we addicted to sex?, though sometimes people have trouble with compulsive behaviour around these.

All by itself, masturbating a couple of times a day, using a vibrator or watching porn aren't problems. In fact, I'd say it's pretty normal to go through phases of masturbating more - especially when you have a fun new toy - and at other times masturbating less. Looking forward to masturbating later also isn't a bad thing.

What would be more concerning is if you're masturbating/thinking about masturbating so much that it is really interfering with other parts of your life. If that's you, then setting boundaries for yourself about when you're going to masturbate is a good place to start. Set time aside - if you want to masturbate at bed time but it's interfering with your sleep then go to bed a little earlier to give yourself time, and then outside of that time do other things. Give yourself permission to enjoy what you enjoy - how much of the time you're spending thinking about masturbation is partly worry or guilt over wanting to masturbate?