What Should I Think About When I Masturbate?

[jackojacko2000]

Hi, I used to watch porn but I stopped recently because I read that it can be bad for your health. But now when I masturbate I think of actresses (film actresses, not porn) or other random women and imagine either I am having sex with them or just imagining them having sex with someone else. But it seems like what I am imagining is exactly what was in porn, it is just as explicit. Is what I am thinking of just as bad as porn? What do people normally think of when they masturbate and how extreme in explicitness is it? Thanks a heap in advance.

[Heather]

You should think about whatever you want.

I'm not sure what you read about pornography that gave you that concern about your health. By all means, a lot of pornography isn't produced ethically, and doesn't represent sex in a very emotionally healthy way. Too, some people -- as people can do with anything that exists -- develop issues with pornography where it becomes a compulsion, and that's a mental health issue. But that's not a given, and when someone is in that kind of space, they'll usually know, because they will feel out of control with it, and will find it has negative impacts on other parts of their lives, like taking up time and energy they should be, or want to be spending on other things, or having negative impacts on their sexual relationships.

The issues that can happen with porn, too, aren't about people seeing or thinking about sex explicitly: there's nothing that's "bad" for anyone's health about thinking about or seeing sex in general, and that includes seeing it in more explicit ways rather than more subtle ways.

There's no "normal" when it comes to people's sexual imaginations, just a lot of diversity. There also isn't any one or general way people imagine sex, when they do, during masturbation when it comes to explicitness. But whatever is in there, our imagination is just thoughts, and thoughts don't do people harm: only actions do.

[jackojacko2000]

Thanks for that. So are you saying that porn is okay until it becomes an addiction or problem?

[Sam W]

Yes, as long as you're not finding watching porn to be something you do as a compulsion, it's an okay thing to use.

[Heather]

Really, whether or not porn is okay is something we can only decide for ourselves. So, if you want to look at pornography and feel okay about it, then it's okay for you. If you don't want to, for any reason, or it doesn't feel okay -- or the way you're using it doesn't, or the type of porn doesn't -- then it's not okay for you.

Make sense?

[jackojacko2000]

Thanks, but aren't there potential physical or mental effects? Like being unable to retain a healthy relationship? Or erectile dysfunction?

[Heather]

Neither of those things have any sound basis as being related to pornography use in general, no.

But the WAY people use pornography, or the place they give it in their life or the way they think about sex can certainly have those impacts or be part of them. For example, if someone looks at it like a work of non-fiction instead of the fiction it is, and goes about their relationships based on what they see in porn, then yeah, given the vast majority of porn doesn't show realistic sexual interactions or relationships and often sexualizes unhealthy dynamics can create problems within relationships. Or, if someone uses porn so much, or puts so much of their sexuality into it that they develop a habit of only being able to get en erection when there's pornography in the mix, then yes, they can develop problems getting or maintaining erection without it.

But all of that is the HOW, not the THAT. In other words, that's not just about every way of having porn in your life, seeing it, or every kind of porn. It's about how people interact with it. Get what I'm saying?

[jackojacko2000]

Is there a way to recover if it ever becomes a problem in the future?

[Heather]

If that's confusing, btw, it might help to put it into context.

Food isn't good or bad for people's physical or mental health, because food -- and HOW and WHAT people eat -- is a big, giant group of things and ways of eating or thinking about food.

On the other hand, there are some ways of eating, things to eat, and relationships people can have with food that totally benefit their physical and mental health. There are also some ways of eating, things to eat, and relationships people can have with food that either put their physical and mental health at risk, or outright harm either or both.

So, "Is it okay to eat food? Can't eating food cause harm?" isn't a question anyone could answer, because that's much, much too big a question, and one with a range of answers depending on what kind of food we're talking about, how people are eating, and what their relationship with food or eating is.

Same goes with what you're asking about pornography.

[Heather]

The use of any media, including sexual media like pornography, is always something we can change if it's impacting us in ways we don't like. We simply will change our habits, then, and give new habits time to turn things around.

Porn is media: media can't create "permanent" ways of our bodies reacting or thinking, or do some kind of irreversible damage. You make films, so you already know this! Figure that it's probably useful for you to think about this kind of media a lot like you do any media you make or appreciate that isn't sexual entertainment media.