Mindful Masturbation

Setting the Scene

It is a Sunday morning and I am sitting in the bath, about to  masturbate with a toy. It is nearly two weeks since I decided that I was going to prioritise me time and connecting with my body.  The fact that it has taken so long to get to this point is not only a sign of what I am dealing with and evidence that I need to be doing this, but also an indication of why it is a challenge for me. It is the first time I have ever done this – not masturbate, but masturbate in the bath. In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I have done it when I wasn’t in my bed, under the covers, with my eyes closed. I wonder if mindful masturbation will be too big a step for me.

The Background

It has taken me a while to see that this is probably an issue for me. I have tried all sorts of kink, including edge play and some of the more unusual things, and yet I have never gone off for a bath and played with myself until I came. This is not because it is difficult for me to come, because I am fortunate in that I can orgasm relatively easily from stimulation to my clit; I think it is because of my relationship with myself and my body. The fact that it has taken my fifty years, thirty seven of those being ones where I was sexually aware and experimenting, seems odd to me.

I am open about sex and I am open minded about the sorts of things that people like and want to try, so when I thought about the way that I masturbate, it surprised me that I seemed to be a bit repressed.  My relationship with HL is as intimate as I feel two people can be and we share our inner most thoughts and feelings with one another regularly, and yet, I don’t ever masturbate for him. If he asks me too, as he has done, it is a mechanical process of touching and there is no arousal at all. In fact worse than that, it actually turns me off.

I won’t taste myself on him either. While I am happy to interact with his body and his bodily fluids in a variety of ways, I draw the line at my own. It is almost as if I want to exist and experience things in a way which sets me apart from my body. I want to escape into the feelings and the thoughts without the reality of the corporeal. I use fantasy to masturbate and rarely get off from the physical sensations alone. I have to leave myself and get lost somewhere that I don’t exist in that sense.

Now that I write it, this strikes me as messed up. My negative relationship with myself is pretty deep rooted and one that I have written about before. My negative relationship with my body is also well documented and, while I have come to accept both on much more healthy terms, I see now that sexually there is still a pretty large block. That is why I decided to make connecting with my body a priority as I would like to see if I can reverse or change the way that I am and push past psychological the limits I seem to have imposed on myself.

The Value

If I can do this, it will have a big knock-on effect to my sexual relationship with HL and will open doors to responses that I have not had before. So I decided at the start of the year to try to overcome some of these blocks and to use mindful masturbation to push past them.  What I wanted to start with was simple: Firstly to masturbate somewhere that I wouldn’t usually; secondly to focus on only the feelings that my body was experiencing and keep doing that until I (hopefully) reached orgasm.

Although this must seem such a tame start to those who are much more in tune with themselves, for me, I felt it had to be a small enough step that I could slowly manage the psychological changes in line with my physical responses.  Ideally I would like to be able to masturbate for HL in a place and time of his choosing, using only my own fingers.  While that doesn’t sound like much to most, for me this is something that I would not currently be able to do. I would try of course, but I would fail. I would like to be able to succeed, for him and for me. Who knows if this is possible but time will tell, I suppose, and any improvement to the way I am currently will be a bonus regardless.

My Approach

Not failing at the first hurdle with this was important so I chose to use a toy which I usually find I can use fairly easily and successfully. It is one of the sort of flower vibes and works well on my clit.  Although I would mostly drift into the realms of fantasy during masturbation, this was not something that I was allowing myself to do on this occasion. The idea with mindfulness is that you focus on the moment, slowing things down and experiencing them through your senses. I thought this would be tough but decided it was a case of pulling my mind back to the present whenever I started to drift.

The stuff of my fantasy is fairly difficult to write about because it exists as snapshots of thoughts and feelings, images and ideas. They are momentary and fleeting but I use them to stimulate and engage my mind and let my body follow the path that they take. They are not stories that I can explain or write down, but I have found that they aid the process by allowing me not to focus on my own body or on what I am feeling. They allow me to lose myself in the things that I have come to see are triggers for letting go.

The Main Event

So when it finally happens, I find myself feeling a bit excited, partly because I have made the time to do this and partly because I feel positive about what I can achieve.  Being a novice, I realise quite quickly that I may have made the water too hot, but I decide not to let that stop me. I also know that if I make it colder then it could be mistake and I don’t want to have to give up. So I go with it and try to let my body absorb the heat in a positive way, rather than letting my mind tell me that it is too hot to for this to succeed.

I concentrate on what I am feeling in a physical sense. If other thoughts come into my head then I push them away. I can feel my brain trying to direct me down my usual path and I shift position and switch up the way I am using the toy, so that I can keep my attention where I want it to be. I move it around noticing the way it feels when the tendrils touch different parts of my clit. I feel like I am using it more forcefully in the water than I would be if I were in bed, but I don’t really know.

I can feel myself responding and the pleasure increasing.  What usually happens is that I get to a point and then move and the thoughts jump in. This time I follow the same pattern but I reject the thoughts and seek my focus, finding a way to touch myself which gets a reaction again. The heat feels too much and I move my legs so they are on the edges of the bath. This turns out to be an even better position and I keep going, feeling like I am getting somewhere.

I am enjoying this for the sensation. I feel sexy in some ways and although my eyes are closed I feel okay with myself. I open my eyes and it sort of shifts me but I am able to get back to where I was again. I feel it come in the ebbs and flows that would normally occur, but rather than giving in and letting my thoughts take me, I keep on track, thinking about what I am doing and how that feels. I stay in the moment and I feel it start to build.

I tip out of it a few times and wonder if it will happen at all, but I remind myself that I have all the time I need. That this is not about an orgasm but about my pleasure, about my body and about the way it wants to feel. There is a pattern of dropping off and shifting, I don’t know how many times. I think about the fact that I am allowed to lose control. That this is permitted and that I can just give in to what I am feeling. The level of that thinking makes me dip again but I move the vibrator and feel my body react once more.

By now the heat has consumed me. The coldness in the soles of my feet which usually indicates an orgasm is close is not there. Instead there is a constant fire that surrounds me as my body pushes and bucks and responds to the sensation of the toy. I don’t think about how I look or what others would see. For once I am not present as some sort of third party observer, but am there in the moment and I ride the waves as they build higher and higher.

My orgasm comes and I feel much more part of it that I usually am when masturbating. Although I have focussed on the physical, it feels more like it is part of my whole being, and not just a response to the stimulus as I had expected it to feel. There is a connection with myself and I am surprised about that. I am flushed and tender and am highly aware of my post orgasmic state in a way that I would not normally be. I feel pleased with myself. My first test and I feel like I passed.

The Aftermath

I get out the bath and go to get changed. When HL comes in my face is still rosy. I feel girly and shy when he asks about it but I tell him in a factual way about how it went. The after effects last much longer than they usually would: a feeling of well-being, a feeling of excitement, a feeling of still being horny and in tune with my body.  I conclude that it has gone well. I feel positive in the small step that I have taken, and I wonder where this will all actually go in the longer term.