The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups Read Online Free PDF Page B

again not surprisingly.
    In other words, masturbation is totally normal. A recent study by the Kinsey Institute found that nearly 85 percent of men living with a sexual partner reported masturbating in the past year. The same study found that 45 percent of women in a relationship masturbate. After the first erotic phase of a relationship subsides, people discover that they aren’t always horny at the same time.
    Masturbation can fill the need for sexual release. Feel free to go at it if you’re traveling on your own and you miss your partner and you’re horny. It’s certainly better than picking up someone in a bar. Masturbation is especially encouraged for women who have had trouble with orgasms in the past and need to become better acquainted with their body so they know what it takes to please themselves. (They can then share this delightful information with their partners.)
    But—and this is one of the biggest buts in the whole book—masturbation can become an enormous problem in your relationship if one partner gets so used to self-pleasuring that he or she can’t get aroused by regular sex any more. If that happens to your sex life or your partner’s sex life, it’s time to take action.
    That’s because there’s a potential psychological hazardto masturbation. Sex, as you know, is about a whole lot more than just the physical aspect of orgasm. What’s so wonderful about sex is how it engages all of your five senses: sight, by how you see your partner; hearing, by the murmurs and whispers and pleasurable sighs you both are (or at least should) be making; taste, by the deliciousness of kissing each other’s body parts; smell, by all the evocative scents emanating from your bodies; and touch, by how you feel and explore and caress and hug. Each of these stimuli helps to make sex an incredibly pleasurable experience.
    What happens when people masturbate, however, is that they concentrate specifically on the orgasm part, not the rest of it. Sense of touch is obviously highly engaged, and personal noises and fantasies are running through the mind, but the masturbator is only enjoying these senses on his or her own. They’re unique to the masturbation experience and can’t be shared.
    Masturbation can only be a solitary pursuit. It’s fine on occasion but shouldn’t be a regular part of your sexual repertoire, especially if it begins to interfere with your sexual activities with your partner. In other words, chronic masturbation isn’t great if you or your partner is using it as your primary source of sexual pleasure. A chronic masturbator knows what gets things going quickly—like props or sex toys or certain locations—and can stimulate in exactly that way. Usually, this means a pretty zippy ride between initial thought and ejaculation. Great for him when he’s in the mood for a “wank,” as they say in Britain about quick climaxes. Not good for you when you’re in the mood for a lovely, long love-making session.
    Here’s the kicker: A penis that has grown accustomed to a particular kind of sensation leading to rapid ejaculation will not work the same way when it’s aroused differently. Orgasm is delayed or doesn’t happen at all, often leaving you both frustrated and sometimes even feeling like failures. Women may blame themselves, thinking perhaps they’re not desirable or skilled at lovemaking. Men may think there’s something wrong with their performance. The truth is, the more your partner relies on his solo skills, the more his couple skills skid to a halt.
    This happens to many more couples than you would think. Once you and your partner master the listening skills in Part II , I’ll show you how to get your partner to listen better, to make you feel more secure and to increase your desire—the LSD—so you’ll be better able to state your needs, and he will be better able to hear and act on them.
Too Little: Premature Ejaculation
    On the opposite end of the time-to-orgasm spectrum was