My discovery of Mindful Masturbation proved transformational—not by changing me into something else, but by allowing me to open up into my true self. I began to let go of many ways in which I had failed to accept & love myself. To be truly yourself, instead of presenting yourself as something else, is a great gift & quite rare. You can do this, you can have this for yourself, if you choose it. My mission is encouraging you in this process.

Two basic human motivators are fear & love. Fear of immediate harm may protect you, but beyond that, fear is all in your mind & becomes a destructive force. Much of the aggression & violence the world now suffers stems from the basic root cause of male sexual frustration, a fear of failure—a failure to love yourself. Cultures worldwide fail to teach males how to love themselves & how to enjoy sexuality free from guilt, shame, or ego-games. We are conditioned to dissociate emotion from erotic sensations, & to disconnect our heads from our bodies. We must be in control. Sex is a hunt or a conquest. Feeling is considered a weakness. We must be strong. We must not be vulnerable. It's win or lose. In this sense, to some extent all human males are walking wounded.

No one can undo this damage for you. However you can begin putting the pieces back together for yourself. You can achieve wholeness & integrity within yourself. Among the falsehoods we're generally conditioned to believe, is that sex is a matter of giving & taking: a process of negotiation or manipulation of other persons. As the saying goes: "It ain't necessarily so!" Break this conditioning. By accepting the full responsibility for how much erotic pleasure you enjoy, you can liberate yourself from all sorts of ego-games & dependency.

This begins by re-considering masturbation, not as an alternative to "real sex" or an alternative to anything. Consider masturbation as an honorable practice worthy of pursuing for its own sake. By dedicating yourself to reclaiming the erotic potential that has been stolen from you, you begin to achieve greater wholeness, balance, & harmony within your own being. It also changes the ways in which you touch other people. When you are no longer motivated by neediness, you are able to share yourself in a new manner, fearlessly, no longer to win or lose the game, but to continue living in harmony with yourself & with others.

By changing how you masturbate, you change how you function in many basic ways. You generate wonderful brain chemicals & hormones that improve your well-being & happiness, not only while you're masturbating, but throughout your daily life. Realizing that limitless bliss is yours, you no longer cling to pleasure. You can also deal with pain & suffering more effectively. You achieve greater serenity & peace of mind, while increasing your energy & unleashing your creativity. You become a happier, healthier, better-adjusted man. You are able to contribute your best to humanity & to the world. My mission is to empower you to do this for yourself.

WHY & HOW IT WORKS

Human males usually develop fixed masturbation habits quite early. Sometime during boyhood or the early teens, most guys learn or figure out how incredibly good it feels to stimulate their penis. More often than not this habit is practiced furtively, quietly, quickly, with anxious concern over discovery. Such factors, as well as social attitudes of scorn or even condemnation for the practice, prevent many males from exploring creative possibilities.

While such a habit of repetitive stimulation leading to ejaculatory release may prevent sexual frustration, it accomplishes little more than that. The reward often remains shallow, little more than skin-deep. Unfortunately, it may also be accompanied by shame & guilt that are further reinforced by the practice. Even worse, the association of physical pleasure with these elements of low self-esteem add up to serious problems for the male psyche. Much of our inherent good nature gets disrupted. Perhaps one broad effect of this general sexual dysfunction is the widespread violence & destruction that human males enact upon the world in general. And the sum of these influences prevents genuine self-acceptance. Thus how can one appreciate & accept others as they are?

These unfortunate associations with masturbation tend to parallel the broader social conditioning of males, in which our heads get separated from our bodies, & our hearts are distanced from erotic sensations. Men are supposed to be rational, in control, not susceptible to the weakness of emotional feelings. Much of this male "toughness" boils down to a conditioned inability to love yourself, & hence others. Still, it's our male nature to relish the physical sensations of simple erotic pleasure while in the act of masturbating, to savor such sensations for their own sake. In itself, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this natural aspect of masculinity.

So why not take something you love doing anyway, & develop it into something far more extraordinary? Masturbating can be practiced as the most literal & effective form of loving yourself. When you consciously, deliberately open yourself to explore the possibilities of pleasuring & loving yourself more creatively, more skillfully, more effectively, some new & different effects emerge. You'll feel more intense & prolonged pleasure than ever before, but there's a lot more to it than just feeling extremely good.

This begins when you deliberately & consciously break whatever patterns of behavior you use while masturbating, & by adding greater awareness & new tactics to the process. Such simple keys as basic anatomical knowledge, breathing more effectively, learning to relax, changing positions, employing various strokes, & learning how to avoid ejaculating unless you choose to, can take masturbating to new levels. Like any skill, a combination of specific techniques & dedicated practice are required to progress. This begins the process of restoring the connection between your head & your body, between your heart & your genitals.

Our expanding knowledge of the brain & nervous system is converging with the insights of psychology. We know that an important part of the brain called the "hypothalamus" produces substances called "neuropeptides" that are crucial to how we feel & how we function. Old habits & attitudes reinforce the production of certain brain chemicals & hormones. Our behaviors are importantly influenced by the structure of the brain, but the reverse is also true. Deliberate behavioral changes actually alter the physical structure & functioning of the brain. This discovery of "neuroplasticity" is now proving this fact. When you break patterns of behavior, when you consciously choose new tactics & attitudes, you effect brain change & in turn change your mind. You can improve & enhance your intelligence & well-being in this way.

I suspect that masturbating more mindfully & deliberately exploring new & more creative methods of self-pleasuring influences the hypothalamus, the neuropeptides it produces & can make lasting improvements in brain function & structure.

This may seem a radical proposition by traditional standards, however remember that much of our culture is still in the process of accepting that masturbation is not only harmless, but a healthy & natural practice. What we're exploring here is the next frontier in erotic engineering, the proposition that masturbating can be something far more than OK. I propose that masturbating mindfully be considerd a powerful & effective means of enhancing intelligence, & producing psychological benefits.

Though we now have some idea how this works in more scientific detail, what matters is what happens in practice. Breaking old patterns of behavior opens the doors to limitless new possibilities. When old habits of poor self-esteem, guilt & shame no longer get reinforced, they gradually fall away from neglect. By giving energy to new, exciting, constructive, life-enhancing possibilities, both you & your life may improve dramatically as an ongoing process.

WHERE WE ARE GOING

Human males seem more inclined than human females are to seek & enjoy physical, erotic pleasure for its own sake. Human females seem more inclined to associate erotic sensations with emotional intimacy. Whether innate, or learned, there's nothing right or wrong about these differences. At the same time, men are often conditioned to believe that sexual pleasure is a matter of giving & getting something from another person or persons. An adjunct to this is the assumption that masturbating is only a recourse, an alternative, or perhaps something childish, only for losers who can't "get it" from someone else.

Such notions evaporate swiftly with the realization that we must learn to love ourselves better before we can love other people better. Some might argue that sex & love are not one & the same, but this may be the very problem. Love & sex can & ought to be connected, so that loving yourself emotionally also becomes having sex with yourself, being your own first & best lover. By returning to this point, wherever else you may have ventured in your experience, you have the opportunity of beginning anew, re-creating yourself, initiating a new process to carry you through the grand adventure of the rest of your life. Re-training yourself to masturbate far more skillfully will begin changing you on every level. Eventually you will approach intimate sharing with others from a new perspective of improved confidence, serenity, opennness & generosity.

Men of all sexual persuasions share a natural love of masturbating, & to openly acknowledge this reality is liberating. Aside from the conditioned fear of male intimacy, most human males can even enjoy masturbatory sharing with other men. Whether you practice solo, or with other guys, by masturbating mindfully you can nourish & nurture your being on many levels. Allow erotic sharing with females to become truly consensual. When women are relieved of unwelcome sexual pressure, they let men know when they are interested & want sex.

There are no rules for what I call Mindful Masturbation, except that I urge you never to harm yourself or hurt anyone else in the process. Please accept from my offerings whatever works best for you. We've only started scratching the surface of what's possible by consciously exploring our erotic potential. Just as pioneer psychologists began exploring the mind during the last century, the exploration of this new frontier continues in the coming century. By opening ourselves to these unlimited horizons, embracing our authentic embodiement & becoming more & more who we really are in essence, we do what we can to improve the world.