Reader's Question

Dear Sex Therapist,
I am a virgin, but I have masturbated. I am working on it and trying to stop, but I was wondering if when I do get married and have sex if masturbating will have effected that? Also, is masturbating together with your husband wrong?

Sex Therapist's Answer

Masturbating before you are married should not affect your ability to have sex at all. It can actually make it easier in that you know your body and you know what feels good - many women enter marriage not knowing that. There can be some negative effects which can come from masturbating such as masturbating compulsively - medicating feelings instead of being sexual, not being able to transition to being sexual with a partner, or feeling shame about masturbation and the shame gets connected to being sexual. But most of the time, masturbation before marriage does not have a negative effect for women.

Instead of thinking about your masturbation question in terms of right and wrong, let's think about it in terms of what is best. See (http://moralrevolution.com/dating-and-sex/the-sex-therapist/2011/03/shame-in-masturbating-ask-the-sex-therapist) where I talk about this. With any sexual behavior we want to ask the question, "Is this behavior helping me be more intimate with my spouse, is it loving?" So if masturbation with your spouse is a part of being intimate and loving, and you would say yes to that, then I would say it's fine. If masturbation with your spouse is more of an individual thing where you are not connecting or you are using each other, then I would say it would not be the best choice for that couple.