Let's Talk About Sex (Masturbation, actually) - Day 9

Not exactly eager to talk openly and honestly about sex & masturbation, and yet all too eager still to talk about sex & masturbation. So let's go, let's talk openly and honestly and not impulsively.

I have identified myself today as feeling "sexually frustrated." I even solidified it with a sigh.

The last time I had sex was about 7 months ago, and after that I committed happily to myself that the next person I would have sex with would be a person about whom I genuinely care, and who in turn genuinely cares for me. For the most part these past 7 months have passed by without much incident, and indeed masturbation has on average never been a big part of my life, although there's still a lot to dig into there I'm sure, especially surrounding the emergence of masturbation in my lifetime. Meanwhile, when I am with a sexual partner, I am nearly insatiable (but I'm also rarely with someone where I don't try to use sex as a way to feel safe and cared for, among other manipulations of myself and others through sex). So, whatever that means: all kinds of things to be identified and articulated at some point.

I don't know a lot about sex and masturbation from the desteni perspective. What I do know is that as I am listening to the Shocking Secrets of Masturbation series (I have gotten as far as part 4) I am noticing an increased desire to masturbate and increased existence within my mind imagining sexual encounters. It's like someone telling me not to touch the stove because it's hot, so I touch it! It looks so much better when it's off-limits, plus the desire seems to increase with increased awareness through listening to this topic (whoa, this is also relevant to part of why and how I end up choosing sexual partners who really aren't productive, "healthy" choices -- "we love the things that hate us," thanks atmosphere, among many other influences for this realization). 

I also know that apparently there is some mysterious universal consequence to masturbation that I am as of yet unaware of but hope to soon understand. There are a few consequences that I personally experience and am very aware of:

• Active participation within my mind as imagination 
• Counter productive and solidified with action
• Self-abusive desire for orgasm. 
• As Sunette says in one of the earlier parts of the series, it's like saying "Fuck you" to Life. 
• It's like saying "fuck you" to myself, too, when the starting point is what it so often is. 
• Energy sucking vacuum
• Often begins from a starting point of anger, resentment, or depression, if not just selfish desire (which is the same thing anyway)
• Often results in apathy and complacency, lethargy
• Usually experience a "bad day" if I start it out by masturbating 
• Guilt, shame? 
• Focus drained by focusing on orgasm; apathy and complacency result as all energy was placed into achieving orgasm. 
• Once achieved: Nothing else matters; mission accomplished, no residual care for other efforts/pursuits
• If given up on: Sometimes a better scenario actually. Initial shame and guilt and frustration, but then I get over it. It happened (or didn't, hah), whatever, move on. 
• Perhaps increased ease of ability to sustain interest in accomplishing other efforts/pursuits. 
• Knowing all of this increases the urges. Like, a lot. War. 
• Extinction burst? Maybe. 
• Excuse? No. 

I am eager to learn more through listening to this series and any reading I might find. One thing I just found is just a brief statement in the FAQ under "What Does Desteni Stand For":

Masturbation: within self-honest expression within aagreement with self.

I'd certainly like to understand that more and I'm sure it will become more clear. I know I have had a very few experiences with masturbation that I think were close to this, wherein my mind was not imagining scenarios but instead my entire being was focused on the enjoyment and experience of the sensations themselves, myself. Pretty great, not muddied. I suppose this might be a self-honest expression of masturbation.

But for now I want to delineate what happened up to writing this post:

Pretty persistently for at least a week but probably more I have felt an increased desire for sex and masturbation. Today I felt a strong desire for sex and masturbation. Tonight I came home and considered in my mind if I should masturbate. I weighed options, including the consequences I am already aware of above. I took care of some other obligations. I even ended up getting distracted from the idea such that the physical desire was no longer pressing. But it still remained in my mind and truthfully I had probably already decided many moments before that I was going to masturbate, which is obvious by the lack of present physical desire and the fact that I still masturbated. I hesitated briefly, seeing if I might take the opportunity to NOT masturbate. Who would I be? I even mapped out a kind of outline for writing on this topic and the information I've been accumulating here. I thought about how much more productive it would be to get up and start writing this: look at all I was discovering in this little outline in my head! I even considered how in my past experience, masturbation really shuts me off, and how if I went ahead and masturbated I would likely have a hard time getting back into this outline and writing process, which would really be too bad. My dog even got up on my bed and groaned loudly, which I chose to interpret as a kind of intervention on her part. I don't think she likes it when I masturbate. I think she knows it's usually unproductive. As all of this weighing occurred, all of this consideration, even all of this knowing of what the result would be, the desire only grew. I thought: this is scientific, right? I can experiment here and see what happens and write about it, haha. Or, I'll deal with the consequences. They don't matter. Or, but it will feel soooo gooooood. Eventually I said: "fuck it;" I said: "fuck you," and masturbated.

And it was all good and fun and all the things that masturbation is. But after I felt so tired and shut down and off and indeed drained because here I had taken all of the resources within me and put them toward this one thing, and built up all this energy in achieving this one thing, and of course had to neglect my planned outline in favor of this achievement, and so I felt drained and exhausted and out of touch.

This could, of course, go a completely different direction with a different starting point. Masturbation could probably even bring with it greater clarity, motivation, integrity within action, etc. So the problem isn't the masturbation, as I have experienced. The problem is within the starting point, which is a starting point of desire, of resentment, of frustration, of lack, of loneliness, of disregard for life, disregard for responsibilities, and disregard for my self-directive agency within my life and my breath.


Ok, so here we go:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify myself as "sexually frustrated," creating this as an immutable fact within my experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want something I know I shouldn't have, seemingly because I know I shouldn't have it. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify desire as bigger than me. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to watch desire grow without doing anything about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to actively participate within my mind through and as my imaginations of sexual encounters. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to actively participate within these imaginary sexual encounters through and within masturbation, actualizing my imagination such that it becomes a kind of reality through my physical experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress sexual urges out of fear or discomfort or shame. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delay on writing about sexual urges because I've felt so helpless and also embarrassed. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to let my feelings/emotions move me. Fuck feeling embarrassed! Embarrassment isn't real.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make a decision consciously and subconsciously before considering all of the options and coming back to my breath. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stick to that decision even after further consideration and realizations and evidence to act differently.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to find justification for my selfish desire. Within this justification I know I am lying to and manipulating myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up and give in as if I am powerless. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to know that I am powerful and self-responsible, but abdicating that power and responsibility in favor of a quick pleasurable sensation. I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to participate in masturbation from a starting point of power and responsibility within self-honesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to allocate all of my resources and energies into masturbation and achievement of orgasm when those resources and energies are best used elsewhere.

And yet here I am writing, so it's not like I didn't recover my resources and energy. Because I am my resource and I am my energy. They don't even really exist, it's just me, here, directing myself.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fuel my guilt and shame with accepted and allowed experiences of draining and exhaustion and I commit myself to continued practice of self-directive agency within each new breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to engage in masturbation through a starting point of desire, resentment, frustration, lack, loneliness, or disregards for life, responsibilities, or my self-directive agency within my life and breath. Again, starting-point is key.