How do you even masturbate in a healthy way?

That was not good at the end of the day because a lot of these people that used playboy magazines are now using P videos (mostly the hardcore and grosier stuff). To do M in a "healthy way" i guess you would need to control yourself for like 1 or 2 times a month (idk how bad your addiction level is, then feel free to think better about that, just don't recommend you do it everyday).

"Relapse" is up to you. What is a relapse in your opinion? There are people here that already consider M a relapse, others just a reset, then it's up to you.

Professional therapists won't get the same opinions as we "rebooters". There are a lot of them that see P stuff as "normal" and even healthy or funny (what is not true, we know how screwed it is and how terrible our lives become due the consumption of that crap) and most of them, if not all, will say that you could M everyday as long as you are not being bothered.

The point is, do you think M is healthy? If a professional therapist told you what was told, do you agree? Or would you like to try to abstain for X days? Only you can answer your own question.

 

This is a problem, isn’t it? You are not the first to ask this question, not the first to go on an exploratory mission to find the elusive “healthy wank,” and should you choose to go down that path, you will not be the first to discover it is nearly, if not completely, impossible.

Your therapist is in a position where she wants to embrace the modern value of sex positivity and openness, but avoid the pitfalls and the unfortunate reality as I see it is the two are mutually exclusive.

It got you confused because it’s a stupid position to take. Playboy was/is “just” a milder version of the harmful practice she’s trying to help you rehab out of, and she would be able to see this if she thinks about it critically, but above all, honestly. Why is harmful porn harmful? Why is Playboy, in her paradigm, acceptable? What is the difference, where is the line drawn? Is it the anatomical detail that pushes other forms of porn over the edge? Is it the exploitative nature? Is it the unrealistic, unattainable standards, the false expectations engendered by harmful porn? All of these things exist in Playboy. She’s figuratively talking about ingesting a little arsenic, of killing yourself gradually, instead of consuming a lethal dose all at once.

It might be because we were contaminated with extreme porn, or it might be that healthy M does not in fact exist for anyone ever, but for addicts, there definitely is no such thing. Trying to keep urges at bay with a little M only feeds the beast, keeping it alive, and makes it easier to re-escalate to former levels of self-abuse. It’s like an alcoholic trying to drink socially. Nope. We are forced to adopt tighter standards, because we can’t handle anything else.

Don’t worry about your prostate, that’s a poorly designed study, you’re going to be fine. Porn will deplete your quality of life anyway. The only healthy sexual expression is inside a committed relationship, for pair-bonding with a life partner. Anything else, whether that be pursuing multiple, “casual” relationships, or fantasizing about all the sex you’ll never have, is going to end in disappointment and regret. This isn’t me being puritanical & sex negative, this is me reporting observations.

 

I really wish I could masturbate in a healthy way. Sometimes I feel like I do…

…and then I enjoy it too much. And then I’m back to binging.

 

To be honest, I would like not to masturbate at all. But I must say that I like it and I like porn.