Brendan: My name is Brendan from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and I was wondering, are there any negative side-effects to masturbation?
Sallie Foley: Brendan, your question about whether or not there are any negative side-effects to masturbation, is a really important one. William Masters, a very famous sex therapist and researcher was once asked at the end of his career, what he thought was the most important thing that he did in his lifelong career?
And he said, probably to move masturbation from being seen as something that was wrong or morally degenerate to being seen as the number one sex therapy treatment technique that we have and also for people to accept that it's a very normal expression in their body. It's a chance to understand how your body gives you pleasure and then if one chooses to be able to share that information with the partner.
So masturbation is normal and people can masturbate at different levels. A couple of times a day, once a day, once a month or once a year, it's quite different. We talk about masturbation being a problem in terms of a side-effect, only if it begin to interfere with your daily living activities.
Some people have an anxiety disorder or they have compulsive disorders, OCD for a instance, that causing them to masturbate so frequently that they are unable to accomplish normal tasks of living.
In that case, you would want to see your physician and get a referral to a sex therapist or psychiatrist who works regularly with this problem and they may also want you to take a medication for that. But in general, if you find that you masturbate for pleasure and that it doesn't interfere with life, then there is no problem or negative side-effect whatsoever.
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