Welcome back to A Sluts Guide to Happiness where your body is perfectly imperfect and it is safe to be as sexual, kinky, queer, or slutty as you want. 

Today I will be talking with a dear friend, a kinky pansexual person, and an endless well of silly and perverted ideas. He’s also the Chief Visual Officer for Cliff media, Orion Pax.

We’ll be discussing the experience of feeling and unlearning shame about masturbating. 

I’m sure that’s something you’ve never done before, right? Just kidding. Estimates say there are 78% of adults who jack off or rub it out. In other words, four out of five people are spending time touching themselves for personal pleasure. So why are we collectively so scared of talking about this?

We know that masturbation doesn’t have negative physiological side effects. It doesn’t cause vision loss or hairy hands. And it won’t make your dick fall off or dry up your pussy. 

In fact, masturbation can be really physically beneficial. It releases dopamine and oxytocin, those feel good hormones, and it reduces cortisol, all the stress hormones. It also improves sleep, boosts your mood, and can help relieve pain. I know when I have a headache, my go to is to touch myself.  

At an emotional level, masturbation can be a great way to explore sexual desire, learn about your body and enhance your sex life. 

But this universal human desire and healing activity is somehow a social taboo to discuss in this culture. We create these internalized shaming narratives about it.

Orion is going to share some beautiful stories. I’m grateful for his willingness to be vulnerable about his complex journey in relation to masturbation. I think it’s really important because there are a lot of people who experience this. 

Watching porn in particular is not a conversation that’s encouraged in polite society. You’re not supposed to say that you’re touching yourself. Saying that you’re going to go home and relax and read a book is an okay thing to say. But I’m going to go home and relax and jack off is somehow wrong, even though it’s also a beautiful thing to do. 

So these are these are some of the things that we’re going to dive into. What does the shame of masturbation look like and how does it impact your life? 

Why do people masturbate? All different kinds of reasons. What do we do with the feeling of shame and what might be on the other side of that? 

Orion, thank you for being willing to share about this subject. I want to start with an experience you shared with me, something that happened a few years ago. You were in a relationship and for many different reasons, you were spending a lot of time masturbating and having some big feelings about it. So what was going on? 

Orion: 

I was in a relationship with an ex partner for a couple years. It started to fade out and we became less sexually active. I connect with people sexually, it’s a big part of how I relate to people in relationships. 

To cope in that context, I start to masturbate more. It starts to lead to me feeling a little bit of shame about it. When I got off work, I’d masturbate until my partner got home. Sometimes on my lunch break, I would come home and masturbate and then return to work. 

It became so much that I’d wake up in the morning, masturbate and shower, go to work, come home from on my lunch break and jack off, go back to work, and then get off work and jack off. So I’m doing it like three times a day and I’m not connecting with my partner sexually. 

We drifted apart. It makes me start to feel bad about myself. I was confused why she didn’t want to have sex with me. I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. 

It just started to make me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. I didn’t feel comfortable talking to her about it. 

Vanessa: 

Was this a thing you wanted to hide from her, you felt shame talking to her about it? 

Orion: 

Yeah, I wasn’t open about how much I was masturbating. I would hide it to the point where I started timing it precisely to get as much time to masturbate as possible. We had each other’s location so I knew where she was at. So I could see when she got freeway, I got the timing just right to cum then so I was done when she got home. 

Vanessa: 

Did she ever say anything about you masturbating a lot, or about her feelings on masturbation in general? 

Orion: 

No, I don’t think she did. But I have had relationships where that happened. Like my second baby mama used to dislike when I masturbated. I remember one time being in the shower and she opened the curtain and asked, are you masturbating? She had a lot of judgement about it. 

Vanessa: 

What do you think it meant for her? 

Orion: 

I think in that case, with her, she interpreted masturbation as a problem with sexual addiction. It’s an interesting phrase. Like as if she was somehow like my master, telling me I can’t masturbate myself. 

Vanessa: 

There was a period of time when I was not connected to poly community or sex-positive community or sex clubs. I was having five different guys a week come over to my place and I felt like I had a sex addiction too, I felt like it was attached to mental illness. At the time I didn’t know anyone who did anything like that. And it wasn’t until I found a lot of other people like me that i realized it is just a personal preference, it wasn’t something wrong with me. 

It’s interesting that you were even experiencing somebody labeling your relationship to your own body, which is not even going out and fucking a bunch of people. But you internalized someone else asking you what you’re doing in the bathroom.

Orion: 

Yeah. And there was a lot of that shame with it, with her. I was also unfaithful to her, with my first baby mama. That caused a whole bunch of problems. It affected me emotionally. Labeling that I have sexual addiction, I felt like maybe there is something wrong with me, 

Vanessa: 

So you’ve described cheating that is maybe related to difficulty with being honest in a relationship.

Orion: 

Yes. 

Vanessa:

And another part of the challenge that I’m seeing is that judgments around masturbation also get tied up in fear related to insecurity in the relationship and the monogamy or agreements that you have around sex with other people. 

Orion: 

Yeah, and in that particular case, I was trying to make it work for a child. I had always been unfaithful, I have always been slutty, but in relationships where I felt I couldn’t talk about that. 

But that was the old me. I feel like I’ve gotten to a place where I realize I can be slutty and honest about it. It’s a different part of me. Like you were saying, I had been a slut, but I had been a secret slut. 

I felt like I couldn’t tell anybody about any of this and that created shame. And then when I got into this community, I was like, the fuck, there’s a whole club. I wished I had known. I was doing this shit by myself, hating who I am. It was like a whole like, where the fuck was this my whole life?

Vanessa: 

Yeah, and I think the thing that’s amazing is that the honest agreement is that you can go and fuck people. But even in monogamous relationships, it seems like sex with yourself, masturbating should be an easier norm for people to experience. 

I have heard from other couples that a relationship with yourself is seen somehow either as cheating or breaking the agreement. Or there’s insecurity that you’re not satisfied with your partner, so you’re having to do something else on your own. 

Instead you could see masturbation as a way to connect with yourself and explore your own sexual desires. And as you build up your self-knowledge and confidence, it can make sex with your partner stronger. Have you experience experienced either side of that, the judgement or the impact on the quality of the relationship? 

Orion: 

Yeah, I have definitely experienced both sides of that. When I’m with my partner who likes that about me. That’s a good feeling when your partner doesn’t care if you masturbate or is turned on by you masturbating. I’ve been with partners who like when I send them videos of me masturbating. Every time I get to film this, I get turned on thinking she’s going to like this. I haven’t had many partners that like that.

Vanessa: 

One of the things that you’re describing, you’re finding joy from the experience of having someone affirm your time with yourself. It becomes a source of connection as opposed to something breaking down the relationship because you’re not spending that sexual energy on that person.

Vanessa:

I feel like we can change how we think about it. It can be understood from a scarcity mindset, that sexual energy is a cookie and once you take away pieces of it, it’s gone. Instead, from a mindset of abundance, you can think about pouring energy into a well. By masturbating and imagining, you’re building up your sexual tension so then you have more to give. Your cup is fuller to give to your partner or partners. 

Orion: 

I think that’s very true. What I’ve also noticed is masturbation is where a lot of my fantasies will start to form. I’m at the phase now in my life where like I mean there’s no such thing as something stuck in fantasy, I can make this shit a reality.

Vanessa: 

It’s true. An idea starts as a fantasy. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about sexuality or the type of people that you want to meet or things that you’re going to build or write or explore and create. Whatever you end up doing in the world, it starts first as a dream, an imagination, and then you can make it happen. But you have to have creative capacity first. 

Orion: 

Absolutely. Yeah. You get inspired by something. 

Vanessa: 

So can you give us an example? What are some things that you have masturbated to? Something you wished you could do, and then you realized you could just fucking do it.

Orion: 

Sure, this is an example. I’ve recently come out of a depressive state for the last couple of years. I feel like just because of a relationship breakup and some of my own baggage. So I was masturbating a lot, and I was getting bored of it. It became just a chore. But I was in this depressive state where I didn’t want to meet anybody else. I was feeling bad about myself, feeling like nobody’s gonna want to fuck me right now. 

The junk narratives got to me, the idea that I needed to change my body to be sexy. So I went online and bought a sex doll torso. It was funny because the picture looked normal and it felt affordable at  $79. But when I got it I realized how small it was. 

When I used it for the first time, I thought it was hot. Then one time masturbating, I realized I could combine fantasies. I like sharing my partners, I get off on my partners getting fucked by other people. So I thought to myself, what if I share this toy with somebody. I didn’t have a partner then, but I could do this with the toy. 

I had never seen this on Doublelist or other hookup sites. I took pictures of it. And I was horny, hungry. I created an ad in one day and it led to five guys coming over through the day. 

It inspired other people’s energy. I was surprised how many people wanted to fuck the doll. Based on responses, I could have had double that number of people over. 

I was getting very turned on by doing this. I would have somebody come over, and I was to the point where I had so much sexual energy that I didn’t give a fuck who came over. I was letting anybody over, it didn’t matter who they were. 

The first guy that came over, he was into the toy, I saw him get hard. He sucked me a little bit then he was fucking the doll. He came pretty fast. 

I don’t care that the doll had cum in it after that. I said alright, see you later and I started fucking the doll right after he left. I had a busy night ahead of me. 

It’s this interesting transition of creativity, you’re feeling stuck and bored. And then you have this idea that came to you while you were living inside the horny energy of masturbating and you’re able to act it out. 

Vanessa: 

You can’t go to work in normal society and be like, listen to this creative, positive experience, I connected with five other people this weekend. But if we step outside of normative judgment, actually it’s beautiful, you had positive connections with five different people around this creative new experience. 

I think one of the things you talk about is this energy, your sexual spiritual energy. As you’re masturbating, you’re connecting to that. 

That isn’t just about fucking; that energy is also connecting to life force. It allows you to step for a moment outside of your depression and access creativity and connection and adventure.

You’re seizing a moment of joy that can then be transferred to anything. That energy can transfer over into other aspects of your life. When you have that confidence or creativity, you can bring that to other things. 

Thank you for sharing that. 

I want to ask, you’ve mentioned that masturbation has been a way for you to explore fantasies, and it’s something you used for sleep. 

Going back to that time in your relationship, what are some of the reasons that you were masturbating a lot then? What do you think masturbation gave you physically or emotionally? Are there times when it was a maladaptive coping mechanism? 

Orion: 

I think in the case with the ex-partner, my sexual needs weren’t being met. They were being ignored. Instead of communicating my needs, I sacrificed my needs for the relationship. I felt like, okay you don’t wanna have sex. Well I still love you. 

Thinking about masturbation in my life now, I feel a lot better about it. What I like about masturbation now is that it is a great way to formulate my pervy ideas in my head.

One of my partners says, I love your darkness. I love when she says that because I feel seen. I feel like finally somebody sees this part of me. 

Now I’m more honest and open with everything. In the past, I would have not shared those things with my partner just because I wasn’t comfortable with it on my own.

Vanessa: 

It’s interesting that you’re describing that in that relationship, you were not feeling safe or not wanting to express your sexual needs but you wanted to be with that person. I think of how many people have relationships because they’re raising a kid together or because they’re good cohabitating partners, but their sexual compatibility just isn’t there.

I wish there were possibilities for honesty. Maybe it would be better if they explored sexual adventure together, polyamory or something else, but at least they’re not doing that. But at least masturbation is a coping mechanism, a sexual outlet. 

But in addition, when you’ve attached the junk narrative that you heard from a past partner who asked you if you were masturbating in the shower and thought you were addicted to sex. That all gets wrapped up together in a different story about masturbation

Orion: 

Yeah. I also think about porn in general. I remember as a teenager getting busted for having porn magazines and getting in pretty big trouble. It was always like this shameful thing, asked what are you doing looking at naked bodies?

I could get into a certain depressive mindset. You start to listen to that junk voice when you’re not listening to your own voice. I think that’s the difference for me, at least, those shame narratives kind of take over.

Vanessa: 

Because when you’re in a depressive state, it’s hard to see. It’s hard to listen to this like voice because this is just you can’t you that you can’t see above the water. Especially when you’re isolating yourself, you’re feeling like the things that you’re doing are a secret.

Orion: 

Yeah, you can’t talk about my secret. So then that leads to not being able to connect with somebody else and hiding these things about myself and that leads to shame. That leads to me feeling like something’s wrong with me. I feel like I’m not normal because I like this stuff.

Vanessa: 

And I think that can be really painful because we are wired for connection as humans. Even the people who are most introverted need other people. And to have to keep secrets then becomes corrosive to the spirit. It becomes a source of fear, of disconnection. 

To be able to share your truth allows for opportunities like you’re describing with your partner and sharing your masturbation videos. And you described in this experience with the sex doll, offering boys to come fuck it with you.

What has changed for you? You are describing a huge transition. You were watching on the phone to see when your partner is coming home so that you can hurry up, cum and wash your hands before she gets there. And now you’re telling people about your masturbation with your partners and here on the podcast that will all over the internet. 

How did you get here? What has changed in your mind and your spirit for that? 

Orion: 

I believe that it’s just loving myself more and accepting myself. Radical self-acceptance. It’s like you said in your intro, almost everyone masturbates. And that statistic is self-reported. So really it just means about 78% of people in the world admit to masturbating. It’s probably much higher in reality, almost all of us do it. 

Also having a supportive partner helps a lot because it made me feel like if she likes this, it’s more normal. I’m sharing this with her. I feel safe with her, I feel vulnerable, but also okay with feeling vulnerable. 

Vanessa: 

Vulnerability is so scary, but it’s also the root of connection. When vulnerability is received in a way that’s respectful and safe. There’s a certain sexual energy. 

Listeners, if you want to have hot sex with your partner tonight, I dare you to be vulnerable enough to talk about whatever secret you have been hiding with them and see how it goes. What have you masturbated to that you haven’t told your partner about yet?

Because I bet that on the other side of fear is something really hot. Don’t be afraid of that. We all have those secrets in our heads about what we like. 

A lot of us are afraid to tell our partners this, especially in monogamous relationships. You don’t know how they’re going to react. So you just bottle it up and then it becomes something that can eat at you, thinking you wish you could do that to or with your partner. 

Sometimes you can go down some porn rabbit hole and that’s all you’re starting to watch because you want the fantasy, but your partner has no clue. For example, one time I ended up masturbating to the idea of someone cumming in my food. I thought, what the fuck, this is ridiculous. But then I told my partner, they came in my eggs and it was great. 

I used to do this on a much bigger scale a long time ago.  I would masturbate to gangbang porn or porn that was intense kink impact play. But it was before I knew words like impact play, before I knew that emotionally healthy and socially connected people participated in gangbangs. I just thought of it as people getting fucked up. 

I was confused as to why I would want assault or rape. I didn’t have the concept of separating those things out, understanding that enthusiastic consent is everything. Now I’ve found gangbang porn and I know a lot of really smart, empowered, successful, self-loving women, trans folks, and queer people, and even gay dudes who are being sluts and participating in gangbangs or interested in being fucked up. 

We get stuck in these narratives of fear. I was barely able to tell my counselor at the time, and I definitely can’t show anyone that is my fantasy. I felt like I had some fucked up nasty shit in my brain.

But it can also be a sense of connection. All of the things that we’re fantasizing about are part of the response to the human experience. 

Orion: 

Yeah, they all come from masturbation. It’s the well that I go to because you know I really like to push my partner’s boundaries. She’s very open to that and she accepts my ideas, she thinks they’re hot. 

Sometimes it’s a collaborative effort. So sometimes I have this idea with her and I’ll explain it. She says, I love that, but what if we also added this and I feel like that’s even hotter. 

Vanessa: 

What recommendations would you give to people who are dealing with the shame of masturbation right now?

Orion: 

I think I came to the conclusion that we feel like it’s not normal, but it is. Masturbation is sex with yourself. You’re spending time with yourself. You’re enjoying yourself.

Vanessa: 

I love that idea. It is spending time with yourself. There’s a lot of societal discouragement about selfishness, but actually by pouring into yourself, whether that’s taking care of yourself with a bath or telling yourself affirmations that you are amazing, or having sex with yourself, that actually builds your well so that you can give more to others. 

When your well of energy is more full, you can better show up more to other people. You have more energy to care for them in non-sexual daily life, and more creative energy when you’re fucking. 

Orion: 

Plus it feels good. Come on. Why? Why are you doing it? It feels good. We like the way it feels. It’s like you said in the beginning. It’s that dopamine hit. It’s me time. 

Vanessa: 

Well thank you so much for sharing this deep personal journey with us. I know you’re going to masturbate later tonight, so I welcome your creative ideas tomorrow morning.

Thank you, listeners, for joining us. 

This has been another edition of A Slut Guide to Happiness with your host, Vanessa Cliff and our guest Orion Pax. 

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, as well as on cliffmediaproductions.com. Please help us out, like and share this podcast and stay tuned for more deep dives into beautiful, fun, messy waters.

If you’re over the age of 18, you can also check out our video content on our website cliffmediaproductions.com. 

And most of all, I invite you to join us. And the pleasure of being awkwardly human, naked and without pretense. Let’s get free.