Friendship Love And Its Extraordinary Importance

Synopsis: The many marvels of friendship love, an example of widely varying emphases on friendship love and its vast importance, friendship love in good and bad times, and evaluating what friendship love may do for your life are given here.

Friendship love may have saved more lives than any other kind of love!  Friendship love may help people through hard times as much as any other type of love!  Friendship love is often the longest lasting type of love in many people’s lives.  For lots of people friendship love has been the most reliable kind of love in their lives.

Friendship love can be the type of love that has the least complications, hassles and problems.  In the lives of no small number of people it is friendship love that has been the deepest and most profound type of love they have experienced.  So, Dear Reader, I urge you to consider the role of friendship love in your life and its potential in your future.

“Shocked!  That’s what I am, totally and completely shocked!  Trevor and I were going to be married next month and now it’s over, all because I told him he would have to say goodbye to his friends who are single after we are married.  He told me he loved me dearly but to him his deep love with his friends had done him more good than any other kind of love, and he was not about to give up any true friend for the uncertainty of a marriage.  He told me that where he came from friendships were for life while marriages may or may not last, and he thought that anyone who would ask him to give up his true friends couldn’t really love him, and with that he broke off our engagement”.

Teresa who was reporting this had grown up in an American social sphere in which marriage and romantic love were seen as far more important than friendship love.  Trevor on the other hand has been raised in a sphere of European society that emphasized the great importance of life-long, abiding, solid, friend relationships based in real, unending love.  For Trevor and people raised in that social sphere the end of a profound friendship was the cause for far deeper grief than the end of a marriage or even a love-filled romance.  Also in Trevor’s world to use the word “friend” had profound significance while in Teresa’s it was used often in a light and not all that meaningful way.

Mild and very recent acquaintances were sometimes referred to as friends in Teresa’s world but that would never happen in Trevor’s.  Thus, you can see that in different parts of the world and in different social spheres friendship love is given very different levels of importance.  With some “friend” implies the existence of a true, deep, love relationship of great value.  With others “friend” refers to a much more shallow and inconsequential, often temporary relationship in which there is nothing even approaching true, deep love.

Here a deep and true friend is someone with whom you have developed a healthy, real love.  A true friend basically can be a person as close and important to you as a dearly beloved sister, or brother, or other close family member.  Deep and abiding, love-filled, true friendships can make people “family” in the best meaning of that word.  In fact friendship love is as important and sometimes even more important than family love in the lives of many.  It is often friendship love that prevails when all other loves have been found wanting.  There are many who say it was the love from a friend that got them through and able to survive a great tragedy, a horrible defeat, or monstrous loss in their lives.

Often it is a true and deeply loving friend who will tell you the uncomfortable to hear truth about yourself when no one else will.  It is friendship love that gets that friend to stand by you as you blunder and struggle with your life, and your flaws and shortcomings.  It is friendship love that motivates a friend not to give up on you even when you are being absurdly wrong, stupid and self-defeating.  Friendship love for many people is the only love that sustains and protects them through disasters and the bleak times of desolation.

In good times it is friendship love that can provide free flowing companionship, egalitarian compatibility, shared fun, delightful comradeship and someone to share victory celebrations with.  In those times which are ordinary and mundane friendship love can bring easy going relaxation, anti-lonely connection and sweet, pleasant acceptance.

How are you doing at true, deep, abiding, friendship love?  Have you given true friendship and friendship love enough thought?  Enough effort?  Enough importance?  Do you have some ideas of what you might do if you were going to go after more and greater friendship love in your life?  Are you aware that friendship of the deep and love-filled type may greatly enrich your life, open your life to new horizons, cause your life to be lived at a higher plain, and perhaps even save your life?

There’s lots more to consider when thinking about real, friendship love.  I like to ask people to look at the possible future importance of real, friendship love in their lives before getting into a lot of the “how-to’s” of growing friendship love.  If you’re going to really succeed at love broadly friendship love probably has to be one of the things you give a real good look at.

One more thing about this important kind of love.  It is of great importance for you To Be a truly loving friend.  Some people want more and better loving friends but don’t give much attention to being one.  To help you think about this you might want to check out  “The Definitions of Love” in the column on the left of this page, and in particular “The Behavioral Definition of Love” entry.

As always, Grow and Go in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Can you think of a past acquaintance, or friend, or lover you would like to reconnect with and see if you might be able to grow toward a true, friendship-type, love relationship with that person?  If so, what might you do about that?

Related posts:

1. Friendship “Like” to Friendship “Love”
2. Love Bids and Their Astounding Importance
3. A Dozen Kinds of Love to Have in Your Life

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Love is Powerful

 

Should Age Make a Difference -- In Love?

“I think I have fallen in love with someone my father’s age.  Am I sick, crazy, or what?  Do I have a neurotic father fixation?  What’s going on with me?  More importantly what should I do about it? My best friend told me, 'Tabitha, he is too old for you!  You always have been a sensible woman.  You know it can’t work.  Break it off!'  Is she wrong?  Could it work?  Could this be real love?  I’m so confused.”

Tabitha’s concerns are shared by millions of men and women who find themselves attracted to or romantically involved with people their society says are ‘age inappropriate’ for them.  On the basis of age difference alone some people don’t let themselves get involved, or if they are involved they end the relationship.  Others do not let age matter and they plunge ahead no matter what the age difference is.  There are a lot of people who don’t seem to even let themselves romantically notice people outside of what they think is the ‘proper age range’.

A fair number of people hardly consider age differences at all, while for others age difference is a crucial factor.  With different groups in different social spheres ideas about what is the acceptable or proper age range differs widely.  Then there are the rebels who purposefully work against and outside what they see as society’s dictates of correctness.  Consequently these rebels only will let themselves be romantically involved with people much older or much younger than themselves.  There are other people who are absolutely turned off by people close to their own age and for them the greater the age difference the better.

Different people experience very different results when there is a great disparity in the age of the couple in a romantic relationship.  I remember Sheila who talked of the love affair that saved her life and gave it purpose.  That love affair was one that started when she was 23 and he was 83.  It only lasted six years but it was the most influential and joyous six years of Sheila’s young adult life according to her.  What was your reaction when you read 23 and 83 years old?  Then there was Johnny who told of his affair with his very French French instructor who he described as a worldly older woman of deep passion and deeper understanding.  Without his exceptional relationship with her he said he could never have come to successfully love anyone, including himself.

Views on love and age differences seem to be varying ever more widely.  One view is, if you want a standard marriage, to raise kids, to have your extended family accept you, and to fit in with your ‘normal’ neighbors you had better marry somebody who is fairly close to your own age.  If you don’t mind being different or if you want to be different, age doesn’t matter just so long as you have healthy, real love going on between the two of you.

Another view is, once a person has achieved a sort of basic maturity and can be seen as sufficiently adult it’s OK for them to love and be loved by any other adult.  Actually this is the view held and supported by the law in much of the world today.  The problem is age is not a very good measure of actual maturity.  I once served as an expert witness in a case where a 22-year-old teacher was arrested for having sex with a 16-year-old student.  This officially under-age student had for three months led five children out of harm’s way in a Central American revolution after her own parents were assassinated.  She came from a country where marriage or affairs between couples of these ages was common   Not only was she a full-time student but she also was a full-time job holder in a responsible position.  Despite all signs of this student’s psychological maturity the teacher was deemed guilty and was headed for prison.  Teacher/student sex laws have been designed to protect a youth from being victimized by a predatory adult and sometimes may be interpreted too narrowly. 

As is sometimes the case, the law’s attempt to govern love was thwarted.  With help from a church this couple managed to escape to a Caribbean nation where now they are both outstanding citizens of that nation, are both teachers and are raising their four children in a healthy, happy home by all accounts.

Do you agree that our world needs all the healthy, real love it can get?  If so then perhaps romantic, sexual, marital and all other types of love between adults of vastly different ages had best be completely accepted and honored.  If the love is real and healthy, perhaps age differences don’t really matter.  Right?  Of course, not everyone agrees with that kind of thinking.

People who want to have rules for how love should work and be governed keep having problems about age and what should be socially sanctioned.  In the modern Western world it wasn’t too long ago that in some areas an age difference of greater than three years was questionable, and an age difference of 10 years was totally unacceptable.  Now in certain social spheres just about any age is OK if the couple is happy and doing well.  There are those who protest saying that anything beyond seven, or maybe 10, or maybe 12, or maybe 15 years is unseemly or even perverted and psychologically sick.  Do you think there’s anything ‘sick’ about a loving couple who shares an age gap of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 plus years?  If a 20-year-old is in love with a 40-year-old does it bother you?  If a 40-year-old is in love with a 60-year-old is that bothersome?  How about a 60-year-old with an 80-year-old?  Then, of course, what about an 80-year-old with a person who has reached the century mark, should that concern us?

Think about what these people had to say.  “Marlena is 20 years older than me,” said Bob.  “But she is one astonishing female.  My friends and family complained when I told them about us, but I just couldn’t pass up such a wonderful woman, and besides I love her so much”.  On the death of her husband who was 30 years her senior Francine said, “I’ll be forever grateful for the time I had with Darrell and I wouldn’t trade my relationship with him for anyone or anything else in the world.  I’ll probably go on to love someone else, I suppose.  That’s what Darrell wanted me to do.  I think my next relationship probably will be good too, but it will be far better because of my love with Darrell and what it did for me”.  Elaine told of her affair with an older man being in every way superior to what she had experienced with ‘boys’ her own age who she saw as just not having enough to offer.  George said much the same thing about his “cougar” and sees her as someone who is refreshingly free of the hang ups of youth like some of the people in his own age group.

In the many issues influencing love I like to look at what history and culture and science have to tell us.  A lot of people get rather upset when they find out that history, different cultures and science frequently tell us things that are very different from what contemporary society would have us think.  They discover that the history taught by the movies and many high school teachers is not at all that accurate and often is not the complete story of what really happened.  For some even more upsetting is how different other contemporary cultures, nations, societies, etc. are regarding age as compared to their own.  Then there’s science which keeps discovering new ways to understand how we and the universe work and what really is ‘age’?

The upsetting nature of truth when arrived at through the pathways of history, multiculturalism and science seems to apply when considering age differences and healthy, real love.  Historically marrying someone close to your own age is a very recent development.  For a very long time in many parts of the world and throughout Western world history a man was supposed to establish himself so he could be a good provider which usually meant he was in his late 20’s or early 30’s, and then he was supposed to marry a young teenager preferably someone between 13, or at most 17 years of age. 

For a woman to be unmarried at 18, or as old as 20 meant she had ‘missed it’.  Mary was thought to have been a young teen when she joined with Joseph who was probably in his 30’s.  Cleopatra is believed to have been a teenager when she bore a son by Julius Caesar who was in his 40’s or older.  Empress Catherine The Great of Russia had a lengthy series of lovers, each a young lieutenant in their 20’s right up to the end of her long and productive life.  Indeed powerful men and women of every age have taken young lovers very much there junior.  This was as true for women as for men. 

Throughout history it has been usual for many a wealthy queen, duchess, countess or well-off commoner widow to acquire one or more young lovers.  It is interesting to note that science has discovered evidence that shows having a young lover often makes the physiology of both older men and women function in a more healthful and youthful way.

Love between age similar people historically seldom has been the accepted or the preferred style.  It wasn’t until democracy began to catch on in the 1700’s that love, sex and marriage between people more similar in age started to gain real popularity in some avant-garde, liberal circles.  Now it may be more avant-garde, democratic and liberal for people of very different ages to engage in love, sex and marriage.

Sciences tell us that having meaningful relationships with people of widely differing ages can be very good for us.  This can include love and sex which apparently adds substantially to the benefit.  Older men and women physically seem to age more slowly with younger lovers.  Younger people psychologically stabilize and mature more completely with the mentoring of older lovers.  There is some thinking that says polyamore couples who are involved with widely age-different other couples, or an individual, also garner these benefits.

Couples who have wide age differences quite often do face struggles with age prejudice.  Friends and family may attempt to break up age-different couples.  Societal acceptance may be withheld and the pressures of conforming to cultural norms may be severely applied.  Some age-different couples discover the disapproval of others actually can be used to strengthen their love bond with each another as they fight against this form of age discrimination.  Many couples with age disparity also discover that their age differences are very enriching, but it’s true other couples experience these differences as seriously divisive.

If an age-different couple knows how to do ‘I win, you win’ love relating they usually discover that no one has to lose because of age difference.  They add to each other by way of their differences instead of becoming conflicted.  As is true of all couples, the trick here is to live doing the behaviors of healthy, real love and avoiding the actions that are anti-love.  When that is done it seems age makes no vital difference.  Of course, some people handle age differences well and some don’t.  There are those who delight in the surprises and challenges that their age differences bring them, and there are those who are increasingly annoyed, aggravated and upset by these differences.

Age difference seems to be a cause for some people to break up, and for others it means almost nothing, while still others find it enjoyably challenging and rewarding.  As with all other kinds of couples, a healthy self-love and a true love of life turns out to be far more important than an age difference.

With all that as background let’s look at a few questions.  When it comes to romantic love do you think you have an age prejudice?  Do you disqualify people from being candidates for love because they are considerably younger or older than you?  If you encounter a couple who seem to have a wide age range difference do you think or talk with terms like “cradle robber”, “daddy’s gold digger”, “mommy’s baby boy”, “dirty old man”, “cougar” “predator”, etc.?  If you see a loving couple whose age difference is outside the range you have been taught to think of as appropriate do you look down on them?

Do you demean and disrespect them, or do you appreciate and honor that they seem to have found and are doing love in spite of the age prejudices which may have beset them.  If you are single do you need to open your age range thinking?  If you are in a committed relationship do you need to open your age range thinking as to who might be candidates for loving friendship and other kinds of loving relationships?

So that you are not left hanging and wondering what happened to Tabitha, with a little counseling help Tabitha saw that her attraction to her older lover was based on a great many shared interests, a common philosophy of life and similar goals.  She had not had an obsessive attraction to older men and in fact had dated age-widely.  She and her older lover joined a book club with interesting members of vastly different ages where they felt accepted and found close friends.  In counseling they worked on some problem areas common to many couples that had little to do with their age difference, and went on to do their love quite well.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What do you think the subtle messages are concerning age and love that got into your head?

Related posts:

1. Age Differences and Romantic Love
2. Does “Cougar” Love Work?
3. Multiple Sex Partners and Love
4. Virginity Surpassed and Parental Love
5. Elder Love

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Touching With and For Love – A Super Important Love Skill

Mini-Love-Lesson  #229

Synopsis: Ways of uncommonly growing your variety and skills for sending and receiving love by way of touch, starting with the most common ways of doing tactical love is well addressed in this mini-love-lesson.

Different! – Better! – More!

Are you good at love touching?  Is your variety of differing ways to touch, with and for love, rich and varied? (see “50 Varieties of Love Touch”)  Are your ways of showing love by touch getting better, becoming more impactful and more diverse?  How are you doing at getting yourself lovingly touched?  Are you good, and getting better, at receiving, soaking up and savoring the touch from those who love you?  If you want to be touched differently, do you ask for it clearly and with love?  (see “Asking For What You Want -- With Love”)  Do you know how those you love want to be touched by you?  Has it changed?  Finally, how much do you know about the getting and giving of love through touch and what that can achieve in physical, psychological and relational health? (see “Love Hugs for Health and Happiness”)

Five Basic Ways of Doing Touch Love – Maybe Better

Let’s consider five of the most common and popular ways people touch, with and for love, for connecting and the sharing, giving and getting healthy, real love.  Let’s also consider doing these five ways a bit better, even if you do them quite well.

1. Handholding
Think about handholding which is – tender and caring – or solid and reassuring – or comforting and friendly – or playful and happy.  Now think about the differences in hand pressure and the hand motions during handholding which can help make each of those mood states happen.  And let’s think about your two hands lovingly holding one hand of someone you love, then lovingly holding both their hands simultaneously.  What might be the differences in love effects between those two ways of holding hands?  Is the love impact or intensity of emotions different?  How are those two ways different than only one of your hands holding just one hand of a loved one?  What could be the different emotions that might occur, or be conveyed and/or shared with each different way of holding hands?

Let’s add thinking about holding hands while walking, sitting side-by-side, across a table and laying side-by-side.  Which of those is best for you for being able to show your love through handholding touch?  Imagine holding one hand with one of your hands while your other hand moves one finger slowly across the back of his or her hand, then between their fingers , then touching palm to palm and lastly, the back of your hand touching the back of theirs lightly.  What effect might each of those actions have?

How good are you at return touching when loving hands touch you? (see “Touching Back – A Surprisingly Important Love Skill”)  What would that be like, or has it been like if you already have done hand touching like that?  Is this little handholding and touching variety sequence appealing to you and/or to your beloved?

With whomever you hold hands with, do you talk about it?  Do you explore and experiment for new and more pleasurable ways to add to what might be called your handholding menu or repertoire?

With all these thoughts in mind, are you going to do something that might add to your future handholding with and for love?

2. Face Touching
Fantasize about softly cupping your hands around the cheeks of a loved one as you look lovingly into their eyes, creating a special moment of special love.  Imagine gently stroking their eyebrows with one finger and then running fingers along the outline of their lips and other facial features.  Suppose, ever so tenderly, patting one cheek with the palm of your hand and then, ever so much more gently, running a fingertip over their closed eyelids.  Add soft kissing to their brow, earlobes, cheeks and then finally their lips.  Now, imagine beginning to playfully twirl locks of their hair followed by pulling your loved ones head to your chest with their face being softly snuggled there.  Lastly, in your mind’s, eye see your loved one’s cheek resting peacefully on your inner thigh as you both lay together in bed.

As you imagine these things, what are your feelings and your thoughts about doing more and different face touching love?

3. Back Rubbing.
Rubbing somebody’s back can be done for a variety of reasons.  There is rubbing for only pain and tension relief, obligatory rubbing because you owe them one, therapeutic rubbing for health and, of course, as a seduction lead in.  Then there is a back rub done primarily to show and share love.  Is that back rub different from those other back rubs?  Interestingly, there is research that says, yes it is.  Preliminary and pilot studies revealed that when people who love each other lovingly touch, back rubs included, there are measurable neuroelectric and neurochemical differences occurring in their brains and nervous systems, as compared to mere acquaintances doing similar touching.  These differences are healthful and can result in emotions sometimes described as feeling cherished, special, safer, closer, more serene and more loved.

People vary greatly in how they like their backs rubbed.  Unfortunately people who grew up seldom being lovingly touched tend to be more aware of what they do not like concerning back rubs and also other kinds of touch.  There are those who grew up with only hard and tough touches who, at first, find softer touch strange, irritating or otherwise disagreeable.  Then there are those for whom all touch is interpreted as sexual.  For them, nonsexual back rubs frequently are confusing, annoying and/or frustrating.  Almost everybody who works at it, possibly with the help of a good massage therapist, can come to find back rubs to be a very pleasurable and often a loving experience.  That is because the back has a wide scattering of nerve endings for pleasurable sensations.

What is important is to repeatedly experiment to discover what you naturally like, and then ask for it rather than just staying silent, complaining or dodging the issue.  Also important is working at being a good giver of the gift of love reception responses.  Appreciatively saying things like “that feels so good” and “thank you so much” are examples of good, love reception responses.  Discovering what a loving back caress really feels like, and how receiving it well gives pleasure to the person giving you one, may double your pleasure and be well worth the effort.   

Remember, with healthy self-love you can ask for the way you are being touched to change from what you like less to what you may like more.  This is a loving thing to do because it helps those who love you to know you and to know what you want better.  Lovingly asking for a touch that is harder or softer, faster or slower, moving to the right or left, up or down, or expressing what is just right is usually all you need.  Those nine requests can usually get you touched pretty much just right.

The way you want to have a back rub may be very different from the way someone you love wants one.  This actually goes for all touch.  It also may change from time to time.  The loving thing to do is to stay current by asking, every so often, how does your loved one want their back to be rubbed today.  Adding experiments in back scratching, caresses using different materials like velvet and silk, feathers, warm rounded light weight river rocks, and the like, also can make the back rubbing experience a very special, loving experience.  Sometimes the simple act of relieving tension by rubbing neck, shoulders, etc. also can be a quite nice loving thing to do.

4. Foot rubbing
Some researchers studying what successful couples do, were surprised to find foot rubs were mentioned much more often than they had expected.  Couples stated things like they felt lovingly treated when lying on a couch or bed watching TV when their spouse would begin to rub their feet and both felt closer and more lovingly connected.

Like the hands, the feet have a lot of nerve endings for sensual and other tactile pleasures.  This offers a lot of opportunities for creating positive feelings, both physical and emotional. Gentle toe pulling and squeezing, varying pressure on soles, heels and arches, top of the foot caressing, and so forth, adds to the experience.  Some couples include soft towels, fuzzy cloths and special devices made for foot massage.  The use of scented massage oils, skin creams, pumice stones, honey dust and body powders all can be employed to convey special love during foot rubs.  Then too, just a simple relaxed foot caressing at the end of a hard day’s work also can be quite a love-conveying action.

5. Love Hugging
Is hugging the most wonderful way to do touch love?  Is hugging the way that conveys love most quickly and fully in all kinds of love relationships?  Are love hugs the most accurate way for conveying the widest array of the many emotions that come with love?

Many, when asked to think seriously about the above questions, gave a resounding YES as the right answer to each of those queries and others like them.  There also is a growing body of scientific findings that tend to support those affirmative replies about hugging.  In some studies, the ways people hug, cuddle and snuggle have been found to more effectively and more accurately convey a wide array of emotions having to do with love better than words or facial expressions.  Link “Cuddling for Greater Love and Better Sex -- A Love Skill”   Think of hugs that bring and share acceptance, joy, reassurance, emotional closeness, celebration, sense of being cherished, pride, comfort and safety, playful fun, empathy, sexiness, serene togetherness, healing, belonging, union and reunion.

Does the feeling shape the way the hug is done, or the other way around?  Probably it is a circular system where it is both.  What is important is that two or more people involved in the hug, and who have love for each other, share the feeling as they share the hug.  Family and deeper friendship group hugs, as well as loving couple hugs, seem to share this mutuality of similar emotions but not quite as strongly as do couples.

Love Touch for All Relationships of Love – Save One.

Bio-physically everybody can benefit from touches that convey healthy, real love.  That is because a touch of love naturally and healthfully stimulates a bundle of beneficial brain reactions.  They, in turn, make your immunity mechanisms work better, normalize blood pressure, reduce tension and stress, reduce depression and anxiety, improve circulation and maybe best of all increase the feeling of love connection with others.  Love touching, including hugs of friends, family, young and old, mates, kids and even yourself can be a very good thing.  Opening up to touch, and especially hugs which are tender, sweet, zestful, intimate, lively, bold and all the rest can be incredibly life-enriching for ever so many.

There is one big exception.  Sadly, there are a lot of people who are trained and/or conditioned by their cultures, religions, families or bad experiences to fear and avoid most touch experiences, even though they might be quite love expressive.  A great deal of that avoidance has to do with a fear of something sexual occurring.  Many who have this training and/or conditioning get over it with the intervention of some good psychotherapy and are then very grateful for it.

Going on to Ever Better Tactile Love

Tactile, or touch love, is thought to be our first, most basic and perhaps most important way of giving, getting and sharing love.  More is being discovered about how healthful loving touch is and how it works by university and medical school researchers every year.  You can do your own discovering, as you are doing right now by reading, followed by your own personal experimenting.  You also can learn a lot from getting various kinds of massage, perhaps especially Esalen massage, by taking massage courses and by being much more mindful concerning the getting, giving and sharing of love by way of touch.

One More Little Thing

How would you like to go right now and give somebody a loving touch, caress, pat or some other touch gift, and maybe tell them about this mini-love-lesson and this website about love?

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Love Success Question: When love-touched, do you make sure to feel the touch with your mind’s awareness and, therefore, more fully experience the love, or is your mind off somewhere else, a bit out of touch?

Masturbation With and Without Love

Mini-Love-Lesson #228       

Synopsis: How masturbation and healthy, real love interface and can be intertwined beneficially; when masturbation is and is not a good thing; issues of differing training, genders, religions, etc.; and love relating involving masturbation are openly and refreshingly dealt with in this mini-love-lesson.

Martha’s First Orgasm

Martha was 72 when she proudly learned to masturbate and had her first, glorious orgasm.  She was one of my older, widowed, sex therapy clients who said she just had to learn to climax because it was on her bucket list and her physician cajoled her into doing something about it.  Seven sessions later she was celebrating and referring several of her golden age, female friends.

Martha had been severely religiously trained against sex as a child and had overcome most of that on her own, but she never learned how to orgasm in or out of her marriage.  Recently from her physician, she learned it was still possible and subsequently got referred to me because in my relational work, I had a subspecialty in sex therapy and a record of success.

Basically, I just did what many sex therapist do.  We talked some about healthy self-love, self-care, what is natural and masturbation as a part of that.  We also talked about romantic and sexual fantasizing, vaginal lubrication, I introduced her to vibrators and sent her home with some sexual exploration, experimenting and masturbratory homework assignments.  She was a diligent and eager student.  She readily fulfilled her assignments though some were fairly difficult for her.  After her seventh session and success, she thanked me and said she was going home to play erotic catch-up for 50 years of lost time at sex and self-love.  Healthy, real self-love and masturbation were the main pathways to Martha’s success.

The Great Therapist’s Tool That Is Masturbation

Martha illustrates one of the great, good and healthy truths about masturbation.  Because it is one of nature’s easy ways of teaching us about our own body and our natural systems, it is great for helping people with all sorts of sex and other difficulties.  Consider those with serious physical disabilities that prevent couples from having sexual intercourse.  Especially, think about wounded war veterans, serious accident victims and those with debilitating illnesses.  It often is masturbation and mutual masturbation with a spouse or love mate that provides these people a way to still have a healthy sex life and with it, a satisfying and growing life of love.

Masturbation also is a fantastic, therapeutic tool for helping a wide variety of sex problems to get better.  That is true for both individuals and couples and even the occasional throuple ( see “Throuple Love: a Growing Worldwide Way of the Future?”).  Without using masturbation techniques, many sex problems might never get fixed or, if they do, it takes far longer than it needs to.  That partly is because guided masturbation techniques are basically a more efficient way to work with our own strong, healthy, natural, psychobiological sexuality systems.  Whenever we work with mother nature and not against her, things get easier.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Love and masturbation go really well together.  With healthy, real love, masturbation can be far more beneficial and positive in its effects, than without love.  Even without love, masturbation can be quite healthy, as is true of most forms of sexuality.  Two major forms, or focuses, of love relationship are involved here.  The first has to do with healthy, real, self love.  The second has to do with healthy, real, couples love.  Sometimes a healthy love of life and nature are involved and important here.

Notice, we keep emphasizing sex with healthy, real love which is so different from false love and it’s 12 identified major forms (see “The Huge Hidden Reason So Many Fail at Love”).  Also, sex with healthy, real love is very different from loveless sex.  So, as a reminder helper, here is the short version of our working definition of healthy, real love:

Healthy, real love is a powerful, vital, natural process of
highly valuing, desiring for, often acting for, and
taking pleasure in the well-being of the loved (see “The Definition of Love” ).

Masturbation with love, therefore, is a powerful, vital, natural process involving high valuing, a desire for, doing actions for, and taking pleasure in the erotic well-being of the loved.  The loved one can be another or oneself.  Without love, masturbation can be okay, even wonderful, but not nearly as beneficial and important as with love.

Some of the Many Benefits of Masturbation

In the health fields and the sciences which support them, masturbation has been researched.  The preponderance of resulting evidence finds masturbation to be natural, very broadly healthful and widely beneficial in a variety of ways.  Like anything humans do, occasionally it can be mildly to moderately problematic and once in a rare while, worse.  We will not list all the ways masturbation can be good for a person.  You can go online and look up the copious information available on that.  However, here is a short sample list of some of those so far discovered and the deduced benefits.

Masturbation, when compared to non-masturbation, has been found to be associated with stress reduction, improved sleep, menstrual cramp relief, stronger pelvic muscles, improved cardiovascular health, having preventative and anti-cancer effects especially for prostate cancer, improved brain health and brain functioning, the production of natural brain anti-depressant and anti-anxiety neurochemistry, reduced irritability, reduced anger, reduced sudden violence proneness, improved genital and gynecological health, improved orgasmic ability, more general happiness and longer life.

Quite a few other benefits are suspected to exist and research to find them, while limited, is continuing.  So, from the health and sciences point of view, masturbation increasingly is being seen as a great blessing.

When Masturbation Is Not a Good Thing

It is a truism that everything used is also misused and that can be said of masturbation too.  One big problem with our natural drive  to masturbate is that it can be coupled with anti-sex training and used to influence people into feeling guilty, ashamed, inadequate, fearful, embarrassed and sinful.  Each of these feelings can then be used for controlling, suppressing, and subjugating people.  These anti-sex trainings are especially powerful in manipulating people to work against and even sacrifice their own natural tendencies to know and act for their health and well-being.

A similar but different problem occurs when people have been taught masturbation is bad, sinful or sick which affects them more intimately and relationally.  That problem occurs when anti-sex conditioned people give-in to their natural masturbation desires and then feel miserable and conflicted about it.  Frequently, they hide this from their spouse and that deception may cause emotional distancing and a disruption of a couple’s love sharing.  Mistrust, loneliness and inadequacy feelings then may grow.  In couples counseling, it is not uncommon to hear both partners reveal these kinds of feelings and then confess to each other that they both secretly masturbate.  Mutual, shared masturbation may then become part of their cure.

Anti-sex trained individuals without partners who have healthy, strong sex drives frequently become emotionally conflicted, disturbed and even self-destructive when trying to fight their natural, healthful sex feelings.  Physical self punishment, self mutilation, addiction relapse and even suicide is not unknown with these cases.  More common is energy draining, ongoing, inner conflict and troubling confusion which interferes with self love development .

Physically, the most common thing that goes wrong with frequent masturbation has to do with painful rashes and rawness. Psychologically there are cases of addictive, compulsive masturbation that can result in a negative social consequences.  Masturbating in public gets people arrested, if at work it gets them fired and if it is a substitute for interpersonal connection it may contribute to interpersonal isolation.  Other underlying psychological problems usually are suspected of being involved and/or at the root of these difficulties.

Masturbation and Healthy Self-Love

Dr. Ian Kerner, a psychotherapist and sex counselor, who leads an noted self-care effort after years of study and treating people with all sorts of psychological and sexual problems, drew an uncommon conclusion.  He posited that for good, healthy self-care, regular masturbation should be part of everyone’s health regimen.  He and colleagues like him, who have examined the research-based available evidence, might view regular masturbation as belonging right up there with a healthy diet, exercise, 8 hours of sleep, weight control and yearly physicals.

One of the major reasons masturbation can be good for everyone is that it causes the release of prolactin and serotonin which, in combination, can bring people into healthy, happy, resting states of excellent relaxation.  Another reason masturbation is good self-care is it can result in improved hormone health, especially for females.  Medical reasons like these are mounting, while opposing rationale is increasingly undercut by science and the professional opinions of a growing number clinical practitioners.  Increasingly, masturbation is accepted, recognized and recommended as a healthy self-care and self-love behavior.

Religion, Masturbation and Healthy Self-Love

Naturally, healthy self-love involves lots of healthy self-care.  Masturbation can be a part of that healthy self-love, self-care.  However, this view is widely fought against, condemned and vilified mostly by conservative religionists in many parts of the world.  Conservative religions are generally quite negative about masturbation and often toward self-love as well.  Of all the world’s sizable, major religions only Wicca, the Hindu Tantrists and some Taoists sects can be said to have had a positive view about masturbation from early in their history.  However, today many faiths are conflicted over and/or revising their teachings about both masturbation and self-love.  One of my theolog friends commented “who would’ve ever thought that masturbation would enter into the discussion of what’s involved in the great commandment love others as you love yourself?”

If you are religiously troubled about the yeas and nays of masturbation and/or about self-love, you may wish to carefully seek out guidance from one or more clerics of your own faith, or perhaps someone in the interfaith or ecumenical movements.  I recommend that you consider choosing someone known to be loving along with being well-versed in your religious traditions.  Someone being knowledgeable in psychosexual and health science’s research also might be helpful.

Gender, Masturbation and Healthy Self-Love

For women, sexual self pleasuring seems to be especially good for developing healthy self-love.  Masturbating females tend to have more self-confidence, self-esteem, and a more positive emotional outlook on their lives and on themselves, all of which provides evidence for healthy self-love.  In my practice, I counseled quite a few women who learned to sexually pleasure themselves at home.  As they did so, they overcame sex hangups quicker and more completely, improved their body image, developed more pride in being female, grew a greater sense of personal power and integrity, felt more lovable and reported becoming more loving to others.

For many but not all men, masturbation often is experienced with worries about their own sexuality, masculinity, adequacy, comparative potency, embarrassment and moral/religious conflict.  Time and maturation seems to solve these issues for most modern males.  For many of the men I treated where these difficulties were more severe, these issues were overcome by learning simple, self acceptance and self affirmation love coupled with singular or joint masturbation practices.  Some older males seem to continue to be troubled by these inner conflicts apparently because their anti-sexual upbringing was more pervasive and severe.  The expectation that aging will diminish sexuality also plays a role, but that seems to be lessening in many more progressive parts of the world.  In some places, males are learning masturbation is positive self-care and it is coming to be more linked to healthy self-love.

For bisexuals, transsexuals and other gender and lifestyle variations of all types, healthy self-love is especially needed to go up against all the opposing negative forces arrayed against them.  Self-care masturbation can be a great tension reliever, safe escape and safe sex aid in dealing with the extra pressures, threats and complications involved in being and living other than by “the standard”.

Masturbation and Couples Love

For lots of different reasons, couples and also throuples show their love for each other while engaging in co-masturbation practices.  Consider soldiers, sailors and Marines as well as others forced to stay apart from their spouses for lengthy periods.  No small number of them visually connect with distant partners on-line can keep their mutual sex life and their love life active by talking sexy and romantically while enjoyably watching each other masturbate.  For many this is a profound way of sharing their love.  Many others use phone sex the same way.

Couples living together often masturbate side-by-side because they are too exhausted from the day’s work to have intercourse.  Still others take turns lovingly bringing each other to the big O using sex toys and vibrators because intercourse just does not do it for one or both of them.  Some couples find it easier to masturbate while they share, create or read intimate fantasies to each other or watch porn.  For a host of couples in which one or both have medical conditions making intercourse unadvisable or impossible, mutually pleasuring each other via sundry masturbation practices allows them to keep having a loving sex life together.  Then there are those who masturbate separately often because of scheduling conflicts or just the structure of their lives.  Later, they lovingly and enticingly might review their separate experiences with each other so it becomes an intimate love-sharing event.  Frequently, that also then leads to more sex – together.

Of course, there are other couples who just prefer masturbating each other, or side-by-side masturbation, but who still lovingly touch each other, look at each other and talk to each other as they do so.  A good many couples lovingly mix having intercourse and masturbating.  This is especially common among couples who sexually dance or otherwise perform for each other.  After the performance they may fall into each other’s arms, have intercourse and then bask in the joining afterglow of the total experience.  For these couples, it usually is much more about the love than the sex, even though the sex can be very passionate and extremely erotic.  Many couples have found that not being so intercourse-focused or intercourse-dependent affords them a much richer and more variety-filled sex life to share together (see “Intercourse Absent Lovemaking, a Love Skill”).  Especially does sharing masturbratory behaviors, thoughts and feelings add to the ways couples can very intimately love one another.

To Learn More

The mini love lessons at this site titled “Ever Think Seriously about Real and False Love?”, link “Lasting Sex and Lasting Love” and Our E-Book Real Love or False Love Which Is Yours? may Help You and Yours.

To learn more in depth about the science and health of masturbation you may wish to check out studies published in the journals of Sex Education and Therapy; Sex and Relationship Therapy; Sex Research and Psychology; and Human Sexuality.  The archives of the magazines Psychology Today; and Prevention have some good summary articles to consult.

Something Else

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As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

Quotable Question: How much of what we are taught to be against is just what the teachers secretly feel inadequate about handling?