I Masturbated Every Morning For A Week & Realized How Stressful Getting Off Can Be

The history of my sexuality isn’t remarkable. I lost my virginity at 16, freaked out about the responsibility that came along with it, and didn’t have sex again until college. I lovingly look back on those college years of experimentation as my blooming period. Before that, I didn’t really understand what it felt like to orgasm or to truly enjoy the feeling of sex, not for some sense of longing for an emotional attachment. A guy I was dating at the time thought it a good idea to encourage me through my personal sexual awakening and purchased me a Rabbit vibrator, the kind from Sex and the City. For the first time ever, I masturbated every night (or so) and brought myself to the big O. It was absolutely glorious.

After becoming a mom and just naturally developing as a woman, I still masturbated occasionally when I had the time to myself. It was like my secret me time to indulge in the deepest form of physical pleasure, and the best part was that I didn’t have to include anyone else but me. Being able to orgasm without the need of a partner makes it feel that much better. I feel the instant rush of energy and natural high of happiness. The issue is that I just don’t make the time to do it. With a busy 3 year old zooming around and the ebb and flow of my day-to-day life responsibilities, fitting in masturbation almost seemed impossible. Plus, finding the privacy seemed even more evasive. But even so, I wanted to try to find the 15 minutes to reignite my sexuality.

The Experiment

The experiment was simple. Every morning, after dropping off my son and before starting my work for the day, I wanted to make sure I found 15 minutes to masturbate. I specifically wanted to start my day with masturbation to see if it changed my mood, motivation, or approach to the rest of the day. Since I work from home a majority of the time, it's incredibly easy to slip into a haze. I wanted to see if daily masturbation and a good heart pumping orgasm could offer some clarity.

Day 1

Monday morning started out fairly typical: I got my son ready for daycare, dropped him off, stopped for coffee, swore that I'd take an afternoon nap because I deserved it, and headed back home to start my work day. Finding the perfect pocket of time to insert masturbation before I even ate breakfast was tough. Do I do it as soon as I wake up? Or do I wait until I’ve at least eaten breakfast? I settled on getting down to business as soon as I came back home to start my workday and before I ate breakfast.

Instead of blowing through the experience, I took in every minute and how wonderful it felt.

Personally, masturbation is much better with visual stimulation, which has always made me feel a bit dirty, but I like what I like. I scrolled through some visuals to get me in the mood and stretched out on my couch. Less than five minutes into it and I reached an orgasm and felt like, after washing my hands of course, I had enough fuel to last me the entire day. That nap I'd promised myself was not even on my mind. Right after, I cleaned my kitchen to the sound of Beyoncé, made a delicious breakfast, and felt like my mood had improved from the morning.

Day 2

I started out with my usual routine again, and surprisingly enough, I woke up with the thought of being able to come home to masturbating later on. Instead of gripping first thing in the morning about my absolute need for an afternoon nap, I felt a slight excitement to come home and get it on with myself. Usually, when I have a moment during my work day where I'm not working, I feel this heavy sense of guilt that I am wasting time where I could (and should) be writing. But these 15 minutes to myself felt more exciting than riddled with guilt.

Like the day before, I stretched out on my couch, searched for the perfect visuals and took my time. Instead of blowing through the experience, I took in every minute and how wonderful it felt.

Getting myself to orgasm began to feel like another thing on my checklist that had to get done instead of an escape from the stress in the first place.

Day 3

By Wednesday, my week had taken a nosedive into a pool of stress, which I admittedly don’t handle well. A mix of work, home, and life put me into a totally different headspace, and the way I usually handle immense stress is to overthink it until I’ve pushed myself as close to pure insanity as possible — and that's a serious mood killer. After dropping my son off, I didn’t even think about masturbating. I made calls, sent emails, got down to work, and before I knew it, 11 a.m. rolled around and I still hadn’t gotten myself off yet. I tried to relax and get myself in the mood and even though I did orgasm, it was nowhere near as stress-relieving as before.

Once again, that feeling of guilt for doing something just for myself during the day started to creep up. I attribute it all to having a lot on my mind and not being able to push it to the side. Getting myself to orgasm began to feel like another thing on my checklist that had to get done instead of an escape from the stress in the first place.

Even when I did orgasm, it wasn't the soul shaking big O that I was used to.

Day 4

It's incredible how an act that I totally enjoyed before beginning this experiment could turn into such a chore so quickly. By the fourth day, having to fit masturbation into my morning was like forcing myself to do something when I wasn't really in the mood. My 15 minutes for myself quickly turned into 20 because it was taking much longer for me to orgasm, and that was incredibly frustrating. I felt like the session wasn’t complete until I finished and it was beginning to feel like way more work than it was worth.

Even when I did orgasm, it wasn't the soul shaking big O that I was used to; the kind that made me force my eyes shut and arch my back as my entire body shook. Instead, the orgasm was more like a barely noticeable tickle at best.

Day 5

When the last day of the experiment rolled around, I was very much ready to see it come to an end. I woke up, dropped my son off, stopped for coffee, whined silently about wanting a nap, and headed home. I tried to lay back, unwind, and push my stress to the far corner of my brain, but it didn't work. I started out slowly to get myself in the mood, but it was not happening. The rush of excitement an anticipation that typically happens immediately was not there. It took 25 minutes for me to even get into the mood and another five minutes for me to finish. The surge of happiness and energy that I felt on day one was nowhere to be found on day five.

Afterwards, instead of making breakfast and answering emails, I dozed off for two hours and felt like total crap when I woke up. Masturbation is like having your favorite, over-indulgent dessert all to yourself with no one around to judge you as you scarf it down. But, when you have that dessert every single day at a specific time it becomes like a vitamin regimen and loses everything that makes it special. Masturbation, by the fifth day, was a boring and dull because I had to force myself into it. It didn't come easily and finishing was a frustrating uphill task.

The Verdict:

In many ways, masturbating is very similar to having sex with a person you're in a long-term relationship with. And when you force yourself to have sex according to a predetermined schedule, all of the passion, desire, and spark fizzles out — fast. For me, masturbating every day for a week became this dull routine, and I quickly grew to resent it. Typically, I masturbate as a spur-of-the-moment type of thing, whenever the moods strike. So when I put a schedule to it, the sultry sexiness of the act totally dissipated. On the bright side, the experiment helped me get over the idea of feeling guilty for taking time to do something for myself everyday. Even if it’s just painting my nails or dancing in the middle of my living room to Rihanna, I deserve those 15-25 minutes to push the stress to the side and enjoy myself.

Will I try to masturbate everyday? Absolutely not. But will I still masturbate when the mood strikes? Uh, absolutely.