#solosex — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #solosex, aggregated by home.social.
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CW: Long mini-essay about defining Masturbation
Link to post in an @alice thread that inspired this essay https://lgbtqia.space/@h3mmy/115392637917828516
I haven't written an essay in a while. Much like masturbating, I write best when I have a reasonable period of focus time that will be safe from interruptions. Ideally this would intersect with time where my body conditions are managed, and it's not taking away from my limited sleep time. I'm writing this currently having none of these things. I have been doing better at not letting it prevent me from doing _something_ even if it's not perfect. So here we are! (I also didn't proofread this)
#CW I'll be talking about masturbation and may provide some examples, so consider yourself warned. I don't know what the conjugal visit situation is in horny jail. Proceed at your own discretion.
My intention is to simply explain my perspective on some definitions. I don't mean for this to necessarily apply for anyone else.
I think of my reality as a strange loop. A bunch of matter coalesces in a particular arrangement with periodic cycles and abstracts into emergent features. Physics to chemistry to biology to a point of consciousness and psychology thereof. The abstract plane, the mindscape precipitating from a rhythmic cycle in the material plane. And the material is simply a manifestation in the abstract. There's lots of different philosophical threads to unravel, but that's not what this essay is about. This is just the bare minimum needed to help communicate some of my examples.
I'm ace-spec. I don't see someone and think "I want to have sex with that person." It strikes me as very strange, but it explains why a lot of allo people behave the way they do: Sexual attraction is what this concept is.
Let's also highlight that there is physiological arousal and psychological arousal. These are distinct from each other, and can be referred to as physical and mental, or material and abstract. They are also, notably, not always in sync or harmonious with each other.
There is sex drive which is an urge to participate in sexual activity. It's not directed at anything in particular. Like a car revving in neutral. Heat but no motion necessarily. Libido or sexual _desire_ is often directed at something and when combined with something like attraction, it can produce the motivation that catalyzes the drive and libido into action.
Okay, now that I've gone over some of the prerequisites, wtf is masturbation? People define this in many different ways. I might need to make a Fedi poll about it too.
When someone says they're masturbating, there's typically some sort of manual stimulation of erogenous zones involved. Often this is genitalia. Opinions are mixed on whether or not pleasure is a requirement, or some sort of climax. Personally, I don't feel that an orgasm or even pleasure is a requirement. It actually doesn't even need to be one's own erogenous zones (could be someone else's), but that usage isn't as common as it used to be.
Of the asexual folks that masturbate (some do, some don't), some say that they feel like they "have to" and don't necessarily do it for pleasure. I liken this to needing to sneeze, you might need a minute of silence or to look at a light or something, then you sneeze and your body stops scrunching up and you can get on with your day.
I must stress that this is both normal and also not necessarily the full extent of someone's experience. I expect even allosexual folks have had some instances like that.
Some folks masturbate simply because it feels good and they may not feel any significant psychological arousal. Some have a reactive drive that only revs up physical arousal in response to physical stimulation. Some are just curious and want to map out what sort of stimulation leads to what sort of response. It can even be purely academic. So far, all the scenarios I've highlighted have to do with only physical stimulation causing arousal.
Sometimes physical arousal can lead to the motivation to masturbate. This would be physical arousal causing the stimulation that can harmonize with it. This can be a complete experience without any significant psychological arousal involved. Like feeling an itch, gently scratching it, and then hitting a spot on the scalp that gives you tingles and you scritch some more.
Sometimes physical/physiological arousal will lead to a psychological/mental/emotional response. And hopefully they can harmonize from there. It can also be a negative reaction, which is often but not always associated with some sort of trauma.
Physical stimulation can lead to psychological arousal before, or in lieu of physiological arousal. This is rather common in kink spaces. Like a gentle bite on the shoulder slowly adding pressure as you realize you can no longer wriggle free without sacrificing some amount of flesh. :neofox_melt:
This is probably where I should define psychological arousal in this specific context (masturbation). The mental/emotional urge to engage in some sort of stimulation of erogenous zones. Now, the mind has its own erogenous zones and they may or may not lead to physical arousal. I expect this is where things will be most arguable. If one is experiencing psychological stimulation that is increasing the mental/emotional arousal, does it count as masturbation? There is no physical stimulation involved in this case. I find that a different term is more useful here, I'll get to that shortly. First let's proceed with the scenarios that do involve physical arousal.
Now let's highlight abstract/mental/emotional stimulation. Like reading erotica, or watching something you find mentally and emotionally arousing. The libido in this case can be directed at fictional characters, or real people and those are two very different scenarios. It is also distinct on whether the person (the one imagining ) is involved in their own abstract creation. They could be uninvolved, involved only in third person, or fully first person, or maybe in the backseat in first person. There could be zero other people or characters involved as well. There are many possibilities and it may be centered on the self or completely detached from the self.
Whatever the specifics, the psychological stimulation can induce psychological arousal which can then lead to a physical arousal. Alternatively, it can lead to the physical arousal before the mental arousal is noticeable. I can be reading a book and have a whole physiological journey without any physical stimulation. This doesn't happen often, but it's interesting when it does. It's not very predictable. In the case where there is no physical stimulation, one can argue that it's not actually masturbation.
So far we've highlighted 4 categories of "levers", a combination of one from each section: mental/emotional and physical, stimulation and arousal. Any of these can be the initial source of motivation to channel drive or libido into action. Also, they can be harmonious or discordant with each other in different arrangements.
Now, back to the original point. Using this definition of masturbation as physical stimulation of erogenous zones (neither pleasure nor orgasm required) I don't feel that there is a 1-1 mapping with "solo sex." This can be different for folks using other definitions. I would define solo sex to encompass activities that are aimed at fulfilling sexual _desire_ and have pleasure as an important aspect of the intent. So some degree of physiological arousal and psychological stimulation is a key aspect here. While masturbation overlaps with solo sex, they are distinct concepts.
The scenarios I've mentioned that don't include physical stimulation but still involve the rest of the categories, I would consider those to fall into the solo sex definition in most cases, but not technically masturbation. In short, physical or mental self stimulation that is motivated to fulfill a sexual desire, thus is solo sex. Physical self-stimulation without the motivation to fulfill any sexual desire is not solo sex, but masturbation.
I understand that many of you might disagree with this, and that is perfectly valid. This is simply my mental model, and is informed by my subjective experience. If it applied to everyone that might cause it to get a little solipsistic in here.
I would like to add that masturbation, solo sex, and any associated "fantasies" are independent of sexual attraction and have no bearing on whether someone wants to actually engage in these activities. It also does _not_ imply any sort of auto-sexuality (sexual attraction to oneself). Auto-sexuality has been used as a bludgeon against folks that practice any sort of self-care. I don't intend to disparage any autosexuals, they didn't ask to be weaponized.
There is still a culture of shame around masturbation. It's really unfortunate how deeply enmeshed it still is, but we've made some decent progress as a society in dispelling myths and trying to encourage folks to explore their own body and mind. Writing about the stigma though is a whole different essay. I will not dive into that here very much.
#Discussion #Masturbation #SoloSex #Asexuality #ScribblesOfAKat
Recommended reading:
- https://www.asexuality-handbook.com/grey-asexuality
- https://www.asexuality-handbook.com/the-a-spectra
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0870-8 -
Unsere meistabgerufene #Wissenschaftsdoku im letzten Jahr beschäftigte sich mit dem Thema #Masturbation. Wissenschaftlich ist bereits erwiesen, dass Selbstbefriedigung Stress und Schmerzen verringert, Herz und Immunsystem schützt und sich positiv auf das Körpergefühl und die Sexualität auswirkt. Aber es gibt noch mehr spannende Fragen zu beantworten:
#Sexualität #Lust #SoloSex #Wissenschaft #Forschung #Verpasstodon
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CW: sexual content
Starting the long weekend off with a bang. #masturbate #masturbation #penis #cock #boner #solosex #selfpleasure #gay
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Masturbation gilt heute als Teil einer gesunden psychosexuellen Entwicklung. Doch die Wenigsten sprechen offen darüber, falsche Informationen und Unwissen sind immer noch verbreitet.
Unsere neue #Wissenschaftsdoku findet Ihr jetzt in der Mediathek. Im Programm heute Abend um 20.15 Uhr.
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CW: re: Erotica Recommendation (solosex)
This is how I felt immediately after reading samuel
#nudity #nsfw #penis #arousal #aroused #erect #erection #boner #ProudBator #solosexuality #solosexual #solosex
