Professional British boxer and two-time world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury says he masturbates seven times a day, but should you? And how can you do it better and can wanking really help with body strength and athletic performance?…
World champion boxer Tyson Fury recently announced that “most of his success comes down to masturbating seven times a day”. Yep, that’s seven times per day. If that sounds like a lot to you, don’t sweat it. According to male sex toy brand Arcwave, the average man masturbates 4.5 times per week, which is a far cry from Fury’s average. But the two-time world heavyweight champ claims that masturbating helped his hands become stronger and made him better able to manage his testosterone levels, which begs a few questions like: Can masturbation really help with body strength and athletic performance? Should I be masturbating more than I am now? What are the best ways to masturbate? Let’s break it down.
First thing’s first: there is no evidence that masturbation has any effect on athletic ability. While there is a link between masturbation frequency and testosterone, it’s still unclear in which direction this correlation occurs. It may not necessarily be that frequent masturbation increases testosterone, but that someone with already high levels of testosterone has a higher libido and therefore masturbates more frequently. Some athletes report that they don’t masturbate or have sex before a match because they believe that it makes them tired or sluggish. Other athletes report that they do have sex or masturbate before a match because it makes them feel relaxed and refreshed. It is personal for each athlete and I encourage people to experiment with how masturbation makes them feel personally.
Something that I invite men to try is masturbating before they do some physical exercise with the caveat that they don’t ejaculate. So, they can try building up their pleasure and arousal then substitute their ejaculation for a physical workout. I get them to notice how it changes their workout, and whether or not they feel more energised because they haven’t ejaculated. It’s important to remember that masturbation shouldn’t always be about ejaculation. It should be all about self-pleasure and making yourself feel good. So next time you do it, keep this in mind, and the endorphins it gives you might help you through your next workout – or give you a more positive mindset towards working out.
It’s also worth considering how you masturbate. For a lot of guys, self-pleasure can be a routine experience. Sure, it might differ slightly each time you do it – you might watch different types of porn or do it in different places in your house, but by and large we all form self-pleasure routines and stick to them. The most common way my clients engage in self-pleasure is with stimulation and arousal from pornography – so, let’s start here. Porn can be a great tool to help with arousal. It also offers men an opportunity to see a fetish or fantasy they might want to try, in a safe and sexual way. It’s easy to access and can be a great way to switch off from the day and switch on a simple way to build arousal and release tension.
There are some counterarguments against porn, though. For instance, it can leave men feeling inadequate in different ways. In mainstream porn many of the males presented are walking around with chiselled abs and larger-than-average penises, which simply isn’t representative of the majority of men watching on. Mainstream porn also lacks the ethics and safety that need to be present when having partnered or group sex – it rarely addresses consent. If porn is your preference when it comes to self-pleasure, there are some different kinds of porn to try which might leave you feeling more fulfilled.
Why not broaden the types of porn you consume, and be a more ethical consumer? This includes paying for porn, watching porn that is more representative of your own body type and watching porn which includes consent and safety. However, I always encourage my clients to engage in different ways in building arousal. The reason for this is because a healthy and exciting sex life with one’s self leads to a varied, healthy and exciting sex life with a partner, while also improving communication in relationships. So, not only are you treating yourself to more fun and more pleasure, but you’ll be better equipped to fulfil and please yourself and your partner when it comes to intercourse and relationships more broadly.
Here are my top tips for changing up your self-pleasure routine, to help you explore a more diverse self-pleasure routine, connect and learn more about your body, and improve your partnered sex life.
- MINIMISE YOUR TIME WITH PORN
While there’s nothing wrong with watching porn, why not try to use it a little less? Start by watching porn as you usually would. As soon as you start to build arousal, push the porn away from you or turn it off, and play around with your arousal. Does it continue to build? Perhaps it might dissipate? Think about how you feel. If you need to bring the porn back to build arousal up again that’s OK, too. Try to push it away for a longer amount of time the next time and be conscious of how your pleasure feels, and how your body feels. Keep trying to spend less and less time with the porn and enjoy more and more minutes involved in only your own pleasure to have a more embodied experience. - ANALYSE HOW YOU WATCH PORN
Are you sitting in front of your phone or laptop as you watch it? What position is your body in? Many men experience porn as something that’s in their head and hand only. They sit or lie down and they watch, often mindlessly, as they stroke themselves to climax. I like to encourage people to change the way their body experiences the porn. My favourite way to change this up is to stand up, prop your porn up on a shelf, or something that’s at eye level, and get your body more involved in the experience. Be aware of how your body feels, how you bear your weight and if a standing experience makes you feel more empowered or in control. This power stance may increase your arousal or pleasure. - TRY HEADPHONES
Think about the auditory experience you get from porn. Do you often keep porn on mute because of people who might be in close proximity? Or do you have the volume all the way up? Headphones make for a very different experience, and can increase arousal by engaging a different bodily sense. If you haven’t yet, try putting on headphones next time you watch porn. Or one better, turn the screen off and just listen – experience whatever feelings come over you. After all, partnered sex involves sound as much as it involves touch and vision – so solo sex should, too! - GIVE AUDIO PORN A GO?
On the topic of sound, erotic audio is another tool that I encourage men to use when exploring arousal. There are a number of different experiences and services that exist to build arousal by only using the sense of sound. Audio porn is in abundance (you can find it with a quick Google search), or perhaps ASMR might take your fancy. JOI (Jerk Off Instruction) videos are another way to explore pleasure and domination, where a voice guides you to jerk off as instructed. Audio stimulation is not only great for immersion but also for increasing creativity and helping to steer you away from strictly visual stimulation.
- ADD DIFFERENT SENSATIONS
Touch is so important when exploring self-pleasure, but most of us are so familiar with our hands on our penises that we forget there are different ways to make our penises feel. Some simple experimentation, for a more slippery, silky experience, could take the form of using lube next time you stroke yourself. If you’d like to add vibrations, or different pressures on your penis and frenulum, you could add some sex toys into the mix. My go-to toys are the Arcwave Ion, which uses pleasure-air technology to stimulate the frenulum, or the We-Vibe Bond which offers a range of different vibrations to stimulate your penis and balls. - READ SOMETHING SEXY
Erotic literature is another great tool to try. There’s a whole world of erotic stories just waiting to be discovered, with something for everyone. Erotic literature is a fun way to explore a fantasy you might have, or can simply be a new and exciting way to turn yourself on. So many of my clients surprise themselves when they start reading and suddenly experience arousal, and pleasure. Masturbation should be fun, exciting and, above all, pleasurable. By exploring your body and different forms of stimulation you start to open yourself up to more pleasure in general – pleasure in food, in conversation, in things you’re passionate about and in relationships. So I encourage you, next time you go to masturbate think about making a small change to your routine and really try to let your body absorb the pleasure and the feelings that go with it. It might just change the way you experience pleasure forever.
By CAM FRASER
CAM FRASER is a sexologist and sex expert for Lovehoney Group, and host of the Men, Sex & Pleasure podcast, available via cam-fraser.com/podcast
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