Should you still masturbate when you’re in a relationship?

Like lots of millennial women, Sex and the City was the best sex education I got.
It might have been glamourized and given me unreasonable expectations about the
number of Manolos you can buy on a writer’s salary (it turns out that it’s
actually none) but it opened me up to some of the big sexual debates.

In one episode Charlotte (the one with the
really great hair) catches her supposedly
impotent husband Trey having a wank in the bathroom.

She’s heartbroken.

Now, at the time I was entirely Team Charlotte.

If her own husband couldn’t get it together to bang her, what right did he have to a midnight liaison with his own hand?
But, with time and maturity age I’ve come to realise that masturbation isn’t bad for your relationship at all. In fact, it might even be good for it.

It’s easy to see why someone might be upset
to discover their partner getting themselves
off. Knowing that the person you love is
seeking sexual gratification alone, rather than with you, could be hurtful.

But the reality is, masturbation is different from sex. Sex is about the connection with another person (among other things). Masturbation is about the connection with yourself.

Masturbation isn’t a form of cheating, and it
isn’t driven by dissatisfaction with the
relationship. While it might seem that your
partner is choosing masturbation ‘over’ sex,
that’s unlikely to be the case.

In a 2008 study into masturbation, researchers found that the people they surveyed who masturbated frequently were also having more sex and more sexual partners.

Masturbation might indicative of a higher sex drive, but it’s not a replacement for sex.
Masturbation is also important in terms of
understanding, developing and maintaining
your sexual satisfaction.

Research from the Kinsey Institute suggests
that women who orgasmed through
masturbation before marriage were more likely to orgasm within their marriage, and more updated research published in the Journal of Sexual Education claimed that women who masturbated to orgasm within their marriage were more likely to experience satisfying marital sex.

It’s a bit like going for a short run after work while you’re training for a half marathon.

 It’s not the same thing as a huge long run, but it helps keep you in the right area.
No-one should make you feel guilty about
masturbation. It’s important to understand that even within a long-term relationship we need time apart from each other.