A reader asked ‘is prone masturbation bad?’. No it isn’t and also you should be wary of other sex education articles online.
“I’ve been masturbating pretty much since I started puberty. However, I have done it in the prone position (lying face down on the bed) nearly all of this time. I only learnt earlier this year that this is not a very safe way to masturbate. I first saw information about it online here. There’s also this as well which seems to say the same thing.
I have been trying to train myself out of it by masturbating the conventional way and also by using a fleshlight. I have recently using both these techniques been able to achieve orgasm and ejaculate. However, I still get the temptation to masturbate prone. I’m also a virgin and I worry a bit about whether I’ll be able to have enjoyable sex in the future when I’ve been masturbating in an unconventional way for a long time.
Do you have any advice on other techniques I can use to resist the temptation to masturbate prone and do you know anything about the risks of prone masturbation?”
Thanks for your excellent question. The links you sent to me suggest that prone masturbation (or ‘atypical masturbatory styles’) can affect the nerve endings in the penis and so will affect your sex life. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with prone masturbation and you should do it however you want to. Here’s why. If you want to skip to the advice bit you can.
The prone masturbation articles you sent
I’ve done a bit of reading about this and I’m extremely sceptical about the so called risks of prone masturbation. The healthline article that you sent me has a link to a paper about sexual function in ageing, which mostly talks about many of the known difficulties for men to experience erections as they get older. Stress, cardio-vascular problems, diabetes, other health conditions, and also that they just aren’t as horny as they used to be. They mention ‘atypical masturbatory styles’ and link to a couple of articles that don’t even mention them, so that’s pretty sketchy.
The articles you sent me refer to ‘traumatic masturbatory syndrome’ which I think is a very problematic term that doesn’t seem to be used by anyone other than this Laurence Sank guy. I can’t find a copy of the paper anywhere (which is strange) but I would suggest that it’s not something which has been widely taken up. This response from Go Ask Alice (a website I trust) is really good on this.
Even if the research Sank came up with was good quality (ie a large sample of people who report sexual dysfunction, open questions about masturbatory styles, frequency, force etc) I would still be really really dubious (and so would many sexologists I know). Orgasm and ejaculation are very complicated and they are actually two different things. It has a lot less to do with nerve endings in the base of your penis and much more to do with what mood you are in when you have sex.
Edit: having done a bit more research on this for this article, there’s another academic called Michael A Perelman, who has looked into ‘atypical masturbatory styles’ which includes prone masturbation (as well as other kinds of masturbation). You can read more about this here. He’s saying that how we masturbate might be one thing to consider in overcoming sexual problems. But then in a more extensive paper he and another academic find that this is just one of the very many things we should consider. Because our sexual bodies are not just biological, they are biopsychosocial. Our bodies are in relation to: what we know about our biological bodies, our thoughts and feelings, and what society and culture tells us about our bodies. If you want to understand this some more, try my Teach Yourself Sex Ed module on Bodies.
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What actually affects your sexual functioning
The factors that determine what mood you’re in during sex are to do with: how stressed you are generally; how you feel about sex; worries about your penis being hard; what your partner might think about your body; worries about your ‘performance’; worrying about whether your partner will enjoy it; what it means for your relationship; safer sex concerns; privacy concerns.
For erections to happen and for arousal to happen you need your sympathetic nervous system to not be activated. Which means that you need to be relaxed.
As soon as it does (when you get stressed) then it stops you getting aroused. It literally prevents blood from going into your penis and sends it where it’s more needed. So ironically, the more you stress about your erection and your masturbation styles, the more likely it is that you won’t be able to get aroused when you have sex with someone else.
Read more about stress affects the body and also ‘She Can’t Come, What Am I Doing Wrong?
And ‘sexual functioning’ is BS anyway
The idea of ‘sexual functioning’ or ‘healthy sex’ is all based on the assumption that the only kind of sex that ‘counts’ is penis in vagina sex or some other kind of entry sex with a penis. That’s not what sex is. It’s just one form of sex that only a minority of people actually enjoy. So this idea of masturbation as being some kind of ‘training programme’ for real sex is really bad because masturbation counts just as much as penis in vagina sex.
Read is masturbation better than sex?
Advice
So you can chill. If prone masturbation is actually causing physical damage to your penis (damaging the skin, or even penis fracture) then stop. Give it a rest for a bit and try a different way (like you are doing). You can also just give your penis a rest too and touch different parts of your body to see how that feels. Side note – people can have orgasms without any touch whatsoever. You could see if you could try that. But mostly I would say everything is fine and don’t worry. Just try to enjoy what you enjoy.
Meanwhile have a good look at all the articles on my website about orgasms, masturbation, and pleasure. Some of the places online where people talk about prone masturbation also talk about sex addiction (read more about about that) and No-Fap and No Nut November (so read more about that too).
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I’ve been humping prone since I was little, years before I could even orgasm. I cannot orgasm by jerking at all, or oral, but sex with wife is normal and fantastic, as long as i’m on my stomach ( like in missionary position). Never had a problem getting or maintaining an erection. It’s good to see an opposing view to TMS, and it woke me up as to the validity of Dr. Sank’s opinion.
Oh thank you for sharing that, it’s really helpful
Sir i have been doing prone masturbation when i was too young and i cant ejaculate in the normal way is it okay to ejaculate in the prone way im jst 20 does it effect my sex life in the future kindly plz answer 🙏🏻
I think I’ve answered that in the article. But the short answer is no (so long as you aren’t doing it so hard that you damage your penis, which is highly unlikely)
Hello, I have prone masturbated all my life and I am 40. I recently had a sexual encounter where I was unable to become erect, even with oral sex. What could be the cause?
Erections are extremely complicated and have as much to do with the vibe, how you felt about you, the other person, what else was going on in different parts of your body, and the stories we are told about what sex is and how we should do it. Try this article The Hard On
I appreciate your reply and advice. Almost every other information online about prone masturbation tells you how horrible it is. I really like your approach to how you help people. It’s funny how if a man is unable to perform it’s considered a disfunction and is something to be ashamed of. On the other hand if a woman is not aroused, it’s no big deal. But I am not trying to disrespect any person or gender, but I’m just saying. But again thank you and I definitely feel better and more confident about myself. One final question though. What are your thoughts on cialis, viagra, and other types of similar pills?
That’s very kind, thank you. I think you’re bang on the money by pointing out the double standard about arousal and men and women. The way that the sex positivity has tried to address this is by saying that all women should be sexually aroused in a particular way, which I also think is unhelpful. Katherine Angel’s book Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again is really great on this.
Anyway, to your question. I think Cialis, Viagra, and other dick pills are fine for people who want to take them. They can help kickstart an erection, but if someone isn’t turned on, or relaxed, comfortable in their own body, then they are only going to be of limited benefit. Hard-ons aren’t just to do with dicks, dicks are in relation to lots of other things. I’ve got a lot more advice about this here The Hard On And if you want to really geek out about this kind of thing and learn some philosophy on the way, try this module of my Teach Yourself Sex Ed course Teach Yourself Sex Ed – Bodies
But as a good anti-capitalist, I think that the drug companies who make these dick pills make too much money. Also they make the problem seem bigger in order to sell more products. But making the problem bigger makes the solution harder. If they said ‘it’s not a big deal if you can’t get hard sometimes, so chill’ that would make getting a hard-on easier, but they would sell fewer pills. Which is why this website is never going to make me any money!
Yes I have gotten around to reading the article on the hard on and it was very insightful. I will also check out the other article you mentioned. It is unfortunate that those companies make more money than they should. However I think that what you’re doing is far more important and more empathetic and humanizing than what most people do in life as a whole. Even if you don’t make any money from this website, you are doing work that is not actually measurable but far more valuable than money. You are treating people with dignity and respect and not as an object or spectacle to be gawked at or made fun of. You sir have my approval and admiration.
That’s extremely kind thank you
Well this is certainly life changing information. I have ‘proned’ since a teen and it was never a problem until I found a partner I liked and wanted to please her. Couldn’t maintain an erection or even enter, and I’m now guessing these are non-prone-related issues such as possible performance anxiety/pressure to perform/life stress.
Literally everywhere else on the internet including Medical News Today and Healthline talk about nerve damage and effects on sex life. But now reading those back, in the context of your article, it’s all obviously anecdotal, which is shocking. Now I need to work on those issues, but I’m sure it’s going to be a lot easier than fixing ‘nerve damage’ lol.
So this whole thing, which has caused hundreds of thousands of people anxiety, was created by some anonymous person in a bedroom with an internet connection 20 years ago?! Strange world.
So what do qualified doctors say then when someone comes into the practice with this problem? I’m generally curious. What a sham.
Well I’m glad you were able to find this article helpful! I think that sex is not really taken seriously enough as a subject but also the underlying assumptions that a lot of sex research is built on is to do with culture and history. To explore this further why not do my Teach Yourself Sex Ed course (it’s free) Teach Yourself Sex Ed – What You’ve Learnt So far As for what Doctors would say. Well, good ones would refer people to a psychosexual counsellor, or prescribe some resources to deal with stress, or the kinds of messages that people receive about sex. A lot of sex counsellors tell people about a book I co-wrote about this called A Practical Guide to Sex, which goes into a lot of this. Often (as you’ve pointed out) just refer people to educational resources about how dicks and hard ons actually work (and how sex is not just about our genitals or even just about our bodies).
I am 26 years old. I have been masturbating prone since I was 17. So after 8 -9 years of prone masturbation I now feel that my erections are not strong enough, or while my penis can get only 75% hard of it’s full capacity, it starts to soften after 10-15 seconds without any major physical stimulus. In short I can see I have trouble maintaining erections and also getting very hard. I have recently started masturbating with my hand, but I have to jerk my penis insanely hard to climax. And as soon as I stop holding my penis it begins to go soft again. I feel I am in trouble here. Please advice what should be the course of action. I am feeling very dejected and stressed due to this. Appreciate your help on this.
I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. I don’t want to tell you what to think, but I don’t think this is really down to prone masturbation (and there’s nothing wrong with prone masturbation, as I explain in the article). You’re describing masturbation, or solo sex, as something which is entirely happening in your penis. That’s not how sex, or bodies, work. Being turned on and feeling sexy, is about the whole body and mind and fantasies. It’s also about how comfortable we feel about our bodies and what we have learnt about ourselves. So I think that you’d start to feel better about it if you stepped away from the penis for a bit and instead try to connect with the rest of your body. I’ve got a lot more about this in this article about how to enjoy solo sex
Does mastrubating prone cause dullness which will help last longer in bed? Or will the penis not even stay erect that long?
Prone masturbation doesn’t cause anything, so long as you don’t actually damage the penis (which is hard to do). Read more about that here Can You Break Your Penis?
i had prone masturbation . few days ago i feel the curved downward and side penis..is that cause by prone masturbation(i have no bumb or plague in penis).
No it’s not. Penises often have a natural curve to them. Read more about this here The Penis
Is it possible that if I have been climaxing to prone masturbation with a soft erection that I have trained my penis to not get when I want it to? In other words, can masturbating with soft erections give you Erectole Dysfunction?
Nope. Erectile dysfunction is caused by other things (stress about getting hard being one of the main ones) The Hard On
Is it going to effect my sex life if I can do both types of masturbation?
No, it’ll all be good. There are many different types of masturbation and they are all fine so long as they don’t physically hurt you
Sir, on Ryan’s question above, if I can only do prone masturbation then would that affect my sex life?
No it will be fine
Sir does prone masturbation cause damage in prostate or seminal vessels though I am not having any problem and I am also not having ed and I am doing the hand practice but still sir can u plzz tell that this type of masturbation damages the seminal vessels or not but I am going to have sex with my partner and i am little nervous
As I’ve said in the article, “So you can chill. If prone masturbation is actually causing physical damage to your penis (damaging the skin, or hurting yuor penis) then stop. Give it a rest for a bit and try a different way. You can also just give your penis a rest too and touch different parts of your body to see how that feels. “