A question I’ve been asked a lot lately is how much masturbation is too much masturbation.
Here’s my audio advice about it, I sound like a bored Gary Linekar. Scroll down for written advice.
‘Too much’ depends on what you learnt about masturbating
What is too much masturbation is really down to you and how you feel about masturbation in general. It’s quite common for people to feel bad about masturbation because think of everything that is said about it ‘it’s for sad people who can’t get laid’ or ‘it’s not real sex’ or think of the sweary insults that relate to masturbation. Also men get told that it’s a sign of weakness if they wank (or get called waste men) and women get special shaming because ‘nice girls’ aren’t meant to enjoy sex and get called sluts or slags if they do.
Our own education around sex can make us feel bad about masturbation too.
Like if we are taught things like sex can be fun and it’s okay to do it if we feel old enough then we might feel quite chill about masturbating. But if we are taught that sex is super important and meaningful then we might not feel so chill about it. So for this reason some people can happily wank several times a day and feel fine, some people may wank once a month and feel awful.
I made this Bad Sex Ed Bingo card so you can see just how bad your Sex Ed was. If it was bad, I made a Teach Yourself Sex Ed course for you to try.
This is one of the leading sex and relationships education websites and I need your support to keep it free and ad free. Find out how you can support what I’m doing here.
It’s all about your own relationship to masturbation. If you regularly are feeling crap about yourself after masturbation, or you find it’s taking up too much of your headspace, or you are masturbating to the point where you aren’t doing the other stuff in your life you need to (friends, school/college/work) then you maybe want to think about this some more. It’s okay to want to cut down the number of times you wank if that’s what you think is best.
If you want to cut down
If you want to think about cutting down, maybe think about all the reasons that people masturbate: because they are horny, to have sex, to explore their body, to feel in their body for a bit, to feel nice, to relax, to help them sleep, because they’re bored, to avoid doing work (procrasturbate), to kill time, because they are upset about something. All these can be fine reasons to masturbate – but are there other things you could do to help you to achieve these things?
For example could you find an exercise that would make you feel good in your body, or can you do mindful breathing exercises to help you relax? Maybe if you could do this you might find yourself wanking less, but you also may enjoy wanking more because you aren’t putting so much pressure on this one thing to give you so much stuff.
You could try to maybe have fewer wanks and go for quality not quantity.
For example if you have a lot of work on, instead of procrasturbating maybe you could go for the reward wank? Or maybe instead of the odd quick wank here and there because you are bored, maybe you could give yourself half an hour or an hour (in a private space, not on the bus) to really enjoy masturbating. Treat it like it’s having sex with yourself (it is) and you might start to enjoy it more – you also may start to understand your body more too.
Anyway, there’s loads more of this kind of advice and wisdom in my audio above, so do have a listen!
For more advice about wanking:
Solo Sex – how to enjoy wanking more
How to Masturbate – in case you aren’t sure how to do it
Orgasm and Ejaculation – they aren’t the same, perhaps you can learn about this yourself from wanking
And here are some other questions you’ve asked me about it (popular topic)
Masturbation Isn’t Working For Me
What Is Safe To Put Up Your Bum?
© Justin Hancock, 2026 Find out more about me and BISH here. If you’re an educator, head to my website BISH training, to find out about my resources for SRE and training for practitioners. This website is funded by me (and I am not rich) and my supporters, please see how you can Support BISH here. Please leave me your feedback here.
BISH is run by me, Justin Hancock. I’ve been a trained sex and relationships educator since 1999. I am proud to be a partner of the Sex Education Forum and I am proud to be a member of the World Association for Sexual Health. As well as BISH I also have resources, a podcast, and a coaching service for over 18s, as well as some of the best RSE / CSE teaching resources around. Find out out about my other work at justinhancock.co.uk. My work has featured (positively) in the media, like the BBC, Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Sky One, and Novara Media.
Buy the BISH Ebook, the best of BISH one easy to read pdf you can read on your phone. Just £5 or join the Patreon from just £1 a month.
What Else Can I Help You With?
There’s a comment box below (scroll down) if you want to give me feedback or ask a question (don’t leave your full name and I pre-moderate all comments, so it’s safe for you to post here). Or you can ask me a question here.
Or …
Or you can search by tags
A-Z of Porn About You Abuse Arousal Ask Bish Body Image Clitoris Communication Condoms Consent Contraception Coronavirus Dry Humping Ejaculation Erection Feelings Friendships Gender Kink Kissing Law Love Masturbation Oral Sex Orgasm Parents Penis Pleasure Porn Positions Pregnancy Pressure Relationships Safer Sex Self Care Self Esteem Services Sex Education Sexting STIs Teach yourself Team Bish The Right Time Trust Vagina
If you have a question that I’ve not already answered you can contact me here
Other websites you might find helpful
There are other websites a bit like this one who have more funding than mine so they can do more and can provide more support. There’s Scarleteen who have lots of great advice articles and also moderated message boards where you can hang out and ask questions of other folk like you. Brook also offer sexual health services in person in the UK and online. The Mix are a UK online youth support service. For straight up advice I really like Go Ask Alice from Columbia University. Remember if you are in the UK and want some support there are loads of services near you, lots of them have their own websites.
What do you think about BISH?
I have a new survey for you to tell me What you think about BISH, which I am hosting at Cryptpad. Your feedback on BISH really really helps me to make the website better. So if you can spare 10 minutes I would be very grateful.
You can read what other people think about BISH and what they do with it in the report I wrote from the last survey I did here.
The survey that I had running for the PhD I’m doing is now closed. I’m now writing this up.
Here’s How To Stay Updated With BISH
Most of my readers like to stay updated via email. So sign up here and get an automatic email every time I post a new resource on here.
I’m not using social media much now to be honest. I put all my time into this website and also I think people trust sites like this more than social media. I still post on Instagram and also BlueSky when I’ve done a new thing, so you can follow me there. My YouTube has some of my old videos. You could also follow me on Reddit if you like (just starting out, so tell me which sub-reddits you’d like to see me post in).
Funding and Support
This website is only funded by people like you who find it useful. As you can see, there are no ads, it’s all free. There is no premium service, just expert advice for free if you need it. If you’re an adult and want to be a part of this project please support BISH.
Support BISH on Patreon