Masturbating To Erotic Imagery (Part 3)

On its own, masturbation is usually aimed at one's own personal experience of pleasure, but the social dimensions of sexuality can have ramifications for certain cross-gender friendships.  Masturbation is certainly not associated with all friendships between men and women, but it is affiliated with some of them.  Some people might feel awkward at the thought or mention of this particular sub-issue involving masturbation, but the potential intersection of sexuality and friendship between men and women is not something to fear, much less something to ignore.  There does not need to be anxiety about the matter.

It needs to be understood that masturbating to opposite gender friends, even if sexual attraction to them is present, is not an inevitable outcome of male-female friendships, no matter how subjectively attractive both parties are.  Not everyone necessarily does such a thing, and it is not the case that everyone who does so masturbates to every friend of the opposite gender.  It would strike many people as bizarre or disgusting to masturbate to certain opposite gender friends.  Moreover, that someone masturbates to a picture or thought of an opposite gender friend does not mean they are sexually attracted to their friend [1], only that the image or thought is helpful for enabling or sustaining physiological (or psychological) arousal.

Whether or not sexual attraction is involved, however, men and women are perfectly capable of masturbating to the thought or sight of select opposite gender friends without changing their interactions with the friends in question.  Neither digital communication nor face to face conversation or body language is at an inherent risk of changing as a result of the habit.  Sexual pleasure and excitement do not rob people of their free will and capacity for self-control, even when associated with the intimacy or familiarity of friendship with the opposite gender.  In other words, masturbating to a friend of the opposite gender does not weaken, doom, or otherwise affect the friendship by default.

Likewise, it does not have to weaken or negatively impact a relationship with one's significant other.  If one's significant other admits to masturbating while thinking of a particular opposite gender friend, there is no need for alarm.  It does not even necessarily indicate sexual attraction to that friend, much less that the one masturbating to their friend has betrayed their romantic partner.  A romantic pairing is not threatened when either partner enjoys coupling masturbation with mental or visual imagery of a member of the opposite gender outside of the relationship, whether they are a friend, celebrity, or stranger.

Relaxation about masturbation in general is needed if Western culture is to consistently shed the remaining grip of prudery, but even people who are comfortable with talking about or engaging in masturbation may hesitate to think about or address masturbating to friends of the opposite gender.  However, using thoughts or images of an opposite gender friend is not a degrading or inherently dangerous thing.  Just as anxiety about other innocent sexual behaviors is unwarranted, so, too, is anxiety about masturbation in this context.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/masturbating-to-erotic-imagery-part-2.html