Masturbating In Marriage

Masturbation is unique among sexual acts because it alone can be enjoyed on an individual level apart from reproduction or pleasuring a partner.  It is an act of pleasure that neither needs to involve anyone else (or at least their physical presence, as mental or physical imagery of certain individuals of the opposite gender might greatly enhance masturbation) nor be aimed at anything other than one's own subjective pleasure.  While all other sexual acts can be pursued out of a focus on an individual's experience, no others require anything more than a person's own body.

Since masturbation is performed on a person by his or her own hands (or perhaps with sex toys as well), it is inescapably focused on a person's will or personal experience of pleasure.  Married individuals who both seek to sexually please their spouses and pleasure themselves might sometimes feel torn between the two desires, even if not all people can relate to either impulse.  Moreover, the other spouse might feel overlooked or hurt at the thought of their partner masturbating for the sake of personal excitement.

If a married person masturbates outside of a mutual masturbation context, he or she has done nothing that disrespects their partner or the relationship.  This is true even in cases where the masturbating spouse (if both do not practice it) prefers masturbation to sex with their partner.  Sexual preferences are subjective, and a person's commitment to and understanding of their spouse it not automatically reflected by their preferences.  Craving masturbation more than sex with a spouse is not a sign of coldness or dismissal.

Of course, transparent communication between spouses can clarify this even if neither party reasoned it out previously.  It is always ideal for the health of a marriage for husbands and wives to mutually feel free to share their genuine desires, preferences, and perceptions, and communicating one's sexuality is a crucial part of this.  After all, any explicitly sexual components of a marriage are all that separate marriages and any other romantic relationships from platonic friendships with either gender!

There is always the option of a couple masturbating together, a form of masturbation that includes both an emphasis on self-pleasuring and an emphasis on the emotional, sexual bond between both spouses.  Mutual masturbation can even include an emphasis on sensual imagery of other members of the opposite gender, just as masturbation that has nothing to do with one's spouse can.  As long as both spouses are rational, they are entirely capable of understanding themselves, each other, and the nature of marriage and masturbation.