I'm not a fan of NoFap!

Have you heard of NoFap? I'm guessing you might have and that's why you are here or perhaps I've piqued your curiosity and you're keen to find out more! I hadn't heard of NoFap until a few years ago when various male clients spoke about it in their therapy sessions. Let's start off by saying I didn't like the idea of it then and I certainly don't like the idea of it now!

NoFap is the name of an organisation and community that advocate for ceasing masturbation and porn use for various reasons including compulsive sexual behaviour, religious and moral reasons and self improvement.

So let's think about why NoFap ( so no self-pleasure, is a bad idea).

Fundamentally as I have written about before there is absolutely nowt wrong with wanking / self-pleasure / masturbating...whatever you want to call it. Nothing wrong at all in getting to know your own body, figuring about what tickles your fancy and having an orgasm or two!

I've seen it recommended for all kinds of issues from relationship problems, self esteem difficulties and erection issues.

When we start to equate masturbating as "wrong" or "bad" or "forbidden" we make people feel shameful for having normal , healthy sexual urges (and quite frankly lots of the people I work with have enough pre-existing shame from earlier life experiences without introducing a whole load more because they feel like making themselves cum from time to time). Shame is no good for a healthy sex life (or a healthy any life) . Neither is the anxiety and frustration that also tends to come with banning something that is pretty natural to most people.

When we start to enforce rigid rules onto ourselves ( that don't feel particularly natural) we are going to slip up. Then what happens? More shame, more feeling shit, more feeling like a failure and weak...again all things that lots of the people I work with already feel about themselves.

Along the same lines no matter what you might heave heard, you will not be "less of a man" if you masturbate. You won't be storing up your masculine energy if you stay away from orgasming on your own! You won't suddenly become super strong if you stop touching yourself.

This for me really taps into the whole narrative that men need to behave a certain "masculine" way , have big cocks, last for ages in bed and be all powerful. It also taps into messages around women being slags if they enjoy sex, have multiple partners etc. None of these things are true. You are free to enjoy sex in whatever way works for you (as long as you don't hurt anyone else of course), sexual pleasure comes in all shapes and masculinity and femininity and everything in between look just how you want them to look.

So masturbating is good, sex is healthy and you are not bad or weird or less than in anyway for engaging in any of the above. And if you use porn as part of your healthy sex life there is nothing wrong with that either.

This doesn't mean that solo sex (or porn use) can't become a problem but that's true of absolutely anything and everything in life. Anything done to excess can be a problem. If you are so engaged with yourself sexually that you are not eating / working/ sleeping / having problems with your relationships that is not good. Making yourself sore is not healthy. Training your brain and your body that only your hand is good enough is going to cause issues when it comes to having sexual interactions with other people.

However this doesn't mean that the problem is masturbating (or porn or eating too many cakes or whatever). The problem is the stuff that you are trying to avoid by wanking or eating or drinking or shopping.

Find the core issue, sort that out alongside developing a healthier relationship with yourself and sex and voila, things are much better and you don't need to ban fapping and you don't need to feel ashamed of yourself. Much nicer result! If that sounds a kinder and more useful way of improving sex, drop me an email to drnicholamarchant@gmail.com to find out more about how I can help you.

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