So I’ve been (very slowly, I know) thinking over the post asking for recommendations to share. Yesterday it occurred to me how many trials and tribulations I had in learning to masturbate, and I wondered if maybe I could help people in my past selves’ situations skip over some of that shit.
But honestly, the main takeaway I got from the learning process (other than the outcome) was that the whole thing is a complete mess and it’s a goddamn miracle anyone ever manages to find a technique that works for them.
I used to resent Scarleteen for telling me “masturbation usually doesn’t work the first few times you try it; keep trying, it gets better with practice” and sending me off on a wild goose chase for a while in my late teens. But it turns out that, in a way, they weren’t wrong: while the genital-focused methods they recommended have never done much for me, the method that *is* right for me *also* didn’t work at first and got better with practice.
(Trouble was, I had so much learned helplessness built up around masturbation from previous wild goose chases that for a long while I hardly ever practised. You know how long it took me to reach a skill level where I could reliably achieve effects that were, not just “neat” or “better than nothing”, but actually *satisfying*? *Three years*! And almost all of that time was in making “you know, I *could* masturbate, *that* might help with the sexual frustration” an available thought (instead of reverting to my old habits of distraction and waiting it out); if I hadn’t had to deal with that, I suspect I could have reached a sufficient skill level in a month or three.)
I guess the best I have for actionable advice is to focus your practice on methods with a high prior probability of working (things that are a good fit with what you already know about your sexuality, things that have worked for a lot of other people, or ideally both), and on things that are at least *somewhat* enjoyable even when they don’t satisfy your libido. That second part helps with cultivating a lower-pressure mindset: it’s easier to get the motivation to practice if there’s something pleasant to it (rather than just a gamble at it becoming pleasant *eventually*), and that also makes it easier not to get frustrated and give up too soon. (Although, unfortunately, I still have no idea how to tell how soon is too soon to give up. Hell, for all I know, there’s some trick to making genital-based masturbation work for me that I just never worked out, or never practised that particular trick long enough.)
I wish I could tell you that it gets better, but I know there’s no guarantee that a given person will have *any* method that works for them. Maybe try to make your peace with that idea in addition to the above practising; no individual is capable of the full range of possible pleasures, we’re all missing some stuff. Don’t get me wrong, masturbation *is* a very useful tool to have, and it’s worth trying to obtain that tool, but stressing out about whether you’re ever going to find something won’t help anything and might very well make it more difficult (by loading practice with negative associations).
(this is all assuming you even *have* a libido; I’m not sure which parts are different if you don’t, but I’m guessing it’s probably easier for you to be lower-pressure about it)
I don’t know if it gets better for you; all I can say for sure is, it got better for me. Lately I kind of want to go back, give my twenty-year-old self a hug, tell her it’s gonna be okay, and hand her a guide to self-hypnosis.
Very good points.
“Just keep trying!” is something my advice is often guilty of, as well. I wish there was a clear distinction between “You just haven’t gotten the hang of it, but you will with a slight modification” and “That just ain’t gonna work, try something completely different”. Maybe the advice should be more like “Try lots of different things lots of different ways, lots of different times!”
The line “no individual is capable of the full range of possible pleasures, we’re all missing some stuff“ is something important to keep in mind. I know what works for me and I know some of what works for other people. When I try what works for other people, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it works for me, but other things work better. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all and I don’t understand how anyone can do it that way because wow that’s just uncomfortable and I’m going to stop now. And sometimes it will be so close and maybe it would be great if I can just work out the one missing piece but nope that didn’t work after all but will it ever work and should I keep trying or not. Maybe the advice needs to suggest all of those things as options. But that can never catch all of the things that might work, and maybe none of the things suggested will, but something else might.
And so often, “Try something else” assumes that you’re in the right town to begin with, and you just need to find the right street. But as you found, maybe the ticket to success isn’t in Genitalville, but it’s in the next town over or maybe even on a different continent entirely. The standard guidebooks fall apart in that kind of scenario.
So, to readers out there: Do you have any suggestions for telling the difference between “You haven’t gotten the hang of it” and “That ain’t gonna work”? And how would you recommend finding what works, if what works isn’t remotely close to what everyone suggests? Ask | Submit
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#I realised last night that I never reblogged the moderator’s response to my submitted OP back in March #and therefore it isn’t in any of my copious backups #since I often go read it when re-reading my blog #and I’m a bit surprised asexualactivities hasn’t *already* been purged #I figured I’d better fix that ASAP #sexuality and lack thereof #nsfw text #asexuality #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #The Last Tumblr Apocalypse #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #conversational aglets
Brain: so I noticed you were going over the lyrics of Do They Know It’s Christmas earlier
Me: Yeah, it came on the radio and I was thinking about making a Tumblr post about what a terrible song it is, how it paints Africa, a continent three times the size of the United States, as an undifferentiated sterile hellscape, how this is false to fact, insulting to many who live there, and strategically opposed to the message most people involved in relief/development efforts would prefer to communicate to westerners.
Brain: I didn’t understand anything you just said, but I assume it meant you want to hear it like all the time.
Me: That’s nothing like what I just said.
Brain: Don’t worry, I’ve got this.
Me: What? Wait, no…
Brain: And the Christmas bells that ring there / are the clanging chimes of doom / WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD IT’S THEM, INSTEAD OF YOOOOOOOU
Me: D:
the clanging chimes of doom though, seriously.
it’s the most bizarrely passive aggressive song of all time.
Geldof and Ure themselves later recognised the musical limitations of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”: in his typically blunt manner, Geldof told Australia’s Daily Telegraph in 2010, “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. The other one is ‘We Are the World’.”[42] Ure’s assessment was more considered, writing in his autobiography that “it is a song that has nothing to do with music. It was all about generating money… The song didn’t matter: the song was secondary, almost irrelevant.”
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has always been one of my favourite Christmas songs, but I am well known to be willing to overlook complete-bullshit poverty lyrics for the sake of pretty sounds.
(I actually did *not* get “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” stuck in my head upon reading this post, because instead my brain went “hey, did somebody say bullshit poverty songs that redeem themselves through sheer prettiness?” and began playing a Phil Collins medley.)
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#right now it’s mostly ”Heat on the Street” and ”We Wait and We Wonder” #reply via reblog #music #Christmas #our roads may be golden or broken or lost
There is a sign before a cavern, in Niorve in the Thousand Nadirs. It is written in the star-symbols that people wrote in before they learned the Perfect Language, and it says:
“Truth placed a treasure in this cavern. It belongs to any who have enough faith in him to heed the message he placed here, and turn right at the crossroads. But the Lords of Noise, to keep men from the treasure, placed a ghost at the crossroads, whose job it is to urge men to turn left. The ghost is more clever than men think, and their faith weaker. Beware, for if you turn left you will die.”
Many people entered the cave seeking the treasure, sure their faith was strong enough. None ever came out.
Kadmi Rachumion came to the cave when he was clearing the land of mysteries. For three days he fasted and meditated in front of it. Then he called down the Perils of the Northern Lights and asked them to test his faith. For another three days they tested it, and finally they told him that no power in human lands or the ultimate north could move him, because his resolution was perfect.
Then he lit a torch, entered the cavern, and walked down a long corridor. As he walked, he thought of how the ghost might tempt him. Money he could refuse. Power he could refuse. Threats he would shrug off. Arguments he would dissect. Reason he would meet with reason. And he held the Spear That Burns Illusion before him, so no trickery could confound his path.
Finally he came to the crossroads, and there stood a ghost, dressed in the rags of Shinomai. “Go on,” he told the ghost. “Try your best.”
The ghost said: “Truth placed a treasure in this cavern. It belongs to any who have enough faith in him to heed the ghost he left to lead them, and turn left at the crossroads. But the Lords of Noise, to keep men from the treasure, placed a sign in front of the cavern, whose job it is to urge men to turn right. Beware, for if you turn right you will die.”
Kadmi thought for a long time, then laughed. Then he made the sign of Kasi Elution Lighting The Sun Beacon, and the ghost disappeared. Then he turned around and walked out of the cave.
Niderion-nomai’s commentary: Kadmi won the treasure, which was Invincible Doubt.
The eyes-in-the-front thing (usually) only applies to mammals. Crocodiles, arguably the inspiration for dragons, have eyes that look to the sides despite being a predator.
This isn’t a mammalian thing. When people talk about ‘eyes on the front’ or ‘eyes on the side,’ they’re really talking about binocular vision vs monocular vision. Binocular vision is more advantageous for predators because it’s what gives you depth perception; i.e, the distance you need to leap, lunge, or swipe to take out the fast-moving thing in front of you. Any animal that can position its eyes in a way that it has overlapping fields of vision has binocular vision. That includes a lot of predatory reptiles, including komodo dragons, monitor lizards, and chameleons.
(The eyes-in-front = predator / eyes-on-sides = prey thing holds true far more regularly for birds than it does for mammals. Consider owls, hawks, and falcons vs parrots, sparrows, and doves.)
But it’s not like binocular vision is inherently “better” than monocular vision. It’s a trade-off: you get better at leap-strike-kill, but your field of vision is commensurately restricted, meaning you see less stuff. Sometimes, the evolutionary benefit of binocular vision just doesn’t outweigh the benefit of seeing the other guy coming. Very few forms of aquatic life have binocular vision unless they have eye stalks, predator or not, because if you live underwater, the threat could be coming from literally any direction, so you want as wide a field of view as you can get. If you see a predator working monocular vision, it’s a pretty safe assumption that there is something else out there dangerous enough that their survival is aided more by knowing where it is than reliably getting food inside their mouths.
For example, if you are a crocodile, there is a decent chance that a hippo will cruise up your shit and bite you in half. I’d say that makes monocular vision worthwhile.
Which brings us back to OP’s point. Why would dragon evolution favor field of view over depth perception?
A lot of the stories I’ve read painted the biggest threats to dragons (until knights with little shiny sticks came along) as other dragons. Dragons fight each other, dragons have wars. And like fish, a dragon would need to worry about another dragon coming in from any angle. That’s a major point in favor of monocular vision. Moreover, you don’t need depth perception in order to hunt if you can breathe fucking fire. A flamethrower is not a precision weapon. If you can torch everything in front of you, who cares if your prey is 5 feet away or 20? Burn it all and sift among the rubble for meat once everything stops moving.
Really, why would dragons have eyes on the front of their heads? Seems like they’ve got the right idea to me.
this is some good dragon discourse right here, 10/10, and i dont mean to derail the whole thing away from the eyes, but i feel obligated to mention that in many stories and accurate to some reptiles, dragons have an extremely acute sense of smell/taste which would definitely help narrow down the depth perception issue. things smell stronger the closer they are. and i feel like i read somewhere that a blind snake can flick the air with its tongue and track its target mouse with no trouble at all. gotta imagine the “great serpents of the sky” had some pretty advanced biology. enough to make field of view win out against depth perception.
anywho. cool stuff. fear the dragons even if they are the prey cause they still beat us on the food chain.
“A flamethrower is not a precision weapon. If you can torch everything in front of you, who cares if your prey is 5 feet away or 20? Burn it all and sift among the rubble for meat once everything stops moving.”
A) As was stated previously, this rule doesn’t hold for life underwater where binocular vision isn’t worth the limited field of view.
B) Hammerhead sharks hacked the fucking system and spread their eyes so far apart that they have 360 degree field of vision and binocular vision of whatever’s in front of them and behind them.
