Touching myself is the same. I start slowly, softly. I normally like to cup my balls very softly in my hand. Then I might allow my fingers to move over the skin of my balls and my penis like the trilling wings of a butterfly. I might – softly, ever so softly – encircle the shaft of my penis and slide my hand along, barely touching. Or I might stroke the skin of my shaft with one finger, softly and gently. Sometimes I would hold the rim of the head of my penis with the five finger tips of one hand. I like to stroke the hairs on my balls and at the base of my penis without putting any pressure on the skin underneath. That way it produces goose bumps, a sure sign that the nerve endings are responding to my touch. All the while I breathe in and out regularly, enjoying the sensation of being alive.
A word about breathing: I believe that one of the reasons why we often do not enjoy masturbation – in fact, just about anything we do – is because we do not breathe properly. It is true of exercise, for obvious reasons. It is also true of eating. When you eat slowly and sensually, and you breathe deeply while you eat, you relax. As you relax, your senses open up to the sensations and tastes of the food. Also, by breathing through your nose, you smell the aroma of the food in the air, but also savor the aroma passing through your nose cavity from inside your mouth.
If you don’t breathe properly while eating, you do not enjoy your food as much. Have you ever tried eating with a heavy cold? It is just not the same. Besides the obvious point that you can hardly taste your food, you also battle to get enough oxygen into your lungs. This causes you to feel stressed, which in turn blocks out the enjoyable sensations of the food.
Now here is a strange thing. Just like some people rush down their food without breathing, many people masturbate to orgasm almost without breathing. Videos of men and women masturbating often display their faces in states of agony and stress while they rush through their masturbation with rapid, hard movements, trying to finish as quickly as possible. Passion should not be confused with plain old-fashioned stress.
Eating is an extension of life. Just so you cannot have life without breath. It gives energy and sustenance, and allows you to relax. By interrupting proper breathing, you create a temporary emergency in your body, which creates stress. How can you enjoy your food in such a state? The same applies to masturbation. Sex – whether masturbation or otherwise - is also an extension of life. How can you deprive this life function of air, and expect to enjoy it?
Regular, repeated breathing feeds your mind and faculties with the oxygen that they need to perceive with absolute clarity. The better you perceive – taste, see, feel, smell, hear – the better you enjoy.
That is why you should breathe easily and deeply from the moment you start playing with yourself. You should learn to breathe properly without thinking. In the beginning you will have to concentrate in order to breathe the right way, but you will soon get used to doing it without thinking. The sooner you get used to doing it, the more you will be able to enjoy the sensations of your body. I have found that masturbation is a bit like climbing a spiral staircase: every time you come around another spiral, you take another breath. And every time you take another breath, you are at a slightly higher plane of pleasure. It is almost as if I breathe in or drink in the enjoyment with every breath. In addition, when I breathe out I relax and feel the tension ebbing away. I never forget to breathe properly, because I subconsciously associate each breath with heightened pleasure. If that is so, you have to ask why anyone forgets to breathe?
Breathing properly is important for another reason: It is a form of discipline. Good masturbation is a form of discipline, and breathing greatly assists in that endeavor. By breathing properly and avoiding stress, you relax and feel in control. The most exciting thing about proper masturbation is the fact that you control your voluntary actions completely, while your body takes its own course with involuntary actions. Your brain discharges endorphins that make you high on pleasure. Your heart pumps more and more blood into your wonderfully engorged penis. Your senses are heightened. And ultimately you start orgasming and ejaculating, and it feels like a life force coming from deep inside you on its own. You no longer control what is happening, and believe me, you don’t want to.
A farmer preparing the ground for his crop – plowing, weeding, sowing, watering – knows there is a time that nature just takes over. His discipline lies in preparing the way. He opens the door to unleash the powers of nature.
How to breathe properly? Meditation and other experts teach us to breathe by filling the lower parts of our lungs first, and then the rest. You fill the lower parts of your lungs by expanding your lower diaphragm. It is neither necessary nor good to blow up your chest like a balloon. Focus on your lower abdomen. Fill it with air, and the rest will follow automatically. Lie back on your back in a comfortable position, so that you torso is not bunched up. Do the exercise of simply breathing with your eyes closed for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation and the energy and warmth that the oxygen brings into your body. Now concentrate on the core of your being situated just below your abdomen where the air enters. Focus on breathing in and out regularly, and simply enjoy the sensation. If you do this, you will see why breathing makes anything you do – resting, exercising, eating, working, reading, sleeping, and yes, masturbating – much more pleasurable.
Another way of thinking about breathing properly is to remember pleasurable things you have done while breathing hard (for the moment, besides sex!): playing sport or games as a child, swimming in the sea, eating a great meal. Do you recall that, when the enjoyment was at its height, that feeling of tingling pleasure on the pit of your stomach? In my case that feeling of enjoyment, of joy if you like, has always periodically climaxed as I breathe in, while breathing out has given a sense of relaxation.
While you are masturbating and breathing deeply, visualize and feel the sexual energy – that warm tingly feeling in your groin – gradually spreading through your legs, your upper body and your head. This you will achieve by relaxing completely and by breathing deeply, and willing the energy to spread. An easy way to recognize this, is goose bumps that form on the skin of your legs, a tingly feeling in your stomach and chest, and the feeling that your head is opening up and feeling light.
The longer you can exercise discipline and control, the greater the pleasure. And here I emphasize again as much the pleasure of the journey as the destination. There is a fascinating tension – a pas de due if you like – between discipline and pleasure. In good masturbation they both exist at the same time: you sit (or lie) and observe yourself, almost dispassionately, controlling your movements, your breathing, your focus – while at the same time feeling the warmth of sensation coursing through your body. It is a marriage of the conscious and the controlled with the involuntary and the spontaneous. The very act of discipline gives birth to the unbridled pleasure of the senses. It is because you control your actions that you feel so good. People often mistakenly think of sexual pleasure as a form of wanton licentiousness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
How do you move? The first answer is: you move consciously. You focus on what you do, and you focus on how it makes you feel. And you adapt what you are doing all the time. Remember: less is more. Start more slowly and more softly. Sensation is best enhanced by the slow and soft touch. To help you with this idea, make use of an image or a metaphor (note, not a fantasy): Think of a girl touching a man – you - for the first time: softly, gently. Imagine yourself as a child exploring yourself – explore your penis as if for the first time.