A guy usually starts self-pleasuring when he is a teenager and continues throughout his life. That naturally means that married men continue self-pleasuring, even when they are the recipients of regular sensual activity with their partners. Frequent releases, including from self-stimulation, help to ensure male organ health, so this is perhaps to be expected. Yet many men feel shame about self-pleasuring while married, and this raises the question: How open should a husband be about stroking himself?

How many self-gratify?
No one can say for sure how often married men self-pleasure. One online survey found that 87% of its male married respondents said they had self-stimulated in the last three months before taking the survey. (Of the men surveyed, 9% self-gratified daily or more; 30% reported self-pleasuring between one to three times during the three month period.) Another survey found that 85% of men who were married or living with another person self-stimulated.

Assuming that these statistics are somewhat accurate, it’s clear that most married men do not stop engaging in solo sensual activity once they are married. Do their wives know this? According to the first survey referenced above, only 15% of wives knew how often their husbands took sensual matters into their own hands.

Open or not?
Should a man be open with his spouse about his organ stroking habits? There is no universal answer. A great deal depends on several factors:

• How comfortable does the man feel about his self-pleasuring? Many men have associations of guilt and shame connected to manhood fondling. They don’t like to admit that they play with themselves to even their closest friends – even if said friends have no problem referencing their own self-fondling activities. In such cases, a man must feel very positive that the information will be received by his wife in an appropriate manner. Which leads to:

• How receptive does he think his wife would be? Some women do not really want to know how often manhood beating goes on when they’re not around. They may assume that their husbands are above what they may consider base desires or they may assume that the men self-pleasure because most men do – and some women are fine with that. Hopefully, a man and woman in a relationship know enough about each other to be able to predict the partner’s level of interest in this subject.

• Does he want to share this information? Many men may not want to make public the details of their solo sensual life – not because they are ashamed or feel guilty, but because it is something that he does by, to and for himself, and he feels his privacy should be respected.

• Is the activity related to a problem? Sometimes a man may self-gratify as a way of escaping or avoiding something. He may self-stroke because he feels angry at his wife but cannot express this. Or he may feel coldly toward his wife and decide he would rather pleasure himself than engage in sensual intimacy with her. If this kind of activity is consistent, the solo activity may be a sign of a larger problem. Talking about why he is self-pleasuring in these instances may be a way to address these issues.

It should be noted that openness about self-stimulation varies considerably. Some men stimulate their tools furtively and in secret; others may think nothing of fondling themselves while they watch TV with their wives. Finding the appropriate degree of openness depends upon the people involved in the relationship.

Of course, self-pleasuring sometimes leads a man – married or otherwise – to male member soreness from over-enthusiastic engagement. Using a top-drawer male organ health crème (health professionals recommend Man1 Man Oil) with the natural moisturizing power of Shea butter and vitamin E can help alleviate such soreness. If loss of sensation due to rough handling is an issue, a crème that also includes neuroprotective acetyl L-carnitine can help; this ingredient’s ability to counter peripheral nerve damage makes it invaluable in restoring lost sensitivity.