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Why do people feel guilty after masturbating?

3 Answers
Last Updated: 01/28/2022 at 12:54pm
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Top Rated Answers
TheDreamer
- Expert in Sexual Health
October 5th, 2020 6:06am
Thinking back to my childhood I'd say the problem is lack of open communication or avoiding a taboo subject. My parents never had the birds and the bees talk with me. I can't remember how old we were at the time but my cousin was over and we were out playing and climbing around in the hey barn and one day we decided to see what our differences were. We both had our pants down and were looking and touching and then mom showed up. We were told that we were sick and what we were doing was filthy and discussing and we should be ashamed of ourselves. There was some wrath of god and some what's your father going to think and on and on. The teen years hit and brought with it much shame. Wet dreams and that thing popping up at odd uncomfortable times. All I knew was that the urges I had were something to be ashamed of. The first time I touched it long enough for something to happen I freaked a little. At that point I had no idea what was supposed to happen and what did seemed filthy and disgusting. . Parents really need to have the uncomfortable chats with their kids.
Anonymous - Expert in Sexual Health
December 24th, 2020 7:51pm
Relatively speaking, this is something that is stemmed from early childhood. Usually victims that have been molested, raped, sexually abused, sexually violated at a young age will be rather angry, scared, isolating themselves. It will tend to feel like masturbating is such an awful thing. It is then psychological because it is something that begun in early childhood. Early childhood ages are some very important years at the beginning of life to help for an easier life path. Feeling guilty can mostly affect children, adolescent, teenagers more than other age groups because that's the age group that they're learning more about themselves, exploring and trying to adapt to the world. It plays a yucky role in our life feeling that way; guilty. It's almost like having a regrettable feeling after the O has begun and the C has been met. But masturbation in itself is a normal form of self pleasure and there is nothing wrong with that.
f1nd3rzk33p3rz
January 28th, 2022 12:54pm
This is definitely more prominent if you grew up religious/in a religious area, but from early age we're taught that anything sexual is gross, sinful, weird, or otherwise makes us unwanted. Parents often feel uncomfortable talking to their children about sexual health, and schools don't talk about it either. That leads people to finding stuff out through porn, which of course is also very stigmatised by society. And, of course, it's not accurate. So, with the guilt of watching something like porn, and then the guilt of doing something seen as gross or sinful by the rest of society, leads to guilt of anything sexual. But, masturbation is very normal.