I've Been Masturbating Wrong [SEX]

On today’s sex episode of The Naked Puppet… we’re getting very personal.

I’m talking masturbation, celibacy, sexual awakening, and a realization that completely unraveled my understanding of my own body. After going on a few dates and almost breaking my celibacy, I discovered something that sent me into one of the biggest trauma epiphanies of my healing journey.

Turns out I had spent 30+ years following a hidden rule my brain made without me even realizing it.

We’re talking about why I only ever masturbated a certain way, why I couldn’t feel anything during intimacy, the shocking realization I had in a gay bar, and what I learned after discovering I had never truly connected with parts of my own body.

This episode gets raw, vulnerable, NSFW, and honestly a little heartbreaking. But if you’ve ever struggled with trauma, shame, dissociation, sexuality, or feeling disconnected from your own body… this conversation might hit a little deeper than you expect.

Curtain up. Let's do this.

Transcript

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And one of my friends goes, like, oh, you know what? Mine looks like number two. Like, my hoo-ha looks like person number two. And somebody else in the group goes, Oh my God, mine's more like number six. You know, we're having a blast, like we're laughing. And somebody turns to me and goes, JC, so which one does yours look like? And I literally had no clue which one mine looked the most liked. And I had this immediate internal panic. Like, you guys, this whole healing journey has just been epiphany after epiphany and just learning things about myself that I should have known my whole life, and they're all coming to the surface. And I was not about to have an epiphany in a gay bar in Wii Ho with jello shooters involved. And so I kind of was just like, oh, I'm like number three. And I kind of just wanted the conversation to go away because I'm literally having that just internal panic about it. Places, everyone, it's showtime. Welcome back to The Naked Puppet, the podcast that pulls back the curtain on all things sex, intimacy, the body, and the brains. Yes, plural while on this crazy healing journey. This is basically the unfiltered diary of somebody who repressed their childhood trauma, developed multiple personalities, and associated through life without knowing it. Uh, but now I'm getting my life back, you guys, one scene at a time. Hello, everyone. My name is JC. This is the Naked Puppet, and this episode is going to be a sex episode. I've started to kind of compartmentalize my episodes between sex, intimacy, the body, and the brains. Um, one, because I have multiple ladies that live in my brain and it's easier, but two, because some of these topics can be triggering to some, or some topics might be more interesting to you than others. So by compartmentalizing them and organizing this way, you can pop into the episodes that interest you, if that makes sense. But today's episode, you guys, is one of those foundational topics behind this entire podcast. Something that I created this show because it's something that I wanted to talk about that's not necessarily safe for work, but is so deeply intrinsic into my healing journey that I just have to tell you guys about because it might resonate with some of you guys who might be trauma victims or who just might not even understand some of your own sexuality. And that's because we are gonna be talking about masturbation and how hidden trauma has affected my masturbatorious habits. That's not a word, but you guys get it. So, with that in mind, and before we raise the curtain, a quick note on today's performance. Um, today's show does include some heavy topics of trauma, dissociation, self-pleasure, and sex. So if any of that feels at all tender, um, just know that the theater doors are always open if you need to exit for a little bit and return when you are ready. Um, and just as a reminder, this show is just my own personal experience. I'm not a therapist, this is not medical advice. Please seek licensed support if you need it. I'm just sharing my own personal healing journey and some of the epiphanies that I've had along the way. And this episode is definitely a crazy one, and you do not want to miss it. But all right, the stage is set, the spotlight is warm, and baby, it is showtime. So let's dive in. All right, you guys, I am a few maybe years now. I don't even know how long I've been on this healing journey. Um, but quick update on my dating life. I still don't have one. Um, I am still not really interested in dating because I'm going through so much. However, I am open to it if something cool comes along my way. And so, about maybe six months ago now at this point, somebody did. I did go on a few dates with this guy, and it ended up being a kind of pivotal in my entire healing journey. So, as you guys know, or if you don't, I am going through a second puberty right now. I'm getting all new hormones, I'm getting attuned with my body, I'm starting to feel horny again for the first time. And so I have been itching to break my celibacy. However, I am taking it very slowly, you guys, because it kind of does feel like my second virginity. And so, I don't know, I feel like I'm in high school again, where it's like, I want to lose it to not necessarily like this a special person, but somebody that I feel safe with and that, you know, I lose it in a very controlled way under my own boundaries. And so I met this guy, we went on a few dates, and I thought, okay, maybe he could be that person. Uh, but again, I was taking it super slow on purpose. Very slow, very intentional, because this is a big deal. I don't know, like you guys having sex for the first time after learning all of this, I just wanted to be very careful about it. So, fast forward a few dates we go on, you know, we end up back at my place, we kind of start fooling around, we get to first base, and um, then he kind of starts touching me down there, I will say. And I remember thinking when this was happening, my brain was like, ah, yes, like this is happening. But down there, I felt literally nothing. I, you know, we're messing around on the bed, making out, you know, doing all this stuff. And I had to look down to see if he was even touching me, which is weird because my brain at this time was thinking, like, oh my gosh, like here we go, it's showtime, it's happening. I wanted it mentally, but it was truly like my brain was ready for takeoff, and my body was still stuck in airplane mode because he was touching me. I looked down and I could not feel any form of sensation. It was like, wait a second, is my body for decoration purposes only? What is happening? And when I say I couldn't feel anything, it's not like it was painful or numb. It's it was just like empty. I remember thinking, I feel like a Barbie doll with a plastic hoo-ha because I knew I I've been coming into my body for the first time. Like, you know, go check out previous episodes for all of that. And I knew that my first time being intimate with somebody would be different. But I had no idea that I was still this disconnected, that I would feel the absence of anything when another person was touching me. So in that moment, I stop. I'm like, okay, let's stop. Like, I'm kind of like, we need to stop right now, sort of thing. And I sent him home, and I kind of had to sit with those feelings for a little bit because I'm like, wait, that's that's concerning. Um, not only physically, but also emotionally, because I felt this huge disappointment. I've been waiting for this big sexual experience, and I'm like, wait, am I never gonna feel anything ever again? So I made an appointment with my therapist, and I'm kind of just dumping it on her, just like everything I told you, basically. And I'm not even really making that big of a deal of it yet. You know, I've learned that I suppress a lot of my big emotions and I don't like to feel pain and sadness. What a concept. So I'm casually telling her as if I'm telling you guys, you know, this. And she asked me, she asked me this question that kind of blew everything wide open. She goes, Well, JC, what do you feel when you touch yourself? I was like, oh, well, solo sex, you know, masturbation, if you will, is way different than sex with a partner. So I can't even compare. And she says, Well, different how. And I explain to my therapist, I say, Well, with a partner, when I'm being intimate, it is about the intimacy. It's about the closeness, it's about two bodies joining in this like beautiful connection. And honestly, my whole life, or as long as I've been sexually active, it's never been about the pleasure or the orgasm. It's more about the closeness with the other person. So I explained to her, the goal has never been um, it's never been about sensation, it's always been about the connection. And, you know, as you know, I'm the naked puppet for a reason. I'm not there for the orgasm with the person. It's about the performance. But when it comes to masturbation and sex with myself, it is completely different. Because when it's with myself, it is purely results. It is not about the other person's pleasure to make sure they're having a good time, that you know, it's two bodies joining. It's literally just results with myself. It's not romantic, it's not even exploratory, it is, I mean business. Because the way that I masturbate, it is using my body as a serotonin button. It so how I do it is I basically I hold my breath, I squeeze every single muscle that I have access to as tight as I can, and I focus on that one little spot in my nether regions. And in like two minutes after squeezing and holding my breath, I am able to finally get a release and it's like a little poof, and it's just a little rust rush of serotonin, and it's just like nice. All right, moving along. So it's like I can orgasm, but the way I achieve orgasm is not in a way I would ever show a partner because it's not sexy, it's not visually appealing. If I showed a partner how I really masturbate, it would they'd honestly be like, well, I never want to see that again, because it literally is just results driven. And so again, I'm in this therapist appointment, and my therapist is like, uh-huh, okay. She asks, Well, why don't you want them to see how to make you orgasm? Like it's this is about pleasure, it's about making sure that you achieve results too. Why wouldn't you want to show them that process? And I smirk and I can feel the thought forming in real time, and I'm unraveling it as I say it because I realized something when she asked that. She asks me, Why don't you want them to see you orgasm? And I say, Well, the truth is because when I am masturbating, I masturbate over my clothes. And she says, Wow, okay, let's dive into that. So let's rewind a little bit. We're getting real personal, you guys. This is why I needed to make a podcast because I'm gonna get real vulnerable with you guys. Um, but we're gonna rewind to the first time that I ever masturbated. I was about 15 years old, which actually feels kind of late in terms of sexual experiences. You know, I knew people at 15 who had already lost their virginity, who were sleeping with multiple people, and I had never even touched myself. But I remember the first time I masturbated so vividly. And I was in my bedroom and I had these green frog pajamas, which is very specific, but there's a reason that I remember that. And it's because I masturbated over those pajamas. Like I couldn't touch myself, I had to do it over these pajamas. And, you know, when you masturbate for the first time as a teenager, you're like, oh my God, this is terrific. I got a free serotonin button. Like, no wonder people are having other people do this to their bodies. This is awesome. And so every time that I masturbated, I put on those frog pajamas. It was kind of like the ritual. It was part of the uniform of if I'm going to touch myself. And that was the setup. But over the years, you know, the pajamas went away. I wasn't wearing the frog pajamas anymore, but the underwear stayed. And I always, always masturbated over my underwear. I never physically touched myself skin to skin ever. And you guys, I truly just never thought anything of it. You know, like I would, I never paused and asked why. I had no concern, no curiosity. And I think it was because, you know, masturbation is not something talked about. You're never taught how to do it. It's not like with sex with a partner where it's like, hey, let's try this, let's switch this up. It's literally solo sex. So it's kind of like, well, whatever works for you, works for you, right? And I also think during this time, I started watching porn, you know, like as every other teenager does. And, you know, when the women would masturbate in porn scenes, it was all very performative. It was all just a lot of moaning and a lot of, they were completely naked using devices and using other things. And I'm like, okay, that's not real. Because I also was very aware watching regular porn, you know, with a man and woman, that the woman is getting penetrative sex and they're both having orgasms at the end of the exact same time, and it's like a volcanic explosion. That it's like, okay, that's not real either. I may be new to this, but I'm not dumb. So I literally, I think from a young age I understood that, like, okay, the way that they're doing it in movies and in porn, that's not really real. So the way that I'm doing it over my underwear or over my clothes, that's probably what everyone else is doing in real life. But again, I also just never put that much thought to it. I will say though, I guess what I just said is a lie, because there was one time that I did put thought to it where I remember thinking, like, wait, do other people do this? Like, is this normal, quote unquote? And I do remember Googling, this was in college too. I remember Googling if masturbating through your underwear is normal. And I specifically remember receiving an article that said, yeah, totally normal because it creates more friction. So if you have a harder time reaching orgasm, going through your underwear creates more friction. So it's actually a better experience. So if that works for you, go for it. And so I'm just like, hell yeah, friction. I truly, I just never did it any other way because I was like, well, that's what works for me. So that's what I'm gonna keep doing it. And that's all very true. But now, fast forward to everything I learned about myself: that there was this mystery incident that happened in my childhood that ended up shaping my mental health. I developed OSD. I learned that I never even like had any sort of attachment to my body. Now I'm in this therapist session and I'm telling her, okay, I've only ever masturbated over my clothes. That's when I start unraveling in real time. Because mid-sentence, I'm kind of understanding, oh, I don't think this ever was about friction. I think that this is because I've never been allowed to touch myself. I inherently and subconsciously carried so much shame and fear in my body from such devastating trauma that I had to repress it, that my brain had made a rule for myself without me even realizing it. And that rule was nope, we're not allowed to touch ourselves at all, especially in that no-no zone, especially in our genitalia, unless there was a safety barrier. Because clothes weren't just clothes, they weren't just friction. It was about permission. And it was about, you know, permission to keep a distance from that. It was a permission to stay in control, but also permission to not fully feel, because feeling brought up scary emotions. Feeling skin to skin brought up that trauma and the most pain I've ever been in my life. It was about safety because the last time somebody ever touched me down there, it killed me. And I wouldn't let myself die again. And so, even though I liked the feeling and then the sensation of masturbating, I had to have a barrier in between in order for it to feel safe. So I kind of realizing in real time, oh, this isn't a preference. This was kind of like a workaround for my own brain. It was my body saying, okay, well, let you press that little serotonin button, but only this way. And so I'm realizing that solo sex was way different than partner sex. But at this time, I didn't really have the right words to figure out why that was. So I thought that that was the big realization that, oh my God, like I've never been able to masturbate like a normal person my whole life because of this trauma and because it was a safety barrier. Like I thought that was the big realization. But then you guys, something else happened that kind of blew everything else out of the water. So what happened next was one night I was out with my best friends in West Hollywood. We go bar hopping in Wiiho all the time. It is, if you're if you're in Wiiho, you'll see me. I'm there all of the time. And so we were out at one of our favorite gay bars, and this bar is a total dive, you guys, like quintessential dive bar. You know, they have they have uh graffiti on the walls, they've got sticky floors, it's just like a hole in the wall place that's super fun. Um, but you know, a lot of people don't really go there a lot, but I love it there. But they have a bunch of TVs everywhere, and so on the TVs, they're always playing the show Naked Attraction. So I'm gonna describe the show to you if you don't know what it's about, because a lot of people don't. So if you don't know the show, Naked Attraction is it's a dating show where one person is shown six potential partners completely naked, and they're basically behind these like booths sort of thing, and the booths reveal them from the bottom up. So it's literally like it goes up, and you see their whole nether regions. You see their whole hoo-has and snakes and bits and bellies, everything. And then it slowly moves up and they kind of eliminate people based on their bodies. And you guys, this show, it's on HBO. You see everything, it is not blurred, it is not censored, you see this completely unfiltered schlongs and gonads, coochies and yiddies, just completely out there. So um, it's on at this gay bar for shock value. And I've been going to this bar for years. So to me, it's like background noise. I don't even pay attention to it anymore. It doesn't have that same shock value for me. But on this one specific night, we were out with some new friends who hadn't been to this bar, and you know, naked attraction was on, and it was six naked women on the screen. And so they're revealing their bodies from the bottom up. And one person in our group casually starts commenting on it of like, first of all, like, what is this show? What is playing? Oh my god, my eyes. But then it's like, eh, it's we ho. You see some things in Wii Ho. So we kind of just start talking about the show, you know, as we're getting our jello shots. And one of my friends goes, like, oh, you know what? Mine looks like number two. Like, my hoo-ha looks like person number two. And somebody else in the group goes, Oh my god, mine's more like number six. You know, we're having a blast, like we're laughing. And somebody turns to me and goes, JC, so which one does yours look like? And how I answered was that I couldn't because I didn't know how to, because I stood there stunned and fully blank. And not because I'm a prude by any means, I was having a great time with this conversation, but because I was stumped. I had no idea. I am looking at six naked vaginas on the TV, and I literally had no clue which one mine looked the most liked. And I had this immediate internal panic. Like, you guys, this whole healing journey has just been epiphany after epiphany, and just learning things about myself that I should have known my whole life, and they're all coming to the surface. And I was not about to have an epiphany in a gay bar in Wiho with jello shooters involved. And so I kind of was just like, oh, I'm like number three. And I kind of just wanted the conversation to go away because I'm literally having that just internal panic about it. And of course, one of my friends goes, wait, why number three? Because we're all friends, we're all getting like into details of like my flaps look like that, the color looks like that. I said, Oh, I picked number three because the person in number three, she had a C-section scar. She had a big scar running along her tummy. And I have that same scar. I have the same scar from when I had my ovary removed. If you know that story, you know. If not, it's over on my channel. I had a big ass tumor on my ovary and it was essentially a C-section. And so that was the only thing I recognized about myself. It wasn't the vagina, the flaps, the color, anything. It was just that scar. Um, so thankfully I found some but something to find relation with because crisis averted. Um, and so that night, you know, we get drunk, we have fun, we go out, whatever it is. But I had to go home and have that epiphany to finish out that big realization. And that big realization was oof. Um, not only have I never even touched myself skin to skin, I've always had to masturbate over my clothes, but I have never even looked at my own vagina. I have never stood in the mirror and assessed anything about any of my private parts ever. So, you guys know if you've been listening to this podcast, that I learned within the past few years that I'm never looking in a mirror. I have never looked in a mirror. I've struggled to perceive myself, I have depersonalization. And the only times I ever am looking in a mirror are when I'm turning to the side, squeezing my belly, and just sending so much hate towards my little pooch here. And so, in another previous episode, I talked about how I've never looked at my own boobs. I've never touched my own breasts. I never even looked down and realized that they're attached to me. And I had to do a lot of healing around that, a lot of kind of just reformatting how I felt about my own boobs, the trauma and the shame that was trapped inside of them. And now a year later, I'm realizing, oh, I need to send my eyes further down my body. And I haven't done that either. I literally realized that I never saw past my scar because when I am turning to the side and pinching my belly, that is the part where my scar stops. My scar maybe never healed, or maybe that's just where it all was. But I didn't realize until this moment that I treated all of my private parts kind of like a locked part in a video game. You know, like in a video game where it's like there's like grayed out areas, and it's like, nope, you're not ready to access that part of the map yet unless you complete this side quest. My body was like that. And I unlocked my boobs and my chest area, and then it was like, okay, the map zoomed out and was like, here's more grayed out areas. And it's like, oh, I didn't even realize that my vagina was part of the locked up map. And then I just hadn't unlocked it yet. I don't know. And so I started doing the bad habit that I had when I started this healing journey. And that's when I uncovered, like, oh my gosh, actually, JC, here's the laundry list of things wrong with you. You have OSDD, you have fibromyalgia, you have depersonalization, you have repressed trauma, you have a life that you've been living that hasn't even been your own. I went, oh my God, I have to fix all of that right now. And so I tried to speed run through healing. I joined four different types of therapy. I was in mental health therapy, somatic therapy, physical therapy, pelvic floor therapy. I was like, I need to spend all of my lawsuit money healing myself and fixing everything because if I am not completely healed, then it life's not worth living. And so I started getting those feelings again of seeing this locked up part of this map being my nether regions. And it was kind of like, oh my God, I need to fix this. This part is not unlocked yet. I need to unlock it. But again, my body is like a video game. And it was essentially saying, you haven't collected enough items yet. You have not explored the other parts of the map first. You are not strong enough for this area yet. And that became clear when I tried to start focusing on it because the first step was I was like, okay, well, that's easy. I just have to go look at myself naked in a mirror. Duh. That'll fix all of my problems. You guys, I couldn't do it. It took me weeks to muster up the courage to feel prepared enough to even attempt to unlock that level. And I couldn't believe, oh, it was so upsetting. Like, I couldn't believe how I'm like, JC, just take off your clothes and look in a mirror. I couldn't do it. It was again, I was getting split screened of like, look in the mirror. And then another little hidden shadow brain going, no, don't, danger, danger, panic, don't look. It's too scary. It's too painful. It's gonna bring up so many memories. If we look, you can't even look. And I realized, oh, it's gonna take forever to unlock this level because I have to work on the mental side of it first. I have to do a lot of healing up here in my noggin before I can use my eyes to even look at myself. And so I did a lot of that. I don't want to get too much into that, but it took weeks. And finally I'm able to take off my clothes, to look at myself naked in the mirror. And I had to take my eyes and scan down. I had to go past my boobs. I had to go past my stomach and not send any hate to my stomach. I had to go past my scar and finally just look at myself. And I was finally able to do that in a very neutral way. But I started to realize, oh, I'm not actually like looking, you know, I'm doing it in a very polite way where things are tucked away. I have to do this the hard way. I have to do this in the healing way. And that's, you know, again, this is a very, I'm being very vulnerable with you guys, but this is a very, you know, uh not safe for work kind of thing. But I had to lay down, I had to open up my legs, and I actually had to take a peek at myself from an angle that I never would have imagined ever looking at myself. And this was a big step, huge, if I will say. And it's so weird to say this out loud, but it took me a week from that point to even figure out how to get myself to look at myself in that position. And the reason for that is that my body was fighting against me. It wasn't just my eyes not looking, my body from my toes up weren't allowing me to put myself in a position that was comfortable because I would literally lay back, you guys, with my arms behind me, open up my legs, and my body would cramp up. My body was fighting against me because, again, there's so much fear trapped inside of my muscles, just completely in my fascia, that wasn't letting me lay down and look at my own body. And I have so much more to talk about this in some of the future body episodes because it really is insane how much the body keeps the score, how disconnected from my body is, and how much of a mind it had of its own. And how much it's like my body isn't even attached to me because I couldn't put myself into a shape that felt safe enough to look at my body from that perspective. And it's so it, I it's truly, you guys, my body was shake. It would cramp up, it would jolt me out of that position, and I couldn't keep my eyes open at the same time as I could keep my legs open. And it was very validating knowing that, like, you guys, something did happen to me. It's in my body. I can't even look at myself or hold my legs open in a way that felt safe. But just stay tuned for more body episodes where I go into more detail about that. But you know, suffice to say that I finally, after weeks of just getting safety in my body to put myself in a position to look at myself, I was finally able to do so. And I was finally able to look at my nether regions, and I was devastated because you guys, it didn't look like what I thought it would look like. It wasn't pink and perky and young and hairless. There was texture, there were flaps that I didn't even know were down there. And it's not that the look of it upset me because it's a normal vagina, you guys. I was devastated that I had no idea what it looked like. And it felt so foreign being on my body because it's not what I had been picturing in my head for these past 32 years. And it was so upsetting because I realized, oh my god, you guys, if I was on naked attraction and they were showing me from the bottom up, I don't even know if I could pick out my own body. If you would have sent me to some sort of kinky police lineup and say, JC, pick which vagina is yours, I would have gotten it wrong. And that was so heartbreaking because I didn't know that that's how that's how detached I was from my own body, that I didn't even know what it looked like. And so I grieved that for for weeks. I had to grieve, you know, the years of not having a body, the years of realizing I've had a complete absence of any sensation. The fact that these body parts have been attached to my body for decades, and I'm just now meeting them because it hasn't been safe to do so until this moment. I had to grieve all of that. And honestly, the next step in this whole process of meeting myself for the first time was the most heartbreaking of all because I realized the next step was to actually touch myself, not over my underwear and not even sexually, but anatomically. If I really wanted to heal and get more in tune with my body and have that connection again, I did have to touch myself in a very clinical and exploratory way. And I couldn't just seek that quick orgasm for a burst of serotonin. I had to neutrally touch all of my lady bits. And again, that realization that wow, I've never done that. I've never just touched myself in a way that wasn't for that immediate pleasure. And I say that that was the most heartbreaking um step in this whole process because that's when I learned the extent of nothingness that I felt. Because I would touch myself, again, not even sexually, but I would just try to identify where I was touching on my body. And this was a whole body thing. I could touch my leg and close my eyes and go, okay, where on my leg am I touching? And I would say, I think my upper leg, maybe my quad, if I had to guess. I didn't know. But doing that on my vagina, it was like that Barbie, that Barbie doll feeling that I had earlier, where I couldn't identify what I was touching because it felt like plastic. But different from the other parts of my body, I could, if I was touching my leg, for example, I could focus and kind of go go from within and up and meet my finger and identify it that way. That's the the clinical anatomical fascia that's happening, that connection there. I was able to do that in my legs and my stomach and my arms. But when it came to my pelvic floor and I'd go, where am I touching? Try to meet me from the inside out, I couldn't because I learned that I wasn't just numb or empty that whole that whole area was dead. It was it was dead, and that from my youth, I had basically created a chastity belt of my own body because I had just shriveled up and clenched for so long, and it clenched to the point of just dying. There were no nerves there, there was no sensation, it was dead. I said this in a previous episode, but I had a I had a vibrator, and I was using it again as an exploratory tool, not as a sexual one. And I had this vibrator on full power on me, around me, inside of me, and I felt nothing, nothing vibrated because there was nothing to vibrate. There was nothing left. And this was terrifying because when I first started this healing journey and understanding, oh my god, something happened to me in childhood that wasn't my fault, that's the way that I am, that I am, it all makes sense now. That's why I hated sex, was because I was getting triggered and I was dissociating out of sex. And so I thought that once I healed from my trauma and understood what happened to me and really worked through all that, that all the fun sensations would come back, that my brain would go, oh, I'm turning off this switch during sex. Well, let's turn that back on and have some fun again. I didn't realize until this moment that there was physiological damage, that nothing was registering, and that a vibrator was shaking my insides, and it felt like an echo of a whisper. It wasn't that I just had to heal my brain, I had to heal my body, and I was terrified that so much damage had been done that I wouldn't be able to. So the following weeks, first of all, I stopped seeing that guy. I mean, that's not even important at all at this point, but I stopped seeing that guy. That was the last date. I also realized I just didn't really even like him that much. But this was a huge realization that, like, oh God, I'm really not ready for sex yet. I can't even touch myself without having these epiphanies, without understanding that I have so much physical and mental work to do. And a lot of the mental work that I had to do, again, is a lot of grieving. It's a lot of just coping with that deep sense of injustice that somebody in my childhood took away my body, and I've never had a body my entire life. And that's a huge thing to lose, but an even scarier thing to lose without even realizing it. But even more than my body, I'm also realizing that this person in my childhood took away something else from me, and that's my sexuality, which is a basic human right. He took away the idea that I'm allowed to touch my own body. He made me believe that I'm not even allowed to look at my own body because it was scary and traumatic and painful. And my brain learned that visibility wasn't safe and that feeling was dangerous. And my body learned that surviving meant disconnecting, and that the only way I can survive is to remove my body from the entire equation. And so safety came at a cost, and that cost was ownership. And all of these realizations finally helped me understand why, again, in that therapy session, solo sex is so different than partner sex. Because partner sex, it allowed me to perform connection. I could focus on the intimacy, on the closeness, on being wanted, on their pleasure. Because partner sex, I don't care about the orgasm, I care about that. But then I also realized with partner sex, they're allowed to touch me. It wasn't me crossing that line. And so I could still somewhat stay partially outside of my body because I'm focusing on something else when they're touching me. But with myself, I have to be in my body in order to orgasm. Solo sex requires embodiment. And you know, you guys, from a young age, I developed a dissociation disorder to get out of my body because it was unsafe. And so, with myself, there's nowhere to hide from my nervous system. So I had to learn not only to heal my pelvic floor, grieve from all this trauma, but how to make the two of those create an internal connection when it came to masturbation. So, how do I do that? And what's the update on that? Well, I've been touching myself a lot more, both sexually and non-sexually. I have to touch myself intentionally. Pelvic floor therapy has been life-changing because that area has been so offline, but now so many things start to make sense because as I've been coming into my body, I'm like, why can't I access my leg sometimes? Why does my back hurt all the time? Oh, duh, the bridge between them collapsed in my youth, and I've never been able to access it. And the signals have never been going through because my pelvic floor has been dead. And so now, through all of this, again, it's been so much work through all of this work, slowly the sensations are starting to come back. And in a weird way, masturbating has lately become the greatest thing ever, but also the most difficult thing ever. Because before all this, masturbating was easy. I would press the button, I would tense up, hold my breath, and then it was a tiny little burst of electricity. But now that I'm aware of all of this, you can't go back once you learn all of this. So now that I'm aware, that I'm understanding that that tiny little spot that I was pressing was the only place that wasn't numb. And everywhere else in my pelvic floor is basically like a dead circuit board that I'm trying to revive. But now the more that I unlock my body, the more that I expand beyond that one little spot and tell my body it's okay it's okay to touch over here. It's safe if I touch over here, not even for pleasure, but just to touch my own body, then the pleasure starts coming back to those areas. Then I reconnect with my nervous system. The fascia from the inside starts connecting with the outside. And I'm realizing the more the orgasm expands, the more those pleasure sensations go outside of that one little spot. And the better my orgasms are becoming. Because you guys, I had no idea that you can feel it in your legs, that it goes up to your stomach. I had no idea that an orgasm is more than just that one little spot, that one little burst of electricity. It can go throughout my whole body. That's crazy. I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. But I had no idea that that was something I was missing out on. And so, truly, you guys, masturbating has been exploratory, but also very healing, knowing that my body is coming online from head to toe. And the other important thing that I've learned as I've been on this like masturbation journey, touching myself kind of thing. First is that I am still not ready to have sex. So the celibacy update is that I am still celibate. I've been celibate for over three years now. And I truly don't think I'm ready yet unless it is with that specific special somebody. Because whoever that person is, I need them to understand we need to take it slow, that I might have feelings that come up, that I might need to stop, or that it might be the best sex I've ever had because I am unlocking my body. But I'm also still on this process of kind of losing my virginity to myself first. I need to build that safety, that intimacy, that trust with my own body and brain before letting somebody else in. And so to, you know, stay tuned if I do finally have sex, but it will have to be with somebody who is understanding of this whole journey of mine. But then when it does come to the self-pleasure aspect of it, I guess I've learned that it's not just about getting off anymore. It's not just about a little serotonin button that I press for that quick burst of electricity just to like get me going through the day. It is learning about how to be with myself and meeting my body where it is and not forcing it to perform anymore, to not be that naked puppet anymore, and to really create a sense of safety within my brain and body that I haven't had for 30 plus years. But have it now as an adult who is allowed to masturbate and is allowed to have sex and is allowed to feel pleasure without feeling shame. And a main question you guys might have is do I still masturbate over my clothes now? That's a personal question, you guys. Haven't I revealed enough to you already? No, it's a valid question. Um, the answer is no, I don't because I don't need that safety barrier anymore. And I didn't realize what a crutch it was for me to avoid touching myself by having my underwear on and my clothes on at the time. I don't know if I even mentioned that. I have to be fully clothed as well. I'm not, there's not an ounce of skin showing when I touch myself. And now it's different. Now it's not only safe to take off a few pieces of clothes, but to go skin to skin, to even invite more tools and other devices in, which stay tuned for future sex episodes, because that's going to be a whole thing as well. But no, I don't feel the need to masturbate over my clothes anymore because I am starting to finally feel safe in my body again. And it's been a wild ride, you guys. But I hope that me being this open and vulnerable with the way that I jerk off is helpful to you guys because the whole point of this podcast and my healing journey is learning things about myself that I didn't realize were because of trauma, but that I don't have to live my life that way anymore. So if this opened your eyes to some of the ways you self-pleasure, you know, you don't have to share. This is a very vulnerable and deeply personal topic. Uh, but I just hope it resonates and helps some of you guys out there. But that is it for our sex episode of The Naked Puppet and how masturbation and my own habits I learned were because of trauma and how I'm unlearning those habits now. But that's gonna be curtain call on today's performance. If you want even more content of me healing in real time, you can follow my day-to-day life over on Instagram at JCARin. I post a lot about all of the gigs that I'm working on. Again, if you haven't checked out the most recent episode, I have a new job. I'm a brand ambassador, and I have a new gig every single week. And I've been kind of putting in all the different ladies in my brain and getting more integrated along the way. So if you want to follow that journey in real time, you can follow me there. Um, I also do have a TikTok at JCAR underscore. I'm not posting there as much. I kind of want to focus all of my healing in the real life and here on this podcast, but you can check out some videos there. But that's gonna be it from me for this episode. I will be exiting stage left. And as usual, you guys, I thank you so, so, so, so much for tuning in, and I will see you in the next one. Toodle, you know, you're not gonna be able to do it.