It is enjoyable, it’s the way most boys and many girls first discover what sexual pleasure feels like and is a natural way to start learning about sexual responses. All stories about masturbation being able to harm you physically are totally untrue. Nor can masturbation “spoil” you for sex with a partner.

Virtually all boys learn to masturbate as soon as they reach puberty if not before, and lots of girls do then or later.

Parents are often more worried about the idea of girls discovering how nice sex feels because they fear this will lead them to have sex with a boy and perhaps risk pregnancy earlier. If anything the reverse is true – learning to masturbate and enjoying it relieves sexual tension, helps to make later sexual relations with another person more pleasurable, and so can help to make adult relationships happier and more stable.

Masturbation is such an important part of our exploring our sexuality and developing sexual maturity that it is usually a prescribed part of treatment by sex therapists. If women have problems reaching orgasm as adults, they are usually encouraged to learn how to masturbate in order to understand their own sexual responses so that they can go on to share this with a partner when they want to.

Even if you have no such problems, it is perfectly normal for adults to enjoy masturbation sometimes, and, even if you have a partner, there can be times when you want sexual pleasure and relief without necessarily involving the other person.

But it can be a problem if you are regularly masturbating in preference to sharing pleasure with your partner (assuming they would like to share it with you) or, if you have no partner, in preference to following up any opportunities there may be to develop relationships with other people. Then you could be said to be hooked on masturbation, addicted to it.

I must say I do often hear from women bothered because their partner often masturbates watching a porn video, or having sex over the phone or via the internet, instead of making love with them.

Obviously this is a real problem but it is not that masturbation is perverted or totally wrong within marriage, but that the man is running away from having a real relationship, he cannot cope with true intimacy.

In that case it’s their relationship in general they need to tackle, not just masturbation, and it would be a good idea to arrange to see a Relate counsellor (0300 100 1234, www.relate.org.uk).

In fact generally, if masturbation seems to be causing difficulties, it isn’t usually the self-pleasuring that is the real problem – it is just a symptom.

While it’s quite normal for children to masturbate, and parents shouldn’t make a great fuss if they happen to come across them doing so in bed or when they thought they were alone, it is a sign of disturbed behaviour if children do so persistently in public. In that case, parents should get help to discover what lies behind it.

You can talk to your GP, the school, the health visitor, or ask for a referral to the child guidance clinic or paediatrician, or of course you can write to me with more details and I will do my best to advise you.

If you were worried about masturbation but now wonder if the real problem may be in your relationship with your partner or your sex life, or in making relationships, I should also be able to help you further.

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