Master Bators: 15 Tips to Jerk Off Better From the Experts

For me, a good solo session falls somewhere in the heavy overlap between filth and prayer. I nearly always make a mess -- lube stains on my sheets and cum on my floor. When was the last time you had a really incredible jackoff that left you in the bit of a stupor?

May is National Masturbation Month, and hopefully you've been enjoying it whether or not you know we were in the midst of an auspicious season. May 7th is actually the official Masturbation Day, set in 1995 by sex-positive retailer Good Vibrations in honor of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1994 for suggesting masturbation be part of the sex education curriculum for students.

Now, of course, most sex therapists, public health workers, and other experts would agree with Elders. But to be honest, for most of us self pleasure is something we don't experiment with -- we've figured out what works at a younger age and just rinse and repeat. But there's more out there.

Here's some advice on how to jerk off better from a few people in the business of pleasure -- people who make erotic content, escort, and help others professionally with sexual hangups.

1. Get loud.

Alexander Lederman describes himself as a father, husband, and amateur farmer. On Instagram, his rustic life in rugged, woodsy settings looks idyllic and peaceful, but his pics are interspersed with sexy modeling shots -- he's a popular OnlyFans model with a large social media following and is known for his solo jackoff videos. (He even has a small product line.)

Lederman recommends being loud, even when you are by yourself. "Talk," he says. "Be vocal. Live in the fantasy you want happening." I found Lederman through one of his devoted followers and OnlyFans subscribers, who praised Lederman's videos as "the best jackoffs I've ever seen."

2. Involve all parts of your body.

Queer sex therapist and former sex worker Amariah Love has helped many clients with masturbation struggles, and she says to decentralize masturbation from one sex organ or one part of the body.

"I think it's really important for folks to experiment with all kinds of different stimulation while masturbating," she says. "Experiment with anal, vaginal, clitoral, nipples, thighs, and so on. We all have our own combinations that give us the most fun, and the better we know our bodies, the better all sex will be, both with ourselves and with others."

So feel free to give your chest a rub, arch your back, and get into it just like you would any other sex act.

3. Explore edging.

Edging can be done yourself, or with others. "Edging is bringing [someone] right up to orgasm but backing off," says KB, a dominant BDSM master in Chicago who, according to his Twitter, enjoys "reprogramming dumb, bound jocks."

"With edging," he says, "the orgasm is explosive."

KB is known on for his videos with his sex slave, mega-popular gay pornstar Devin Franco. In these videos, which are available on JustForFans, he regularly edges Franco for hours, denying Franco's orgasm repeatedly, or wasting Franco's orgasms entirely -- something many masturbation fetishits online are really into (you can find many jackoff videos of guys "wasting" their orgasm). A "wasted" orgasm is when someone comes or ejaculates but does not feel orgasm, and this is usually achieved by prolonging the pre-orgasm pleasure for too long. It usually leaves the victim feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

But edging doesn't have to involve BDSM, and it can just be a solo endeavor. The trick is working yourself as close as you can to the limit and then allowing yourself to cool down before doing it again. Experts even "coast," or work themselves to the limit and keep themselves there for as long as possible.

4. Find toys that you love and bring them into your sessions.

Amariah Love prefers Lelo vibrators and strongly recommends these for folks with vaginas. "They create a kind of suction that just feels better than traditional vibrators, and they are much easier to hold in place," she says.

I'm a big fan of big toys. As a pretty devoted bottom, I regularly play with toys to give myself pleasure and practice for vigorous sex and/or fisting. Some years ago, when I exclusively bottomed, I reached a point where I could not orgasm without something in my butt -- so anal toys were needed every time I masturbated. And this was so hot! I love butt plugs, particularly ones from SquarePeg and Hankey's Toys.

There are also toys that are more phallus-centric. There's simple things like cockrings or Fleshjacks. The only way you'll know if they will stroke your fancy is to give them a try.

5. If you have a penis, explore milking.

Milking, according to Kinkly, is "the act of massaging a man's prostate gland through his anus to encourage him to ejaculate as much seminal fluid as possible." The term "milking" and the action associated with it are most commonly used in the gay BDSM community, though not exclusively.

Milking can be experienced solo and outside of fetish scenes, usually with prostate-stimulating toys. I used to work at a major sex toy supplier and these kinds of toys -- called P-spot toys by most adult retailers -- were top-sellers. Our customers trained themselves to cum harder and heavier with these products (I know because I read the emails they sent back to us).

In BDSM, milking is usually done with milking machines and other fetish tools as a form of erotic torture for a bound submissive -- Devin Franco is often put in these situations by KB. "My milking machine controls the orgasm if it even happens," KB says.

Some of the most talented don't need any toys for milking: if you or someone you know can find your prostate, generally located somewhere within the first few inches of your anal cavity, and continue to stimulate it with their finger, that also works.

6. Devote extra time to your solo sessions.

For Love, there's nothing better than "a Saturday afternoon to myself, a big empty bed, several toys, plenty of water, and a few favorite erotic stories to read and videos to watch." She's learned to devote extra time to herself as part of a broader focus on self-care, particularly during the pandemic -- something which, as a therapist, she regularly talks about with her clients.

"Setting aside a block of time to be alone and taking the time to masturbate slowly and intentionally can be a wonderful act of self-care," she says. "For a lot of us, drawing out the process -- using techniques like edging -- means you not only get to enjoy jerking off longer, but your orgasm is more intense and lengthy as well. I know for me, there's a big difference between a quickie before bed to help me get sleepy and the excitement I feel when I have a Saturday afternoon to myself."

7. Change the time of day that you masturbate.

"For me, a big obstacle was getting over the 'oh just jerk off before bed' idea, which comes from years of hiding it in my teenage room," says Joe Spaceman, also known as SIXFOOTFIVEGUY, an OnlyFans star with "a monster bulge that I can't keep my hands off of."

"Getting over that idea took time. I learned to let myself jerk off after the gym or at 3 pm or whenever the mood struck."

Spaceman no longer feels like he has to jerk off before bed every night to be satisfied. "Sometimes it's better to not force it and save things for a better day."

Make your sessions a date with yourself. Start it all off with intention.

8. Go down the hypnosis rabbit hole.

Spaceman loves hypnosis videos and audio files, which are readily available online and designed for masturbators -- and yes, some OnlyFans content creators make them. While the science is vague (at best) about whether or not someone can actually be hypnotized, least of all from a video online, hypnosis masturbators -- hypnobators -- say they can be put in trance-like states with these videos and masturbate for extended periods of time.

"There have been some hypnosis audio files that I've had good success with checking out of my brain and being able to focus on the pleasure buildup," Spaceman says. "I have someone that sends me tracks and I find that they help me focus and let some of the loud parts of my brain shut up for a bit. It's almost like a sexy meditation."

9. Get into popperbating.

Popperbating is a common practice of masturbating with poppers -- a chemical inhalant drug regularly sold under names like "room odorizers," "videotape cleaner," even "leather cleaner." The term "poppers" is a slang term applied broadly to chemical drugs called alkyl nitrites that are inhaled, and they are mostly harmless, but they are banned for human consumption in the U.K. and the U.S. That has not, stopped the underground sale of slightly-altered chemical compounds that produce largely the same results -- you can find these in sex shops and online across the United States.

The problem is that poppers, being illegal and therefore unable to be advertised as such, are a heavily unregulated industry and many counterfeits are sold with chemicals that are dangerous -- some of which have even caused retinal damage and vision loss.

Popperbators enjoy huffing poppers repeatedly in long, drawn-out masturbation sessions, usually while watching porn. Poppers usually produce a head rush -- feelings of warmth, dizziness, lightheadedness, and euphoria. Most poppers will dilate blood vessels and make your blood pressure drop, which can cause dizziness and can make you pass out. Using poppers with blood pressure medication can be deadly, and it's commonly known that you should never use poppers while taking erectile dysfunction pills -- medications like Viagra also make your blood pressure drop and the combination can be lethal. All this said, I enjoy poppers almost every time I have sex.

"Personally, I love how poppers enhance the masturbation process, and I've been popperbating for a long time," says @everydayb8.

13. Explore other ways to experience eroticism.

This bit of advice is from me: work on detangling eroticism from orgasm. An erotic experience doesn't just happen when you're masturbating or having sex -- it can happen in a store, in an art gallery, on the street, anywhere you are turned on and tuned in to your fantasies.

The joy of seeing eroticism this way is that every time I go outside my apartment, I am open to the possibility of a hot little encounter -- some form of engagement with the world that lights my inner fireworks. Cruising a handsome man on the street or engaging with erotic art can be better than a quick jerk off before bed.

I admittedly masturbate a lot less now, because it's not the only way I get off day-to-day. But when I do masturbate, I do everything I can to make it count -- and delaying makes them even better. Waiting a few days to a week between jerk-offs makes mine much more intense when they happen.

10. Experiment with different kinds of lube.

Amariah Love likes using scented oils. I personally think there's nothing hotter than masturbation with someone else's cum, which really can only be done with someone else present. For my solo times, I keep a bottle silicone lube by the bed.

"I like to use Albolene as lube, which is pretty standard in the masturbating community," says @everydayb8. "It's affordable and long-lasting!"

11. Allow yourself and your fantasies to evolve.

Muscular gay pornstar @LivingLargerXXX knows a thing or two about transformation -- he's been into muscle growth and injecting silicone into his dick and balls (which is a fetish) since 2017. He describes himself as a dominant daddy, keyholder (for gay submissive men into chastity), and fisting top who posts videos on both OnlyFans and JustForFans.

"After getting silicone, I had to relearn how to use my cock and balls for masturbation," he says. "My abilities and how I derived pleasure changed. And it was initially scary and depressing and it took me a while to figure out how to do those things with my new body."

He adapted -- and over time, through experimentation, he learned other things about himself. "My tastes in men and what I'm attracted to and turned on by has gone through at least two visible shifts and is possibly entering a third," he says. "Continual re-evaluation of how and what turns you on is important. Allow yourself the freedom to explore and accept sexual interests that aren't always what other people find attractive."

12. Focus more on your own internal fantasies than porn.

"I think masturbation is a kind of self-love that is most animalistic, raw, and visceral," says @everydayb8. "Even with porn as stimulation, you need to draw deep within yourself to experience the lust in the exact way you want it."

Jackoff enthusiast @everydayb8 gives this advice for people who want to make their masturbation better: discover what your way is, your own private ritual. Personalize your masturbation. "No two people will ever masturbate the same way and I think that is the charm to such idiosyncrasies." The true joy of masturbation, he says, is that it is, at its simplest, a private journey of self-discovery. "It's getting into a headspace and allowing your

self the luxury of discovering your sexuality on an incredibly nuanced level."

14. Remember that your brain is your biggest sex organ.

Amariah Love thinks everyone needs to keep this in mind, even if the phrase itself admittedly sounds a little cliche. "I can create intense sensations just by imaging I am stroking my clit, and I have brought myself to orgasm without touching myself twice," she says. After all, she says, sexual pleasure -- whether it's happening solo or with someone else -- exists only in the mind, not the body. "What's going on in my mind completely determines how the physical touch feels."

She thinks that much discourse around masturbation is centered on bodies and parts, which can be difficult and triggering for transender and nonbinary folks. She regularly reminds her clients that if self-touching and body-centric pleasure is too uncomfortable, the mind is still free space to play -- it is for everyone.

15. If you have feelings of shame or guilt after masturbation — as many people do — do some scientific research.

Masturbation enthusiast @everydayb8 has a masturbation-exclusive OnlyFans (described as "b8topia") and large Twitter following of fellow jackoff fanatics. "I came from a semi-traditional Asian upbringing, and while my parents never really brainwashed me that [masturbation] is something bad, the lack of communication in sexuality made me think it's some kind of forbidden fruit," he says. "So when I first discovered masturbation and ejaculating, I naturally thought I did something wrong!"

This was before the internet existed, and @everydayb8 explained that he actually went to libraries to check out books about human anatomy and sexual reproduction. "It helped me gain a scientific ground on things and reshaped my perspectives."