# The Importance of Variety in Sex and Why Repeating the Same Thing Isn’t Enough | Rena Malik

An episode of [Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1508380100), 20 Apr 2026, 7:51.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1033d1554/podcast/play/118721313/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-3-20%2F7fa752e5-9c0d-1fbd-b84b-992072b18674.mp3

Have you ever wondered why sexual education rarely talks about variety? It’s often treated as a topic we skip over, even though it can be a key part of a healthy, enjoyable sex life and better communication with your partner. This clip explores why doing the same thing every time can become limiting, and why introducing variety matters. Sarah discusses how this is something many people are never taught in sex education, and how changing things up can help keep intimacy feeling more connected and responsive rather than repetitive. As a nutritionist and health communicator, Sarah brings her practical, supportive approach to a topic that sits within wider wellbeing, relationships, and how we learn about our bodies. Listen to the full episode here Watch the full episode on YouTube here *** This episode is sponsored by: NOWATCH: The compassionate health tracker Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today15% off with code LWBW15 at https://nowatch.com/ Mojo: the app for expert-led courses in better sex.Learn from world-class sex therapists and relationship experts with courses tailored to your needs.15% off with code LiveWell15 at mymojo.com/livewellbewell *** The Great British Veg OutHow to support your gut, energy, and hormones by eating more — not less. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/p/the-great-british-veg-outReset Your HealthIf your body feels off after stress, travel, or burnout — this is where to start. 👉 https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/s/reset-your-health-in-30-days 👉 Practical beats perfect.Here’s a free 5-recipe PDF I use to support energy and stress during busy weeks.https://sarahannmacklin.com/5_free_recipes 👉 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who readThe Compassionate Cure each week.https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ *** Let’s be friends! 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/ 📹 Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah 🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

## Transcript

[0:02] This is a be well moment, the most replayed moments from my
[0:05] latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider
[0:08] episode, which you can find LinkedIn the show notes below.
[0:12] Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to
[0:16] living well and being well. So that kind of takes me on to
[0:24] something which we do not talk about in sexual education
[0:27] anyway. We don't talk about this here in
[0:28] the UKI don't know what it's like right now in the US.
[0:30] You can tell me if this is included, but it's masturbation
[0:34] and it's something that I think has come up on our podcast
[0:38] actually. We did a whole topic on shame
[0:40] with somebody called Afrika Brooke, and she said her shame
[0:42] started when she was 8. Her mum found herself rubbing
[0:46] herself up against the sofa and she was told that she shouldn't
[0:49] do that and it's naughty and it's dirty and never to do that
[0:51] again. And so all of a sudden, from a
[0:53] very young age, she had this like shroud of shame around her.
[0:56] And I'm sure many, you know, when you're thinking about when
[0:58] you're growing up, you'd always kind of run away.
[1:00] And you know, if this is something when you're exploring
[1:02] yourself. So I want to talk about it
[1:05] because we just don't talk about it.
[1:07] And I don't think I've spoken about it since that episode 6
[1:10] months ago. So how important is
[1:13] masturbation? Seeing as we're kind of like
[1:14] talking about sexual dysfunction there, let's just move on to
[1:17] things about how can we get to know ourselves more?
[1:19] How important is it for men and women to masturbate?
[1:23] So masturbation is, you know, there's many benefits, it's a
[1:27] safe form of sex, it's a way of body exploration.
[1:31] Having orgasms have significant health benefits, right?
[1:35] Like it reduces blood pressure, improves sleep, improves focus.
[1:38] So ultimately masturbation is completely normal.
[1:42] We see babies in utero like masturbating, right?
[1:46] So it is a. Complete.
[1:49] Yeah, yeah. So you, you know, it's a
[1:52] completely normal phenomenon when you have babies, you will
[1:56] see them like grabbing their genitals or rubbing soft toys,
[2:00] whatever, right? Like they're trying to explore.
[2:03] And that's completely normal, right?
[2:05] Like that's a normal response to, you know, exploring your
[2:09] body. Now, I think that shame is it's
[2:13] a real problem, right? Like what what we tell our kids
[2:16] is like these sorts of things you just do in private, but it's
[2:19] OK to do, right? Because I think that's what we
[2:22] really want to tell our kids. But our like, people are like
[2:25] shocked or like, Oh my God, what are you doing?
[2:27] Don't do that again, right? But you're the parent and you're
[2:30] the adult and they believe everything you say.
[2:33] So when you say it like that, they are like, Oh no, that's a
[2:36] bad thing, right? So shame starts very, very
[2:39] early. And a lot of times people are
[2:41] masturbating. Two things they feel are maybe
[2:45] unsavory, right, for the public consumption, like they might be
[2:48] watching pornography and then they feel shame around that and
[2:51] around masturbation. So I think ultimately like
[2:55] they're, you know, masturbation is healthy.
[2:57] The only time I would say it becomes problematic is when you
[3:01] are like doing it in lieu of spending time with your partner
[3:05] or spending time with your friends or your family and like
[3:08] you, that's all you want to do, which is a very, very rare
[3:10] occurrence. Like it's not that common.
[3:13] So I would say that most people, I'm masturbating just fine and
[3:16] it's good and it's totally fine. And I will say the shame is
[3:18] pervasive. It is one of the most common
[3:21] questions I get. Like how often should I
[3:22] masturbate? What's too much?
[3:24] I'd say it's fine if there's no like, right or wrong amount.
[3:27] People always want a number. If you want to know, like what's
[3:29] OK, like once a week, 3 * a week.
[3:30] I'm like, no, there's no number, right?
[3:32] Everybody is uniquely different. Are you masturbating and like
[3:35] helps you go to sleep at night? Are you just masturbating to
[3:37] like, you know, have pleasure like a few times a week or it
[3:42] doesn't matter? Like it's just about as long as
[3:44] you're doing in a normal healthy way, it's not creating problems
[3:47] in your life. There should be no shame around
[3:49] it. Thank you for pointing out there
[3:51] should be no shape. I love that you're also talking
[3:53] about numbers because so many things.
[3:55] When I pop into YouTube it's like how long should I be
[3:58] lasting in bed? What is the average length to
[4:01] masturbate? And it is honestly, everything
[4:03] is so numbers focused. It's the same with, you know,
[4:07] nutrition. It's the same with so many
[4:09] conversations I have on this. It's like how long, what's the
[4:12] average? Everyone wants to kind of know
[4:13] they're in this like normal range.
[4:15] And what you described that sounded like quite an addiction
[4:18] towards masturbation, where it kind of like stopping you living
[4:20] your normal life. That actually, in general, you
[4:23] know, if we're actually engaging in this within the week, even if
[4:26] we're in a relationship between ourselves and this is really
[4:29] healthy and normal. Some of that we aren't told.
[4:32] And I'm just going to check it out there and just see how you
[4:35] respond to this. How should we masturbate?
[4:37] How do people know if they're doing it right?
[4:39] Because as you said, I guess we're starting.
[4:42] What I did know is blow my mind that we're starting this in the
[4:44] womb. How do we know if we're
[4:46] masturbating correctly? And how should we masturbate for
[4:49] men and women? So is it pleasurable?
[4:51] Yes. Then you're doing it right.
[4:52] OK, so that that's 1/2 is are you doing it the same way every
[4:58] time? Because that can make sort of
[5:01] challenges when you're with a real person.
[5:02] So you want to use different techniques.
[5:05] So use different stimuli. So don't always watch porn,
[5:09] don't always read a like, do different, read a book, use
[5:12] fantasy, masturbate with different techniques, and don't
[5:16] always use the same weather. For men, it's hand positioning,
[5:20] for women, it might be a toy, right?
[5:22] Like try different things so that your body doesn't get
[5:25] accustomed to one way. That's called idiosyncratic
[5:28] masturbation. Like some people do it the same
[5:30] way every single time. And then when they're with a
[5:31] partner, they can't climax because they're so used to
[5:34] climax in a certain way. OK, and so that actually leads
[5:37] me into my next question, which is like how may masturbation
[5:41] harm our sex life? Because I also speak about all
[5:43] the benefits here, but can masturbation actually harm our
[5:46] sex life in any way? And I feel like you've just made
[5:48] a really valid point on her. Might do, but is there any
[5:50] others? You know, you can if you're
[5:52] being very aggressive, like for particularly in in men and
[5:56] you're masturbating with like not a firm enough erection, you
[6:00] can create some micro trauma to the penis.
[6:03] But generally speaking, I think as long as you're doing it you
[6:06] know, in a normal healthy manner in the terms of like you're not
[6:10] like being super aggressive and you're all doing different
[6:13] variety, there should be no problems.
[6:16] OK, so generally I'm taking from this that we should all be
[6:19] masturbating. We should be making sure that
[6:22] it's feeling nice and actually there should be no shame
[6:24] connected to it. But there could be a couple of
[6:26] times that if we're just doing something, I feel like it's
[6:28] similar to exercise, you know? And it made me just think like,
[6:31] should we do masturbation? Like we just want to go and do
[6:33] it to yoga, You know, we go to yoga and sometimes and we're not
[6:36] always feeling like when we do it, we feel better and reducing
[6:39] that change. She would be thinking about sex
[6:42] or sex lives and masturbation in that way similar to how we think
[6:45] about yoga, but actually making sure that we're doing different
[6:47] types of yoga. That's important, rather than
[6:49] just doing the same things when we are doing the same technique
[6:52] every time. Well, I think you don't want it
[6:54] to be like a chore. You don't want to be like, I
[6:56] need to do this today because it's good for my health.
[6:59] Like, no, you don't want to do that, but you can.
[7:02] There's definitely people. Out there that are doing that
[7:04] arena, there's definitely people out there that are doing that.
[7:08] Yeah, no, you shouldn't be forced to masturbate.
[7:11] But if you in terms of like you don't always want to do the same
[7:15] thing at the gym every day, right?
[7:16] You don't want to lift just your biceps and not your, you know,
[7:19] like you need, you need to use opposing muscle grooves, push,
[7:22] pull, whatever, right? So same thing.
[7:24] You need to have variety and not do the same thing every time.
[7:31] Thank you for listening to the Speedwell moment if it
[7:33] resonated, the full conversation is LinkedIn, the show notes and
[7:37] I hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to
[7:41] reconnect to living well and being well.
[7:44] If you loved it, please do leave a review, follow the show or
[7:48] share this maybe with someone you love.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.