How to (Actually) Fix Your Death Grip

I knew exactly how I gave myself death grip. It was the way I masturbated.

I won’t describe my self-love technique in detail, but it involved a lot of pressure and the most vigorous movements my arm muscles could manage.

Before long, it became the only way I could achieve orgasm. 

Unfortunately, it involved stimulation that felt nothing like the sensations I’d get from sex, blowjobs, and even hand jobs. And that meant I couldn’t get off with anyone but myself. Sex would always end without me coming, at least until I was alone and again and could take care of myself. 

After more than ten years of sex without climax, I had enough. I vowed to finally fix my death grip so I could regain some sensitivity and enjoy sex to its fullest. 

The only trouble was, I had no idea how to do that. 

So, I did what any guy who’s too embarrassed to bring up his dick at a doctor’s appointment would do. I looked it up online.

Don’t Quit Porn

I kept coming across the same two pieces of advice. The first was to quit porn.

The claim was that porn is simply too exciting. And when you’re used to getting yourself off while watching it, you grow accustomed to that level of excitement. 

That’s all fine and dandy until you’re actually having sex. Then you’re trying to reach your climax without the visual stimulation you get from porn and you just can’t.  

I was frustrated enough to try just about anything. So, I gave it a shot. I stopped downloading porn scenes. I quit visiting Pornhub. I even avoided the X-rated GIFs on Tumblr.

For six months, it was just me and my dirty thoughts.

Despite that self-discipline, I had no results to show for it. Not a single shred of sensitivity came back. I got off just as easily with my imagination as I had with porn, and sex still couldn’t get me there. 

Don’t Abstain from Masturbation, Either

The second thing guys kept recommending online was abstaining from masturbation altogether. 

That solution felt a bit more extreme, but at least it made more sense. If masturbation is what killed my sensitivity to begin with, then keeping my hands off myself and giving my dick a break might just reintroduce some of the sensitivity I had squeezed out of it.

I didn’t have the willpower to abstain from masturbating for six months the way I did with porn. But I did manage to give it up a few times for about a month or two. 

That experiment ended in disappointment too. Giving up on porn and giving my dick a break didn’t do much at all. Nothing good anyway. It did make me feel more sexually frustrated. It left me feeling bored at times. But it sure didn’t resolve my death grip. 

Change the Way You Masturbate

Kicking my porn and masturbation habits didn’t have any noticeable effects on my sensitivity.

Of all the things I tried, only one actually worked: masturbation, and lots of it. 

That probably sounds counterintuitive. After all, it’s masturbation that got me into this mess in the first place, so how could it possibly get me out of it?

Simply put, it’s because death grip isn’t caused by masturbation per se. It’s caused by masturbating in some very particular ways. 

If you struggle with death grip, it’s because you’ve trained your body to get off from a very precise kind of stimulation - one that you won’t get from penetrative or oral sex. 

The solution, then, is to train your body to get off from a different kind of stimulation.   

Depending on how you’re used to getting off, that might mean loosening the grip on your shaft. It could mean applying less pressure to your dick. It might mean slowing down so you’re not jerking so fast your arm gets sore. 

Basically, the opposite of whatever gave you the death grip to begin with. 

Use Lube

If you’re not masturbating with lube, you need to start using some. If you’re already using lube, you might need to start using more. 

You probably won’t be able to fix your death grip without lube. That’s because lube is going to help your hand glide more smoothly along your shaft and the head of your dick, meaning you won’t need to apply nearly as much pressure. 

                                                

Using lube will also amplify the stimulation you’re giving yourself, which means you’ll be able to make yourself come without beating off like a piston.

Start Using Strokers

Using lube definitely helped me, but I made even more progress once I started masturbating with strokers. 

Strokers don’t quite feel like the real thing. It’s not going to perfectly replicate the sensation you get from having your dick inside a vagina or a mouth. But it’s close enough.

Instead of your hand, a stroker lets you masturbate with something soft and wet, which is the exact sensation you want to teach your dick to respond to. Once you get used to getting off with a stroker, you’ll be much more likely to come with your partner. 

I personally recommend starting off with a highly stimulating stroker. That way, you’ll be able to climax fairly easily even if you’re not especially sensitive.

The Tenga Flip Orb is a great one to start with. It’s got an internal texture and stimulating beads that give plenty of pleasure. Even better for my fellow death grippers, you can also add a bit of pressure (but not too much) by giving it a squeeze while you’re stroking with it. 

                                               

Once you get used to that, you can move on to a less intense, more basic sleeve to work on  increasing your sensitivity even more.

Bring Out the Big Guns: Try a Mount

I made a lot of progress with strokers, but it wasn’t enough. If I was going to completely overcome it, I’d have to find a way to make masturbation feel even more like sex. 

That’s what led me to trying out a toy mount. 

In my case, it was the Liberator On a Mission mount. It’s basically like a small piece of soft furniture with a socket designed to hold a cannister stroker. That way, you can thrust into the toy instead of jerking with it. 

                                        

It’s the same stimulation you’d normally get from a stroker, but it’s the fact that you’re learning to get off without your hand being involved at all that makes all the difference. 

I’ve only been using the mount for a relatively short time, and I still haven’t been able to come during sex. But since I started using the On a Mission, I’ve had a noticeable increase in my sensitivity during sex. It made sex more intense, more pleasurable, and gets me closer to a climax than before. I chalk that up as a serious win. 

You can also get the same effect from a sex doll or a torso doll. I’ve used one and it definitely works just as well, if not better, than the toy mount. 

But the mount and stroker are more affordable, easier to clean, and simpler to store. So, if you’re just looking to fix your death grip and aren’t particularly interested in getting a sex doll, a mount is the way to go.

Take Your Time

Once you’ve got some lube, some strokers, and possibly a mount, the only other thing you’ll need is patience.

When you’ve got a case of death grip, learning to get off in a new way is really challenging. It will take a lot longer than your usual masturbation method would. 

I had to stroke off for over half an hour at first. My first time with the toy mount, I banged away at it for more than sixty minutes and still didn’t finish.           

                                            

So, give yourself plenty of time because you’ll need it. But after a while, you’ll need less and less. And it will be completely worth it. Your sensitivity will increase. Sex with feel even better than it already does. And you might just finally overcome your death grip and all the frustrations that come with having it.

Author Bio: 

Jake Austin is the co-host of the dirty and intimate sex podcast Pillow Talk With Emma Austin and the world's best and only Seinfeld sex podcast, What's The Deal With Fucking? But mostly he's on Twitter: @MisterAustin1