I often wonder whether I’m a chronic masturbator. In the day and age where virtually any question can be answered with a quick Internet search, it’s frustrating to not have a definitive diagnosis.

Definition chronic masturbation

Symptoms chronic masturbation

Chronic masturbator test

How do I know if I’m a chronic masturbator?

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Nothing I type into the search engine bar seems to come up with a satisfactory result. Not even Yahoo Answers has anything for me—their closest link being I’m a chronic masturbator and I need to stop, help?!

It’s not like I want help. There are times when I’m expected to be somewhere, and I skip steps in getting ready so that I can masturbate a little longer. I’ll need to be at that somewhere by a certain time, and I lay in bed as the minutes turn into hours, making myself orgasm over and over, promising the universe “Just one more and I’ll be on my way,” only to make the same promise five minutes later. As each orgasm passes, I lose the chance to do my hair properly. I tell myself I can wear the same outfit as the day before. Sometimes, I devise an excuse about traffic and just plan on being late altogether. The process is very time-sensitive—I have exactly thirteen seconds after an orgasm to get up and shake it off before I get horny again. Thirteen seconds goes by pretty fast, so it’s a pretty demanding act, in terms of will. If procrasturbating were an Olympic sport, I’d be a fucking gold medalist. But like I said, I don’t need help—I’ve designed a system: I get ready an hour ahead of time so that I’m free to touch myself until the very last second, until I need to get on with my daily schedule. I pack my purse, do my hair and makeup, and get fully dressed (except for pants, which I take out of the drawer and leave at the foot of the bed) before I lie down, close my eyes, and start the cycle.

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If not a full-on masturbation addict, I’m certainly an emotional masturbator. When I’m sad, happy, grouchy, or just bored, my hand automatically reaches down into my underwear and onto my clitoris. I can hardly be left alone for a few minutes on a comfortable piece of furniture without rubbing myself. Hotels are the worst—often, the only place to sit down is a bed, so I’m basically just touching myself the entire time I’m in the room.

My first memories of masturbating are from when I was about four or five years old. My mother would often catch me, and proceed to gently scold me. As a result, it’s something that’s always conjured a feeling of guilt. But it has always been something I could not stop myself from doing. When I saw a pretty girl, or a handsome man on television (hello, Uncle Jesse), I would sneak away someplace I could lie down on my stomach and hump my hand. I even remember there being a period of time I was not allowed to go to sleep with the covers over me, because my mother knew once I was under those blankets, I’d start humping away. Being so young, I wouldn’t orgasm, and I didn’t even know what sex was—but I knew the feeling of being horny, and I knew touching myself down there felt good. Pregnant women, especially, did it for me—I didn’t know how they got pregnant, but looking back, I applaud myself for having the natural instinct that those women did something to get themselves that way. I’ll forever remember when Maria from "Sesame Street" got pregnant, and announced it to everyone on the block—those nine months were the golden days of prepubescent masturbation.

Likely because of my mother’s attitude towards self-pleasure when I was young, I still sometimes get an overwhelming wave of guilt after I make myself come. It’s not every time; it’s not even most of the time—I’d say once every hundred times I touch myself. It feels like a cloud of depression just comes over me, and it’s impossible to escape—I just ride through it, knowing it will pass soon. It usually only sticks around for ten seconds or so—never more than the thirteen it takes me to get horny again.

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Writing this book was a lot like masturbating. Every thought I had, I felt I needed to sit down and type out. My journaling went into overdrive; everything felt important, profound. My porn shoots suffered, as did my daily morning workouts. Not that I lost interest in these things, but once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. “Just one more paragraph,” I’d tell myself—“I can be thirty minutes late, no big deal.”

Every few hundred words or so, I’d read back what I had written, and that familiar wave of self-hatred would come over me. Could I reveal so much? Who was I, to think my life was worth sharing? This writing was total shit—could it even be published? People were only interested in me because I get naked and have sex on camera. Why would they want to know what went on in my mind?

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So much self-doubt, so much guilt for oversharing, so much fear of exposing myself, so much shame in the kind of human I was.

But a few minutes would go by and that cloud would once again pass over me, leaving me fiending to share just a little bit more. And, like masturbating, hotel rooms were the worst— I’d feverishly type away all day for hours upon hours until my eyes went blurry. In fact, since writing "Insatiable," I’ve become an eyeglass wearer, damaging the 20/20 vision pride I’ve had my whole life.

Once the book was out, and people had read it, I felt relieved. Much like the way I feel after bringing myself to orgasm, I felt a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. "Insatiable" was received in many ways: Some people loved it. Some were horrified. Some people were deeply offended by it, and some people were thrilled to take a look inside my life. I read every review, every article, every comment below every review and article. I doubt there’s a single thing out there said publicly about my book that I haven’t read. And although releasing my feelings felt freeing in a way I had never experienced, reading these opinions brought the cloud back. Having been in porn for so many years, I’m used to reading people’s views on my body—I’m always too thick, too short, too alien-looking for someone out there. For every ten people who say nice things about the way I’m being anally penetrated, there’s one who voices my asshole doesn’t gape wide enough for their liking. And that’s okay. I understand I’m not everyone’s flavor. I look how I look, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

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My thoughts, however—that’s another story. To pour my heart out into a book, to spend a year writing, and rewriting, stories from my real life, only to have them stomped on by someone who didn’t approve of my very existence— that hurt. Having lived in a small bubble known as the porn industry for the past six years, I had forgotten how much of the world was not just antiporn, but antisex. People claimed I was delusional for loving my job; some even called me a downright liar. It angered me, after pushing myself to be so truthful, to be dismissed as the complete opposite. In addition, I was called a narcissist, an opportunist, an exploiter. Someone even referred to me as a “chronic disclosure fetishist,” a term I had never heard before. These things especially hurt because I knew deep down many were true. I had just never seen them as negative attributes.

I stopped journaling. What was the point? People were just going to knock me down about it anyway. They were right: It was enough that I felt I needed to exploit my body—why did I need to do the same to my brain? Had I no integrity?

The words that hurt the most were those of antisex feminists. I think the main reason I was so ill-prepared for their reactions was that I had not set out to write anything politically correct. The book was something I had written as an extension of my exhibitionistic ways—another way for me to overshare, to feed my inner “chronic disclosure fetishist.” I’ve always considered myself a feminist, and I did not expect to have to defend my book against my fellow sisters. I’m a woman, a human being with common sense—of course I’m a feminist! Of course I believe in gender equality! Gender equality includes women being able to do what they want with their sexuality, regardless of what society’s viewpoints are—a right that men have had since the beginning of time. While I respect the extremist antisex feminists’ personal choice not to make money off of their sexual fantasies, it enrages me that they cannot give me the same respect in return.

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While I hate to even admit that these accusations have affected me in any way, it would be dishonest to recount my experience of releasing "Insatiable" without doing so. Over the past few months, my rage has turned into a sense of gratitude—I’m thankful to have a voice, to have a platform to express my feelings on. I may be a porn star, someone who just fucks for money, but I’m also a woman, living life her way, which is important. I’ve started journaling again; my desire to overshare is back.

So, in addition to shooting porn, that’s what I’ve been up to, between the release of the hardcover and paperback editions of this book. The cloud of negativity is gone, and I’m back to writing nonstop everyday, working on another book. My morning workouts have suffered, my eyes are blurry, hotel stays are once again no longer just about chronic masturbating—and I’m happy about it. I guess my thirteen seconds have passed.

Excerpted from "Insatiable: Porn -- A Love Story" by Asa Akira. Published by Grove Press, paperback edition published January 2015. Copyright 2015 by Asa Akira. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.