Congrats! You’ve jerked, tugged, rubbed or generally flogged yourself into a situation known as “death grip syndrome.”

Congrats! You’ve jerked, tugged, rubbed or generally flogged yourself into a situation known as “death grip syndrome.”

This is a phenomenon in which your genitals become accustomed to the masturbatory abuse you dole out to them and gradually become numb to sensation. As a result, death grippers usually have to use a stronger pressure or faster, more furious stroke to achieve the same level of pleasure until they eventually lose the ability to climax altogether.

Both genders can get death grip syndrome, although in women it usually manifests itself as an addiction to the feeling of intense vibration from using a vibrator, and they can’t orgasm without the bone-clanging buzz of a device that needs a backup generator to operate. The good news is that you can deal with it and your mutilated genitalia can spring back to their original sensitivity level in a few weeks or less. There’s a five-step system experts use to help people with death grip recover, and I’ll spell it out for you here.

1) Cease and desist. Give yourself a break. Don’t masturbate for at least a week and allow the burning desire to build up. It’s important that you re-learn how to be achingly horny.

2) Masturbate once a week. Take time for it, make it a ritual, and go slow; this is key to breaking the “death grip” pattern in which violent, rushed masturbation prevails. Lube is mandatory. Try mastrubating with a condom on. Masturbate in a way that feels more like sex and less like masturbation. Use a Fleshlight if you’re a guy, and a dildo if you’re a girl (not a vibrator).

3) Using those techniques, progress to a few times a week. Masturbate in many different ways, re-training yourself to figure out what feels good for you. Do it only when you have enough time to give yourself what you need … otherwise scream into a pillow or something if you’re too rushed to do it right.

4) Share with your partner(s) what’s going on. Making him or her aware of your death grip may help alleviate performance anxiety, and this could lead to them putting less pressure on you to come.

5) Keep your partner happy. If you’re having erectile or orgasm issues, that’s no reason to keep your partner from getting what they need. Focus on pleasing them and let your own gratification take a backseat, and you might benefit from the break that it gives to your penis/vagina/whatever.

If you want more info, there are a ton of self-help websites, run by people who have overcome the terrible scourge of death grip. My favorite is curedeathgrip.com because, like, look at the name. Okay? Okay.