Hi there RowleinL, there isn't any health risk in waiting for your erection to go down. This is actually called "vasocongestion" and is actually about the increased bloodflow to your genitals (which is what makes an erection happen) rather than semen build up. As such, relieving the pressure is done via ejaculation, or waiting for the bloodflow to reduce over time. There is nothing dangerous about waiting for the pressure to come down, and you can read more about this here:
FBI Files: Vasocongestion, AKA: Blue Balls. In terms of feeling spent after masturbation, this is something many people feel, a mix of the hormones released at that time that make us feel relaxed and happy, and the relax of muscle tension may have you feeling tired afterwards. If you notice that the more you edge, the more pre tention you build up before you release, it might help to experiment with how much tension you build up and how strong the feeling of release (via orgasm/ejaculation) is to you at the end.
You might find these articles about masturbation useful as well:
With regards to how long it is healthy to have an erection, if you have an erection that lasts longer than four hours you should see a doctor about why the blood flow is taking longer than should be expected to go down.
In terms of what you do about masturbating to a picture of someone and if/when you communicate that to them, there are some things to remember and consider:
- Remembering that the fantasy is just yours within your head, and the other person isn't a participant in it. You can think of this as that you are responding to the image as a prompt, and on its own, and not interacting with the actual person the image was taken of. It is therefore important to remember that they are an individual person that you must respect and see as a full person rather than just the fantasy object that is the image, does that make sense?
- Remembering that because the fantasy is just that, fantasy, it is not real, so the way that the person behaves with you in real life, and the intimacy of your relationship etc. doesn't change if you've fantasised about them, as they weren't part of the interaction.
- Telling someone that you masturbate to their image is a very sexually charged thing to say, so would only be okay to say if you were in a situation where you and a partner had consented to this kind of sexual communication. As it is sexually charged and extremely intimate, it far more sexual than saying that you find someone attractive and that you'd like to date them, so it wouldn't be appropriate to bring it up in the context of wanting to date someone or ask them out. However if you and a partner have both consented to communicating with each other in a sexual way for the purposes of turning each other on/as part of sex, then it could be something you say.
- You also have no obligation to tell a partner every one of your fantasies unless you want to, as they are your own and what you only imagine isn't a form of infidelity, but a regular part of human sexuality.
On this topic, you may find these articles useful:
If you have any questions, observations or curiosities about the above information that you feel comfortable sharing with us here, please don't hesitate to do so!