Sensual self-touch and pleasure products—with the okay from a medical professional—can help the healing process from a chest or breast procedure.
For some people, self-pleasure can play a proportionate role in healing—and chest or breast pleasure, in particular, can play a powerful part in the mental and physical recovery from chest- or breast-related procedures. Be it breast reconstruction, reduction or augmentation to some types of mastectomies, lumpectomies and gender-affirming top surgeries, self-pleasure post-procedure (when it’s safe, of course) may empower some people to explore and give love to their bodies—and their boundaries—with intentional touch.
Mentally, intentional touch around the breasts and chest area, in general, may promote relaxation, release stuck energy, restore the mind-body connection and foster a sense of self-love and acceptance. Physically, this type of self-touch has the potential to reawaken sensation, reduce pain or tension, boost blood flow and encourage lymphatic drainage.
“Unless a doctor advises otherwise for a reason they can explain to the person who’s had the procedure, sensual touch can feel healing and affirmative, can impact blood flow, help reconnect the nerve pathways that might have been affected and can potentially help a person re-map their body and touch expectations or responses, if that’s necessary,” says Dr. Carol Queen, PhD., an award-winning sex educator for Good Vibes, author of The Sex & Pleasure Book: Good Vibrations Guide to Great Sex for Everyone, activist and curator of the Antique Vibrator Museum. “Any sensual touch and pleasure, if desired, can reinforce that pleasure is still possible and engage the body’s sensory and chemical systems in ways that could have healing effects or implications.”
After a procedure is also an ideal time to explore pleasure since it can be experienced differently depending on what’s been done and how your body has responded, Dr. Queen adds.
“Surgery is such a significant experience that [you] may be ‘pre-set’ emotionally to want to learn more about how [you] can respond now, post-procedure,” she says.
In other words: Chest or breast pleasure doesn’t have to be only a sexual experience. Sensual touch can simply be a healing self-care practice, both psychologically and physically, following a chest- or breast-related surgery.
What to expect immediately after a chest or breast surgery
A chest- or breast-related procedure has the potential to have a positive impact on someone both mentally and physically (especially when it’s cosmetic)—and self-pleasure techniques allow them to lean into that.
Suzanne M. Quardt, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon at Palm Desert Plastic Surgery widely recognized as “Dr. Q” from Dr. 90210, says that cosmetic breast-related surgeries carry a high incidence of “positive psychological and emotional side effects,” since her patients usually visit her with the desire to improve their sense of self in the first place.
With over 20 years of experience specializing in complex cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgery, she has seen firsthand how the psychological effects of cosmetic surgery can be very positive and impactful, which is why, she says, breast surgeries remain so popular.
“Most people either want to enhance, reduce and/or lift their breasts to have a ‘prettier’ shape and proportion at any age and, oftentimes, after having children and breastfeeding,” Dr. Quardt explains. “For example, many mothers wish to ‘return to normal’ after they experience all the breast changes that come with pregnancy and breastfeeding… Many women with old breast implants and senescent breast and skin changes that come with aging also desire to have a ‘refresh’ and look and feel better about themselves.”
Some of her patients also come in for breast reconstruction following cancer-related surgeries that have left “unwanted acquired deformities,” but they tend to “carry a higher chance for disfigurement and, thus, postoperative dissatisfaction,” she says. Those who’ve undergone radiation therapy may also have limited options due to blood supply and skin changes. But, in addition to breast implants, she may talk to these particular patients about alternative reconstructive options like local tissue re-arrangements or expanders, fat transfers, muscle or myocutaneous flaps and more.
Whatever their reason for cosmetic chest or breast surgery, however, most of Dr. Quardt’s patients express gratitude immediately afterward, she says, which is thanks, in large part, to in-depth pre-surgical counseling regarding overall appearance and expectations. During these pre-procedure discussions, she also makes sure that the prospective patient is “emotionally stable” and that they have a “good support system.” She also confirms that the cosmetic surgery they’re seeking is “for themselves and not for someone else.” Otherwise, the risk of post-surgical dissatisfaction significantly increases since the patient is relying on a reaction from others.
“If a patient receives a good breast reconstruction outcome, the psychological effects are typically quite positive, but, if a patient has complications associated with their breast reconstructions and/or achieves a less than desirable outcome, then the psychological effects can be less positive,” she says. “Nobody can predict how someone will react psychologically to a surgically created alteration in their appearance.”
When the cosmetic chest or breast surgery serves the patient’s personal desires and they’re happy with the outcome, pleasurable touch allows them to explore and enjoy their new bodies. But even for cosmetic surgeries that go south or non-cosmetic surgeries that aren’t necessarily by choice (such as in the case of breast cancer and other medically necessary situations), self-pleasure can be healing in reconnecting patients to their bodies and giving love to areas of discomfort, pain or trauma.
How sensual self-touch and toys can help the healing journey
Self-pleasure looks different for everyone, depending on desires, boundaries and other personal factors that may color your curiosities. But it involves intentional touch with or without the use of pleasure products.
“Using pleasure-based touch as a method for mindful and physical self-care can be a transformative experience in how we embrace our bodies and our sense of self,” adds Lisa Finn, a Brooklyn-based sex educator and expert in pleasure, kink and LGBTQ+ sexual health initiatives for Babeland. “Just as we take the time to integrate physical self-care through routines like movement (such as by working out or practicing yoga), skin care, nutritional health and more… pleasure provides the benefits—mental and physical —that we strive for in self-care, and it is something that should be celebrated and embraced.”
Pleasure is a key way that we can connect with our bodies—to become more confident in them and more mindful and appreciative of the ways in which they can make us feel, Finn adds. After all, pleasure triggers the release of feel-good chemicals and neurotransmitters, such as endorphins and dopamine, she says, which are associated with feelings of relaxation and happiness.
“Pleasure can have us feeling more positive about ourselves and reduce stress, which can leave us with a better sense of self,” Finn says. “When we’re able to provide that pleasure by ourselves and for ourselves, it can be super empowering. When we learn our own bodies through self-pleasure, we become more confident through that understanding of our physical selves.”
Of course, the type of chest- or breast-related surgery plays a pivotal part in how post-procedure pleasure can impact us.
“Is it a medical necessity in the case of breast cancer?” Dr. Queen asks. “That could strike at a significant locus of self-image; questions of attractiveness, gendered presentation and similar concerns can come up. (Note: This might not be expressly negative or challenging, depending on the person. Just this week, a friend with large breasts arranged to have a reduction and lumpectomy, giving her more space to identify in a more nonbinary way than she has felt she could with the larger breasts.)”
For those undergoing gender-affirmative top surgeries, pleasure can play a different role.
“[Gender-affirmative surgeries] might bring joy, relief and a newfound connection with one’s own body (and potentially pleasure, as well),” Dr. Queen says, in which case sensory touch can be a tactic in exploring those changes.
For example, pleasure-based touch can aid in gender euphoria and embodiment.
“Being able to learn our bodies and connect with them through pleasure is a beautiful thing, and being able to do so in a newer physical version of our bodies after a gender-affirming procedure like top surgery can be just as—if not even more—beautiful,” Finn says. “There may be ways that you used to experience touch (whether solo or with a partner) that are changed (either partially or entirely) after top surgery, and so taking time to explore your body solo can be vital to having a better understanding of how touch and pleasure come together after these changes.”
Connecting to the body through physical touch can be a great way to process and celebrate changes, as well.
“Pleasure-based touch can be a powerful tool for fostering a sense of embodiment—not just feeling the body’s surface, but truly inhabiting it,” Finn explains. “This kind of connection can help gender euphoria sink in more deeply through the joy and empowerment of seeing (and feeling!) the shape of our body aligns with our identity. Pleasure and touch (especially solo pleasure) invite us to explore our bodies on our own terms, rebuilding trust and confidence in areas that may have once held discomfort or dysphoria. By approaching our bodies with pleasure and a want and curiosity for exploration, we can claim our bodies not just as something that has changed, but also as something that is ours.”
Physically, however, the neurological changes that ensue with some surgeries can be challenging to navigate for those who find (or who found) pleasure from nipple and breast play. While self-pleasure can play a role in reawakening sensation (or even retraining nerve pathways) after breast-related procedures, some people may experience significant numbness, reduced sensitivity or total loss of sensation post-surgery.
Dr. Quardt explains that some of the most common physical side effects of breast-related surgeries are changes to nipple sensation or nipple perfusion.
“Some breast-related surgeries can cause transient hypersensitivity of the nipples that can be quite bothersome and/or painful but then returns to normal, typically within a few weeks at most,” she says. “Some surgeries may also cause numbness of the nipples that can be either transient or even permanent at times and, thus, the risk must be discussed.”
But the nipples aren’t the only erogenous zone that we have to explore, Finn adds. For those who have lost all or most of their feeling in the nipples, it’s worth exploring other parts of the chest area and body, too.
“Especially when we’re already aroused, the skin across our bodies is littered with sensitive areas that can feel just as pleasurable when we stimulate them,” Finn explains. “Allow yourself the space to focus on how your body feels… From there, start exploring all-over touch on the body through sensation play—running your hands (or having your partner run their hands) across bare skin and seeing how your body responds to different types of touch in different areas. Incorporate different textures like the light touch of a feather or fabric. Explore temperature play and see how you react to a warm massage oil being poured over the skin versus the sharp cold of an ice cube. Switch up between the caress of fingertips to the scratch of fingernails.”
Dr. Queen adds that you shouldn’t only zero in on other body parts that we’ve learned to think of as “erotic focal points.”
“No one’s pleasure is centered in only one area of the body; we can always learn to add new elements to the pleasure we can experience, and embracing this with curiosity is powerful, too,” she says. “Our skin is our biggest organ, and many of us are skin-hungry… [Skin] is not gendered or sexualized the way other areas of the body can be; it can feel safer to start away from genitals, nipples, etc., but this also wakes up the body’s sensory and pleasure capacity in a way that is less likely to kick up dysphoria [for people with gender-affirming surgeries].”
You could also choose to engage with a massage professional to address that “skin hunger” and open yourself to that kind of satiation in private pleasure exploration. In private, however, we have the most control over our pleasure.
“Most importantly, self-pleasure is under our control—it’s an easy-to-access element of erotic agency,” Dr. Queen says. “[Self-pleasure] is inherently a process that we guide—which has powerful resonance as we recommit to our own pleasure and body knowledge… In general, taking responsibility for our own pleasure and body can be an empowering experience.”
Dr. Queen also recommends exploring other ways in which pleasure can manifest for you—familiar ways that may be unchanged by surgery, as well as ways you haven’t yet tried, such as with the facilitation of certain sex toys.
If given your doctor’s thumbs up, Finn recommends pleasure toys intended for nipple stimulation (like Nipplettes and a Nipple Squeeze Pump System), suction toys originally designed for clitoral play (like the Satisfyer Number One or the Womanizer OG), lubricants and oils (like the Nip Zip Balm or Arousal Serum by Dame), sensory accessories (like Rechargeable Nipplettes or a Roll Vibrating Massager) and temperature tools (like Ex's and Oh's Temperature Play Sensory Roller).
Key considerations to keep safety in mind when exploring pleasure post procedure
Of course, before you can go touching and playing with the parts of your body that have been operated on—even with the intention to help heal from your surgery—it’s important to give your body time to recover.
Immediate postoperative pain and postoperative recommendations will vary from person to person and depend on how extensive the surgical procedure is and whether or not it is combined with other procedures. Whatever the case, Dr. Quardt limits her cosmetic-reconstruction patients’ actions for at least about one to two weeks before they can resume their normal activities. And she says that “breasts should no longer be tender prior to undue manipulation and/or touching.”
The nipples, in particular, can be quite sensitive following surgery.
“After surgery, there will be a timeframe when direct nipple stimulation might be contraindicated—so make sure you know that information before firing up a suction device or a vibrator!” Dr. Queen says. “Also make sure, if you have other breast-related forms of pleasure you’ve engaged in—[such as] bondage and impact play—that someone with medical knowledge and without judgment advises about those kinds of play.”
According to Dr. Quardt, if there is any risk of skin numbness after breast surgery, you should also avoid all temperature-play products or props, like cold and heat, which can cause burns.
“All incisions should be well healed prior to placing any other ointments or products,” Dr. Quardt adds. “Patients with a lot of incisions to heal—such as in a breast reduction or mastopexy—may be more limited in physical activities… until all of their incisions are well healed, which may take weeks to months.”
All breast-procedure patients will also have “some type of scar to heal,” Dr. Quardt adds. Scars should be monitored as they heal, which takes a full year to do so completely. The use of certain oils or ointments may interfere with that process.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, chest- and breast-related surgeries can have mental and physical effects, both positive and negative.
“Surgery is a physical process that can affect not just the way one looks (and potentially [how clothes fit] and such), but that also involves a type of intrusive change to the body—with anesthesia, pain medicines and, most significantly, the potential of affecting blood/lymph flow, neurology (the nerves that serve the affected area) and more,” explains Dr. Queen. “Those who are going to have chest or breast surgery should make sure that their medical team explains all this very clearly, including any possible side effects and what to look for. Numbness, scarring, the body starting to reject an implant or repositioned nipple... These are things that are best addressed upfront so the patient is giving informed consent and knows what to do if there is an issue.”
After the fact, it’s important to be kind to yourself—which also means exploring pleasure without pressure or expectations either.
“Time heals,” Dr. Queen adds. “Be kind to yourself and look for pleasure in any way it manifests. Use affirmations and mindfulness techniques to take the edge off the emotions that are hard to navigate.”
For those navigating grief or loss related to changes in sensation (especially for those who may have total numbness) or related to the removal or reduction of breasts, Dr. Queen recommends seeing a professional to unpack it.
“Seek out a trauma-informed therapist with knowledge of medical trauma with whatever is mixed in: sexual or gender issues, pain or neurological effects, self-image issues that could be mixed in,” she says.
Otherwise, remember that healing is a journey—one that looks different for everyone.
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