Howl

Challenging Sexist Stigmas Around Female Masturbation

Women deserve pleasure, too

I’m slow when it comes to love and sex. I don’t fall in love easily. It’s hard for me to have sex outside of a loving relationship. And when a relationship ends, I tend to need a lot of time — sometimes years — to process my grief and work up the courage to try again.

Thankfully, I’m like a camel when it comes to sex. I can make it long distances without a lover.

The reason for this is that I know how to enjoy myself. Alone.

I was always curious about my body. As a child, I discovered how good it felt to have pressure between my legs and I often straddled swings, monkey bars, rocks, fallen branches, and any other object I could sit on. (My poor mother was mortified by this.)

I later learned how to use tools to actually get me to orgasm (though I had no idea what orgasm was). My favorites were the shower head and the jets in the spa.

My mother didn’t know what to do with my scandalous enjoyment of my own body and she often hissed at me to please “be a lady and stop that!”

Over time, I learned how to hide what I was doing, though the real shame of it didn’t kick in until I was in my twenties. By then, I had heard so many jokes on TV or comments from friends about how pathetic it was for a woman to masturbate.

Once, during an outing with friends, one of the more outspoken members of the group made a joke about spraining her wrist from the excessive use of her vibrator. After she left, another member of the group said, under her breath, “It’s sad she can’t get that action from a man.”

People didn’t talk about male masturbation like this. On the contrary, I felt it was widely acknowledged that men’s biology dictated that daily orgasms — from sex with a partner and/or from their own hand — were a necessity.

“It’s sad she can’t get that action from a man.”

Yet for women, it seemed like masturbation was tied to their level of desirability. If a woman had to masturbate, she wasn’t worthy enough to get “real” sex from a partner. It was sad, this new vision of spinsterhood. I pictured a middle-aged woman living alone with her seventeen cats, occasionally dusting off her vibrator and going to town, teeth clenched until she climaxed, then sleepily returning to the lonely minutia of her life.

I was introduced to a refreshing new perspective when I was 25. In a new town, at a new college, I met Shona, possibly the most sex-positive woman I’ve ever known (before being “sex-positive” was even a thing). After a painful entanglement with a man that had ended poorly and a string of unsuccessful hookups, she sat me down, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Hon, are you masturbating enough? I feel like if you gave yourself a little more pleasure, you might not be trying so hard to land these guys who aren’t worthy of you.”

I pictured a middle-aged woman living alone with her seventeen cats, occasionally dusting off her vibrator and going to town, teeth clenched until she climaxed, then sleepily returning to the lonely minutia of her life.

I sat there with my mouth half open. I had never talked to anyone about masturbation before. It’s always been a shame trigger for me. But somehow, her openness and complete lack of shame made it easier.

I told her I had been trying so hard to be a “good adult” and to stop relying on myself for sexual pleasure. At 25, wasn’t I supposed to be in a relationship that would fulfill me in that way?

“I love you,” she said, “but you’re dumb as dirt when it comes to sex. You know I’ve been with Isaiah for five years, but I still masturbate all the time. I don’t know where you got the idea that you have to rely on a man for sexual pleasure. That’s fucked up. Now go get your purse, cuz we’re gonna find you a nice vibrator.”

Standing there in the sex store, I could not believe that I was picking out vibrating dildos with my best friend at my elbow. I don’t know how my life had taken that turn, but I couldn’t deny that being with her no-shame attitude was incredibly freeing.

“Now go get your purse, cuz we’re gonna find you a nice vibrator.”

Later that night, she called me just to ask me how I’d enjoyed “the ride.”

I told her I loved my new toy.

“How many times did you come?”

I grimaced, closing my eyes, again unable to believe I was having this conversation. “Three.”

“Good girl,” she said. “Focus on taking care of yourself and stop trying so hard to find a man.”

I’m sorry to say that when I moved away, Shona and I drifted apart. Back in a circle of much less sex-positive friends, I found my attitude about masturbation reverting back to shame. Worst of all, I began feeling like that pathetic spinster in my imagination.

Sex and the City was at the height of its popularity at the time and despite its sex-positive storylines about masturbation and vibrators, I found myself feeling dirty and unlovable when I used my sex toys. Was it just gross that I had a shoebox full of vibrating dildos in my closet? Did it mean I wasn’t good enough for sex with a real partner?

When I met my next partner, I threw everything away. That old belief that a woman shouldn’t need to masturbate was still locked in my head. I thought I’d finally found the right partner and that I’d never need to touch myself again. I would be able to get all my sexual fulfillment from him.

Was it just gross that I had a shoebox full of vibrating dildos in my closet? Did it mean I wasn’t good enough for sex with a real partner?

I found myself in a pickle very early on in our relationship. We wanted to wait a little while before having sex, which means we had some pretty long makeout sessions that included partial nudity and heavy petting and we’d both be left with bodies begging for release. When I’d leave, he always openly joked that he was about to head into the bathroom to jerk off. I was too ashamed to tell him how much I wanted to touch myself, too, or that I’d probably do the same thing as soon as I got home. (I could stop masturbating after we’d finally had sex, I thought to myself.)

A few weeks into our sexual relationship, he asked me to masturbate in front of him. I almost laughed. So much for no more masturbation.

I couldn’t do it, though. It was mortifying that first time, and felt about as sexy as stroking my thigh. I told him I couldn’t make myself come like that — it just wasn’t gonna happen. And I’m sorry to say that though I became a little more comfortable touching myself in front of him, I was never able to climax from self-stimulation with his eyes on me.

I eventually gave up on the idea of not masturbating just because I was in a relationship. Sometimes, he’d send me texts that made me so unbelievably horny that I couldn’t wait for him to come home and give me release. I’d just have to take care of myself right there.

Then there was the reality that no matter how much I loved his touch, no matter how amazing he made me feel, there were occasional moments in which I just needed a very specific stimulation and release that I couldn’t quite get from him. There was no way he was ever going to be able to stimulate my clit the way I did. He would never be able to make those fast flicks and micro-adjustments just the way I liked because he couldn’t feel what I was feeling.

So there I was, masturbating again.

It was okay, I argued. I was in a relationship, so didn’t that mean I was desirable? I didn’t have to equate my masturbation with shame or unworthiness because…I had a man.

He was gone by the time I was 38 and at that age, I was so over the ridiculous idea that I needed a man to give me pleasure. It took me a little while for my libido to bounce back after our extremely painful breakup, but when it did, I bought myself a sex toy in celebration.

As soon as I opened the package, all that shame rushed back at me. Oh my god. I’m single and almost 40. I don’t have any cats, but have I turned into that spinster who needs a vibrator because she can’t get a man? I wondered.

But no, I decided. Fuck that sexist thought to hell.

Men were jerking off all over the world in that very moment and no one was judging them. There was no stigma of being undesirable just because they were self-pleasuring. It was just part of their sexual privilege.

I decided right then and there that a woman with sex toys isn’t pathetic, at all. No, a woman with sex toys knows how important it is to feel pleasure. A woman with sex toys takes care of herself. A woman with sex toys is hot.

I now consider it part of my sexual privilege to give myself as many orgasms as I like on any given day. Whether or not I’m in a relationship is irrelevant (and always has been).

And you can bet your ass I’ll never throw away my sex toys again at the beginning of a new relationship. I’m gonna shamelessly pull that shoebox out of the closet and ask him to pick something out to play with.

© Yael Wolfe 2019