Feeling yourself: six things you should know about solo sex
A quick note on language. Many of the insights in this article will apply to anyone with a vulva, regardless of your gender identity. We sometimes refer to women below where we are making specific points about the historical marginalisation of female pleasure in sex ed and pop culture.
1. It is REALLY good for you
Masturbation is the most reliable way to have an orgasm and orgasms have been shown to lift your mood, improve sleep, lower blood pressure and even boost your immune system.
Plus, women who masturbate are more likely to enjoy healthy body image and self-esteem, and they’re more likely to ask for what they want during sex with a partner.
Taking the time to explore what feels good for you makes you an expert in your own pleasure. This is particularly important for women who have sex with men because we know that when it comes to straight sex, women very frequently deprioritse their own pleasure, and the sex we often default to doesn’t reflect what most women want (see our previous blog).
“I have been in situations where as a young girl you have compromised your morals and your values and you feel used, and I’m like, if my mother had let me have a vibrator at a young age to be in touch with my body more, I could have saved myself from so many poor decisions.” Janelle Monae
2. Most of us are at it
The idea of women touching themselves for their own pleasure is still depressingly taboo, and yet, most of us do it.
A survey last year found 91% of women in the UK had masturbated. We suspect the number may even be higher than this - research has shown that women tend to underreport masturbation because it is still sometimes seen as socially undesirable. Too often masturbation has been portrayed as an essential activity for men and men only (more on that to come).
We can observe that in countries which score better for indicators of gender equality, the gap between masturbation rates for men and women is smaller. And, sexologists have noted that the rates of women reporting masturbation have increased over time as stigma has started to fade away.
3. The clit is the star of the show
Despite what the classic phallus-shaped vibrator would lead you to think, the overwhelming majority of women touch their clit and vulva when they masturbate - whether with their hands, a vibrator, water pressure or something else like a pillow.
In her landmark study documenting women’s sex lives, Shere Hite found that only 1.5% of masturbators relied on penetration (putting something inside their vagina) alone, 86% said they only ever touched the outside of their vulva and a further 12% who used external clit stimulation said they sometimes or always put something inside too - most often once they had already done a lot of outside work.
The clit is the primary site of sexual pleasure for the vast majority of people with vulvas and vaginas (see our last blog for more) and this is best stimulated through touching the vulva, not going inside. In our next post will share lots of tips on different techniques so you can experiment and see what works for you.
4. The patriarchy still rears its head when no one’s watching
Numerous studies have shown that teenage girls feel confused, conflicted and even disgusted and ashamed by the idea of masturbating, even though they think it’s normal for boys. This is in part because women’s pleasure has historically been categorised as “excessive“ or a “nice to have“ whereas men’s pleasure is characterised as a necessity. Plus we very rarely see cultural references to women masturbating.
When I was growing up, it didn’t even occur to me that the habit I had of touching myself was anything to do with sex or wanking - that thing everyone knew that boys did. A friend told me she’d wished she’d had a penis as child because she knew all about wanking and wanted to try it.
Another way the historical relegation of women’s pleasure plays out is in our failure to recognise that the sex we have should mirror what we do on our own (more on that below). One study showed that the penis in vagina equals sex line we’ve been fed is so strong that women often think that they are weird for masturbating without penetration.
5. Using your solo technique will significantly improve your sex life
"I didn’t begin enjoying sex until I started masturbating," Eva Longoria
As Dr Karen Gurney points out in Mind the Gap, one of the big drivers of the orgasm gap between cis men and women (specifically when women have sex with men) is the fact that partnered sex often replicates the kind of stimulation that a man would give himself during masturbation but this isn’t the case for women.
Too often when cis men and women get together sex focuses on penetration because we are following learnt cultural scripts.
By masturbating you can find out exactly what kind of touch works for you - the place, the frequency, the intensity and the movement. Then when you’re having sex with someone else, you can ask the other person to replicate this with their hands, mouth or a vibrator, or you can touch yourself either while penetration is happening, or separately while your partner watches or while they touch themselves. There are so many ways you can bring what you learn in masturbation to the sex you have with others, but the starting point is finding what you like, which is best done on your own.
6. We still aren’t talking about it enough
Most girls still aren’t learning about masturbation from sex ed in school or from their parents (we highly recommend Sex Positive Families as a resource for parents wanting to address this). This gap means that on screen depictions and references to masturbation are so important to help girls feel encouraged in this healthy and empowering pursuit. But we are slowly seeing more examples cropping up in films and on TV, particuarly as women slowly gain power in the creation and commissioning of content.
The Clit Test exists to celebrate the times when this does happen - in the hope we will inspire others. If we find it hard to act with sexual agency based on what we actually want, then we must surely struggle to put these desires on screen for the world to see. Booksmart, Chewing Gum and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are just a few recent examples that we wish we’d had when we were young.
"Growing up in the US, network television on the main channels at 8pm would reference young teenage boy masturbation all the time. Like, 'Jeremy hurry up in the shower there buddy'...And it’s just so natural and given with men and boys, and with women there’s just this huge 'X' in front of it. So to show not only girls but smart, academic, unapologetically feminist and fierce girls talking about being gross and silly and weird and kooky, and talking about their weird sexual preferences and watching porn [is amazing]."
Beanie Feldstein on the double standard in portayal of masturbation on screen, at her delight at the sex positive portrayal of girls in the film Booksmart
This is the first of our blogs for masturbation month. Next week we’ll be sharing a comprehensive guide to mastubation, packed with tips and tricks distilling everything we’ve learned from a year of reading about it and talking to women.
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