Masturbation is an inexhaustible subject of increasing public interest. The reason for this is that it is, in one form or another, universal, but because of centuries of religious opposition it came to be regarded as sinful, shameful, harmful, and secret. The removal of the veil of secrecy has led to the altogether healthy increase in interest.
It is widely agreed that almost all men masturbate, but statistics gained from surveys purport to show that masturbation is less common in women. This is because female masturbation is very difficult to define. It is infinitely more variable than in men and all that can be said with reasonable confidence is that it consists of some recurrent psychological and/or physical activity, undertaken consciously or unconsciously, resulting in signs of sexual arousal (signs which in themselves might not be recognised by the woman) and perhaps resulting in an indefinable orgasm. This highlights another area of difficulty. Male sexual arousal is easy to recognise but female arousal is not obvious to an observer except on close inspection. This is probably why boys are said to masturbate more than girls in childhood.
The next problem when considering the subject is to account for the diversity of female masturbation and its relative inefficiency in some women. The answers can be found by considering three related, phenomena. The first is the greater parental suppression of genital activity in girls than boys. Parents of both sexes are more tolerant of genital handling in boys than in girls. Because they are more affection-dependent, girls may also be more willing to try to conform. They may, as a result, find ways of masturbating that do not lead to easy detection. Instead of lying on their backs, opening their legs and touching their vulvas, many routinely adopt other postures such as lying face down, lying on their side, sitting, or even standing. Muscular contractions or rubbing the vulva against an object (including the heel) may be substituted for direct touch methods. If genital stimulation is not abandoned altogether, as it is in some girls, it can occur through clothing, or a whole variety of objects may be used as a substitute for the girl’s hand.
Alternatively masturbation may become attached to ‘legitimate’ pursuits such as washing the vulva or even urination. Although many women claim to be able to masturbate by more than one method, women who carry into adulthood, as most seem to, any of the less obvious methods mentioned above can find themselves unable to reach orgasm except in that position or by that method. As a result they claim they never masturbate.
The second explanation of the diversity of female masturbation lies in the fact that the female body can respond sexually to stimulation in almost any anatomical area. This also happens in pre-adolescent boys. Movements such as rotating the pelvis, rhythmically contracting the vaginal muscles or making thrusting movements with the pelvis can bring on an orgasm in some women. Being rocked about on buses, bicycles, motorcycles and trains, for example, can lead to orgasms in others. Even movements of the vulva against underclothing is reported as being arousing to the point of orgasm by some women.
The third reason is that female orgasms are very variable in intensity. One factor here is the number of throbbing muscular contractions which occur during an orgasm. If there are only a few of these contractions it is experienced as only a mild sensation and if the woman has been taught that sexual pleasure is rude, naughty or sinful, the anxiety associated with the act may stop the contractions entirely. Something similar can happen in anxious men. Similar muscular contractions to those which women enjoy at orgasm eject semen in men and under some circumstances ejaculation can be reduced to a few little dribbles. Since most definitions of masturbation refer to orgasm as the end-point, a woman who when masturbating only can achieve a minor sensation may think of herself as not masturbating at all.
The point here is that the anxiety earlier instilled into her gives her an unconscious incentive to play down her responses so as to avoid too much guilt. Similarly, the women mentioned earlier who use somewhat obscure masturbation methods are using less than the best method (direct stimulation of the genitals) to get an orgasm and as a result are inefficient. Unfortunately, for these women, direct methods would arouse anxiety to a point where it would be impossible to have an orgasm at all.
Men, of course, or some of them, have the same difficulties. Men who have been strictly reared with regard to masturbation (parents sometimes even make them promise never to do it) masturbate the way many other men do yet can block off the consciousness of orgasm and although they ejaculate they still claim not to masturbate. Although older men often rub their erect penis with no intention of reaching orgasm (which according to most definitions would not amount to masturbation, though it clearly is), some guilty young men do so too and later have a nocturnal emission (wet dream). These men also deny that they masturbate.
Guilty women will, in a similar way, confine their masturbation to the twilight state between sleeping and waking (or vice versa) and so deny masturbation on the grounds that it does not occur when they are fully conscious. Some women who deny masturbation do so on the basis that they do not fantasise while doing it. However, they often have a rich fantasy life which simply does not coincide with when they stimulate the vulva.
A substantial minority of women claim never to have masturbated, as do a tiny percentage of men. When the factors outlined are taken into account, however, it can be seen that the denial does not necessarily amount to a deliberate lie. In clinical experience, at least, and regarding those people in whom it is important that the subject of masturbation be clarified, it is true to say that virtually everyone masturbates in some way or another.
The less direct the method used, the more the individual shows that a difficulty exists about sexual expression. It could be argued that the less direct methods have been learned by chance and have then become fixed in preference to more usual methods. Such an argument does not fit in with clinical experience which shows that unusual masturbation methods are almost always associated with a difficulty. This is serious because learning to masturbate bears the same relation to intercourse as does learning to speak to conversation.
As well as being a form of sexual training, masturbation, or rather its associated fantasies, helps to bring images of the bodies of the opposite sex and of intercourse with them to mind, especially in the young. This is a learning process and is a kind of sexual rehearsal for the adolescent. Some males of all ages, but especially younger ones, rely on girlie magazines to get clear images for their fantasies. Learning to masturbate is simply a part of what a growing man has to learn. Girls and women may also be aroused by girlie magazines because they identify with the girls in the pictures but they commonly find the stories more of a turn-on.
Amongst adults today, married men are often found to be more reluctant to talk about their masturbation than are their wives. Less well-educated men are particularly likely to regard it as an abnormal and juvenile habit. However, it has a real place in married life because it allows differing sex drives to be accommodated without looking outside the partnership. This may be the reason why, on average, surveys report that women who masturbate do so more frequently than men. Also, a man can either have intercourse or masturbate, but not both in a short space of time, unlike a woman. In fact, women are perhaps, other things being equal, more likely to want intercourse after masturbation because sex is in their minds. This is useful clinically in women who have lost their sex drive. Encouraging them to masturbate can rejuvenate their sex lives.
Clinical experience with large numbers of couples who are happily married and enjoy sex with each other shows that on average the wives masturbate about as often as they have intercourse, whereas only every fourth orgasm in the husband is produced by self-masturbation. One value of masturbation in marriage may be that material from the accompanying fantasy may then be available for incorporation into marital sex. Even the fantasy itself may be used during intercourse because many women and particularly older men need to use fantasy to sustain their arousal and have an orgasm. Some people with deviant sexual needs can function satisfactorily in intercourse only by using an appropriate fantasy.
Women say they masturbate to relieve emotional tensions and some boys and men use masturbation to blot out anxieties in the same way that alcoholics and drug-takers do. This is really a misuse of masturbation. Other men find masturbation more gratifying than intercourse – this is a sign of the presence of an inhibiting anxiety. Women, especially young ones, tend to get more satisfaction from masturbation than they do from intercourse and frequently display greater physiological body changes during orgasm induced by masturbation. This may come about because they can stimulate themselves in their favourite way during masturbation whilst fantasising a scene that arouses them. This does not necessarily mean that such women prefer masturbation to intercourse – they like both.
Some men, on the other hand, routinely masturbate and never attempt to have intercourse with a woman. Due to reasons already discussed women make them so anxious that it spoils the pleasure.
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