We Need To Talk About Masturbation

I remember having a conversation in school, at the age of 14-ish, with one of my girl friends and three of my guy friends, that went a little something like this:

Guy 1: I wanked, like, three times last night.
Guy 2: Yeah, well I wanked at least five times the other day.
Guy 3: Did you hear about Rufus*? He wanked THIRTEEN times in one day!
Girlfriend: OMG. That is such a lie! No way!! Omg. Stop talking about this.
Guy 2: Well, how often do you guys… y’know?… do it?
Girlfriend: Never.
Me: AT LEAST twice a day. At the very least. The utmost least.
Chorus of Guys: OMGGGG NOOOOO WAY!!!!!! *gobsmacked expressions all round*

*Name changed to protect individual. Not sure if he still deems this an accolade or if he’s, ahem, beaten his personal best. Pretty sure rumours spread that by the tenth wank, nothing came out but come dust.

Did I want to appear overtly sexual? Definitely. Was it the truth? Absolutely not. Did I want the boys to have a monopoly on masturbation? Absolutely not. Because, from such a young age, girls just aren’t taught to explore that side of themselves; nay, that part of themselves. We’re shown our anatomy in salmon pink illustrations from a science textbook and then shown what society expects to come out of it later in life. (Babies, I’m talking ’bout babies.) But we’re taught nothing of female sexuality. We aren’t told that the clit is the pleasure centre of the universe, or that the asshole is remarkably recreational (although this isn’t strictly female-classified info; we’ve all got potentially pleasure-producing assholes). We aren’t told that porn isn’t just a dude thing. We are, however, spontaneously and unwelcomely bent over tables in class as some tosser simulates ‘doing us up the ass’, because boys are watching porn and think this is a totally acceptable thing to do to a fourteen year-old girl. It isn’t.
As we grow up, we see male sexuality celebrated and egged-on as female sexuality becomes, at first, background noise and then… no noise at all. Guys openly talk about wanking. They exchange URLs of the best porn sites. They talk about which girls they wank over. They guffaw over the latest porn-star to tickle their fancy. They ROFL as Dave reels off his record number of wanks, and then heartily congratulate him for his dedication to the cause. They spit out terminology, the likes of which had never before passed our ears. (‘Deb, what the fuck is ‘head’?’ ‘I don’t know, Dais. Ask Charlotte.’ ‘Charlotte, what the fuck is ‘head’?’ ‘I don’t know Dais, ask Tim.’ *warily and abashedly* ‘Tim, what the fuck is ‘head’?’ ‘OMG DAISY, DON’T YOU KNOW?! IT MEANS GIVING A BLOW JOB.’ … ‘Deb, how the fuck do you give a ‘blow job’?’ and so on and so forth). They talk about sex or, at least, their rampant desire to *have* sex. The more they talked, the less we talked, until we were sexually silent. The same tantalisingly promising objects of desire they were so desperately scrambling towards were the same ones who felt like they had no place in the sexual arena. We had all the gear and no idea. We weren’t ready for battle. Curiosity over the fellas dangly thing between their legs drove them to tug decidedly at it until something happened, and everyone around them just expected and accepted this progression as part of their puberty. These guys had now been servicing themselves for years already and, so far, all we’d done is checked out what our nether-regions looked like in the magnifying mirror. And you know how they looked? Confusing. Really fucking confusing. A lot of plumpy pink skin and no idea what to do with it: *staring deeply at my own fanny* ‘I mean, what do I do? Do I furiously rub it? Do I put something up it? Do I flick it? Do I pick it? Do I do all those things at once? And what on earth do I think of while I’m doing it? Do I watch something? Do I think of someone? All the boys in school look less like Backstreet Boys and more like Back-Alley Boys. Less like *NSync and more like Out Of Sync. Less like Take That and more like Take Twat (I could play this game for hours). There’s no wank material for me in the confines of academia. LORD HELP ME. I HAVE A VAGINA AND I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO WORK IT.’ And so we learn over an excruciatingly laborious length of time, through a gazillion equally perplexing mediums, how fucking fantastic our punanis actually are.

Agreeably, the teens of today are far more sexually insightful. The internet, and the wealth of porny info that comes with it, has provided the pre and post-pubescent among us with terminology that far exceeds my vocabulary offerings. We’re much more open about sex than we were only ten mere years ago, but that doesn’t mean that female sexuality is being as exalted as male sexuality. We’re still sexual second-class citizens: porn is still targeted towards guys; female masturbation still isn’t readily discussed and young girls are, frequently, predisposed to thinking that their sexuality is, at best, secondary and, at worst, shameful.
My advice to all the young laydeez out there? WANK! Wank hard! Wank fast! Wank slow! Wank sensually! Wank as much as you please! Wank over porn! – and do we wank over porn! WE DO! As much as on-screen rumpy pumpy is clearly made for men (and clearly not a true representation of sex IRL), it doesn’t stop us, women, being the most likely to search sites for ‘hardcore’, ‘gang bang’, ‘rough sex’ and ‘double penetration’. Research also shows that we enjoy a thorough browse of the ‘squirting’ category; my theory on this is that we really enjoy seeing other women ENJOYING sex, even if the outcome is mostly urine and largely fabricated. Wank over the hot Costa barista! Wank over Channing Tatum’s rhythmically perfect floor-humping in Magic Mike! (guilty.) Buy a dildo! Buy a vibrator! Buy some love eggs and spend the day in giddy bliss as you roll around the mall and they roll around your insides! Read some erotic literature! (which, admittedly, doesn’t sound sexy but definitely has horn-producing capabilities. Trust me on that one.) Explore yourself! Figure out what turns you on and what gets you off! Don’t be afraid to be vocal in the bedroom! Never be afraid to say No! (especially in the bedroom.) Be at one with your body and your sexuality! And, finally, revel in the glorious realisation that unholy heights of pleasure are, forever, only an arms-length away.

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