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Davis, California

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Column: Masturbation Shmasturbation

The stigma created around female masturbation is a lot like the stigma set about female excrement. Basically, it just doesn’t exist. I’ll explain the excrement one first. I have heard from many guys throughout the years these exact words: “Girls don’t poop,” or even better, “Girls only poop rainbows and butterflies.” Seriously guys? Guess what, all women shit. From Mildred, your elderly next door neighbor who has one too many cats and one too few teeth, to Jessica Alba (that hot chick from that movie where she plays a really hot chick). Mainly, it’s because we’re all living creatures; regardless of gender we have these basic biological needs to attend to. Pretty obvious I know, yet many men are still in denial.

That brings me to my main focus: masturbation. I’ll be more lenient with this topic and admit that, unlike pooping, not all women masturbate. Even worse, those who do never like to talk about it. I mean really ladies, when have you ever seriously discussed the matter? And I mean truly discussed it. Not some reference over a comment Samantha made about it on an episode of Sex and the City, or when you made a dildo joke out of some phallic object you saw at a toy store.  Most of you will say never, right? For some reason it’s weird for a girl to talk about masturbation, yet at the same time it’s weird for a guy to not talk about it. For instance, if I asked one of my girlfriends what type of lube she thinks I should buy for a standard dildo, she’s not going to respond to me something like, “Try getting one with a water-based solution – it won’t stick to the dildo as much and will make clean up a lot easier.” Instead she’ll say something more like, “I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

Now, let’s flip the gender. When one guy asks another guy, “Hey man, what’s a good porn to whack off to?” his friend is probably going to go on for at least 15 minutes telling him precisely what’s the best porn to whack off to. In a study done by Women’s Realities in 2008, 70 percent of women who admitted to masturbating also admitted to feeling guilt about it. Now, ladies, unless you’re rubbing one out to a Justin Beiber music video there is absolutely no need to feel ashamed for doing what people have been doing since the beginning of time.

In fact, there are health benefits to it all. Benefits such as stress reduction, curing insomnia naturally, lowering chances of certain infections and, oh yeah, having an orgasm.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that masturbation is so taboo amongst us women because society is still forcing us to hold on to the ridiculous ideals that women are always supposed to be pure. As if admitting to being horny is the precursor to just becoming an all-out slut. I equate it to those 1950s anti-marijuana propaganda films whose plots went something along the lines of: “Billy was a real good kid up until he had his first hit of marijuana. One hit was all it took for him to get hooked. Now Billy is in jail for stealing a cop car, killing an innocent old lady off the street and taking her wallet. Anything to get the next fix, right Billy?”

This is masturbation today. So many women think like this Billy kid and feel as if giving into self-pleasure will lead to a life of sex addiction (and maybe even the stealing of a cop car or two). To many women it is better to succumb to the notion constructed by our social world that men should be viewed as the primary gender that wants sex purely for pleasure. Women just sit back and go along for the ride. Well, screw that. Sometimes we don’t enjoy the ride being offered to us, and usually they end far too quickly. So in turn, we’ll just ride ourselves. Is that so bad? I’m going to actually answer this one and say no, it’s not.

Last but not least let’s not forget about vibrators. If it’s not your best friend by now I highly recommend you reevaluate who your real friends are. If you don’t have one then please, invest in one now. Basic ones are not too expensive and will definitely be worth it in the long run.

ALISON STEVENSON can be reached at amstevenson@ucdavis.edu.

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