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Sparkle (1)
So, do you do it? Pet the mouse, comfort the kitten, make with your muffin, play with the little man in the boat, dive for the pearl, pleasure yourself.
And if you’re in a relationship with someone else, possibly a fella, do you do it when he’s around, or just by your lone self?
Is this a hey, this is hot come and watch, kind of thing, or is it a “Damn, I’m tired and need to put myself to sleep,” kind of thing?
Or is it a “I am so damn horny and boyfriend is a) snoring b) just came and will soon be snoring c) don’t seem able to give me what I like, anyway?
Or is it a sweeties are nice, but sometimes I want to make love to myself only I don’t want him/her to find out way? Huh?
For people for whom sexual preferences, values about monogamy, views on kink, and degrees of commitment can vary, there seems to be one thing that doesn’t change: If you’re in a committed relationship, being too interested in masturbation and admitting it is often a taboo.
And of course, for people in more “vanilla” aka traditional relationships, admitting you masturbate (and like it) may be bring up additional issues about looking at and being turned on by porn, or about whether fantasies involving others count as breaking vows. And then of course there are those (hot) , fantasies that you might have from time to time that run on tracks of sexual preference it’s not comfortable to admit.
In some ways, it seems like admitting you (like to) masturbate—especially if you have others available—is a final taboo. Common practice would be that we’re all cool with those “single” friends who rock the Rock chick, but we wonder why anyone would want to do that if she was part of a couple?
According to sexologist Dr. Pepper Schwartz in The Gender of Sexuality, 1993 data reports that 65 % of women have tried masturbating, with only 8% doing it weekly—but the idea that “nice girls don’t touch themselves” has clearly driven down these numbers.
As you know, the reasons women masturbate include the following:
- Feels great
- Helps you sleep
- Pain relief (menstruation)
- Sexual gift to oneself
- Improves sexual self knowledge/appetite
- Sex at your own pace, your way
- Fantasies outside your usual real life realm
- Way to try out something new
For my friend Cecile, masturbation provided a fantasy outlet/experience the relationship didn’t. “I was bisexual until a few years ago, but then I met Jess and fell madly in love,” explains Cecile, a trim late 40’s educator living in a fairly conservative Midwestern city. “Jess and I have lived happily together for the past 9 years, it’s been great, only we started getting less sexual. And then, in what seemed like an all of a sudden moment, I started dreaming about men—specifically, I started dreaming about their big you know whats. And I was horny, and those ideas turned me on so much and. I just felt I couldn’t tell Jess—what would she think?”
Cecile hid this hot new addition to her fantasy life from Jess, trotting it out when she was alone, and sometimes—without much success—in her head when they were intimate together. Only then, one night, Jess walked into Cecile’s room, wanting to tell her something, and found Cecile under the covers, clearly going at it. “I was so turned on, but I was mortified,” says Cecile. “Not only was I touching myself instead of her, but I was thinking about GUYS. This was the trigger for us to start a long discussion.”
My friend Martina, who lives with her husband, got laid off, had a long-ill parent die, had a teen-aged child with problems in with a teacher in school, and her husband getting depressed and withdrawn, all in the same month. The stress was incredible and sex—masturbation, specifically—was relaxing.
“Richard didn’t want to have sex most of the time, and I was miserable. So, there was nothing left but touching myself,” she explains. “3X a day later, I started asking myself if this was compulsive.”
Martina’s self-love mania passed after about a week, and Cecile got agreement she could date men outside of her relationship, but in both cases what stood out was the disconnect between the pleasure and the secrecy.
“I was having a great time, but I just didn’t want Jess to know what I was doing at first,” Cecile says. “I didn’t want her to think it reflected on her.”
