Yeah, but that’s 1956, you say? Well, I couldn’t find more recent data this quickly, but I did a survey myself, among female psychology students, in my second year of studying psychology in the Netherlands (1990, that must have been). Of 70 returned questionaires, 70 % of women indicated that they masturbated. I could see no reason why that percentage would be higher among women who didn’t fill in the questionaire, so I think 70% is about as high as it gets, at least in that group.
My point is, that this leaves at least 25 % of women who never masturbated, as opposed to fewer then 2 % of men. For the point of view of a control-seeking mechanism, 25 %of the group to whom your damnations don’t apply just leaves too large a group who can’t be made to feel guilty.
I’m always skeptical of these numbers. Who are those men and women who “don’t masturbate”? Are they saying that they have never masturbated, haven’t masturbated recently, don’t masturbate regularly, or are so ashamed that they do that they can’t even admit it on an anonymous questionnaire?
See, this is why I advocate taking the population of one of those states in the middle that no one cares about, and putting them under controlled blind scientific observation.
Well, in this thread a few Dopers described themselves as having never masturbated, some after having tried it, say, ten times.
I believe the question Kinsey asked in his questionnaire was if they had ever masturbated, but no doubt the exact question, answers, and a description of the selected group can be found in Kinseys book itself.
For the rest of your question, you might want to check out the most renowned sources: Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, or the Hite report by Shere Hite, published in 1976. (So it is about time somebody got famous by publishing an update ;j )
All are extensive studies of what, how and how often people do it, and you’d be surprised at the wide range of “it.”
People come in all varieties. Those who masturbate and those who don’t; those who are shocked to find out so many people do masturbate, and those who are shocked that not everybody masturbates.
And count me among those who don’t believe that “most girls aren’t interested”. More like, most of them are damn liars, same as boys who say they don’t. Or they really don’t, but only because they’ve repressed their sexual urges to an unhealthy degree.
Now what I also wonder is, where did all the old wives’ tales come from, like “It’ll turn black and fall off”? Just more ignorance, from the same school that said to put butter on a burn and beefsteak on a black eye?
In middle school, during a “girl talk” conversation, an aquaintance (not a friend) of mine expressed surprised at some reference I made to female masturbation.
“Girls can’t masturbate!” she said. Can’t, not don’t. She really thought it was physically impossible for females. I set her straight as best I could (no thanks to a friend who kept saying “You use a broomstick!”), but since then I’ve always wondered if some of the women who say they don’t masturbate aren’t actually masturbating without realizing that’s what they’re doing. I mean, if you think females cannot masturbate, then whatever you’re doing with yourself alone in the bathtub couldn’t be masturbation, right?
I get the impression that some guys have a notion of female masturbation as always involving penetration of some kind (either with the fingers or another object), and if there are any women who have the same notion then they might not consider other forms of self-pleasure to be actual masturbation.
And of course some people are just liars. I’m sure there are a fair few women who genuinely don’t masturbate, but I have trouble believing it’s as many as 25%. To throw out another anecdote, a friend of mine in college had a very devout fundamentalist roommate who she caught – several times – masturbating in her sleep.
LMFAO…“Huh, what…errr…you just woke me up!! Honest!!”
FWIW, I had one long-term girlfriend who masturbated about once every six months. In the surveys mentioned, she’d probably have said ‘no, never’. Not that she didn’t have a ‘normal’ sex drive - quite the oppostie . Just that she didn’t feel sexual when alone.
Good point, Lamia. I’ve heard many anecdotes of women simply not knowing how to masturbate. Me too. As a kid, my parents gave me a fairly openminded sex-ed booklet. It told me women can get a nice feeling by,
quote “stroking a little spot above their vagina” /quote
I remembered stroking my every piece of skin below and above my bellybutton, before finally giving up. It didn’t occur to me to stroke a hidden, sticky spot.
A clitoris is just not obvious, as a penis is, and most sex-ed directed at women is just so vague.
The first time I think they were actually both asleep. My friend slept in the upper bunk, and IIRC later reported that she was awakened from a light sleep by soft grunting/shaking from below. I know she later “walked in” on her sleeping-but-busy roommate when returning from late-night parties of the sort that nice fundamentalist girls don’t attend.
When my friend told these stories we all asked her if it wasn’t possible that her roommate was just pretending to be asleep, but she said that she was sure it wasn’t an act…mostly because the roommate continued masturbating. (She rejected our suggestion that the roommate was just an exhibitionist.) Even after my friend made some “Ahem” noises to make her presence obvious.
This did leave her with an interesting moral question – do you tell your fundamentalist roommate that she’s masturbating in her sleep? My friend chose not to, although she said she might bring it up if the roommate got too annoying about my friend’s various “sinful” activities.
I had an upper bunk my first year… good god, I still hear and feel grunting and moaning and shaking of my room mate and his gf… and the smell… sometimes dorm life sucks.
Maastricht - Fair enough. You did say “many,” not “most.” However, I’m still not sure that supports your conclusion. 25-30% of women say they don’t masturbate. It’s a lot of people. But 70-75% of women do admit to masturbating, and that’s a lot more people. So I don’t think the Church would focus primarily on men masturbating because it’s not an issue that women have - clearly, we do masturbate, and most of us even admit to it.
An alternate explanation has come up though - the idea that women somehow are incapable of masturbating. Everyone understands the mechanics of men’s self-abuse. But there’s been a lot more confusion about women’s anatomy, and some people still think women don’t even orgasm. It’s possible that early religious leaders thought that masturbation wasn’t a problem for women. That doesn’t mean that women don’t masturbate or didn’t masturbate in the past, only that it wasn’t fully understood back then.
I think this is a very likely explanation for it. It’s similar to the numerous situations where male homosexual acts hve been (or are) illegal, but there’s no legislative reference to female homosexuality.
