Thanks to Freudian Slit for starting the “how women masturbate” thread, most enlightening, and luckily accurate with what I pictured from what various women have told me.
However, I’ve noticed many women won’t admit to masturbating. Either they really don’t masturbate, or they lie about not doing it. So ladies, would you admit in a real-life conversation that you masturbate, and if not why? This is assuming you’re speaking to someone that you would have sex talks with.
At this point in my life, the only person I’m going to be having sex talks with is my hubby. And he already knows. 
I wouldn’t bring it up, but I wouldn’t lie if asked a direct question. It also depends a lot on the conversation, and the company. I don’t know why anyone would need to know that particular fact (except under the sort of circumstances suggested by NinetyWt), but if for some reason they did, I wouldn’t mind sharing it.
(In fact, I think I have done so, on this very board.)
Lots of women make veiled references to sex toys (which amounts to the same thing), which may only be caught by other women in the same mindset.
Hell yeah. Why lie?
My friends and I talk about it all the time. I personally think that most women that say they don’t are lying, which I do not understand. It’s natural, fun and free, and it’s good to swap tips!
Well if the subject comes up I with my friends I will not hold back.
That said, I don’t really masturbate to any significant degree. Honestly. I think I have climaxed without a tool twice in my 28 years, and I really don’t try to. With tools the number goes up drastically, but maybe to about once every couple of months.
So even if I do tell the truth, people would think I am lying.
If the subject came up and it was somebody I’d discuss sex with anyway, sure. I see no reason to lie.
If it was some guy being skeevy and asking for his titillation when I cared not to titillate, he’d get a firm NOYB.
It’s more the women who say they never do it who don’t ring true with me. I mean, never? Really?
What she said. I can’t recall ever having a direct conversation about it with friends, but if for some reason the topic came up, I wouldn’t have a problem admitting to it.
Really, denying it under those circumstances would just make you look silly. Which would be unfortunate for the one out of a thousand who doesn’t actually ever masturbate, I suppose.
If I had to guess I’d say 1/3 of women don’t masturbate, 1/3 do and lie about it, and 1/3 do and admit it. How close am I?
I never do, because it’s against my religion. I used to, and used to be sexually active, but I’ve mended my ways. I can’t think of anyone I would be discussing such things with, but if it was appropriate I would be open about it.
Hard to say, since if they’re lying about it it’s not as though anyone but the ones lying would ever know, so you can hardly gather statistics on such a thing. In my experience, however, there are some young women who either a) don’t masturbate or b) only do so for the visual enjoyment of the person they’re involved with.
The women I’ve known like this tend to either come from repressive religious backgrounds or else they’re somewhat dissociated from their own sex drives and use sex as a tool for maintaining relationships rather than for their own enjoyment. They may genuinely enjoy sex, but it’s part of a relationship, not something they’d do on their own.
I can’t really imagine who in my life currently would ask, and I would never bring it up. However, if a friend asked, I would say yes, though I doubt I would be willing to provide details for anyone. Anyone not falling into the friend category would either get a “none of your business” or a bland silence.
As for “never” = “lying” there have been years that went by with no masturbating (these were closely linked with the arrival of new babies) so it is not difficult for me to imagine women with a combination of low sex drive/exhausting life never masturbating.
The only person I would talk about that with is my boyfriend. If anyone else asked, I would refuse to answer.
I have no idea about statistics, but I think the number of women who truly don’t masturbate on a regular basis is much higher than the number of guys who don’t.
I read many years ago in a book on development that most females masturbate very young (4-7) without understanding anything about it. They then develop guilt about it that prevents them from doing at a later age. This is not a topic I could Google here at work, but does that sound familiar to any female dopers? Did you delay masturbation as an adolescent because of guilt from getting caught much younger?
Jonathan
Certainly. Detail depends, of course, on context and company. I have noticed – and I don’t know if this is due to us all growing up or maybe Sex and the City – that many of my girlfriends are now very open about their sexual preferences, including masturbation, whereas it was rarely talked about in female company in high school (though of course it was assumed every guy did it, without question). It seems many of them were raging bags of hormones as kids, got scolded out of it around 12 (or started hating their genitals once they got their periods), then got back into it in their later teens, some only after several unfulfilling sexual encounters. Still, it’s clear that there was at least a period where they would have been ashamed to admit to anything, anonymous survey or not.
Something like that. I started when I was four, but felt bad about it when my parents freaked out. I never stopped. I just learned to do it in private and felt guilty about it. Before puberty it wasn’t sexual either. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t accompanied by thoughts of sex. It just felt good, and I liked it without really knowing what it meant. Till I read Judy Blume, I didn’t realize just how normal it was.
Well of course, any number is higher than zero.
If I’m having a conversation about sex, then presumably I’m with people I feel comfortable enough to discuss sex with, in which case I can’t see any reason to lie. Kind of like almost any other “personal” subject.
A friend of mine and I actually had a very in depth conversation about masturbation recently. It was facsinating, enlightening, and hysterically funny. Seriously, my stomach hurt from laughing so much, and I think I have some new wrinkles. Totally worth it.
Nope. I masturbated as a child without knowing what I was doing or being able to associate it with sexual thoughts. At twelve, while reading a women’s magazine–I was a precocious reader–I found an article about the clitoris, masturbation, and achieving orgasm.
Then I went pro. 
My mother’s a midwife, though. I didn’t grow up with weird sex guilt. Everything was understood from a clinical viewpoint pretty early on. So, I’m probably a poor choice from which to draw any generalizations.
An old girlfriend of mine had never masturbated before being with me, and the last I was with her she still had never done it, she was 22.
We dated for a long time and I never believed her when she told me she didn’t, but we got to the point of our relationship where it would have been stupid to lie about it, so I believed her.
Since she dumped me, and I haven’t talked with her in a good 6 months she might have magically started.
She told me it wasn’t something that she was interested in. She thought it was gross and never wanted to do it. She was always kind of a prude and before we started dating (We were both 18) she had never had an orgasm (aside from night orgasms), and had almost never had a real boyfriend. Since dating me and achieving orgasms she might have started but who knows…