The Art of Masturbation

From the Anonymous Author of Skype Sex 101: Distance ? No Fun, who has agreed to become HC Pomona’s official Sex Columnist. Stay tuned for more practical and inspirational advice very soon! 

The first time she masturbated, one of my best friends from home took a slow hot shower, lit candles around her room and had a relaxing time of private exploration and pleasure. She considers it one of the most formative experiences in her sexual life.
 
The first time I masturbated, I was hiding upstairs reading an “adult” novel. Suddenly one of the characters started doing something special to herself and I thought, what the heck, the writing is pretty decent and easy to follow… I will forever remember Emmanuelle as a very influential novel. 

I remember feeling embarrassed during the next few weeks. In my tortured mind I was trying to figure out whether the other thirteen-year-olds I hung out with did similar things in their free time. As I became more experienced in pleasuring myself in private, my shame was replaced with a sort of pride and I considered myself enlightened in ways in which perhaps other girls were not.

When my friend shared the story of her first experience by candlelight, I, already fifteen, was glad to find that masturbation was a part of a woman’s life, just like washing one’s hair and brushing one’s teeth (although, of course, frequencies vary). I hadn’t been doing anything wrong that whole time, not at all.
 
I have lived with this belief ever since, and the past seven years have been filled with healthy DIY as often as I have felt like it. Rates greatly depend on the presence or absence of a steady sexual partner and are inversely proportional to how often I have intercourse in a given period of time. Still, I never stop masturbating completely because masturbation is not solely about satisfying a need. More than anything, for me it is a way of getting in touch with my body. Masturbation, like sports and exercise, shows me what my body is capable of and reminds me that it is mine to love and enjoy. 
 
I wouldn’t want to make a sweeping generalization, but I think that on average women at Pomona masturbate less than men, and definitely talk less about it. I have never heard a woman talk lightly about masturbation or give the act jokingly crude names like the popular male equivalents “jerk it,” “beat it,” etc. This leads me to speculate that masturbation is as sacred and private for other women as it is for me. However, I often wonder if the fact that there is no open discourse about masturbation on campus (have we ever attended a talk on masturbation, an event that featured rubber vaginas for touching, or a debate on the politics of self-pleasure?) is a [n in] direct consequence of the fact that it simply is not something most women do regularly or, if they do, feel comfortable talking about.
 
So now I am back in my thirteen-year-old self’s shoes, wondering curiously about others’ sexual habits. Do the girls that sit around me in class give themselves orgasms before bed or in the middle of homework? I sure hope so. Masturbation is an encounter with the self. It supposes an intimate level of familiarity with one’s own body and sexual preferences. It speaks about one’s confidence in one’s ability to please the most important sexual partner: oneself.