Masturbating stats: Are there gender differences and why?

Dear Wants to learn more, 

The quick-and-dirty answer to your question is—many people of all genders masturbate! However, you’re touching on a very real breakdown along the gender binary. While many individuals who identify as women masturbate, societal pressures can create barriers that dissuade them from engaging in, or being honest about, solo sexual adventures. 

To put it in perspective, around 84 percent of Americans are feeling themselves. Around 91 percent of individuals who identify as men engage in sexy self-care and those who identify as women come in at 78 percent. Other research suggests that age plays a role in personal play time: women (terminology used in the research) between the ages of 18 to 24 years old report masturbating more frequently than those women in older age groups. Additionally, another study showed that women masturbate at higher levels during the year before menopause than during the years they're menstruating. While plenty of women are pleasuring themselves regularly, the reported numbers are lower than men. This could be a result of the different gendered expectations when it comes to sex. Unfortunately, minimal research exists looking at masturbation rates among transgender women both in relation to cisgender individuals and in relation to transgender men. This may be due to the variability in behaviors both before and after receiving gender affirming care, the stigmatization of masturbation in general, and the role replacement hormones might play in sexual arousal. 

The Sexual Double Standard (SDS), is a specific term in research that describes the tendency to judge women more harshly for engaging in the same sexual acts as men. It's especially prevalent when it comes to stigmatized sexual behaviors, such as masturbation. It’s been shown that masturbation is often considered to be more acceptable for men (terminology used in the research) than women (terminology used in the research), including by women themselves. The SDS likely emerged, in part, from gendered sexual scripts. These scripts often teach those individuals assigned male at birth (AMAB) that they have permission to engage in any, and all, sexual activities, while those assigned female at birth (AFAB) are taught to limit their sexual exploration to serious partnerships. Research indicates that women (terminology used in the research) are often sent messages that it’s only appropriate to receive sexual pleasure from vaginal penetrative sex with a long-term partner. This research also typically fails to account for pleasure experienced through sensual touching, oral sex, or masturbation— and doesn’t account for the sensation coming from anyone else or through self-exploration. Additional conundrums that often arise center around if a woman with a partner masturbates. In these instances, social messaging about problems within the relationship are often brought up to shame women for receiving pleasure from someone other than their partner. On the other hand, if a woman is without a partner, masturbating is often considered an act of loneliness. All that being said, it’s no wonder that many people AFAB face more internal and external stigma around masturbation than those socialized as men! 

Not only is there a taboo around those AFAB masturbating, there's also a greater taboo towards talking about it. Sexual health education in the United States seldom addresses masturbation, and it’s rare for it to cover the topic of sexual pleasure at all. More specifically, even though the majority of those AFAB who masturbate do so via clitoral stimulation, traditional sex education generally doesn’t expand beyond internal reproductive organs to include the clitoris (even though interestingly, part of the clitoris is internal!). 

Masturbation is a safe, healthy, and natural part of sexuality and there are a number of reasons why someone may choose to masturbate, if they so desire. Masturbation enables people to learn about their own bodies and genitals as well as to recognize and develop their own sexual responses including what it takes to help them orgasm. On top of the numerous health benefits of masturbating, cisgender, heterosexual women have even more to gain, given the orgasm gap, which refers to the phenomenon that cisgender women orgasm the least in comparison to straight, gay, and bisexual men as well as lesbian and bisexual women respectively. While this gap is sometimes blamed on the idea that it's much harder for women to orgasm, studies have shown that 95 percent of women who masturbate report achieving orgasm within four minutes—not so elusive after all! 

Candid discussions about sexuality and sexual pleasure with a current or future partner(s) can help relieve some of the historically negative and gendered influences that have bound and prevented some people AFB (as well as people of other genders) from discovering, exploring, and enjoying their sexual selves. These conversations can make it easier to break the taboos and myths about masturbation and may contribute to everyone having a more enjoyable sexual experience, whether solo or with a partner.