So, it took a long time for me to figure out how to masturbate. I think, it started when I was probably 11 or 12, and I had seen a movie where these girlfriends were sitting around, and one of them was less experienced than all the rest, and she wasn’t sure if she had had an orgasm, and all her friends were like, “Oh you’d know, you’d know. If you really want to try it out, get your removable shower head.” And so I was like, ok, well, this is obviously where I need to start, but my house doesn’t have that, but my grandparents’ house did.
The only problem was it was strictly my grandmother’s bathroom, and it was straight out of the ‘70s still, and, like, totally teal. The other thing is my grandmother is very Catholic. She’s, like, great, but very Catholic—kind of austere, definitely not sexually open about anything. So, this was, like, top secret operation. And I think the most fitting part of that was the bathroom had to be wiped down completely after you took a shower. So, not only was it, like, an unclean thing that I was doing in her house, but, I, like, literally had to clean the shower completely afterwards. So, that was, like, my first voye into it.
It was not successful, but a good start point for it, and then I think it still took like years and years and years, and I don’t think until probably my early 20s that I really figured it out, and it was out of this motivation to not necessarily depend on my partner. I remember sitting in a conversation with him and, like, four other dudes, and it turned to masturbation, and I mentioned something really, like, inconsequential. After the conversation was over, he, like, turned to me and was like, “You know you just admitted to masturbating in front of all of those people?” And I was like, “Well, so did they.” You know, the only difference was that I was a woman, and, like, he didn’t bat an eye to all of these other people talking about it, all of these other men talking about it, but for me to say it, it was shocking to him somehow.
You have to be the one to assign a value to it. We are not taught—I was not taught, as a woman—to value exploration of myself in a physical sense, which, I think, is damaging, because it is a quintessential facet of harnessing, like, the power you’re mistress to , and I don’t need to have sex with another person. I can take care of myself, and that always makes it more of a choice instead of a necessity when I do take that partner, in a physical sense.
Recently, I was filling out a sex survey. One of the questions was, “What was one of the sexiest things you’ve done?” And I wrote: “Learning my body and learning how to masturbate.” And learning to masturbate well is legitimately one of the sexiest things I’ve ever done and ever will do. It’s definitely a platform for a better sex life, in general.
Also, women need more euphemisms for masturbation.

Music by Caits, ConductHer
Words by Rachel Williams

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