Masturbation is Self-Care
Looking back on my adolescence, while I did consider myself to be a “late bloomer,” I think I became aware of my sexuality at a pretty young age. I found myself being curious about porn and reading the sex tips in Cosmopolitan magazine, even though I certainly wasn't having sex with anyone. And let's not forget what the music videos of the '90s and early 2000s were like. I would like to thank artists like 112, Ginuwine, 'Lil Kim, and Toni Braxton for contributing to my sexual awakening. But I certainly never talked about my sexual curiosities with anyone. I knew what I was doing was somewhat frowned upon, but that wasn't going to stop me because it felt good.
By the time I hit my teenage years, I was fully in charge of my own pleasure, which probably contributed to me delaying having sex until my mid-twenties, but more so the patriarchal conditioning of what it meant for a girl to lose her virginity. Yes, virtually everyone I knew was having sex, but I never felt like I was really missing out. I was having orgasms, and I didn't know many of my friends that could say the same.
I've definitely grown more comfortable talking about masturbation as I've gotten older. I've become the friend who purchases vibrators for friends when they tell me they're struggling to orgasm or have never masturbated before, which just happened while I was having dinner with a friend. We're too old not to be in control of our own pleasure, I told her. But something still feels so undeniably weird about talking so openly about something so private. Yet we'll easily acknowledge men do it all the time, and we don't think it's weird that they do it— actually, we expect them to.
What does that say about who we believe is entitled to pleasure?
In the midst of this summer's Venus retrograde, I was listening to The Astrology Podcast where they were doing a deep dive into the 40-day transit. One of the guests shared this brilliant Adrienne Murray Brown quote:
“Pleasure is a measure of our freedom. What we're capable of experiencing in terms of our pleasure is directly correlated to how free we are allowed to live.”
That certainly struck a chord with me because whether we're talking about sex, masturbation, or intimate relationships, there's a lot of conditioning, insecurities, and baggage that can get tangled up and inhibit us, from experiencing the pleasure, and, thus, the freedom we deserve.
So, today, in honor of September being Sexual Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing you a conversation with Rachel Wright, an incredible sex therapist based in New York City I got to connect with Rachel over the summer to discuss all the good things about masturbation, what defines a meaningful experience of pleasure, and why orgasms can often feel elusive (that part especially blew my mind).
Welcome, Rachel! This has been on my mind for a while to do something about sexual wellness, specifically masturbation, because I just think it's a topic that we really don't talk about enough. There's still a lot of taboos around it, so I'm really excited to dive into that with you today. First, I'd love to know, how did you become a sex therapist?
Rachel: The long and short of it is that I was an early bloomer. I got my period when I was 9, so by the time I was 14 or 15, I was 5 years into puberty, and I was having sex. My parents put me in therapy, and I was like, "This is terrible. I don't want to go. I'm fine. My partner's fine. It was a great experience. What are we doing?"
I left the first session with this therapist, and I got into our family's minivan my mom was driving. I was doing theater at the time, and I looked at her, and I believe I said, "If I don't do Broadway, I want to be a therapist." I had never felt so seen in such a short period of time by an adult without judgment.
I majored in psychology. I was always interested in sex, relationships, and not just for myself, academically and conceptually, and what makes people interested. This was kind of around the time when people were like, "Are people born gay? Or is this conditioning? Is it a choice?" I was so fascinated with the whole thing. Then, I got my master's in marriage family therapy with an emphasis in sex therapy. I wanted to help people feel as seen and comfortable as I did that day.
Wow. It's funny; typically, my first question is, "What were you like as a child?" Because I like to see the correlation between someone's earliest interests and what they do now— but I was like, "For you, maybe I'm not going to start off that way because maybe there isn't going to be a correlation, but there absolutely was."
Rachel: Oh, big old correlation. I think I was 5 or 6 years old and snuck into this room in our house with all my parents' books and looked at the pictures in The Joy of Sex, and I was like, "Hmm." I didn't know what I was looking at, but I was drawn to it.
I feel somewhat similar in that I feel like I became aware of my sexuality at a young age. I wish I could actually pinpoint when I first started masturbating, but I want to say it was probably early middle school. But I was still a late bloomer in the respect that the first time I really made out with a boy was the night before I left for college, and I didn't have sex until I was 25.
Rachel: Good for you. I mean, seriously, you listened to what you wanted.
I think because I had this private world where I was very comfortable exploring with myself, that when I actually did start having sex... I mean, the second time I ever had sex, I had an orgasm.
Rachel: That's incredible. Yeah, because you knew what you liked. It's so interesting because when we hear masturbation, especially as adults, we think of sitting down to pleasure ourselves, to climax. And masturbation simply as self-pleasure, on average, starts at 18 months old. And, of course, without the concept of, "This is sexual," it was the same thing as finding a spot on your arm and saying, "Oh, this feels really good when I do this. I'm just going to do this now."
Why do you think there's still such a stigma around masturbation and especially when it comes to young girls and women?
Rachel: So, three main things: religion, shame, and lack of education. Obviously, for many people, those three are correlated, but it's very possible not to have a religious upbringing and still experience shame and lack of education and vice versa. But those three things, we stigmatize what we don't understand. We hate what we don't understand. We have biases towards things we don't understand. Then, when you add the societal sex negativity that we have in there, and add the religious piece, which for so many people is just like, "Eek." It's shameful.
That's it. The second people start learning and understanding that masturbation is a really, really healthy and important thing, even if you're in a committed relationship with someone. It's important for development, it's important for health, both physical and mental health. We often focus on our sexual relationship with another and not on our sexual relationship with ourselves. Similar to what you were saying when you had your first sexual experience, it was so wonderful because you had taken the time to get to know your own body. That goes for the entirety of our lives because our bodies are always changing, our hormones are changing, and our brains are changing. So, if we're not prioritizing a sexual relationship with ourselves, it's really then challenging to have a healthy, thriving sexual relationship with someone else.
I work with many couples, and this idea of, "Well, my partner shouldn't be masturbating because I'm right here...
I know. What is that?
Rachel: It usually honestly comes back to the same damn three things: shame, religion, or lack of education. It's like this fear of, "Well, what are they thinking about? What are they watching? It's separate from me, and that is threatening."
I encourage couples to share their masturbation practices. "What do you like to watch? Do you usually do it on the toilet in the morning? Do you do it in the shower? Do you come home in the middle of the day? Tell me about it." Of course, you can keep things for yourself because we all get to keep things for ourselves, but it's fun to share. Have you ever seen your partner masturbate? Talk. See what happens if they'll let you watch, and see how it feels to be watched. There's so much to learn and glean and connect from.
It's funny you just brought that up because something I've started doing when I'm not ready to have sex yet with someone I'm dating, but we're going to have a sleepover, I'll say, "Let's masturbate together." And the guys I've done it with thus far, it's always the first time they've ever done it, but they love it. They're always like, "Oh my God, that was amazing."
Rachel: It's unbelievable how sexual, sensual, and intimate it can be, and you're not even touching each other's bodies.
It's also a great way to watch and learn from the other person, taking the time to communicate to one another what you're doing that feels good or what you like about watching one another, etc.
I feel like people often feel pressure to have sex when they don't really want to. Personally, I'm in a place where I'm not really interested in just having casual sex anymore. My sexual energy is very precious to me. So this feels like a nice in-between.
Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. And there are times when it's important to have a large menu of physical intimacy. I have defined sex for myself and when I teach workshops and things as a meaningful experience of pleasure. It forces people to use the word more broadly. So it's, "I'm not ready to have penetrative sex with you. What I would like to do is masturbate next to each other," and both of those things could be a meaningful experience of pleasure. It has nothing to do with climax, it has nothing to do with gender, and it has nothing to do with anything except for the experience of pleasure. And meaningful doesn't have to be you're in love and you're connected. It could be something like a hot one-night stand.
And so I love that definition because it includes exactly what you did. So that's a meaningful experience of pleasure.
I like that. A meaningful experience of pleasure, I will hold onto that one for sure. What are the benefits of masturbation?
Rachel: Oh my God. What isn't a benefit of masturbation? Literally, it helps everything. It helps your heart and blood flow, and it releases chemicals in the brain that literally only some drugs release. Some of the chemicals that are released in the brain when you orgasm are similar to the chemicals that are released when people use cocaine and ecstasy. It's so good for your brain. Not to say that using coke and ecstasy all the time is good for your brain, but the chemicals and the yummy feelings that people are searching for when they're using those substances.
"Before you try cocaine, have you tried masturbating?"
Rachel: Exactly. Hey, that's a good campaign. "Want to use less cocaine? Orgasm four times a day."
It's really great for sleep. For some people, it will help them fall asleep. For other people, it will help wake them up but also help with a general circadian rhythm. It's great for your muscles. It's really good for your pelvic floor. Especially for humans with vaginas or vulvas, the old expression if you don't use it, you lose it, that's true when it comes to the pelvic floor. Because of prolapse... Vaginal prolapse is when the vagina literally comes out of the body, and it's a muscle. We know it stretches for childbirth. We know it stretches to take in penises, to take in toys. If that is not used... Think about if you just laid still all day for five years. Your muscles would be really messed up. So if the vagina does nothing for five years, that's a muscle.
When you have an orgasm, there are contractions that happen from the vaginal walls all the way up to the uterus. Oh, that's another benefit. It helps with menstrual cycle symptoms. It can help ease cramps; it can help with flow. It can shorten the duration of the bleeding and lessen your bleeding during the other parts of the day because your uterus was like, "We got out a lot of it when you contracted.”
The sleep thing is pretty big for me. Even sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night and I struggle to go back to sleep, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to masturbate," and that will solve my problems. I really do see masturbation as another form of self-care. I feel like that's how it needs to be framed for everyone else. There's no downside to it.
Rachel: No. The only time that it can turn into a negative thing, just like any good thing, is if it starts to like—
Take over your life.
Rachel: Exactly. If you're missing work to stay home to masturbate all day, we have a problem. But frankly, that's not really about the masturbation. So there really is nothing... Unless your doctor advises you not to masturbate for some very specific reason.
A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a girlfriend of mine, and she told me that she had never masturbated before. And I was like, "What?" Right after dinner, I said, "We are going to a sex shop," and I bought her a vibrator.
In college, some friends of mine bought me my first vibrator. Before that, I was always curious about them, but it can feel scary about how to get one. If you order one online and it appears on a credit card statement, or your parents open the package, whatever.
When it comes to vibrators for beginners, what do you recommend as being best for someone to test the waters with?
Rachel: I have a whole workshop on this. It's a large concept that is simple, but it's also very nuanced. What I would encourage people to do is think about the sensations that they like. So, perhaps you haven't masturbated or used a toy before, but you know that you really like oral sex. Then you know that you like wetness, flicking, and pulsating. Perhaps getting a lube and a clitoral air pulse toy or suction toy is where you want to start. If you have no idea where to start, I often recommend people start with some form of either a bullet or a wand.
Yes! The bullet was my first one.
Rachel: Yeah. It's entry-level. Frankly, same thing with wands. It's easy because you don't have to put it anywhere. You can just kind of hold it and see what you like. That's where I would start, but really, don't reinvent the wheel. Think about what you know you like and go from there.
Now is it true that you can become desensitized by toys?
Rachel: No.
Where did that come from? I only saw something in the last few years that was like, "It's not possible to become desensitized." But I really thought that I was going to for a long time.
Rachel: Totally. So I think it comes from two places. The first one is religion, again. The second is something that happens, and this is masturbation in general, not just with toys. It could be with your hand. Our brains develop neural pathways that say, "This is how you orgasm." The more that we do the same thing in the same position with the same toy in the same spot, our brain starts to be like, "We need all of these pieces to orgasm." So, if we're using the same toy that gives us the same sensations in the same position, it will then become harder to orgasm in a different position with different stimulation.
It has nothing to do with desensitizing and everything to do with the fact that orgasms happen in the brain. So my recommendation with that is to simply switch up your routine. If you're a back liar, lay on your tummy. And if you've been lying on your back for 10 years, you're going to be frustrated for a little while because you're going to be like, "Why?" Don't switch the toy and this and that all simultaneously. Switch one of them. Use the same toy just on your tummy, on your side, in the shower, or whatever. Once you can climax using the same toy in different positions, then try a different toy on your back and then that toy on your tummy. Start to condition yourself to climax in different situations with different stimuli and different environments. I will often hear people say, "I don't understand. I can orgasm by myself. But when my partner is doing X, Y, Z, it feels so good, but I can't orgasm."
And I'm like, "Well, do you only orgasm in the same spot with the same toy?"
"Yes."
"Okay, so we're going to go on a vibrator break, and your partner's going to go down on you every single night for two weeks, and we're going to try to rewrite some neural pathways."
That's all it is. It's driving the same way to work every day, and then one day, the streets change, and you're like, "Ahh."
This is actually so eye-opening for me. I remember years ago, I was having sex with this guy for the first time, and I was trying to finish myself off, and I literally said to him, "I would probably have finished already if you weren't here."
And I feel like if you don't know any better, then you think there's something wrong with you because you're like, "Wait, I'm into this person. Why can't I get there with them?"
Rachel: Or we think there's something wrong with that person. We're like, "Something is off." No, no, no, it's just the freeways in your brain. You're good.
Oh my god, this is just all connecting for me right now. Wow
Rachel: I'm so glad. It's bananas. It's very simple to change. It takes some discipline, and it really sucks at the beginning.
Wow, I have a lot to think about. Because it does very much feel like if I don't feel this very specific sensation, it really is hard to orgasm.
Rachel: And you're not alone in that.
And, of course, we can still have experiences of pleasure where we don't orgasm, and they're still just as enjoyable. I still think there is this idea that if you have sex and you don't orgasm, somehow, it was in vain.
Rachel: Which is really harmful. There are some people who cannot achieve orgasm, and they have thriving sex lives, many of them. But we've been conditioned. I mean, even I have had that thought before, like, "God, I can't believe it. I'm so bummed that after all..." And it was some of the best sex ever. Like what are we doing, and what does that matter? And really challenge yourself with that.
Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes it almost feels frustrating in a sense if there isn't that feeling of release, but you can still look back on the act and be like, "Yeah, it was fun. Sure, it sucks, couldn't get there. But it wasn't a waste of time."
Rachel: If you go to Disneyland and get to ride so many different rides, but there was one ride you really wanted to go on and it was closed. What if you said, "Ugh, the whole day was mean. It was terrible." No, you'd be like, "I had a great day at Disneyland. I rode so many fun rides. I really, really did want to ride Space Mountain. It was closed for maintenance, but it was a great day.
Maybe this question's redundant, what are examples of how people can get blocked in their journey to sexual liberation?
Rachel: I mean, truly, we could get blocked by any... Again, society, shame, religion, friends, judgment, fear of judgment. Sexuality is not taught to us as something to prioritize. So it's one of the first things to go when we're like, "I got to stay focused. I got to stay prioritized. And I don't have time to masturbate." For those of us who prioritize pleasure and sexuality, that's like, "Oh, no, no, no. I am going to make time to masturbate. I may get to the grocery store tomorrow." We really start to weigh it out. So I think that because it's one of the first things to go, that's something that can get in the way in addition to literally everything.
There is something specific I think when it comes to masturbation for women, that it's something that a man does, and that women aren't supposed to do. Do you come across that?
Rachel: Less and less, thank goodness. I think that because, in our society, we talk about it being so normal for men, and we just don't talk about it for women. So, the interpretation of that is it's not for women. It's truly happening less and less. The younger generations are like way more…
Okay. So I feel like maybe our generation is the last one that was still a little bit caught up in that. Even for me, as I've said, I'm very pro-masturbation, and I feel like it's something that I will easily talk about with my friends or people that I'm around. But even the thought of doing this for my newsletter, there's a little feeling like, "Eek. What are people going to think about me?"
Rachel: I would encourage you and anybody who's having that thought process come up like... Whose voice is that? Is that your voice? Is that society's voice? Is it your mom? Is it a teacher that said something once... Whose voice is saying what, and what is the voice saying? If you had to put a quote to the feeling of "Mmh," what is the voice? And really getting curious with the self and being like, "Where did this even come from? Why am I uncomfortable right now?" Even if that's 2% uncomfortable, what is that 2% about? "Am I worried that someone is going to view me differently? Am I worried that I'm not being a proper lady?" Because for everybody, it's going to be different, and really getting curious about it and figuring out whose voice it is and what is it actually saying.
Yeah. In many ways, I view it similarly to mental health. I'm someone who's very outspoken about mental health, and when I first started speaking about it, it was scary. You think, "Oh my God, people are going to think I'm crazy. What are people going to say? They're going to have this different opinion of me." And so this also kind of feels like similar territory.
Rachel: Well I'm excited for you.
Good Vibes Only
Obviously, shopping for vibrators can be quite intimidating, but have no fear, I've done the long, hard, exhaustive work for you. Below are my picks for the best vibrators in the game.
Maude “Vibe," $49: I'm a fan of the Maude brand all around. There are no frills, the design is so minimal" that even if you left your vibrator out on your nightstand, no one would even notice. It has 3 speeds, but even the lowest one is still potent. I've only used the “vibe” device, and was surprised by its power in, my only note is that it can be a little loud, which, of course, isn't an issue if you don't live at home with your family.
Dame Aer, $99: If you're solely focused on clitoral stimulation, this the only vibe you need.
Dame Pom, $99: I have to give a shoutout to the Dame Pom as well, which has become my travel vibrator because she's so small and has a little discreet pouch. I've also used her in bed with a partner—and she never disappoints.
B Yours Silver Power Bullet, $10: As Rachel said, a bullet vibrator is very first-time user-friendly. The remote makes it easy to control. Pro tip: warm up the bullet in your hands before you use it.
CalExotics Waterproof Stimulator and Clitoral Hummer, $15: I've had this vibrator for maybe 15 years, it's waterproof, multi-speed, it's got clitoral and g-spot stimulators. It's my old faithful.
Hitachi Magic Wand, $58: this is a legendary vibrator, made famous by Sex & the City when Samantha she wore hers out and tried to return it to The Sharper Image, and the store clerk insisted it was a “neck massager" not a vibrator. A few of my friends swear by it.
Goop Ultraplush Self-Heating G-Spot Vibrator, $95: I received this vibe from Tinx a few months ago as part of the mailer for her debut book, The Shift, and I get why the Goop vibes sell out so quickly. Ten different settings, and it self heats, what more could you want?