Lights off; under the covers and do not talk about it. Why there are so many rules around female self pleasure and why language and culture make it an inherently shameful act.
Let’s get one sexist misconception straight… women do not touch themselves or masturbate, we wank. The word that is saved for men, normalising their self-pleasure but makes a woman seem unhinged if she is to use it for her self-pleasure. It remains unacceptable for women to openly talk about wanking which leads most women to start exploring their own bodies much later in life than men. Even when women do talk about it, it should be in a saint-like, ‘feminine’ way, compared to men. They have much more slang surrounding their ‘knuckle shuffle’ and publicly joke about their wank socks and tissues next to the bed.
But where are these gender stereotypes surrounding masturbation learnt? A lot of it seems to be taught in childhood, especially in school when boys would make hand gestures across the classroom or proudly announce that they were participating in No-Nut-November or Destroy-Dick-December. Whereas if a school girl pretended to finger herself it would be shocking, perverted, maybe even enough to get you sent to the Headmistress’s office. And may I ask where our movements normalising female wanking stand in the calendar? All in favour of Forgo-Fingering-February say I…. On second thoughts, this doesn’t sound fun!
By creating a taboo around us wanking, the patriarchy keeps us dependent on men for pleasure
Our sexual satisfaction is not seen as urgent, as necessary as a mans therefore when we wank we are seen to take on a male trait and go against our role of being an object for mans’ sexual satisfaction. This view teaches young women that their pleasure is not as important as a man's, which has massive repercussions in the bedroom when we feel the need to please the man and put his pleasure above our own. It also teaches young boys that their satisfaction is more important than ours and that they can use us to get it. In this respect, the orgasm gap comes as no surprise. By creating a taboo around us wanking, the patriarchy keeps us dependent on men for pleasure, which I think we can all agree is very disappointing a lot of the time.
We are not encouraged to explore our bodies and our vaginas, which are governed by politics, remain a mystery to us. The contrast in the way a penis and vagina are talked about and shown in the media show society’s discomfort with our bodies. A penis is freely drawn on the condensed windows of cars and buses but to draw a vulva seems vulgar and shocking. We only need to turn on Netflix and watch the female contestants on ‘Too Hot To Handle’ get a mirror down there and look at their ‘Yoni’, squealing as they do so. Imagine the male contestants all shrieking as they inspect their knobs in a mirror… actually, this could make for some television gold!
Hopefully one day the vagina and penis will be seen with equal standing and that when we wank, it won’t be seen as shameful or even an act of feminism, but just a natural act.
Thus, I leave you with this advice: walk proudly into Ann Summers and buy yourself your new best friend.