Iâm in seventh grade. My new LG Touch lights up with a message from my latest crush, Brendan Gordon. We are playing the âquestion game,” which is basically preteen sexting:
do u masterbate? Brendan texts me. Heâs the pinnacle of eloquence.
no haha đ I type back in a panic.
Iâm not one to lie, but at 12, Iâm wracked with guilt over masturbation. Itâs at least four years before I realize that other girls masturbate too. Yet by 12 it was already common knowledge boys masturbated. A lot.
We talk about guys masturbating all the time. There are so many nicknames for the act of cis men masturbating that basically anything you say could ostensibly be a euphemism for a dude âjacking off.” The equation for creating an alternative saying for masturbate is verb-ing the noun. Beating the meat. Tugging the slug. Pulling the pope. (These are all actually sayings I found on the internet that people apparently say.)
Honestly, some of them sound incredibly violent and not at all like something I would want to do to my hypothetical penis. Bleed the weed. Flogging the egg man? (I sincerely hope no one has ever, ever, ever said this in reference to masturbation.) The thing is, if you have a penis there are hundreds of different ways to say youâre going to flog your egg man, and they’re all generally accepted, but I flounder to find a single way to refer to masturbating if you have a vagina other than saying masturbate. I have yet to find a single person who can say flick the bean without cringing or laughing. The lack of colloquialisms for female masturbation implies a larger problem than linguistic shortcomings.
Fixation on cis male sexual pleasure has been a constant in the human sexual landscape for the past, oh, forever. Sure, gone are the days of diagnosing women with hysteria when their husbands couldnât make them cum, but Iâd like to hope the standard is a little higher than that.
Curiously enough, a fix of sorts did come through women diagnosed with âhysteria.” The percusser, more popularly known as the vibrator, was initially invented to help doctors administer pelvic massages to their patients in order to calm hysteria and âfrigid woman syndrome,” which should’ve been called âI-canât-cum-and-apparently-itâs-my-fault syndrome.” Thatâs right, making your girl cum was a duty delegated to medical professionals in the late nineteenth century. They disappeared off of the popular market somewhere around the 1920s and returned into the black hole of female sexuality. (Freud literally called female sexuality the âdark continentâ of psychology. But letâs be honest, Freud couldnât make a girl cum and neither can many psychology majors I know.)
But if doctors arenât making people cum any more, then who is? Because, according to analysis of over thirty studies regarding the female orgasm, women arenât coming during sex. Women are four times as likely to refer to heterosexual intercourse as ânot pleasurable at allâ as men are, according to Alexandra Fine, CEO of Dame Products.
This phenomenon is referred to as the âpleasure gapâ in sex.
In one of these surveys administered to individuals aged 18-65, 62% of women reported regularly orgasming from sex, compared to 85% of men. Studies aside, this is something I witness and experience all the time. The whole idea of âfaking itâ is preposterous when you actually think about it; women are more concerned with menâs egos than their actual sexual pleasure. When I asked a female student why she faked orgasms, her response was that she âgot bored and wanted it to be over” and that jackhammering only feels good for one person. If your sexual style is compared to a power tool, you can bet that youâre not making anyone cum.
Another female student noted, âEveryone acts as if the path to pleasure is the same for men and women when it’s drastically different.” Why are women so reluctant to instruct men how to make them cum? Why are men so offended by women not cumming when itâs usually, unequivocally their fault?
But even as I ask myself these questions I know the answer; throughout our entire lives, women are taught to protect fragile masculinity at all costs. Because if we donât, the price we pay can literally be deadly. How many stories have I read in the past month about women being beaten to death or stabbed or shot for rejecting a manâs advances? I recall the high school era myth of blue balls; an urban legend which sole purpose was coercing women into sexual acts they werenât comfortable with.
I was curious as to what cis men had to say about the pleasure gap. Were they aware of it? Did they give a shit? I decided to ask men Iâve had sex with. The interviews were a lot like the sex Iâve had: nothing extraordinary, but they got the job done.
One man I interviewed fumbled uncomfortably when I asked him if he thought he made girls cum, saying, âI donât know, I have no idea. I feel like, honestly, maybe? I mean, people make different movements and noises and whatnot? And afterwards Iâm not gonna like, I mean I donât⌠ask.”
I watched realization settle onto his face. He continued, âMaybe thatâs really⌠rude of me?â
This John Doe wasnât aware of the pleasure gap, but was able to guess at it quickly, comparing it to the âwage gap in that men orgasm way more often than women do.” What frustrated me about talking to these guys is that even if they were aware, or they acknowledged their own problems, they just didnât seem to care that much. Itâs almost as if making a female-identified person orgasm has become a novelty; those who can do it are special and rare. So in sex, the burden of orgasm falls to the femme for both participantsâ pleasure.
So how do we reclaim pleasure in sex? Sex shop curators, such as Amy Boyajian of Wild Flower, a sex shop based in New York, are working to reform the discourse around sex. Most importantly, sheâs trying to change the popular view of sex toys. Re-enter the great âpercusserâ of the 19th century! Boyajian wants to combat the idea that âsex toys and the stores that [sell] them [are] lurid and sinister places that only creepy men in trench coats [visit]. With the rise of feminist sex stores, that based their ideology around education and pleasure, it expanded the market of the sex store shopper to include women and queer people. Iâm working to expand this inclusion to trans people and nonbinary people also.â
Wild Flowerâs website is categorized not by gender, like many stores are, but by the body parts the sex toy applies to; vaginas, penises, butts (oh my!), as well as categories for BDSM and nipple play. The store, along with her popular Instagram page, wildflowersex, also features numerous educational articles and videos with titles like âOral Tips With A Giant Vulvaâ (if you want to know what an enormous paper mache vulva looks like then this one is right up your alley!) and âWhatâs The Deal With Cock Rings?â
When I asked Boyajian what she thought about the pleasure gap and why it exists, she brought up the effect(s) of societal norms on sex and sex toys today. âThere is a common idea that sex toys are seen as competition to partners in the bedroom, when they are simply aids to women who find it hard to orgasm via penetrative sex,â she said, before continuing, “any woman who talks about sexuality is deemed a slut, myself included. Sexual wellness also spans bigger than penetrative sex, like period sex and vaginal health, however these are too âickyâ to be part of the mainstream narrative.”
If weâre going to talk about womenâs pleasure during sex, then womenâs comfort must also be discussed. If your male partner canât say the word âtamponâ without lowering his voice or giggling, if your period is denigrated as something âgrossâ or âunspeakable,’ then what the hell is that dude doing near your vagina anyway? Sexual pleasure comes with feeling comfortable that your bodyâno matter what it looks like or how it functions, your body is not wrong or bad.Â
When asked if she had advice for anyone struggling to feel comfortable in their sexuality or with sexual satisfaction, Boyajian replied, âCreate an ongoing romance with yourself, explore your body, and get to know what feels good via masturbation. Treat yourself to a vibrator. Make your pleasure a priority⌠Explore your fantasies and do it a way that is non-judgmental. Be gentle and kind to yourself.”Â
Discovering what pleases you isnât exactly a linear journey, and whatâs often forgotten in conversations about pleasure today is that pleasure is different for everyone. Donât let shame or discomfort dictate your sex life. Set your vibrator on high (or low, or whatever setting you damn well please) and get to it! Donât settle for anything less than shaky legs, flushed cheeks, and arched backs. Men? Itâs a clit, not the Strait of Magellan.
Femmes, itâs time to come to our senses and start cumming.