In my previous article about lousy sex I interviewed 18 women and 5 men and had no problems. Every single one was forthcoming and openly talked about their worst sexual experience. Only one man said he had never had such an experience. I ended with the thought that I'd talk to a bunch of people (mostly women) about masturbation. I did just that and the structure was four questions. Do you do it? How often? How do you do it? Do you share? The last meaning whether you let your partner either watch or participate.
When I actually got into the interviews, I was surprised at the reactions. I mentioned before that I found it strange that women would open up and talk about their sex lives with a relative stranger, but this time it was three of the men who refused to talk about it. All the women talked about it but I had to modify the approach I used with them.
I found that asking a woman, "Do you jack off?" was not a way to get them to talk. If I took the time to explain what I was doing and why I was asking, every single woman was forthcoming in her responses.
Amy, 41, black, admitted, "...she took care of herself at least once a week."
"Once a week?" Julianna, 42, Latina, said, "I have to do it nearly every night when I don't have a man around."
For the purposes of this "study" I talked to the same eighteen women and five men. They represent a mix of ages and races. For reference purposes, here are the names, ages, and races of the people with whom I spoke.
Lonnie 30 White
Diane 52 White - Married
Geri 30 White - Married
Kaitlan 39 Latina
Jenna 21 White
Ailene 30 Asian
Camille 36 White
Sandy 23 White
Amy 41 Black - Married
Winnie 27 Asian
Carrie 36 White - Married
Frankie 25 White
Jennie 19 White
Fran 26 Black
Julianna 42 Latina
Cathy 45 White
Kim 28 Asian - Married
Christie 29 White
Ralph 27 White - No comment
George 63 White - No comment
Jim 52 White - No comment
Kenny 57 White
Bob 56 Black
Let's jump into it. Amy and Julianna are representative of most of the discussions I had with the various women. I'll go through the entire conversation with Amy and then just highlight some of the others.
"So, Amy, the question today is, do you masturbate?"
At this point I had already gone through the preliminaries and she knew what the questions were going to be. She was quick to answer, "Of course."
"How often?"
"I haven't kept track of it, but probably about once a week. I have a, you know, anatomically correct friend that I use."
"Battery powered?" I asked.
"No, it just, you know, well, it's hard rubber or soft plastic of some kind and it just does whatever I want it to do."
"Do you ever take care of yourself when your lover is around?"
"Oh, God, no. Why would I want to if I had a man there?"
Julianna was completely different on that last topic. "Oh, shit yes. If he happens to catch me doing it or if he's tired and doesn't want to have sex I'll do it right in the bed beside him and he's welcome to watch." She giggled a bit and continued, "It usually gets him going and I can take advantage of him."
There were some cute moments. When I asked Fran, a black girl, about her "friend" she said, "It's the most humongous, white anatomically-correct dildo you've ever seen. This big around (making a circle with her fingers about two inches across) and a foot long." She giggled and then said, "That's because I know I'll never see a real one like that."
When I asked them what they used, generally, four of the women said they'd use anything, four said they used their hand or fingers, two used a plain dildo, and six used a vibrator of some kind. One, Jennie, said, "Oh, shit, I'll use my hand, a dildo, vibrator, cucumber, anything that's handy."
"How about a beer bottle or a baseball bat?" I asked.
She was quiet for a few seconds before answering, "Hmm, why don't you ask me again in a couple months?"
When I followed up on that question she just said she hadn't gotten around to trying anything weird, but she'd let me know. What seemed so strange in her situation was her response to sharing with her lover. "Oh, God, no, I wouldn't want anyone to see me do it." I got a little giggle out of her as she went on, "Except myself. I like to do it facing a big mirror so I can watch."
Ailene and Kaitlan were the only two I interviewed together and they seemed to get on each other's nerves. Kaitlan said she did it about once a month and Ailene admitted to doing it about twice a month. So far so good. Then I asked what they used.
"Oh, I use a vibrator," Kaitlan said. "You can't beat that feeling."
"Oh, bullshit," Ailene piped up. "If you really knew yourself, you'd use your fingers. That's the only way you can really please yourself."
Kaitlan came back with, "Except my fingers aren't long enough."
"Oh, so you just want the penetration."
"Hello, isn't that the whole point? We're supposed to be pretending that we're fucking, if you don't have something going in and out of you, how can you pretend?"
Okay, I could probably have let that go on and really had some fun with it, but I put a stop to it because you get the idea of what the ladies were thinking about.
Camille and Winnie said they never do it. Winnie admitted that she did it several times when she was going through puberty, but hadn't for the past fifteen years. When I pressed her she said she had no plans or desire of doing it in the future. Camille just reiterated that she never did it and had no plans on it in the future.
Geri, Carrie, Kim, and Diane were my four married subjects. All four admitted to taking care of themselves. Geri and Diane said they were more than willing to let their husbands watch or even participate.
Carrie and Kim said they only do it when their husbands are away. Carrie thought talking about something like this was cute. "Oh, I get horny maybe three or four times a month and take care of myself while my husband's at work."
"What do you think about while you're doing it?"
"Well, it's normally while I'm watching one of the soap operas. There's a guy on there that's hot as hell. I guess I pretend like I'm doing it with him."
Kim's husband travelled occasionally on business. "He'll be gone two weeks at a time and, usually a couple days before he comes home I start thinking of what we're going to do that first night back together and I really have to do it."
"What do you think about?"
"Like I said, I think about what Frank and I are going to do when he gets back."
Without giving away any secrets let me say that interviewing Cathy was easy. Since the lousy sex article she has been spending many nights at my house and she and I are very open about everything sexual. Without even asking her, I'll tell you she takes care of herself whenever she wants to. She uses anything that is handy (including my hand) and is ALWAYS willing to let me watch or even participate.
Then there's my friend Lonnie, the woman who got me started on this whole research thing. She said, "Okay as far as it goes for me ...... used to have a vibrator a gift from my ex and it got more use while we were in bed together... masturbate now maybe once every other week since I've been having sex again. Before when I wasn't having sex my sex drive was dead and no beating off for me!"
As an editorial aside, let me point out that's what's wrong with society today: women's brains. To a man, it's perfectly logical that if you're not getting it from someone else, you take care of yourself. Here was Lonnie saying that the only time she masturbated was when she was having sex regularly and, when she wasn't, she didn't masturbate.
As always, as I was talking to the ladies one would say something that sparked another question. Hearing Lonnie use the term, "beating off" surprised me because I always thought of that as a man's term. So, back to the other women to ask them what they called it. I got answers like spanking Lucy, petting the kitty, masturbating, beating off, jacking off, and taking care of myself. The one who surprised me was Diane, one of my married women and the oldest of all. She admitted to doing it every three or four months and always used a vibrator. However, when I asked her what she called it she said, "I don't call it anything."
"Well, how do you talk about it?"
"Al! That's not something I talk about."
"But we've been talking about it for several minutes."
"Yes, and you'll remember that you asked me. I didn't start this." That ended that conversation; she just could not bring herself to put a name to something she did a several times a year.
The cute thing was that a couple weeks after I spoke to her, Amy sent me an e-mail with forty-six different terms women have used for masturbating.
Talking to the men was boring. One of the problems is that, in case you haven't noticed it, men and women are physically different. Without considering the "squirting" phenomenon of some women, when a man masturbates, there is something of a mess with which he has to contend.
Bob said he did it a couple times a week. "Where do you normally do it?" I asked.
"Well, in the shower. Usually."
"What about the times you're not in the shower?"
He had to think about that before he said, "I guess I do it in bed."
"Okay, what do you do to control the mess?"
"Ah, shit, man, now you're getting gross."
"No, I'm just trying to find out how you keep your bed dry."
"Fuck you." And he walked away.
Kenny was more forthcoming. "I take care of it every day when there's not a girl in my bed."
"Where?"
He laughed and said, "Anywhere. I've done it on the freeway driving home from work. I've done it sitting on the couch watching a porn. The shower, in bed, I've even done it while I was sitting at the computer."
"So, how do you keep things clean and dry?"
Another laugh and, "A handkerchief or a sock, anything. Maybe a dirty T-shirt, anything."
He paused and then said, "Lots of times I just walk into the bathroom and do it over the sink. Run the water for a few seconds and everything is cleaned up."
The interesting thing was that none of the men admitted to using any of the fake vaginas you see advertised. The two who were willing to talk about it just said they used their hand.
For my own experiences, NOT included in the study, I take care of business every single day. There are some days (particularly when I'm working on articles such as this) that I have to do it two or three times. Earlier in my life, while I was married, my wife was not all that excited by sex and I was lucky if I got it every six or eight weeks. There were many (waaay too many) nights when I'd wait for her to fall asleep and then take care of myself with her lying right beside me in the bed.
After all this work I haven't come up with any conclusions. The women's ages range from 19 to 52, four are married, two are divorced, three have regular boyfriends, and none of those facts have anything at all to do with whether they "finger the fountain" or not or how often or what they use. I'll leave the conclusions to someone else and try and figure out what to talk about next.
Which reminded me that one of the men I talked to who didn't want to comment said, "I don't talk about that. It's too much like cheating." That, in turn, reminded me of Carrie's comment about the soap opera guy. Hmm, cheating, another possible topic. Maybe if I go back and talk to all these women some of them will be so fed up with talking about their sex lives that they'll take me into their bed to shut me up! Obviously, I'll let you know.
Originally Published May 2007: Mmm