There’s a whole heap of things about female sexuality that is really heavily stigmatised, but masturbation has got to be right up there as one of the most ridiculously mythicized aspects. Roll your eyes as you might, I know, but even today in #2017, women wanking isn’t spoken about in the same way as when men do.
Sure, a couple of wines into pub night with the girls, we might quite happily chat away about the new waterproof rabbit we purchased however elsewhere the concept of girls getting off isn’t portrayed as a particularly positive one, if at all. And that can be for a number of reasons: lack of education, straight up sexism, the porn industry getting it very, very wrong. But cultural influences also have a huge role to play in our understanding of the thing.
In an interview with Bust magazine, Gina Rodriquez (star of Jane the Virgin and all around great human being) spoke about how growing up surrounded by ‘purity culture’ really influenced what she thought about masturbating.
‘I was definitely raised with that’, she explained. ‘In all honesty, I used to feel guilty for masturbating. Oh my god, this extreme guilt! And that lasted way too long. Or maybe I masturbated too much!’
Everyone remembers their first time. Everyone probably also remembers not having a damn clue about the what's, when's and how's of it all for quite a while. And it's something that seems to have been even more confusing in the context of a community that discourages sexuality outside of marriage.
Gina added: ‘It's OK to look back in retrospect and be like, it wasn't good that I felt bad about touching myself. And it isn't bad that I want to share my love with my boyfriend. I'm 32 years old, I'm an adult, I can do that!’
Hear, hear, to Gina's acknowledgement that there's no need to feel bad about masturbation! The guilt she felt wasn't good at all, and shouldn't be felt by any one. We're taught about the, ahem, ins and outs of sex stuff to varying degrees of helpfulness, but we're rarely taught about the pleasure side of sexy time. So in case you missed it the first time around, ain't nothing wrong with a bit of private time, guys. Nothing wrong at all.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.