Abstract
This qualitative study aimed to examine the experiences and attitudes toward masturbation among emerging adult women. The study was the first to compare women's solo and partnered masturbation experiences, focusing on how feelings of pleasure, sexual desire, and a sense of empowerment—important markers of women's sexual subjectivity—varied across the two contexts. The sample consisted of 40 women between the ages of 18 and 22 years. The majority of participants identified as Latina (33%) or Black (30%) and were enrolled in community college. Semi-structured interviews about women's masturbation experiences were analyzed using thematic analysis. Women described a multitude of feelings, including pleasure but also awkwardness and guilt. Although women did not describe their masturbation practices as morally wrong, they often alluded to disliking masturbation and preferring it less to partnered sex. Whereas some attitudes and feelings (e.g., awkwardness) arose in the context of both solo and partnered masturbation encounters, others were prevalent only in one (e.g., guilt in the solo encounters). Feelings of pleasure, sexual desire, and empowerment manifested differently in the two contexts. There was more focus on self-knowledge, control, and physical pleasure in the solo encounters and more enjoyment of a partner's desire and intimacy in the partnered encounters. We examine the findings through a feminist lens and consider how race/ethnicity, sexual scripts, and contemporary societal contexts shape women's sexual lives.
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Notes
We did not define “sexual experience” for the potential participants. A few students who had only had solo sexual experiences asked if they could participate in the study; we could not include these participants because many questions for the larger study focused on young adults’ interpersonal sexual experiences.
Although the term “sexual arousal” sometimes connotes more physical cues than “sexual desire,” both past research (e.g., Graham et al., 2004) and our data suggest that women do not clearly distinguish between the two constructs, and these terms are used interchangeably in this paper.
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Foust, M.D., Komolova, M., Malinowska, P. et al. Sexual Subjectivity in Solo and Partnered Masturbation Experiences Among Emerging Adult Women. Arch Sex Behav 51, 3889–3903 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02390-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02390-9