There are many definitions of what masturbation is. Many of these make it sound terrible ('self abuse' 'defile oneself sexually'), while others give restrictive definitions, usually involving hands, that have confused the issue for many. A working definition of masturbation that gets over the general meaning in a neutral way could be:

'Stimulating ones genitals, or other erogenous zones, so as to give ones self pleasure'.

Note that no mention of 'how' or exactly 'where' is made and, importantly, orgasm is not seen as being a defining element of the act.

So masturbation can be rubbing your vulva with your fingers so as to have an orgasm or it can just as validly be stroking your nipples, squeezing your thighs together or sitting on top of a working washing machine. What it comes down to is more what is in your mind than what you are physically doing. In fact the range of activities that are really masturbation is very wide indeed and we will cover a range of them on this site. Enough to say that if you deliberately do anything that involves pampering or stimulating your body's erogenous zones, directly or indirectly then yep that's masturbation. (But if the word is a turn off then feel free to think of what you are doing as something else).

Who does it....

As masturbation is a private activity no one really knows who does it. All we have to go on are reported findings from surveys conducted by renowned sexologists over the last 30 to 40 years. What these findings tell us is interesting and, for those that thought they were alone, surprising. Summarized they tell us:

1. From early surveys a figure of around 60% of females of 'sexually active ages' were reported to masturbate at some time or other.

2. More recent reports put the figure at over 80%. This may be due to changes in attitudes about admitting to doing it or it may really show that it is becoming more common.

3. Girls aged 2 and under have been known to deliberately masturbate themselves to orgasm.

4. Women in their eighties have admitted to being active masturbators. Modern hormone replacement therapy extends a woman's active sex life/desire and so more older women are masturbating now than in the past.

5. The commonest time for a girl to discover masturbation is during her early teens though a significant number discover it later in life. As few give up after discovering it, more older women masturbate than do younger ones.

6. Among those that masturbate the frequency range is great. Some are several times each day participators while others only masturbate on rare occasions. There is no obvious link to show why some are one way and others the other.

7. Females both in and out of steady sexual relationships masturbate. It is not an indication of a failure in a relationship if a woman feels the need to continue masturbating. It just shows that she enjoys masturbating.