Jilling Off

Heidi, 35, never masturbated before she was sexually active. “For me, those two things came together. And I find that the more sexually active I am, the more I masturbate. All or nothing, I guess.”

The married mother of two says she definitely enjoys sex, and is much more comfortable with exploration now that she’s a little older and wiser, but it was a “very fun husband” who turned her on to the joys of toys. “I hadn’t watched porn or used toys until I was married,” she laughs. “What a prude! I’m so far from that now, but I would not have done them with someone I didn’t trust completely.”

For Heidi, ritualistic self-pleasure has little to do with what she might be fantasizing about. It’s based entirely on physical touch. “The way I do it is always the same,” she says. “I get a lot of pleasure from pressure on my clitoral hood.” Since having this sensitive little organ pierced, she found that some new choreography was necessary to get the job done, “but the pressure, circles, pace and pattern are always the same. Slow to begin with, then faster as I get wetter.”

What gets her to the point of wanting to touch? “I can have a visual trigger, but generally it’s an auditory one. Hearing other people in pleasure will get me every time.” She also likes to watch and be watched, and enjoys mutual masturbation with her husband. “I love to watch men touch themselves in person. On television it’s not that great—probably because it’s usually followed by a big wad of cum all over the girl’s face, which is totally disgusting to me. But in person? Mmmm. I like to observe the pace and listen as his breathing changes. If I’m getting to pleasure myself at the same time, it’s an awesome orgasm.”

Ruby is a newlywed, but marriage thus far leaves her sexual habits unaffected. “Around ovulation I notice my perception starting to skew,” she admits. “I notice my male coworkers’ mouths and think about them as sensual kissers—which is something my husband and I don’t do that often now that we’re married, even during sex. It’s always a whim and gone in a moment, but it makes me flush and want to try and resurrect the moment when I see him later, but alas, it never happens.”

She describes their relationship as “fabulous and playful” but admits they’ve fallen into something of a sexual pattern. “I want him to dominate me; he wants me to dominate him. Stalemate? I still have a great deal of those silly bachelorette-party gifts in a shopping bag in my closet that I wonder how to integrate into our sex. Sometimes I think I’m too much of a feminist and this gets in my way.”

As for self-love, however, its frequency remains unaffected, whether she’s getting some or not. Her regular method comes with an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Lay down in the bathtub on your back, lift your legs so they are flush and parallel against the wall.” Position your girl parts under the faucet and let it flow, adjusting pressure and temperature accordingly.

“I think it’s a nice way of simulating oral sex,” she says. Other recommendations? “At my craziest, I would tie my own ankles with a silk scarf, bend over a yoga ball and use a whip on my own ass while stimulating my clitoris. Have you ever tried Altoids? Lick one and rub it on your clit for added pleasure.”

Men might be surprised to find that many women employ masturbation as a sleep aid. And while she may find the process pleasurable, Athena, 32 and married (no kids), can be utilitarian about it. “Since there is a purpose, it’s almost like a procedure and I do find that in these instances my mind goes to the same scenarios. My method varies, for sure, but it’s never premeditated. It all falls into place once I start moving my hand into my panties.”

Krista, 20, is pure as the driven snow. Sort of. “I don’t listen to the Jonas Brothers,” she laughs. “It’s not like I’ve got a purity ring on. I just haven’t met anyone I’ve wanted to go all the way with. I don’t think I’m too picky. But I do believe in chemistry and it seems like the longer I am the semi-reluctant virgin, the harder it is to find someone worth sleeping with. As it is, I’m ravenously horny, all the time, and I usually masturbate once or twice a day.”

On her two-fer days, she finds it to be the perfect sleeping pill. “How else am I supposed to stay focused on work or school? I have to get the ya-yas out so I can get some rest.”

Stella and her husband, both in their 50s, have children who are in college. “I am finally having the sex I’m supposed to be having now that they’re mostly out of the house!” she laughs. “As a consequence, my diddle-habits are falling off the charts. I relied on masturbation as my main source of sexual pleasure for almost two decades—not because it was the preferred method, but because it was the most accessible!”

As young parents, the pair often had to deal with small children crawling into their bed during what was supposed to be private time. “I can’t count how many times we were interrupted mid-thrust,” she laughs. “It’s funny now because it’s in the past. There were honestly moments where I was so close to climaxing I wanted to scream at them to get out! Makes me sound like such a meanie, I know. But when you’re desperate for that one-on-one time with your partner, that selfish part of you wants to act out.”

Stella’s sweet mommy side always won out, but it did make her sex life suffer. “Playing with myself was mostly a shower-time ritual, often before work. Slippery, soapy hands roamed and helped the process along. And when I got my first WaterPik shower massager—the one on the hose so you could direct the spray right where you wanted it? I’d hop right out of bed with no hesitation in the morning!”


One morning, years into the ritual she’d never shared with her husband, he caught her wet-handed as he came in to shave. “That started a whole new ritual that solved the nighttime issues we were having,” she laughs. “We shower together almost every morning to this day. I only wish we’d thought of it sooner!”

Betty chose her pseudonym as a tribute to the great American sex educator Betty Dodson, Ph. D, whom she credits for her first orgasm, “and every one subsequent, if you get right down to it.”

Betty was a college student in 1974 when she brushed up hard against the women’s’ sexual revolution, but she was older than her classmates, and burdened with responsibility that hindered her involvement with the free-loving war protesters.

“I was in my late 20s, married and had a young child when I went to school. Even though I came of age in the 1960s, I came from a conservative Midwestern background. The hippy thing was frowned-upon where I grew up for the most part. I married my high school sweetheart as a virgin, and was pregnant before I could grow out of my insecurities with my body and my sexuality.

“I was in class and there were two girls whispering about [Dodson’s book] Liberating Masturbation,” she says. “One of them had taken it to bed with her boyfriend the night before. She was telling her friend about the vaginal diagrams inside, how they’d looked at them together, how he’d spread her open and explored her, touching her, kissing her…. I’m actually getting flushed recounting this now,” she admits, “a hundred years later!”

Betty bought the book that afternoon, took it home, and read it that night in the bathroom. “I made myself climax in the bathtub,” she says. “From there, I was a teenage boy. I couldn’t keep my hands out of my pants. I had a lot of catching up to do, but I still managed to graduate!”

Jokes aside, Betty’s newfound comfort alone with herself didn’t help her marriage. “I still didn’t feel comfortable enough to share what I’d learned with my husband.” They divorced a few years later. “I was happy to keep myself happy and bought an [here she makes ‘air quotes’] electric massager at the pharmacy the day I signed the lease on my apartment. All these years later I have had quite a few more lovers, right up to my current live-in boyfriend of 11 years, who indeed feels like the soul mate I longed for as that young, clueless, sexually frustrated newlywed, but after discovering what I could do for myself, I never worried about what a man could or couldn’t do for me in the bedroom.”