A+ member, you might be aware that May is Masturbation Month! Here at Autostraddle, we’ve always been here to help our community have the sex we want to have — and masturbation’s a huge part of that. Whether you’ve read Vanessa’s iconic article on practicing elaborate masturbation or watched Shelli’s workshop on masturbation basics, you might be familiar with some of our work in this arena. But, you might wonder, what do we, ourselves do when it comes to masturbation? How often do we do it? What do we think about when we do? I asked our team of queer and trans staff, editors and writers to complete a 100% anonymous masturbation survey, and those results? They’re below! Does anything surprise you? Ring true? We’d love to hear from you in the comments! As always, thank you for being a member and for supporting the important work of helping our community to have hot queer sex, whether that’s with others, or with ourselves.

xoxo,
Nicole

How Do We Feel About Masturbation in General?

Our answers run from dealing with shame around masturbation (usually religious) to absolutely fucking loving it.

• I love it! I’ve masturbated regularly for most of my adult life. It’s been a great way to get to know my body and relieve stress. I also love incorporating masturbation into partnered sex (mutual masturbation, watching a partner get themself off, touching myself while I fuck my partner, etc.).
• You know how they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away? That’s how I feel about masturbation.
• I really love it but recently I haven’t done it as much. Masturbation helps me connect with my body but it also works against me when I’m hating my body because I don’t want anyone to touch it not even me. But mostly I do love it!
• I love masturbation! I prefer masturbation to hook ups any day, which I feel is a rarer take. It strengthens my relationship to my body and my pleasure, and there is no one I trust more with my body than myself. Mutual masturbation is also very fun as well!
• Feel GREAT about masturbation, in general — in specifics — however you want to discuss it. It’s the easiest and most consistent way I orgasm. It’s also a phenomenal destresser. It’s nature’s Xanax.
• I feel kind of ambivalent. I used to really like it, but I lost the desire to masturbate during a really bad relationship where I didn’t have a ton of personal space or feel safe doing so, and while I’ve gotten my enjoyment of it back a little bit over the years, it’s still not the same!
• A base instinct which affirms I know how to pleasure myself better than most people ever will.
• I have been masturbating regularly since I was in middle school. I used to have a lot of religious-based shame around it and would take long breaks from masturbating, because I was convinced God would punish me for it. That finally stopped around college, and then I was able to masturbate pretty freely.
• It’s great! It makes me feel more in touch with myself.
• I can take it or leave it. I am trans so masturbation is sometimes a source of dysphoria, but mostly I feel neutral about it. I don’t have an especially high sex drive, so I masturbate usually before bed just as a way to help me get to sleep.
• I love masturbating. I used to have a lot of shame around it but now I actively look forward to it. Even when I’m having a lot of sex with other people, I still try to carve out time to masturbate.
• Generally I feel pretty neutral about masturbation! Like, it’s not something I get real excited about but it can be pretty good and useful. I am currently feeling very low libido because of hormone related stuff so these days I’m not doing it much and am saving any sexual energy I do have to share with my partner since we’re not having sex much lately, because of said libido thing!
• I fucking love masturbation. 10/10, no notes. Okay possible 12/10, notes being: yes, more please, I love this activity, wow fuck yes please, etc.
• It’s great for stress relief, but honestly, it can also be stressful when I don’t cum. I KNOW that is not the point, but getting myself to lean into pleasure for pleasure’s sake is hard for me. I just constantly need to release tension.
• I used to carry a lot of shame about it (thanks, Catholicism) but now I love it. 10/10 stars, highly recommend. Now instead of a secret desire I have to ‘get away with’ doing, it’s just part of a nightly ritual I usually partake it but sometimes skip. It helps me wind down before bed, and get out of my head for a second. Sometimes it’s hard to keep some of that shame from creeping up, especially if/when I use porn to help speed up the process, but it’s a lot easier to shake it off the further I get from that Catholic upbringing. Ever since I started working from home, sometimes I’ll just take a few minutes in the afternoon to do it, just a little break, time to myself, to do something that makes me feel good. As someone who is physically incapable of napping, it’s a nice alternative when I need an occasional afternoon refresher.
• It’s neat! It’s my go-to if all I want is to get off, but I also like doing it with a partner.
• I have a very Capricorn take on masturbation. It’s fun. It’s efficient. I like it. I like it partially because it’s efficient. Maximum fun for minimum effort.

How Often Do We Masturbate?

Notably, no one on our team indicated that they never masturbate, so this is definitely something every survey taker does.

56.3% masturbate a few times a week, 31.3% a few times a month, and 12.5% once per day.

How Long Do We Typically Masturbate For?

No one indicated less than a minute as most common for them. So, we are all getting at least 60 seconds of action here!

2 responders masturbate for 1-5 minutes typically, 8 for 5-15, 5 for 15-30, and 2 for 30-60 minutes.

Do We Have Any Pre or Post-Masturbation Rituals?

If people aren’t going to bed after masturbating, they’re definitely napping.

• No, I just get horny and then need the release. Afterwards I lay there and always wonder if I can go again but I never can!!
• When I have the time, I always try to take a bath, light candles, play my fave sultry/sensual music playlist prior to masturbation. My post-masturbation ritual is simply taking a nap after lol
• Prep includes getting a condom or tissue or something, because afterward there is semen to clean up. Otherwise, no.
• I log onto the porn site I pay for (PAY FOR YOUR PORN) and scroll opening a few videos in new tabs. Then I watch the first five or so minutes of each and whichever story/performers hook me I watch and masturbate to.
• Lol can a post masturbation ritual be falling asleep?? Other than that honestly I am pretty to the point when it comes to masturbating.
• I do not! I don’t make a big deal out of it, usually. If I’m doing like an elaborate masturbation situation, I will set the scene, pull out all the stops, but on a day to day romp with my vibrator I just like to prioritize making it happen and getting it (myself) done! That doesn’t make it less hot to me, it’s just like, not something that I need to prep for… I like to grab the Hitatchi and go to town to maximize the time I have for multiple orgasms.
• Ummm after I masturbate, I usually lay there for a bit? And just breathe? I don’t know if that’s a ritual, but I love breathing after masturbation. It feels so good.
• if it’s mid-day, usually afterwards i am like “okay i have to put having a body at all behind me now.” if it’s at night, then i just go to sleep.
• I spend a long time fantasizing and building up the emotional stakes of the fantasy before actually masturbating. Not so much after? The horny part of my brain just kind of switches off after masturbation is over.
• Sometimes my fantasies are part of the elaborate (I like that word better than ‘maladaptive’ tyvm) daydreams I have so I’ll usually just continue the ‘story’ in my head as I drift off to sleep.
• Not really! I like to be under a blanket — the weight of it feels nice to me. I otherwise like to keep it simple, but I do love a little power nap right after if I have time.
• Pre: usually just shutting the curtains of my bedroom; post: Falling asleep.
• As much as love and recommend the Autostraddle article, “You Deserve to Practice Elaborate Masturbation,” my masturbation routine is anything but elaborate. I have zero pre- or post-masturbation rituals to report.
• My post-masturbation ritual is going to sleep.

What Time of Day Do We Typically Masturbate, When We Do?

Night-time self-care and mid-day / afternoon delights are in some hot competition here.

47.1% of respondents masturbate at night or before bed, 41.2% mid-day or afternoon, 5.9% in the morning or when they first wake up, and 5.9% in the middle of the night.

Is There Anything We Like To Include In Our Masturbation Routines That We’ve Not Heard Of Others’ Doing? Or That We Don’t Think is Common?

• Sometimes I like to switch vibrators or dildos halfway through? Or use multiple at the same time? Is that a thing people do, or just me?
• This isn’t rare, but it’s an erogenous zone that I don’t think is talked about as often. I really like the feeling of rubbing my belly in circular motions or pressing on my lower belly with my free hand while masturbating. Partially because it stimulates the external G spot through my lower belly and also because I just like my belly rubbed?
• I know a lot of us say we used to hump pillows/furniture/stuffed animals when we were younger, but I don’t know if a lot of adults still do that. Here to say I proudly do and it rules! I also like to tie my tits up and take slutty photos of myself sometimes to turn myself on but I don’t think that’s rare, just fun, LOL.
• Although I usually use my fingers, sometimes I like to use a corner of my sheet or a scarf to rub back and forth on my clit. I have never heard of anyone else doing this but tbh I don’t talk much about masturbation with other people!
• Maybe it’s connected to adolescent years of searching “girls kissing” on YouTube but I’m often more interested in the build up in porn than the sex itself. Like I’ll come watching the sex, but it only works for me if I feel invested in the characters. Plot as foreplay.
• It’s not rare, but I’d like to include toys more frequently. There aren’t a lot of toys for people with penises. I’ve never tried a “sleeve” or “fleshlight” type toy, or one of those Magic Wand attachments, but I’d like to try.
• I don’t know if it’s necessarily rare, but I almost always talk/make sounds during masturbation. I’m very verbal! Whether its moaning, talking re: my fantasy, etc… It helps me feel more immersed in the masturbation session.
• I hear about people coming again and again and I want that or people having ALL DAY masturbation days and I think wow if I had the time just one day I’d want to do that.
• It seems like most people I know (at least the folks who talk openly about masturbation) masturbate at night, but I only masturbate in the morning or afternoon and absolutely CANNOT masturbate at night. I know a lot of people find that it helps them sleep, but for me, masturbating at night has the opposite effect. It wakes me up! And here’s another thing I do that might be unique: if I plan to squirt or think I’m going to squirt, I masturbate in my empty bathtub so I don’t have to clean up afterwards.
• I’ve never heard of anyone else having a continuing storyline like I do. A fantasy you come back to over and over to like…further the plot. I imagine plenty of people have fantasies about the same people more than once but I’m not talking repeat fantasies, I’m talking recurring characters. Do other people fill in the story gaps between fantasies? I don’t know! My friends and I don’t talk about masturbation/sex/fantasies enough, to be honest. I wish we did.

What Do We Typically Masturbate With?

Team members could select multiple answers for this question! Read on to find out what people indicated as “other.” Also, if you’ve ever felt bad for using a toy / vibrator to get off, as opposed to just hands or fingers, we hope that maybe you’ll feel better knowing Team AS takes advantage of modern technology on a regular basis.

28.9% of respondents typically masturbate with finger(s), 10.5% with hands, 36.8% with vibrator(s), 13.2% with dildo(s), 2.6% with other body parts, and 7.9% with something other.

Other Responses, Which Include Many Soft Things:

• Rubbing myself against a mattress or the couch cushion, an arm rest, all the things.
• LOVE TO HUMP A STUFFED ANIMAL OR PARTICULARLY WELL-SHAPED PIECE OF FURNITURE!!!
• Occasionally a pillow

What Do We Typically Fantasize About During Masturbation? What Are Our Favorite Fantasies?

Here’s where things got spicy…

• There’s no “typical” fantasy for me — my sexual brain is pretty damn creative, and I never know what’s going to turn me on. But despite the wild scenarios I can cook up in my head, when I watch porn, I go for pretty boring stuff — I usually just watch videos of other people masturbating. On an artistic level, I definitely appreciate more elaborate porn with lots of storytelling and impressive sexual feats. It just doesn’t help me get off.
• I imagine getting fucked by my partner. I’ll watch porn and try to imagine that the actors are my partner and me. Occasionally, thoughts of a celebrity or fictional character slip into my mind (the latest is a threesome with Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz from The Batman). In high school, my greatest fantasy involved Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters.
• I think about being gangbanged a lot. I wonder what it would be like to be taken by more than 4 or 5 people and have my way with them all while they also have their way with each other.
• I’ll often either watch pornography or fantasize about having sex with my partner. When I do opt for the fantasy route, I often switch between being the top or the bottom, depending on my mood. I always curate a specific vibe/ambiance as well in my fantasy.
• I usually watch pornography and fantasize about being involved in the scene I’m watching.
• I wish I was someone who could masturbate just from my fantasies but I get distracted and in my head when it’s just me and my thoughts. It feels uncool to say I watch porn, but I still mostly watch porn? Occasionally if I’m really horny I won’t need to in which case my fantasy is specifically about my latest crush or most recent hookup.
• I usually read a lot of erotic fan fiction, so usually I’m fantasizing about what I’m reading. Does that sound complicated? Maybe? But that’s why the universe made smart phones that you can read in with one hand.
• All sorts of things, but lately, my favorite has been a fantasy where I hook up with a guy…who perceives me as a guy. Usually, the man is way older.
• Exhibitionism, public use and humiliation, rough and questionable consensual sex, group sex/gang bangs, breeding. I play all roles except I’m always the breeder.
• I don’t have a standard fantasy, but my masturbation fantasies tend to often be more violent than the actual sex I like to have. I like rough sex, but I think it’s even rougher in a lot of my fantasies. I also often fantasize about my partner during sex, which I had never done with any previous partner, because it seems kind of silly to *fantasize* about someone you have sex with, but idk! Sometimes fantasies are great when they’re close-ish to reality I guess!
• Power play.
• Completely imaginary consensual non-consent scenarios typically, or some kind of imaginary power exchange scene, sometimes my spouse if I’m feeling romantic.
• The thing that gets me off the most is other people getting off. So usually I imagine me and another woman (sometimes it’s a fictional character from a TV show or movie, sometimes it’s someone I made up in my head) engaging in something fun and sexual and me getting her off. The closer she is to coming in my imagination, the closer I get. “We” finish together.
• I have three equally thrilling and sexy fantasies that could be placed into three categories: my switch, top, and bottom personalities. As the true switch I am, I love thinking about hooking up with someone, or even masturbating, in a public steam room. When I’m feeling like a bottom, I envision myself masturbating at my desk in a classroom while the teacher is telling me to behave and not to cum. When I’m all top energy, I picture myself getting a top floor, corner hotel room in a skyrise with floor-to-ceiling glass windows where I tie someone to the glass window and fuck them for everyone to see.
• Love to think about getting used like a sex toy and then discarded, love to think about being tied up and forced to do whatever my girlfriend wants me to do to her and a group of her friends, love to think about being watched… you know, very regular submission kink fantasies. The usual, etc.
• Interestingly although in my irl sex life I lean more on the bottom side of the top/bottom spectrum often my masturbation fantasies are me doing a little top action, particularly if I’m fantasizing about a guy. (I’m bi so I fantasize about all genders). I typically kind of cycle through thinking about different people, whoever I might have a little crush on at the moment, even if it’s an internet crush. I like to create a whole narrative and lead up to sex in my mind, like I’m reading a good erotica story or something.

Fun Fact: Every Survey Respondent Replied That They Masturbate Most Often in Their Bedroom

100% of survey respondents most often masturbate in the bedroom as opposed to any other room, the shower, etc.

To Finish Things Off (LOL) We Share Some Light-Hearted Masturbation Stories and Hijinks

Who among us has not wondered about experiencing “quivering pleasure.”

• I started masturbating at a young age, before I really knew what it was (which is totally normal and developmentally appropriate!). My parents caught me with stuffed animals in my pajama bottoms once and told me not to do that, so I felt ashamed about it for a long time. As a result, I learned to be perfectly silent when I masturbate and now, I have a hard time having an orgasm unless I get very quiet and still, which is fine for masturbation, but super confusing and frustrating to new partners who think I’m bored when I’m actually very close. And really don’t want them to stop or switch it up. So I try to warn people now ahead of time if I don’t want to ruin my own good time.
• How about the time my mom walked in on me masturbating and believed me when I said I was using a back massager then RETOLD THE STORY LATER? I started my masturbation journey pretty young, since I hit puberty pretty young, so by the time I was about 14 or 15, I had already evolved from humping pillows, past using my fingers, and on to using a back massager my parents had gotten for me because of how often my growing teen muscles were sore because of the many, many hours of dance classes and theater rehearsals I had every week. The back massager came to a point on one side and was perfect for the targeted attack I was looking for. One night I thought my parents were downstairs, my mom did the whole knock-and-open move to find out what the weird noise was, and I switched my massager positioning SO fast and somehow managed to convince her I was using it on my neck. A few years later, much to my extreme embarrassment, my mother recounted this story to my aunt, like “I heard buzzing and walked in and saw something long and white and got nervous, but then it was just her back massager!” Well, all it took was a quirk of my aunt’s eyebrow for my mother to realize her mistake and needless to say if a teenager could spontaneously disappear just by willing it, I would have been long gone. At the time I considered it one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, now I just find it hilarious.
• The first time I ever masturbated with a magic wand was when Lizzo’s first album dropped. I remember having so much fun getting off to “Soulmate.” It still makes me fee hot AF.
• Once upon a time when I was a child I went into the bathroom to masturbate while I had a friend over and my mom came in and found me and she was very chill and matter of fact and simply said, “It’s totally fine to masturbate but you can’t do it while your friends are over, that’s rude. This is a private activity to do in your bedroom when you’re alone. Also I’m a little worried about you using the side of the bathtub, I think you might hurt yourself. Try to use something softer next time, okay?” A+ parenting, grateful to my mom for not shaming me and just being very relaxed and chill about her masturbation-happy child!
• When I lived by myself and had more free time than I do now I was masturbating in the summer with my apartment window open. It was impossible to see into my apartment window from the next door apartment but I figured out too late that my neighbour mist have been out on her patio or something because I heard her say something like, “What was that weird noise?” after I made some masturbation noise. Oops…
• In college, I was riding a pillow when I heard a college roommate come in. I jumped off the bed, with only a shirt and underwear, and hurt my ankle. I told my roommate that I was getting ready to take a shower even though I had already taken one.
• My friend got me my first vibrator from Spencer’s when we were both 16 because she has a misprint on her ID indicating she’d been born two years before her real birth year. According to her driver’s license, she was actually 18 and could therefore go behind the curtain to the “adult section” at Spencer’s, and that’s how she bought herself and all of her friends vibrators. I am SO GRATEFUL that I had access to a vibrator as a teen who was learning about my body and sexuality. It’s definitely had a long-term impact on my life.
• So, like many teens, I masturbated sometimes, and one time, I was lying on my bed in my room, with the blinds up and facing the street and I didn’t think anyone could see in. At the exact moment that I reached my hand down my pants, I locked eyes with some random boy walking down the street. I pulled my hand out but he still stared at me the whole time he walked up the block until he got to the corner and turned. I didn’t look away either. IT WAS A STARING CONTEST. After that, I closed the blinds before masturbating forever Amen.
• I never used sex toys until I was well into my 20s — a mixture of shame and other things! But when I was a teen, I didn’t like masturbating with my fingers, so like many, I used the bathtub faucet BUT I also used just random objects like a costume jewelry pearl necklace, a tube of mascara, the end of a hairbrush, etc. I’m sure these weren’t the safest options, but I really had to MacGyver my masturbation situation!!!!
• I once masturbated and had an orgasm so hard that my leg kicked out and broke a desk lamp. (it’s fine, I didn’t get cut.)
• I discovered I am left-handed when I masturbated for the first time…
• One night during the pandemic, I was bored and self-medicating with a rather large edible. I got horny and logged onto OnlyFans. I clicked on a video and was immediately confronted with a scene between the performer I subscribed to and someone I used to date. I knew this person did porn but still in my high state it felt like that movie trope where the TV starts talking to the protagonist. Definitely the gayest Mercury Retrograde blast from the past I’ve ever had. She pops up all the time now and I’m thrilled for her success — but when I see her I do keep scrolling.
• I remember the first time I tried to masturbate as a tween/teen. I had quite a hard time figuring out how to orgasm, but I was so intent on getting there. I had read smut and I wanted to feel the “quivering pleasure” (so cringe!!) that those Tumblr authors would write about!!! After a lot of google searches, I eventually figured it out and I’ve never looked back!

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