Women's masturbation: Experiences of sexual empowerment in a primarily sex-positive sample

Solitary and partnered sexuality are typically depicted as fundamentally similar, but empirical evidence suggests they differ in important ways. We investigated how women's definitions of sexual pleasure overlapped and diverged when considering solitary versus partnered sexuality. Based on an inter-disciplinary literature, we explored whether solitary pleasure would be characterized by eroticism (e.g., genital pleasure, orgasm) and partnered pleasure by nurturance (e.g., closeness). Via focus groups with a sexually diverse sample of women aged 18–64 (N = 73), we found that women defined solitary and partnered pleasure in both convergent and divergent ways that supported expectations. Autonomy was central to definitions of solitary pleasure, whereas trust, giving pleasure, and closeness were important elements of partnered pleasure. Both solitary and partnered pleasure involved exploration for self-discovery or for growing a partnered relationship. Definitions of pleasure were largely similar across age and sexual identity; however, relative to queer women, heterosexual women (especially younger heterosexual women) expressed greater ambivalence toward solitary masturbation and partnered orgasm. Results have implications for women's sexual well-being across multiple sexual identities and ages, and for understanding solitary and partnered sexuality as overlapping but distinct constructs.

Our bodies are the permeable boundary between our individual sense of self and the society in which we live. From the most banal bodily acts of life - how we dress, the magazines we read, with whom we sleep - to the big questions of social organization regarding marriage, family, sexual morality, and sexual health, the body is always involved in some way. The body is at once our own, something we share with others, and also something that is important to and shaped by the social world. Almost everything about sex is also about the body; sexuality is an intrinsic part of an embodied self. Although there is certainly much research that focuses on particular biological functions of sexual bodily parts and physiological processes associated with, and in some cases considered to comprise, sexuality, this line of research is predicated on the body as fundamentally and exclusively organic and, for the most part, hardwired. We begin the introduction to this chapter by articulating social concepts of "the body" and their relationship to understandings of and research about sexuality.

Attentive to the collision of sex and power, we add momentum to the ongoing development of the subfield of critical sexuality studies. We argue that this body of work is defined by its critical orientation toward the study of sexuality, along with a clear allegiance to critical modalities of thought, particularly feminist thought. Critical sexuality studies takes its cues from several other critical moments in related fields, including critical psychology, critical race theory, critical public health, and critical youth studies. Across these varied critical stances is a shared investment in examining how power and privilege operate, understanding the role of historical and epistemological violence in research, and generating new models and paradigms to guide empirical and theoretical research. With this guiding framework, we propose three central characteristics of critical sexuality studies: (a) conceptual analysis, with particular attention to how we define key terms and conceptually organize our research (e.g., attraction, sexually active, consent, agency, embodiment, sexual subjectivity); (b) attention to the material qualities of abject bodies, particularly bodies that are ignored, overlooked, or pushed out of bounds (e.g., viscous bodies, fat bodies, bodies in pain); and (c) heteronormativity and heterosexual privilege, particularly how assumptions about heterosexuality and heteronormativity circulate in sexuality research. Through these three critical practices, we argue that critical sexuality studies show-cases how sex and power collide and recognizes (and tries to subvert) the various power imbalances that are deployed and replicated in sex research. Sexuality research attracts scholars from across disciplines who use diverse methods and have a wide variety of investments in the knowledge produced by, with, for, and about human sexualities. This often sets up the field to have a cacophonous quality: many voices, all speaking at once, often urgently, and in many directions. As a result, researchers and audiences of our research must discern what elements are most pressing to them by locating harmonies among discordant voices in the field. In this piece, we aim to provide one such harmony from among the many sounds in the field of sexuality research, opening up more possibilities for critical exchange about the relationship between power and sexuality. In this article, we describe what we see as a crucial set of practices central to critical sexuality studies, something we see as both a subfield and a critical lens or mode of looking. We foreground three feminist and methodological elements we see as bringing needed critical perspectives to the field of sexuality research. These include conceptual analysis, focus on sexual bodies that are often considered abject, and insistent attention to heterosexual privilege. We develop and describe each of these research practices as rooted in a wide-ranging collection of studies that, when put together in this way, highlight and articulate a set of priorities within the burgeoning field of critical sexuality studies. Rather than drawing clear boundaries around critical sexuality studies, we aim, instead, to develop three episte-mological priorities to help describe what this work already Correspondence should be addressed to Breanne Fahs, Women and Gender Studies,

This study examines how people learn about vibrators, their attitudes toward them, fears or hesitations about acquiring and/or using one, and the significance of vibrators to participants' sexualities. Based on 78-147 responses to an online open-ended survey, participants report: primarily learning about vibrators from media and peers; their interpretations of media representations of vibrators are juxtaposed as both a tool for great pleasure and a shameful taboo; that vibrators are often perceived as a ''dick substitute'' for women who are unsuccessful at satisfying partnered heterosex; their initial purchase of a vibrator was inhibited by cost, fears that others would discover that they owned one, and ignorance about the technology, how their body would respond, and what they knew about their body; the majority of participants use vibrators both alone and in partnered sex; and the vast majority of participants who do not own a vibrator report that they would like to and anticipate purchasing one in the future. These findings illustrate the increasing normativity of vibrators that is justified by post-feminist ideals, while also repeatedly illustrating the continued feelings of shame and embarrassment, and fears of stigmatization.

Although masturbation is one of the most common sexual behaviours, ambivalent cultural attitudes toward this behaviour persist. We examined how masturbation is portrayed in popular North American movies as a means of documenting current social norms regarding masturbation. The sample consisted of 44 movies from 2005 to 2010 in which a target character was shown masturbating. Coders assessed several aspects of these portrayals, including the positivity of the scene, initiating factors (e.g., watching pornography, boredom), and the outcome of the masturbation (e.g., interruption, sexual relief). As well, we explored potential gender differences in these portrayals. Masturbation was generally shown in a somewhat negative light, especially when engaged in by male characters. It was portrayed as a substitute for preferred partnered sex and as often leading to negative outcomes such as being caught or interrupted. The results suggest that movie portrayals of masturbation may reinforce misconceptions about masturbation and its outcomes.