<< Masturbation Among Females >>

Of the six possible types of sexual activity, heterosexual petting is the one in which the largest number of females engage before marriage, and marital coitus is the one in which the largest number of females engage after marriage. Masturbation is the one in which the second largest number of females engage both before and after marriage. In our sample, masturbation had occurred among females of every group, from infancy to old age.

Among all types of sexual activity, masturbation is, however, the one in which the female most frequently reaches orgasm. Even in her marital coitus the average female fails to achieve orgasm in a fair proportion of her contacts, and this is true in most of the petting which she does prior to marriage; but in 95 per cent or more of all her masturbation, she does reach orgasm.
Davis 1929:97 shows 88 per cent of the unmarried women who masturbate reaching orgasm. Note that many of the data which we cite in the present volume from Davis and Hamilton represent our recalculations of their original data, and that these differ at several points from their published calculations.

This is due to the fact that the techniques of masturbation are especially effective in producing orgasm. Socio-sexual relationships usually demand some adjustment of the interests, the desires, the physical capacities, and the physiologic reactions of the partner in the activity. In coitus, a female who is not strongly aroused by the psychologic aspects of the relationship may find that some of the adjustments which she has to make interrupt the steady flow of her response, and she is, in consequence, delayed or completely prevented from reaching orgasm. She may prefer the socio-sexual relationship because of its psychologic and social significance, and the delay in reaching orgasm may in actuality increase her pleasure, but the fact remains that the techniques of masturbation usually offer the female the most specific and quickest means for achieving orgasm. For this reason masturbation has provided the most clearly interpretable data which we have on the anatomy and the physiology of the female’s sexual responses and orgasm.

Masturbation was accepted by a great many of the females in our sample as a desirable and often necessary source of outlet, but it had not been as frequent and as regular a source for the females as it had been for the males in the sample. Many males, projecting their own experience, are inclined to overestimate the incidences and frequencies of masturbation among females. For the same reason, they poorly understand the techniques by which females masturbate, the anatomy which may be involved, the nature of the female's physiologic responses, and the part which fantasy plays in her masturbation. It has, therefore, been important to secure specific data on these points.
Such overestimates of masturbatory incidences in the female, ranging from 98 to 100 per cent, may be found in: Berger (1876) acc. Rohleder 1902:45 (100 per cent). Guttzeit acc. Kisch 1907:108. Stekel 1920:22; 1950:39 (100 per cent). Cohn acc. Stekel 1920:23; 1950:40 (99 per cent). Lazarsfeld 1931:240. Lampl-deGroot 1950:155 (all children masturbate). Haire 1951: 500 (98 per cent). Young acc. Haire 1951:137 (100 per cent).

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