The Stats of Masturbation

Abstract

If there’s one thing we know about human sexuality, it’s that people like to jack it. This very non-academic study aims to provide a clearer picture of masturbation as a whole. Maybe next time we will investigate stigma, or society, or something else more important, but for this study, our main goal was to crowdsource and obtain qualitative data from people on the internet. While the ‘study’ had its limitations, we were at least somewhat successful in our aims.

Introduction

Masturbation is a way of getting off that involves you doing all the work. That makes it sound less fun than it is; there are a lot of pros to the method— you know how to touch yourself best; you don’t have a partner or you and your partner’s libidos aren’t synced up; you need a moment of pleasure without any outside interference; the list goes on. Masturbation is common throughout nature as a sexual practice, and humans are no exception. Life would be worse without it, as I’m sure many of you can attest. You know it, you love it, let’s get to it!

Methods

A survey of 6 masturbation questions and a brief demographic questionnaire were administered to all participants, in addition to some other people who didn’t reply (I did not count how many; my time is valuable-ish). 

The questions were tailored a few times, but here’s what we ended up with:

• How often do you masturbate?

• What’s your go-to masturbation method?

• How often do you cum when you masturbate?

• What’s your secret masturbation kink (if any)?

• Do you typically use porn?

• What’s your favourite thing about masturbating?

The demographic questionnaire included 3 somewhat relevant items*:

• What is your gender?

• What genitalia are you working with?

• Are you having regular sex?

A total of 40 participants were surveyed. Participants were chosen based on who replied to tweets crowdsourcing volunteers. No one was excluded; thankfully everyone who replied was Normal and not a Creep. It’s possible to talk about sex neutrally and normally, and although you wouldn’t know it from Will’s DM requests, most people do!

In analyzing the data, I took some creative license, especially with making charts/graphs. I definitely followed the spirit of my own law more than the letter; answers were not exactly aligned with the questions, I just vibed it, so please don’t take this all too seriously. It’s accurate-ish, that’s all I can say.

*If you participated in the survey and don't recognize these questions exactly, I apologize. I did my best to categorize responses according to these questions, even if they weren’t exactly the same. It's an art, I guess? I cannot stress enough how much this study did not follow Science Law™.

Results and Discussion

Demographics

Of the 40 total participants, exactly half were messing with a pussy, the other 20 were working with a good ol’ fashioned dick and balls. 39% of  participants were men, 43.9% were women, 7.3% were non-binary, 4.9% were agender, 1 (2.4%) was genderfluid, and 1 (2.4%) was a demigirl. 57.5% of participants were having sex regularly, 32.5% were not, and 10% of participants identified their sexual activity as semi-regular.

On a mushy note, I am very grateful to everyone who participated. I absolutely love to do surveys and am passionate about sex neutrality, and this was a really enlightening intersection of those two interests of mine. Thank you thank you thank you :)

What you’ve all been waiting for: CHARTS!!

To sum up the chart here: more than half (58%) of participants masturbated every day or almost every day, and a whopping 82% masturbated at least once a week. We didn’t survey anyone who didn’t masturbate at all/masturbated less than once a month, but that’s also possibly due to people not being interested in participating in a survey about something they don’t do. Of those who masturbated 3 times a month or less, the majority were in a relationship. The answers varied widely; and also a lot of people replied with 3-5 which, as you can see here, spans two categories. Like I (incorrectly) said: it’s an art, not a science, and I’m not going to lie to you! I vibed it! I put some people in the 4-6x/week category, some in the 1-3x/week category, and some in both— rendering these numbers relatively meaningless. I hope you will accept my humble and sincere apologies for being a mediocre and rule-breaking scientist.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the sex toy users had pussies, and the majority of penis havers used only a hand (or two). Can we talk about sex toys for penises though? Because I am TIRED of all the stuff I see on the internet about how “porn-brained” and “sex-addicted” men must be to use toys beyond (or even inclusive of) a fleshlight. It must be stationary and manual— as if vibrators and thrusting dildos don’t exist. The double standard is not only annoying, but also genuinely harmful. I had multiple penis-wielding participants mention this as well: that they didn’t use toys because of the stigma. Sex-positivity includes people of all genders, with all genitalia, full stop. Just because a toy stimulates nerves on the outside vs nerves on the inside doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the same end goal, and pretending women masturbating is hot and empowering but men masturbating is dirty and gross is all kinds of messed up. Do better!!! I said I wouldn’t talk about stigma, so I digress lol. These results were relatively even. 43% went manual; 30% went automatic; 28% used both at once or regularly swapped between the two ~methods~. 

Moving on to Jizz Time™! Many of our pussy-havers came more than once every time, with some regularly jizzing up to 8 times a sesh. Penis-havers tended to be less lucky in that department, but most still came every day. There were quite a few participants who stated they came every time with caveats: eg. medical issues, interruptions, etc. Only 18% of participants came less than 80% of the time, and the majority of people in this category focused on edging rather than cumming. Honestly, one of the biggest surprises to me was how much people loooove edging. I mean,,, same, but still lol. I unfortunately didn’t take note of the exact number, but I would estimate that somewhere around 70% of people mentioned it as something they participated in, whether in this question or somewhere else in the survey. 

There was a super wide range of answers for this one, but they could all reasonably fit within four categories. There’s some overlap here; many people gave me more than one answer and therefore are in more than one category. A fun thing about these results is that they were (relatively) evenly dispersed between Stress Relief, Physical Pleasure, Being In Control, and Intimacy With Self. This probably doesn’t mean much to you yet, as they are pretty abstract as far as descriptions go. Luckily for you, I included a lot of individual answers below; this was my favorite question and I got tons of wonderfully detailed responses. Bottom line: As we can see here, science definitively states that masturbation is good and fun and relaxing and empowering and intimate.

Somehow, I only have 39 responses to this, which means I forgot to input one. It’s still a relatively useful graph, if you consider this research to be useful at all, which many might not. For the purposes of the study, porn is inclusive of videos, pictures, virtual reality, erotica and smut, and live shows. This one is self explanatory enough that I didn’t include individual responses below. Sorry(ish). The biggest takeaway here is that almost everyone (90%) used porn at least somewhat frequently, while 10% did not typically use porn at all. 

This was for sure the hardest one to put into graph form. To explain the categories a bit more — Imaginative: a fantasy or scenario in your mind, a specific kind of porn, or a specific genre of porn; Practical: a specific interaction with yourself or a partner, ie: nipple clamps, mutual masturbation, video or audio from a partner. Obviously there’s some crossover there, but there’s truly such a spectrum of possibilities that this is the clearest way to depict it that I can think of. If you can think of a better one, you do the study next time. I added some more detailed responses below, so keep scrolling if you want the tea.

Individual Responses

While I don’t have the space to include every single answer, here’s a selection for each question just to show how broad the spectrum of answers is. It was really enlightening to do this survey, and I want to share some of the specific insights here.

How often do you masturbate?

• “Roughly twice a day.”

• “Usually about once a day to relax before bed. I don't get horny much; doing it for horny reasons is 1-2x per month.”

• “I would like to every day but at this point maybe twice a week.”

• “It depends on so many factors tbh. My libido goes up and down alongside my mental health and my bodily rhythms like my menstrual cycle. Typically I’d say once a week/once every other week most times.”

• “I would say 3 times in a good week, when I am emotionally dead maybe once every 2 weeks.”

• “I masturbate 2-3 times per month pending privacy opportunities.”

• “At least once a day but often more.”

• “1 time [a week] on average but sometimes up to 3 if I’m like ovulating.”

• “Usually at least daily, multiple times a day sometimes.”

• “3-5 times a week.”

• “Quite variable. For medical reasons can't delay longer than 72hrs between - sometimes can’t delay longer than 12hrs.”

What’s your go-to masturbation method?

• “Usually stroking with my left hand, in bed and probably smoked a little before.”

• “Vibrator in the shower.”

• “I LOVE my wand vibrator but I'm lazy so I usually just use my hands. Flickin the bean acoustic style.”

• “Pillow humping.”

• “Mostly stroking and anal fingering.”

• “Usually just hand or a tenga egg.”

• “Just my hand.”

• “Most of the time with my suction pulse vibrator or my magic wand.”

• “Good old left hand index and middle finger on the clit.”

• “Hand and lotion.”

How often do you cum when you masturbate?

• “I’d say most of the time I don’t even cum. I have to concentrate so much that I tend to get distracted or bored halfway through.”

• “Usually when I masturbate I cum like 5-8 times.”

• “99% of the time, unless my carpal tunnel is acting up.”

• “Every time.”

• “About half the time.”

• “It used to be like every time but I kind of unintentionally found myself edging so its probably like 70% of the time now.”

• “I usually go until I cum. If it was because of actual arousal, I might cum twice, or just kind of idly pleasure myself without cumming, just riding the high of sexual arousal and stimulus.”

• “I cum every time I masturbate - usually only once or twice per session.”

• “Like 95% of the time. I like to just enjoy the experience but I can also get myself off pretty easily if it's more of a lets get down to business I have shit to do situation.”

• “I do most of the times, mostly 1-2 times a session because my clit is so sensitive after cumming.”

What’s your secret masturbation kink (if any)?

• “I sometimes watch porn with fuck machines and it’s a big turn on for me.”

• “I like power dynamic play; I enjoy both the aspects of controlling myself/pushing my limits, and being controlled. I don’t watch porn, so it’s all down to my imagination.”

• “No secret kink, I just really love [cumming] to bouncing boobs.”

• “I loooove imagining myself being in chastity or denied the ability to perform the act.”

• “I have an older lady kink.”

• “I like to know that someone is watching or that they know I'm masturbating to them.”

• “I love watching a woman masturbate. Particularly if she’s humping a pillow. I think that’s incredibly erotic.”

• “Some heavy anal porn or way too much fantasy, spitting on my boberts.”

• “I like guided masturbation. not every time but having someone tell me how they want me to touch myself and when I'm allowed to cum? Yes PLEASE.”

• “Voice kinks - having my headphones in my ears listening to someone moan and talk.”

• “I’ve been using cam model sites for nearly two decades now, and once or twice a year I treat myself to a private show where a model and I will watch each other engage in mutual masturbation. I love being watched and putting on a show for them.”

• “Watching a woman genuinely Orgasm.”

What’s your favourite thing about masturbating?

• “It's a way to connect with myself that’s intimate and personal, while also being a stress reliever and feeling really good.”

• “No one knows my body like I do. It helped me learn what I like when it comes to sex with a partner, helped me to love myself, and it’s a great way to relieve stress.”

• “It can be anything from relaxing to absolutely feral, I love that it can be whatever I want in that moment.”

• “It's the easiest self care I can do. Even if it's just 5-10 minutes it's one of the few times I’m 100% focused on myself and the moment and not worrying about other people or my to do list.”

• “Favourite thing about masturbating is edging and how it feels to get sooo close to cumming and then holding yourself back.”

• “I like that I can cum fairly quickly without any fuss or relying on a partner.”

• “I like how I feel when I'm touching myself. I feel comfortable, at home in my body. I feel sexy.”

• “My favorite thing is just knowing exactly what my body responds to, and being able to make it last as long or as short as I want to, or just keep going until I fall asleep.”

• “My fave thing about masturbating is getting to know my body and the confidence I gain to slowly move things into the bedroom.”

• “ORGASM! ✨”

• “Edging the build up right before you cum hehe even tho that definitely can make me late sometimes.”

• “My favorite thing is honestly doing whatever feels the most defiling/degrading to myself, it can be super hot, but only when I'm aroused.”

• “Obviously the pleasure is high on that list lol, teasing yourself to the edge and the eventual release after you just let go.  The aftermath where your whole body relaxes and you're catching your breath kind of basking in it. Idk if this counts but the intimacy of mutual masturbation with a partner is great too”

• “The post nut clarity.”

• “Self release & allowance of pleasure.”

• “My favorite thing is probably cumming really hard and immediately getting sleepy afterwards, best sleep aid ever haha.”

• “Favorite thing about masturbation is how it lead me to appreciate my body and work through some body image and sexuality baggage from my religious upbringing.”

• “Makes my brain happy.”

Conclusion

As with any aspect of human sexuality, masturbation is complex. Everyone has their own unique experiences; everyone feels differently (and similarly!) before, during, and after— both emotionally and physically. The goal of this study— to provide illuminating data and expose (hehe) our inner workings as human beings in this one facet of sexuality— has, in my eyes, been fulfilled. I hope you learned something new, or at least found this marginally interesting. Now that you’ve done some hard work for the day (reading counts), go grab your Hitachi and go to town x

Once again, and lastly! Thank you so much to everyone who participated!! I (obviously!) could not have done this without you. XOXOXOXOXO

See you next time that I feel like doing an absurd and pointless survey about relationships, sexuality, or something else entirely <3