• A week without panties. We have tested it and these are our conclusions
  • A week without a bra. We have tested it and these are our conclusions

One Wednesday in June 2022 I received an email about female masturbation sent by the communication agency of the sex toy firm Womanizer that left me absolutely stunned. The subject of the email read: 'The gender gap in masturbation is now 47%!' As is. And it wasn't exactly the word 'masturbation' that stunned me, what's up. My email inbox had been receiving emails for years about this or that clitoral sucker, this or that survey about sexual practices...; It was the expression 'gender gap' (and the enthusiastic exclamations) that shocked me. Masturbation, I thought, is getting out of hand (worth the linguistic paradox; although the etymology of masturbation remains uncertain, what is clear is that 'manus', come on, hand, is part of it).

I can not boast of being an expert in masturbation, why are we going to lie at this point, but I can say that for many years I have been curious enough about the subject to get that billet that is the mythical 'Hite Report' of 1976 or 'update' on the subject with 'Masturbation' by Georgina Burgos (De Vecchi) or 'Climax Club' by Jüne (Oberon). And like almost any neighbor's daughter, I think I have scrutinized the map of my sexuality thoroughly, enough to learn its orography by heart. Come on, mine.

There we were, my genital apparatus and I, living together relaxedly, like all couples with our clingiest and most rancid times (often even sleeping in separate rooms), when a little less than a decade ago, in 2014, the German Michael Lenke developed the first clitoral sucker, the Womanizer, and sex toy brands began to sprout like mushrooms and embark on a race to see who sucked more and better. Of course, the stakes are high. It is estimated that the sex toy market will move more than 40,000 million euros in 2024, according to Grand View Research; And of these, about 60% are clitoral suckers.

Studies on masturbation even in soup

In that career -which we could call 'a woman-a sucker (at least)-, marketing was key, of course, so at the same time as LELO, WOW Tech, Satisfyer... They devoted huge resources to innovating in facilitators of female pleasure, they also invested more and more in marketing and communication. Result? A permanent barrage of studies on how good masturbation is, surveys (what we like a fact, listen) on masturbation, experts eager to explain the intricacies of masturbation ... and, even, tachán, an index of inequality based on masturbation.

This is where we come to the study conducted every year by Womanizer with more than 20,000 participants from 15 countries on the gender gap in masturbation.

Such a gap, it was said in that email, was closing, going from 62% in 2021 to 47% in 2022. Good news, according to Womanizer, who celebrated with them the Day of Equal Masturbation (invented by themselves. Johanna Rief, head of Sexual Empowerment of the firm, explained in 2022 that they had created it "to draw attention to the social imbalance" that affected this practice). However, in 2023 -go-, that gap has widened again, going from 47% in 2022 to 57.7% in 2023. In Spain it has gone from 40% to 49.6%. And this, explained from Womanizer, because men masturbate this year more than the previous one, a total of 179.2 times, while women do it 90.2 times a year. 20% never masturbate.

When interpreting the data, the sexologist and director of user research at Womanizer, Elisabeth Neumann, pointed to the economic crisis. "The economic downturn can have a significant impact on women's desire to masturbate. Financial stress and uncertainty can increase levels of anxiety and fatigue, which in turn can affect sexual desire and intimacy," it said. The return to face-to-face work after the pandemic could be another reason that, according to Neumann, would make it difficult "for women to feel energized and interested in sexual activity." On men, as we have seen, the return to face-to-face would cause just the opposite effect.

But what if women simply don't masturbate as much because they don't get as bored as they were in the pandemic? Because blaming the economic crisis, anxiety or stress is somewhat reductionist. What is stressful is that they are crushing us all day with the idea that we have to masturbate because if not, we are not 'normal' or 'how to be' or 'equal', I think. Personally, my life is full of entertainment, and since my time is limited, I divide myself among all of them at will. Sex, including self-sex, is phenomenal, but it is not everything, nor is it an obligation or has quotas.

If you don't masturbate you don't give your best

Faced with what – as Womanizer's data points out – seems to be an increase in female demotivation towards masturbation – which is undeniably linked to the 'end' of the pandemic – the sex toy industry needs new arguments. No problem. It turns out that the Swedish manufacturer LELO and the Sexological Studies Unit of the CERNEP Research Center of the University of Almeria joined forces to conduct a study in 2021 on the effects of SONA 2 Cruise on female sexual response, "the first study of this type that was done in Spain," they boast today.

According to this research, recently communicated, using the (your) clitoral sucker has a most seductive 'side' effect: it increases the number of orgasms you have during sex with another human being. Dr. Maite Fernández, who was a gynecologist and sexologist at Clínica Tufet as well as the researcher and lead designer of the study, explained that "38% of the participating women always claimed to reach orgasm as a couple in the initial phase of the study. However, that figure increased to 50% in the post-use phase of SONA 2 Cruise", which meant "a statistically significant increase". In this way, the clitoral sucker would become a kind of very important accessory no longer for solo sex, but also to achieve 'success' (because the success of human sexuality is still measured in number of orgasms) in company.

That's not all. "After two months of frequent use of SONA 2 Cruise, desire, arousal and total score on the sexual function scale also increased statistically significantly." From LELO they assure that these data help to make it clear that "these erotic toys can be the perfect ally to improve intimate relationships and reinforce those of couples. On the other hand, it is shown that the use of 2-3 times a week does not hinder the arrival to orgasm, as many say, but, in fact, increases the frequency of orgasms and their intensity "(because yes, there are already studies, such as a recent one from the University of Cantabria, that sow doubts about the supposed unlimited virtues of suctioners).

Will therapeutic masturbation return?

Georgina Burgos tells in her aforementioned book on autoeroticism that "at the end of the sixteenth century and during the seventeenth century appeared various publications on masturbation that paid the belief that this practice could cause serious physical and mental damage that would prevent the masturbator from a normal life and would incapacitate him for marital relations. " Well, we now enter an era where what we are told is on its way to being just the opposite, come on, that if you do not masturbate the sexual relationship with your partner will not be as good as it could be. And who knows if later... In the nineteenth century, therapeutic masturbation was very much in vogue. In the belief that the female orgasm was necessary for conception, doctors applied vibrators, massages and whirlpools, Burgos says. Will we repeat history? Able. For now, let's always do what we want. No more, no less.

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