When I came across this video, I had a lot of feelings. Please, follow me through the ups and downs of my emotional journey upon watching AsapSCIENCE’s “Is Masturbating Good For You?”
It begins like every other AsapSCIENCE video, full of diagrams drawn neatly on a dry-erase board. Something that confounds me about AsapSCIENCE videos is their creators’ ability to draw things so well in that medium, and their subsequent willingness to erase their hard work. But I digress.
0:00: No fucking around here, they immediately drop this horrifying statistic: Surveys show that 95 percent of men and 72 percent of women have masturbated in their lives. Obviously, the reliability of such surveys are questionable because people lie, and people lie about things that they might be embarrassed about, like their masturbation habits. But seriously ladies, only 72 percent? Did the sexual revolution do nothing for us?
It mostly makes me sad because the truth is—at least in the experience of my friends and myself—us ladies hopped on the masturbation train years after our male counterparts. I remember the boys in the middle school bragging about how often they wanked it, but most ladies I know didn’t start masturbating on a regular basis until their freshman year of college.
00:18: Also 70 percent of men and 40 percent of women in relationships reported masturbating. This makes more sense to me, but sex and masturbation can often serve different purposes. Sex, while in a relationship, is often times just as much about intimacy and connection as it is about carnal pleasures. Masturbation is more of a release. OK, moving on.
00:30: Fun fact! Masturbating decreases stress. It can also decrease feelings of pain.
00:34: Holy crap, the narrator just referred to women masturbating as “polishing the pearl.” No. Just like, no.
00:40: Masturbating makes you sleepy. It might even help reduce your chances of getting sick. And it decreases the risk of prostate cancer! Wow, would society be overall healthier if people weren’t taught that masturbating is shameful? So many things to ponder.
01:24: Hear that gentlemen? Masturbation improves the quality and fitness of sperm!
01:40: Masturbation makes you a better lover? Sign me up!
01:49: Not paying attention to the video because I’m mad at myself for using the word “lover.” As the legendary Liz Lemon once said, “That word bums me out unless it’s between meat and pizza.”
02:07: Masturbating can lengthen the lifespan of your sex drive? Cool, although in the words of an older lady who would like to remain anonymous, “My life has only improved since my sex drive diminished.” Food for thought.
02:12: If you masturbate the same way every time, that can prevent you from getting off in other situations. I would argue that virtually every woman who regularly uses a vibrator has this fear. Gotta vary it up!
Other lessons I learned while watching this
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We need to start teaching preteens that masturbation is good and healthy, especially girls.
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Never refer to female masturbating as “polishing the pearl.” You know what? Never refer to female masturbation as 99 percent of the terms on this list. Here are some alternatives: masturbating, jerking off, touching yourself.
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I’m banning myself for ever using the word “lover” in an article or in life ever again.
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Moral of the story: touch yourself, and do so often.
Screengrab via AsapSCIENCE/YouTube