Photo by Garrett Mynatt

When I was 17 years old, I made my first trip to a sex shop in the guise of a date. I was a senior attending high school in north Denver, bored, with a girl and I thought I knew enough about sex to handle a glorified porn shop, aptly named Fascinations.

I was prepared for the costumes, swings, lubricants and enormous selection of pornography. What I found shocking, as my date went off to giggle at the graphic film covers, were the sex toys, spread across four floor-to-ceiling shelves. Looking at them, I felt as if I were trespassing. She was entertained; I was disturbed.

I asked if she had ever considered trying a vibrator.  She looked at me, feigning laughter but hiding embarrassment, and told me she never would. “Why?” I asked. She couldn’t answer, but again said she just wouldn’t. As a male, I was reassured. Confident. Validated.

That moment still stands out to me. Why was I so taken aback by the array of female sex toys? Why did I care if my friend used a synthetic device made for her pleasure? And why did her answer comfort me?

It would be easy to write off my unease as simply a reaction to a temporary, albeit very real, threat to my masculinity. The Ron Jeremy Dildo – made from a cast of the adult film star’s penis – offered the size, motion, feel and availability that I realistically could not.

But the real issue, one that is much more troubling because it seems so ingrained in our oversexed culture, is the continued disparity between males and females when it comes to what we do in private. A 2000 study published in the Journal of Social Issues found that young women tend to learn about their sexuality from men; whereas, men learn independently. It would seem that a woman could only enjoy sex if she first learned how to please a man. You need to look no further than the February cover of Cosmopolitan magazine for proof: a headline reads, “The hour men crave sex most.”

Admittedly, I am no expert on feminism or gender theory, but something about my teenage experience seemed so fundamentally biased, so wrong, that I will try to connect the dots. People are, after all, inherently curious about sex. Jake Bonse, a manager at the Adult Book Ranch, estimates about 50 college-aged adults visit the sex shop every day.

However, a stigma still surrounds masturbation. It is taboo – unspoken, dirty, guilt-ridden and pathetic. I believe openness about self-pleasure could be one path to greater gender equality.

Masturbation is the source of much confusion and misunderstanding. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found 38 percent of women and 61 percent of men in the United States masturbate, with the largest percentage being under age 30.  In the study, researchers at the University of Chicago analyzed data from a 1992 health survey and made some interesting conclusions about who masturbates and why. One common view they investigated is based on the belief that masturbation is used to compensate for a lack of sex – in other words, it’s only for singles.

Yet both women and men who were either in relationships or had satisfying sex masturbated, not to make up for any shortcomings, but as a completely separate activity.

If people are doing it, then what makes masturbation a forbidden subject? Is it a lack of education? When the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization released a document on sexuality education last September, some U.S. news outlets blasted it as promoting masturbation to 8-year-olds.  The report suggested that elementary schools adjust their curriculum to debunk myths about masturbation, such as it causes physical and mental harm. Religious values could also play a part, as many Christian groups teach that masturbation is a sin.

For our generation, this thinking seems extremely old-fashioned and conservative. In a bizarre, critically acclaimed play that opened in early 2009, female masturbation and the confusion surrounding it plays a central role. Titled “In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” and based on historic fact, it follows 19^th-century New Yorkers as they experiment with primitive vibrators to cure hysteria. The irony is that they completely overlook the sensual side effects.  In a New York Times article by Patricia Cohen, she interviewed the playwright, Sarah Ruhl, who said the play addresses the contemporary issue of male dominance.

“The point is how much control the mostly male medical establishment exercised over women, and the degree of ignorance women [and men] frequently had about their own bodies,” Cohen said. From Victorian era New York to the 21^st century, the message is clear: Female pleasure is misunderstood by not only men, but also by women.

As with many things, the media are both a reflection and purveyor of social attitudes. Unfortunately, in the pages of a magazine or over the airwaves, “sexperts” often move from reliable medical professionals to entertainers, tarnishing their credibility. It’s the Dr. Phil effect. Films and TV shows – from the movie “It’s Complicated” to the TV drama “Desperate Housewives” – show modern women as aggressive, dominating and promiscuous.

In essence, to be a woman as the media shows, you must be more masculine in your sexual appetites. This apparent empowerment rings false, because as with most depictions of women, these drives are geared toward men and, however fleeting, relationships.  Women should be allowed to enjoy and celebrate sexuality on their own terms – which includes masturbation.

In the end, then, do we associate female masturbation with trespassing? A 2009 study published in the Journal of Sex Research gives some of the most frightening insight into the question. Researchers in Britain interviewed high school students, aged 16 to 18, to discover what role masturbation plays early in a woman’s life.

“In relation to comfort with her own body, [a student] spoke in terms of her body, especially her genital area, being almost the property of boys – a place that only they could touch,” the authors of the study said about one of the interviews. Other students expressed disinterest in their own bodies, as well as confusion about how to handle sexual urges without a man: “I just felt silly … as if I wasn’t doing something right,” one student said.

I’m not saying we should all spend our time shut away in the bedroom, alone, with vibrator or porn in hand. Maybe a little masturbation – and the willingness to accept it as something we do for ourselves – is a good thing. For women, such liberation could be a step away from the stale, dated dogma that says pleasure is something to be ashamed of unless it involves a man.  Let’s hope.