Girls, I think, have an even rougher time of it. They receive all the negative conditioning that the boys get plus a whole raft of other baggage as well. Our culture imparts a terribly self-depreciating attitude upon our females and many actually loathe themselves and their bodies. They are often raised to feel inadequate, impure, unworthy of much besides serving husband and children. They, too, are taught not to explore their genitals. And the onset of menstruation with its associated discomforts adds to an already sizable negativity about the female genital region.

Church teachings have always emphasized that reproduction was the only valid purpose of sexual union. Roman Catholic teaching even goes so far as to require that individuals who are unable to conceive (such as women past menopause or an impotent man) cannot be married by the church. This doctrine is largely ignored in the U.S. but is still the practice in South America and many other Catholic countries. As Andy Polaine has written, "With procreation as the focus of the sexual act, the female orgasm was virtually denied because it had no 'use' in the purpose of reproduction. Male pleasure and orgasm is essential to this act and female pleasure is sublimated, so much so that for many women the pleasure of sex is still accompanied by heavy manacles of guilt. Masturbation is the ultimate denial of this ethic. It is sex purely for pleasure that denies reproduction by its very nature."

Interestingly, in North America especially, females have been viewed as the guardians of virtue and morality, they are supposed to be above sexual sin (sex for pleasure is considered sin or, at best, something beneath the dignity of a "pure" or "virtuous" woman) and one of their important missions in life is to keep men's sexual impulses at bay. True, these attitudes are Victorian and slowly diminishing, but they are there nonetheless—particularly in the more conservative religious sectors of society. We are all aware of the fact that there is a demeaning word in our English language for a woman who craves sexual fulfillment—nymphomaniac. I do not know of a similar word for men. For some reason, women are not supposed to enjoy sex and if they do they are labeled as something bad.

One of the best renditions of this sexual self-image problem women face in our culture was penned by Betty Dodson in her earlier manifesto for female self-loving, Liberating Masturbation (self-published, 1974). I feel the subject is important enough to be quoted in length, particularly since I can't speak personally about female experiences with the masturbation taboo. "Masturbation has been a continuous part of my sex life since the age of five," Dodson wrote. "It got me through childhood, puberty, romantic love, marriage and it will happily see me through old age. I am not typical in this respect, I have learned. Very few women masturbate regularly once they are past childhood exploration and a lot of women have no memory of even childhood masturbation.

"But I am typical in most other respects—I was subjected to the same barrage of negative sex conditioning all women get. I was made to feel that masturbating meant there was something wrong with my sex life, that I should get my sexual pleasure from the man's penis only, not from my clitoris by myself. I especially wouldn't need to do it if I was in love and making it regularly with my lover.

"Coming from the 'Bible Belt' in Kansas, I knew very well where the church and conservative moralists stood. But even supposedly liberal friends put down masturbation and made it clear that it was a second-rate sexual activity. My only source of sex information in those days was dreary marriage manuals and random bits of male-oriented Victorian psychiatry. When I finally made it to the couch, therapists were mainly Freudians and into love and marriage which was supposed to include passionate sex.

"So masturbation, especially in women, was considered to be either compulsive or infantile behavior. Mature, good sex was vaginal penetration which included romantic love and a meaningful relationship. I had to find Prince Charming in order to live happily and orgasmically ever after in suburbia.

"The non-typical, which is to say healthy, part of me refused to be 'shaped up' so even if masturbating was wrong, I kept on doing it. Consequently, I now realize, I really enjoyed sex but the hitch was that as a woman I wasn't supposed to wave any banners for that: Instant, ready-made schizophrenia? Yes, indeed, the typical American female type.

"At 29, after much conflict over marriage versus art career, and after several affairs that were super romantic and monogamous, I got married. Just in time to escape the horrible fate of going over the hill alone. Quite typically, my marital sex soon got down to once a month and, when it did happen, my husband would come too fast. I wouldn't come at all. We would both be embarrassed, depressed and silent. After he went to sleep, I would quickly and quietly masturbate under the covers. I did it without moving or breathing, feeling sick with frustration and guilt the whole time. Of course, it fell apart. My ability to 'settle down' in marriage and substitute bridge, golf, or work for the diminished sexual activity had been ruined by my moderately healthy sexual beginnings. Also, I had a continuous reminder from my masturbation, even with the guilt, that pleasure from sex could be available to me.

"To understand the importance of masturbation I had to wade through ten tons of firmly implanted fear, guilt and misinformation in order to think or talk about it with any kind of open mind. In struggling to understand the extent of my own repression as a woman, I have had to face these sexually based negative emotions every step of the way.

"Among the many issues involved in the liberation of women, the two major fronts in my own personal liberation have been SEXUALITY and ECONOMICS. Ultimately, they are not separable—not as long as the female genitals have economic value instead of sexual value for women. Saving sex for my lover/husband was my gift to him in exchange for economic security-called 'meaningful relationship' or 'marriage.' My future depended upon finding the right partner whom I would possess forever with my gift of sex and love.

"With that romanticized image of sex, in a society that doesn't have economic equality between the sexes, I was forced to bargain with my cunt for any hope of financial security. Marriage under those circumstances is a form of prostitution.

"I didn't know that the romantic image of love and marriage didn't necessarily include sexual expression. As soon as I got married I quit my job, which I hated, and became economically and sexually dependent. Only there was not much sex. So I concentrated on the marriage. After five years of that kind of dependency it's no wonder that I was paralyzed with fear about re-entering the job market and re-activating my sex life.

"When you are romantically 'In Love,' it's like mainlining emotion, shooting up feeling, and you are hooked on your beloved and in no way could you live without your 'fix.' We are raised romantic junkies who are doomed to marry. Day to day living in long term marital units is the exact opposite of the romantic ideal. We get torn between the dream and the reality and live conflicted lives, rather than happily ever after. The smart romantic addict learns to move along to the next 'beloved' without killing herself off with regrets, sorrow, despair, anger, rage or suicide.

"One of the things that kept me so physically repressed was that my only images of sex were based on the 'Romantic Ideal' and marriage. The fantasy I masturbated with as a teenager was my wedding night. I fantasized myself as being physically perfected. No fat, no acne, no braces on my teeth, perfect hair, and a knockout of a nightgown. My sexual buildup was visualizing my physical perfection and my orgasm came when I dropped my exquisite lace peignoir to expose my naked loveliness for my husband. I never fantasized him, what he looked like, what his body or his cock looked like, what we did sexually, or what kind of energy we exchanged. Nothing! That fantasy was a combination of 'True Romance' and 'Vogue' and those magazines were my pornography.

"The most popular romantic image of sex is having orgasms from penetration only. Most of us are in search of the ideal orgasm from fucking. We feel frustrated and impotent that we can't come with intercourse while our husbands and lovers do. We blame ourselves and feel sexually inadequate, even though we can have orgasms with masturbation, oral sex and clitoral stimulation.

"We have been conditioned to this idealized image of lovemaking by love stories, Hollywood, advertising and television. The movies have given us most of our visual material for romantic sex: long wet kisses, misty drooping eyes, thousands of 'Darling, I love you's'; along with passionate embraces after tearful, painful separations, and when it comes to the actual sex ... camera fades, dissolves.

"When we finally make it to the bedroom, the only available script is the missionary position (man on top) and the cock in the hole, preceded by some ritualized foreplay that isn't playful. So we concentrate on the romance, loving and possessing our beloved and a headline reads: 'Young suburban mother of three dies from overdose of alcohol and tranquilizers,' or 'Jealous ex-lover kills girlfriend and new suitor.' It's ridiculous and destructive to repress sex, pleasure, and our bodies, perpetuating negative possessive feelings of jealousy and violence, all in the name of love.

"The man is primarily responsible for running the whole romantic fuck. He is coming from a background of sexual deprivation and is expected to get an erection (from her naked beauty), keep the erection, and hold off orgasm while he brings his beloved to orgasm with no information or indication about what turns her on.

"She is passive, beautiful and graceful while she waits for this incredible experience called Orgasm, and nothing happens so she concentrates on the love, closeness, and the meaningfulness of their relationship. That's one of the romantic versions of sex role stereotypes.

"Another sex role stereotype is the man who expects his woman to give him his erection. She feels it's her responsibility to turn him on and is totally focused on his pleasure and orgasm. She does oral sex to get him hard, he then swings over into Position A, puts it in and runs the entire fuck according to what feels good to him. She accommodates him and goes into her passionate act of sighs and groans or screams to excite him more. He comes, she fakes it and he dozes off to sleep holding her in his arms. She feels good because she has pleased him and concentrates on the love and closeness. He feels good because her response proves he's a good lover and he loves her loving him.

"The national average of coitus with full erection according to Kinsey was 2.5 minutes of thrusting after penetration. There really aren't that many fast coming women or superstuds around! As we limit sex to erections and penetration we perpetuate the battle between the sexes...the man struggles to hold off orgasm while the woman hurries to come fast. There is a vast range of sexual and sensual pleasure available to everyone if we simply get more open minded about what sex and pleasure are about. The romantic image of sex creates a ritualized genital sex that leaves no room for sexual play or growth. We must let go of the idea that there is a 'right' or 'best' way to have sex and orgasms."

As a postscript to the above, let me briefly tell about a female friend of mine (Louise) who has, all of her life, been a devout evangelical Christian—very protected and largely unwise to the world. She told me that after being married more than 20 years and raising three children she was still totally unaware that a woman could have an orgasm; nobody had ever told her there was such a thing. One day she and a woman friend were talking and the subject of sex came up. Louise heard for the first time from this friend that husbands weren't the only ones who could have orgasmic pleasure in bed. Luckily for Louise, this friend also told her about masturbation. As soon as she was alone, Louise rushed to the bathtub to try it out and, sure enough, she came! To this day she still hasn't had an orgasm with her husband but she regularly does when she's alone. Her fellow church-goers would be shocked! But for this Christian (who is still married to her traditional Christian husband) masturbation has been a blessing.