Self-Pleasuring: Life Beyond Foreplay Part 1 Maggie Tapert

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If sexual identity is as particular and specific as a fingerprint or a snowflake, how can you discover yours?


To understand why so many women fail to discover and develop a sexual identity, we must return to our beginnings. Young girls often experience confusion and uncertainty upon awakening to the excitement of sexual pleasure. In an ideal world, a girl’s furtive but thrilling under-the-sheets exploration of herself would be encouraged and would eventually lead to a life-enhancing understanding of her essential female sexual self. For a lucky few, it does. If fate smiled on you in this way, and you continued learning about your body and its intimate secrets, you probably already know a lot about your sexual desire and how to find the sexual fulfillment you seek. Most girls, however, quickly discover that our Judeo-Christian culture weaves a thick web of shame and guilt around the female body and anything that brings it pleasure. What a tragedy that the delicate sexual explorations, which, for most women, begin in a state of innocence and curiosity, are so frequently driven underground or completely abandoned.

If sexual shame and secrecy were your traveling companions when you were young and vulnerable, it’s a fair assumption that as an adult, you still wrestle with these twin demons. The resulting disempowerment can spill into all aspects of your daily life without you ever actually realizing the source of your confusion. Being disconnected from individual sexual expression cuts women off at their roots. Life is an invitation to dance, with yourself and the world around you. If you are not at home with yourself sexually, if your individual sexual identity is still for the most part an unwritten book, then you have probably already collected a number of wounding and disappointing experiences. The question is: how can you move from suffering to celebration, from outer focus to inner exploration, from sex appeal to sexual identity?


Learning About Self-Pleasuring
To rediscover and energize your unique sexual identity—to find out who you are as a sexual being—you need some tools. Some might recommend prayer, meditation, or even a vegetarian diet. But I have a more effective, less time consuming and definitely more pleasurable suggestion. My favorite tool for sexual self-discovery is masturbation. Although it is underrated by almost everybody on the planet, I believe it is not only the cure for most of what ails women, sexual and otherwise, but it is also the most direct path to sexual, emotional, and spiritual self-knowledge. Almost everybody masturbates occasionally, but very few women have learned how to use the explosive force of an orgasm to take them to new and unexplored dimensions. Masturbation can be profoundly transformational and belongs in every woman’s self-help repertoire. Properly appreciated and practiced, it will move you from the ordinary into the truly extraordinary. What I am proposing is not intended to increase your sex appeal. But having the kind of orgasms that you want, as often as you want, creates an amazingly radiant aura of feminine beauty that is deeply and authentically appealing.

It’s just too bad that this free, fun, and environmentally safe activity remains so taboo—even among educated adults who should know better. As recently as 1994, in the midst of America’s struggle to come to grips with a growing AIDS epidemic, President Bill Clinton fired Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after she endorsed masturbation as a safe alternative to unprotected sex. The official reason for her dismissal was that by supporting masturbation, she embraced “values contrary to the administration.” Poor Bill. In the meantime, we’ve all discovered that he had plenty of funny ideas about sex. This just happened to be one of them. Repression and secrecy are still the weapons of choice in the battle against sexual liberation.

Becoming comfortable with self-pleasure may seem impossible at first—or at least challenging. If that’s true for you, then you need to begin by becoming an expert on your own body. Familiarize yourself with its pleasure requirements, and you will soon see your perception of sexuality transformed. Know yourself sexually and you will unlock the hidden door to true female power. Pleasuring yourself is the ultimate expression of self-responsibility. Some women believe that masturbation is childish, embarrassing, or in some way inferior to “real” sex. Actually, just the opposite is true. As Woody Allen once remarked, “Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I really love.”

Practice Makes Perfect
In order to do anything well, whether it is playing the violin, painting a picture, or cooking a gourmet meal, you need practice. From a teacher or a book, you might master musical scales, the use of color, or the pros and cons of using butter in a flaky piecrust, but in the end, you gain expertise in any field of endeavor through faithful, hands-on practice. Would you join an orchestra before learning to play your instrument? Would you contact a gallery to show your paintings before you had established a body of work worth presenting to the public? If you dedicate yourself to improving your sexual response and experiencing greater sexual pleasure, the same applies. Practice makes perfect. If you dream of banishing sexual boredom or “dysfunction” and finding limitless sexual joy, you need to do your homework. And you will need privacy.

Masturbation isn’t just an antidote for sexual difficulties—it’s not a practice that will make it all work better the next time you have “real” sex with a man. Masturbation, with the right kind of attitude, stands completely on its own. It is making love—real love. It is something you can and should do, whether or not you have a partner, because giving yourself pleasure helps you find your core, helps you tune into your center. Pleasuring yourself wakes you up and gets the energy flowing so that you feel more alive and connected. And it gives your body the message that it is appreciated and cherished just as it is.

Over the years, many men have told me that they masturbate every day. Imagine: every single day. And these are not simply young guys with testosterone to burn. These are mature men who simply love their penises, love pleasure, and consider it normal personal care to enjoy a good orgasm at least once a day. They don’t need to talk about it. They don’t boast about it. Most of them never even mention it to their partners—they say it has nothing to do with them. It’s about the inner permission that men give themselves to enjoy the body and the pleasure it affords.

I often think how terrific it would be if women were free enough to do the same, if they loved themselves enough to masturbate regularly—and were proud of it rather than ashamed. How transformational it would be if women truly took charge of their bodies, their pleasure, and their orgasmic ecstasy. How divine it would be if a woman’s own pleasure had the highest priority in her life rather than being relegated to the bottom of her “to-do list”, somewhere below feeding the cat and filing income tax returns. There is a certain confident self-respect that many men feel toward their penises and the private pleasure they derive from them that I really admire. I wish women could love themselves this much.

Now, this isn’t to say that women aren’t masturbating at all. Lots of women masturbate occasionally to “let off steam.” And these furtive little genital explosions under the sheets before falling asleep are certainly fine, as far as they go. However, when I talk about integrating masturbation into your life, I am referring to something of a much higher caliber. I am talking about creating a ritual feast of self-love during which women make their own sensual pleasure the centerpiece.

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Pleasure?
I have been orgasmic since childhood. The greatest adventure of my youth was discovering all the thousands of ways to pleasure myself. And ohhhh, it was so intense! And as I matured, whether masturbating or making love with a partner, I could easily climax when my clitoris was stimulated. But as soon as I came, I would stop stimulating myself or push my lover’s hand away with the excuse that I could not endure any more. It was too much. My clitoris was just too sensitive. I came and that was enough. Mission accomplished. End-of-story.

Some years ago, I watched ex-porn-star Annie Sprinkle demonstrate a five-minute orgasm in her video Sluts and Goddesses. A clock was running in the upper corner of the screen while Annie stimulated her vulva with a powerful vibrator. Instead of stopping at the first sign of orgasm, she threw her head back and just kept going: two minutes, three, four—on and on the clock ticked as she continued to enjoy herself. Throughout this electrifying scene, her gentle voice was heard describing the benefits of extended orgasm. I was dumbstruck. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I watched the tape several times. I wanted what she had. I wanted long, unlimited, uncontrolled pleasure. And I thought to myself, “If she can do it, so can I.” I bought myself a vibrator like hers and began practicing. I wanted bigger, better, longer, and more satisfying orgasms—orgasms that ripped through my whole body, not just little blips that stopped at my belly button. I wanted to rid myself of the limitations I had set for myself and expand my potential for pleasure.

Eventually, I realized how I had put strict limits on the amount of pleasure allowed in my life. Saying that my clitoris was too tender to continue stimulation was really masking a message of a totally different nature. In fact, I was saying, “I don’t deserve more. It’s fine to come once, but I shouldn’t be so damn greedy. Get on with the main course. Move on to real sex—the kind where a penis is involved.”

As a result of growing up female in America, I had wholeheartedly bought into the popular belief that female pleasure, my pleasure, would never be the main event. It would always be the “foreplay” to something bigger, more important, more relevant. I knew that if I wanted my pleasure to be big, to be central, to be my main event, I would have to change my attitude and behavior. Once I started using my vibrator regularly, I discovered a huge pleasure potential that had never been tapped. I broke free of the limitations set for me by the puritanical culture of my youth. I learned how to say “more, more, more” to myself and then give myself what I passionately wanted. . I continue to masturbate regularly and it has changed my whole outlook on life. And, as a bonus, I have become a much sexier, more turned-on lover.


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Self-Pleasuring: Life Beyond Foreplay (Part 2)