Episode 36: The Magic of Masturbation

May is Masturbation Month, so let’s talk self-pleasure! Masturbation is a topic that has long been shrouded by secrecy and shame, and it’s well past time that we bust the harmful myths, break the taboo, and normalize self-pleasure.

For this episode of the Sex and Psychology Podcast, I spoke with Marie Aoyama, who works in the Global Marketing Department for TENGA, a Japanese-based sexual health and wellness brand enabling users around the world to celebrate self-pleasure with its innovative and diverse sex and masturbation toys.

TENGA recently released their 2021 Self-Pleasure Report, which was based on a representative survey of 1,000 American adults aged 18-54. This survey offers important insights into masturbation attitudes and practices in the United States today, as well as how they have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode, including:

• How did self-pleasure change over the last year?
• Why was there a bigger drop in masturbation for women than there was for men during the pandemic?
• What do people actually do when they masturbate?
• When people fantasize during masturbation, who and what are they most likely to think about?
• What are the benefits of self-pleasure, and why should we think of it as a form of self-care?
• If people had to give up either sex or masturbation for a month, which one do you think they’d choose? (The answer may surprise you!)
• How many people are comfortable talking openly about masturbation? And what do we need to do to break the taboos surrounding self-pleasure?

To learn more about the key findings from TENGA’s 2021 Self-Pleasure Report, see here.

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Credits: LEGIT Audio (Podcast editing) and Shutterstock/Florian (Music). Image created with Canva; photos used with permission of guest.