Women may be mildly curious about genitals but they are not aroused by them. Neither are women hormonally aroused as younger men are. So most women are not remotely curious about masturbation. Female orgasm is rare. So we will never have millions of women agreeing on how they orgasm. The best we can hope for is a scientific justification of women’s orgasm techniques. If our motivation to masturbate arises because someone tells us we should, because we buy a sex toy or from a wish to experience orgasm, nothing will happen. We are motivated to masturbate because we feel a sense of excitement in our minds when thinking about an erotic scenario.
Orgasm arises from stimulating the anatomy men and women have in common, the phallus. The clitoris is stimulated in a similar way to how a man masturbates his penis. As for a man, a woman focuses the stimulation on massaging the blood-flow in the corpora cavernosa (resulting from mental arousal) that are located within the body (or shaft) of the clitoral organ.
With other body functions such as urination and defecation when there is a need, our brain makes us increasingly conscious of the need to take action. Men have an instant and urgent sense of needing to take action on becoming aware of their sexual arousal. But a woman never has a biological (or any other) need to orgasm. A woman is never conscious of her physical arousal except when consciously generating it during masturbation. A responsive woman only embarks on masturbation when her mind is responding to a fantasy. The feelings she has in anticipation of sex are quite different. She may be conscious of diffuse sensations, which are probably due to increased blood flow in the pelvis. They are not a result of any mental focus on eroticism and they do not equate to the kind of arousal that leads to orgasm.
The initial catalyst for masturbation is the thought appearing in a woman’s mind that orgasm might be possible. There is a mandatory period of time upfront, when a woman has to decide whether she can generate enough arousal for orgasm. This is the most critical and often the longest phase. She cycles through possible fantasies to see if her mind is going to respond. She uses a handful of scenarios from erotic literature. Over time these extracts are reused over and over by relying on memory. She homes in on the aspects of the scenario that she knows from past experience will cause her to orgasm.
One of the first signs of female arousal is a very slight genital response to a woman’s mind responding positively to a sexual scenario. When she massages over her glans, a responsive woman feels a slight tingling. She is conscious of a sense of excitement as her genitals become tumescent and an increase in heart rate or breathing. If a woman is not responding, then fantasies that would normally arouse her seem unappealing. She just abandons the idea. She may feel a mild sense of disappointment but no frustration. Female arousal is easily dissipated by real-world interruptions.
While a woman is waiting for a fantasy to provide the tumescence she needs, she lies on her front somewhere comfortable, with her fingers from both hands over her vulva. Initially, she keeps her fingers in position over the top of the glans (protected by the surrounding skin) and moves her hips by shifting her legs alternately up and down while concentrating on her fantasy. A woman holds her breath as she concentrates, followed by involuntary sharp intakes of breath. A woman stimulates herself much less aggressively than the action men use. A man masturbates with rapid (5 times a second) jerks but a woman uses a slower (once a second) rhythmic massaging motion.
A woman masturbates to orgasm by lying face down with her eyes closed. She rubs down over her vulva with fingers from both hands. She cannot easily see what she is doing nor is she aware of the specific anatomy she is stimulating. It is only if she learns of the clitoris that she can appreciate that this must be the anatomy she is stimulating. She masturbates by pressing down over her glans and into the area of spongey tissue immediately below.
Initially a responsive woman focuses stimulation over the clitoral glans. She uses the index and middle fingers of both hands to push the loose skin gently and rhythmically over (the hood of) the glans (either side of the labia) and down towards the vagina. As her erotic excitement increases, she shifts the focus of her stimulation. A woman presses her fingers down rhythmically and firmly into the spongy internal pelvic tissue immediately beside the labia majora (just below the pubic bone), kneading the internal clitoral organ. This second stage of massaging is combined with internal pressure on the clitoral organ, achieved by a hip thrusting motion and by rhythmically clenching the buttock muscles. She uses a squeeze technique, which involves thrusting the pelvis forward. The shaft (or body) of the clitoral organ is squeezed between her hands in front (externally) and her pelvic muscles behind (internally). All of this stimulation is an instinctive response. It is not a conscious behaviour.
A woman’s mental focus (which blocks out all awareness of her surroundings) throughout is on the fantasy until she reaches orgasm. A woman imagines a penetrator’s excitement, which culminates in an urge to ejaculate. She uses both hands to push down firmly and closes her eyes as she orgasms. Once her mind has tuned into a fantasy a woman can orgasm within a minute or two. While masturbating, a woman makes little noise until her orgasm when she may grunt or pant. Her facial expression is not smiling or pouting. She may grunt or groan depending on the strength of her release.
… a high percentage of all the females who masturbate use techniques which involve some sort of rhythmic stimulation of the clitoris, usually with a finger or several fingers or the whole hand. (Alfred Kinsey)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)