There is a precedent for female masturbation in the animal world. Some female mammals do masturbate but since they do not ejaculate it is difficult to establish that female mammals stimulate themselves to orgasm.
Misconception #4: Because of the male experience, it is incorrectly assumed that women have a sex drive to achieve orgasm. Women do not have a drive to penetrate but some do have a residual instinct to thrust. Women are only able to orgasm because they also have a phallus (as men do).
A male is driven to impregnate a female. His sex drive is simultaneously a drive to achieve orgasm and a drive to reproduce because his orgasmic response is aligned with his reproductive capability. A man may be responding to a subconscious reproductive drive but his mind tends to focus on the more immediate prospect of his ability to be sufficiently aroused to enjoy thrusting into a vagina rather than on his ability to father a child.
Female sex drive could refer to a woman’s motivation to achieve orgasm (by stimulating herself alone) or it could refer to her motivation to be impregnated (by engaging in intercourse). Female responsiveness does not equate to a woman’s willingness to offer a male partner regular intercourse. Frequency of masturbation is an indication of responsiveness. This is why male masturbation is much more common and why men masturbate much more frequently (on average three times a week) than women do.[i]
The concept of female arousal (as evidenced by the clichéd moaning) comes from pornography where a woman emulates a response to provide a male turn-on. Yet such responses hardly equate to the highly focused nature of male arousal, which quickly and inevitably leads to orgasm. Vaginal lubrication is assumed to be another key indicator of female sexual arousal but this response facilitates intercourse (and therefore reproduction). In no way does it indicate that a woman is close to achieving orgasm.
Explanations for women’s ability to engage in sex indefinitely include the idea that women have multiple orgasms. Some women like the attention they get by describing lovemaking in terms of continuous arousal and orgasm. Clearly women have no idea what is involved in a sexual release. A woman is able to engage in intercourse indefinitely because her vagina is unresponsive to stimulation. But equally intercourse does not stimulate the clitoris adequately. Women assume that the emotional and sensual sensations of sex equate to arousal and orgasms that supposedly last for hours.
[i] Among the single females who were actually masturbating the average (median) individual was reaching orgasm once in every two and a half to three weeks. (Alfred Kinsey)
Excerpt from Women’s Sexual Behaviours & Responses (ISBN 978-0956-894717)