Here are some excerpts from a recent Globe & Mail article:
It goes beyond the double standard: Largely ignored by sex education and almost entirely unrepresented in pop culture, female masturbation – solo, not witnessed by a man – may very well be the last remaining sexual taboo.
The reasons are plentiful and range from basic anatomy to the shockingly archaic: Think a lingering hyper-awareness of feminine hygiene and a feeling that orgasms are most authentic when they happen with a man.
A recent study involving 800 American adolescents aged 14 to 17 found that 74 per cent of the young men surveyed had gratified themselves, versus just 48 per cent of the women.
By age 17, an estimated 46 per cent of girls reported masturbating just a few times a year, according to the joint study by the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. Although the gender disparity narrows with age, studies consistently find men outpacing women in every age group.
“Young women are not encouraged to take ownership of their bodies or of sexual pleasure,” says Peggy Kleinplatz, a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Ottawa.
“The imagery that they’ve seen, whether in pornography or in mainstream movies, such as American Pie, makes reference to adolescent male masturbation as a normative part of male sexual development. Female sexual exploration, by and for themselves, is discovered – if at all – in silence,” says Dr. Kleinplatz. …“Socially, it’s understood that boys need to do that. That’s a part of who they are. Whereas girls, it’s not ladylike and we’re supposed to rely on our partners,” says Carlyle Jansen, founder of Good for Her, a Toronto sex shop.