Scarleteen

I kinda know that guys masturbate a lot. My brother did a lot! I kinda thought that girls didn't get this urge, but I find more and more that I do and when I do masturbate I have wonderful orgasms but I feel so guilty. I don't know how to get rid of the guilt.

Hey there!
I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling guilty, a lot of people feel this way about masturbation. I want to assure you that masturbation is completely normal and safe, and nothing to feel guilty about! Girls get this “urge” to masturbate just as much as guys do. Is there anything in particular about masturbations that makes you feel guilty? I’m going to include a couple lines from an article about masturbation, let me know what you think:

“There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, and it’s even clearly good for you in some ways. Most doctors and medical organizations, counselors, sex therapists, and sex educators agree: for our sense of well-being, relaxation, and health; our sexuality with or without partners, developing a means for sexual communication, getting familiar with our own sexual response cycle and preferences, and finding out where all our parts are, how they work and some of what we like and how we like it, masturbation is the bomb.”
(https://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodi ... sturbation)

Hope this helps!

Thank you. I'm encouraged that it can be viewed as good in some ways. I think I focus on this 2 much. I feel like I think about masturbation all the time and it makes me feel slutty. I guess I feel guilty because it makes me think about sex with guys and want to experiment and I don't want to get pregnant .

Hi there missy5, I'm sorry to hear that you are feeling shame about your sexual feelings, sadly there are a lot of sexist messages out there that set double standards for different genders as to what is "acceptable" levels of sexual feeling and activity, and ultimately devalues women who are sexual. Being a sexual person isn't something that you need feel guilty about, although I understand that this concept can take some time to get comfortable with.

Would the idea of not feeling 'slutty' if you had sex be radical to you, or does that sound like more of a relief? Or something different, or a whole bunch of feelings? Below are a couple of articles that unpack this a bit. If you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts on them after reading, we'd love to hear them.

• The Sex Goddess Blues: Overcoming Sexual Shame
• An Immodest Proposal

With regards to avoiding pregnancy, there are lots of ways to engage in safer sex to protect against pregnancy, STDs, and steps you can take to think about your emotional safety as well. Here are a few articles with some information about this:

• Safe, Sound & Sexy: A Safer Sex How-To
• Birth Control Bingo
• Safer Sex...for Your Heart