Scarleteen

Hi guys, puberty just kicked in. First I want to say I'm transgender and want to be called female pronouns. Second off, what is masturbation? I hear it's something that people do for self pleasure, but I don't know how to do it, but I'm ready to explore it. What is the most basic way to masturbate if there is one?

Hi WolfGirl and welcome to Scarleteen!

Put simply, masturbation is a way that people seek out and explore sexual pleasure by themselves by stimulating their body and brain in various ways. Because no two bodies (or people) are alike, the type of masturbation that feels good to one person may not feel good to another, so there's some experimentation involved to find out what feels good to you. Some very common ways people masturbate involve stimulating their genitals with their hands or rubbing them against something like a pillow, so those are some things you could try as a start. Does that all make sense?

HI Sam! So you are saying that I take my genital and just keep moving my hand up and down on it? Also how will I know that I reach the end of it if there is one?

Sam wasn't giving you explicit directions like that because she really can't give those to anyone. There just isn't one basic way to masturbate.

Masturbation is about touching ourselves -- often including our genitals, but sometimes not -- in ways that feel good to us; about exploring ways we can be sexual alone through touching ourselves, whether that's with hands, toys or other objects.

To find out what feels good to you, you really just need to spend some time, over time -- over years, not just hours or days, basically for the whole of your life -- exploring your own body by yourself freely while you are also having sexual feelings or desires. We all find out what we like and don't, and what we do most because we found out a way to touch ourselves we like, just by trial and error, just like we find out what we like to eat and how we enjoy certain things served.

You know you're "done" at any given time when you feel done, when you don't want to do it anymore. Or, when you have to be done because there are other things you need to do.