Because it’s fun.
(Since everyone was misreading the title on this article, I figured I’d answer the question.)
Dec 21 2011
Why do women masturbate?
Comments have been disabled.
About the Author
Profile
Frequently Read Threads
Commenting Rules
The Desert Tortoises With Boltcutters Civility Pledge
[Introductions]: Meet the other commenters
The [Lounge]: a safe space; friendly chat; moderated
The [Thunderdome]: no-holds-barred unmoderated chaos
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• MySpace
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
•
Chris Clarke is a science and natural history writer, editor, and
environmental protection activist in Joshua Tree, California.
• Coyote Crossing
• my writing
at KCET
• Desert Biodiversity
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
Plus
• Walking
With Zeke
• Walking
With Zeke (iBookstore)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
54 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
cholten99
21 December 2011 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And if this post had gone out it a couple of week’s time it could have made the “best of 2012″ lists, shucks ;-).
kittysmith
21 December 2011 at 5:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That does seem like the obvious answer, doesn’t it?
Because, you know, it is.
Part-Time Insomniac, Zombie Porcupine Nox Arcana Fan
21 December 2011 at 5:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, because it feels great. Orgasms rock.
pj
21 December 2011 at 5:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Except when it’s more like hoggling.
Wes
21 December 2011 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What’s with all the anti-abortion ads showing up at FTB today?
subbie
21 December 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“How” would be a much more interesting article, especially if it included visual aids.
Might as well include one on men, too. I mean, be fair.
John Morales
21 December 2011 at 5:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, I thought it was medically-recommended to relieve female hysteria.
<ducks>
heatherdalgleish
21 December 2011 at 5:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Preach, brother, preach! :-D
Quinapalus
21 December 2011 at 5:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://autocowrecks.failblog.org/2011/11/21/mobile-phone-texting-autocorrect-the-first-and-third-options-are-basically-the-same-thing/
carlie
21 December 2011 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Now that’s a question with an easy answer!
magistramarla
21 December 2011 at 6:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because “practice makes perfect”?
Daz
21 December 2011 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I actually misread it as ‘mensurate.’
And I can’t think of a punch-line. Ho-hum.
feralboy12
21 December 2011 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I was thinking “because they can.”
Killed By Fish
a3kr0n
21 December 2011 at 6:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Female masturbation is a peculiar phenomenon that women go through on a roughly monthly constant cycle, and it’s not immediately obvious from an evolutionary standpoint why they do it.
Rey Fox
21 December 2011 at 6:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Next in Science For Nearsighted Blog Readers: Why do women masticate?
Geral
21 December 2011 at 6:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why do men masturbate??
alysonmiers
21 December 2011 at 6:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because there’s no point in having a clitoris if you don’t give it some exercise.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
21 December 2011 at 6:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I dunno (well, I know why I masturbate), but it seems like a good time to post this: a video of a woman’s brain as she achieves orgasm via masturbation. Makes all the synapses light up like an ostentatious Christmas light display on a McMansion.
PZ Myers
21 December 2011 at 6:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because if they don’t, their testicles explode.
Luc
21 December 2011 at 6:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The evopsychos are going to get upset when they learn this isn’t an adaptation for something.
littlejohn
21 December 2011 at 6:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ouch! My testicle just exploded! Better get to work saving the one I have left.
Daz
21 December 2011 at 7:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“The Exploded Testicles.” Anyone fancy forming a punk band…?
razzlefrog
21 December 2011 at 7:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey, hey, hey! Listen here, Old Man Myers! I need to see me some Princeton studies and Institute of Medicine research data comprehensively cited before I can safely conclude women think overwhelming waves of fantastic pleasure are “fun”!
Pseudoscientific charlatan! :)
etcetera
21 December 2011 at 7:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wheeeeeeee!!!!
David Marjanović
21 December 2011 at 7:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not for a few months.
Akira MacKenzie
21 December 2011 at 7:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oooooh my testicles explode with delight!
StevoR
21 December 2011 at 8:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Qu. What can women do that men can’t? (Childbirth aside.)
A. Simultaneously masticate, masturbate, urinate and defecate.
If, of course, they want to.
(Sorry.)
Ms. Daisy Cutter
21 December 2011 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s an ad RIGHT above this post for Rand Paul, talking about abortion, and the photo shows him with his head bowed like the smarmy “good chreeestyyunnnn” that he is. Really not conducive to rubbing one out.
faehnrich
21 December 2011 at 8:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I thought you said mensurate.
feralboy12
21 December 2011 at 8:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, testicles don’t explode. They do, however, swell up, turn blue, and drop off like overripe plums.
Not that I would really know, of course. That’s just what I’ve heard. But it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
Killed By Fish
interrobang
21 December 2011 at 9:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why do women masturbate? Why not? :)
As a matter of fact, I’m stroking my pussy right now! (She’s 9 pounds of clingy tortoiseshell affection, and she’s draped over my front with her little paws around my neck and her head on my shoulder, purring up a storm…tee hee!)
StevoR
21 December 2011 at 9:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ ^ interrobang : Awww. I’ve got a tortoiseshell cat too.
Nothing quite like a happy purring pussy is there?
@ 27. D’oh! I breifly forgot the word ‘micturate’ which would have been better alliteration~wise.
doktorzoom
21 December 2011 at 9:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ 32: I just want to understand this, sir. Every time a rug is micturated upon in this fair city, I have to compensate the owner?
Daniel Schealler
21 December 2011 at 9:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@StevoR #27
Tut.
You wasted a perfectly good opportunity to use the word ‘defenstrate’.
Brother Ogvorbis, OM: Reading Comprehension Fail Warning!
21 December 2011 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, go throw it out the window!
Benjamin "Killer Pawn" Geiger
21 December 2011 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Women masturbate?
I demand photographic evidence. (Video evidence would be even better.)
</juvenile>
Ragutis
21 December 2011 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because …
Well, they…
Um …
Shit.
Y’know, Vagina dentata quips are harder to come up with than one would think.
doktorzoom
21 December 2011 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Like this?
Azuma Hazuki
21 December 2011 at 10:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@33
Damn straight you do. That rug really tied the room together :(
As to the topic question: because it feels wonderful, and because it’s sex with someone I love!
ronsullivan
21 December 2011 at 10:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only for the interviews, I swear.
magistramarla
21 December 2011 at 10:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Interrobang @31,
I’ve got you beat – I’m petting two pussies at once – one is a huge flame-point Siamese and the other is a Maine Coon. While I’m petting them they are grooming each other. Does this mean that we have an orgy going on?
Azkyroth
21 December 2011 at 10:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That sounds very difficult to coordinate but I don’t see why it’d be impossible for a man, unless you believe the old saw about it being literally impossible to pee with an erection.
matthewbannerman
22 December 2011 at 12:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
True story.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
22 December 2011 at 1:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tss, tss tss
Not even 50 posts and it’s already again all about the menz
;)
mouthyb
22 December 2011 at 2:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We masturbate because YAY. I mean, really, no having to make sure anyone else has a good time, no concentration, just pure oxytocin sex candy? How is that not awesome?
crocswsocks
22 December 2011 at 2:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Women masturbate because I am not around all the time.
(ducks to avoid cyber-blows of trolls who cannot take a joke)
scottjordan
22 December 2011 at 3:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StevoR @ 27:
I remember being told by a teacher in sex-ed that it’s impossible for a man to urinate while having an erection. I know from personal experience that that is wrong.
Thought I’d share that with you. :P
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
22 December 2011 at 4:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, we also masturbate to make a political statement.
Take THAT, Ratzinger et al.!
hyperdeath
22 December 2011 at 4:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The question is one of evolutionary psychology, and thus requires an absolutely ludicrous answer based on wildly inaccurate accounts of human history and bizarre equivocations.
Therefore, I propose that in this context, the vagina represents a cave. In human prehistory, entering one’s own cave would have been symbolic of a return to safety, free from predation by saber-toothed tigers. Repeatedly rubbing the entrance to a cave-substitute is an exaggerated form of this impulse.
lijdare
22 December 2011 at 5:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can tell you what my 95 year old mother told me one morning a couple of years ago (and just months before she died). She said she just had to masturbate, the pressure she felt needed to be relieved. And no she wasn’t describing moments from her earlier life; she was describing that very morning.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
22 December 2011 at 8:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What keeps Ernest Borgnine young
warning, HuffPo
StevoR
22 December 2011 at 9:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@scottjordan & # Azkyroth :
Um, well I know but we’re talking more than just micturation here – simultaneous ejaculation and micturation is impossible I’m pretty sure. Not that I’m a biological expertor have ever tried it mind you!
PS. Tried to post this before – but it hasn’t seemed to appear. Sorry if it ends up as a double post.
ladyh42
22 December 2011 at 3:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Best thread ever!!!
I just want to say how much more enjoyable it is when you don’t think the cosmic fairy is watching and disapproving
evader
22 December 2011 at 3:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
^^
PZ nailed it. Best answer to a question I’ve seen for a long time!
Women do it better.