Most women masturbate. Large-scale surveys consistently find that a significant majority of adult women have masturbated at some point, with national data from Spain in 2023 showing 91% of women reported having done so. In the United States, estimates from various surveys over the past decade generally fall between 70% and 90%, depending on the age group surveyed and how the question is framed. The short answer: it’s far more common than many people assume.
How Common Is It, Really?
Stigma has historically made this topic difficult to study accurately, and reported numbers tend to be conservative because some respondents underreport. Still, the trend across decades of research is clear: rates among women have risen steadily as cultural attitudes shift and more women feel comfortable being honest in surveys.
One study of over 1,000 women found that 40.3% reported masturbating more than once a week, making that the single most common frequency. Another 23% said they did so at least once a month but less than weekly. These numbers held relatively steady across age groups, with no statistically significant difference in frequency between women aged 18 to 25 and those in their 40s or 50s. The idea that masturbation drops off sharply with age isn’t well supported by the data.
Spanish national data from 2023 offers one of the more recent snapshots: among respondents aged 27 to 41, 29% reported masturbating two to three times per week, while 21% of those aged 18 to 26 said about once per week. Around 41% of respondents said a typical session lasted between five and ten minutes.
How Most Women Masturbate
Clitoral stimulation is by far the most common method. In a study published in JSM Sexual Medicine, 82.5% of young women said clitoral stimulation alone was their most reliable route to orgasm during masturbation. This contrasts with partnered sex, where 75.8% said they needed simultaneous clitoral and vaginal stimulation to orgasm most reliably. The difference highlights something important: what works best solo and what works best with a partner are often not the same thing, and most women’s anatomy responds most directly to external stimulation.
Orgasm Rates During Solo Sex
Women reach orgasm far more consistently when masturbating than during partnered intercourse. In one study of over 1,000 women, 59.2% said they always orgasm when they masturbate, and another 26.5% said they often do. That means roughly 86% of women who masturbate orgasm most or all of the time. This is notably higher than the orgasm rates women report during partnered heterosexual sex, which typically hover around 60 to 65% in comparable surveys.
Interestingly, this orgasm rate did vary meaningfully by age. Older women were statistically more likely to report always reaching orgasm during masturbation than younger women, suggesting that familiarity with one’s own body plays a real role.
Physical and Mental Health Effects
Orgasm triggers the release of dopamine and oxytocin, two hormones that elevate mood and counteract cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. This basic hormonal response underlies most of the documented benefits of masturbation, which include reduced stress, improved sleep, better focus, and a general mood boost.
A few benefits are specific to women’s health. Masturbation can relieve menstrual cramps, likely because orgasm increases blood flow to the pelvic area and triggers uterine contractions that help ease tension. During pregnancy, it can reduce lower back pain and help release the heightened sexual tension many women experience. For older women, regular masturbation may reduce vaginal dryness and make intercourse less painful by maintaining blood flow and tissue flexibility in the vaginal walls.
Why Reported Numbers Still Vary So Much
If you search this topic, you’ll find numbers ranging from about 50% to over 90%. That wide range comes down to methodology. Anonymous online surveys tend to produce higher numbers than face-to-face interviews, for obvious reasons. Studies that ask “have you ever masturbated?” get very different results than those asking “have you masturbated in the past month?” Age range matters too: surveys of college-aged women skew higher than those including women over 70.
Cultural context plays an enormous role. In countries with more open attitudes toward female sexuality, reported rates are higher. The 91% figure from Spain reflects a culture that has become increasingly open about sexual health. Surveys in more conservative regions produce lower numbers, though researchers widely acknowledge this likely reflects reporting bias more than actual behavioral differences. The biological drive is universal; the willingness to say so on a questionnaire is not.