Somewhere between a third and three-quarters of women report having masturbated recently, depending on how “recently” is defined and which country the survey comes from. In the largest British probability survey, about 40% of women said they had masturbated in the past month, while U.S. nationally representative data show higher lifetime figures that vary sharply by age group. The spread in these numbers is not random noise; it reflects real differences in how surveys ask the question, which women they sample, and how comfortable respondents feel answering honestly.
What the Biggest Surveys Actually Report
Two of the most reliable data sources are British and American national probability surveys, both of which use large, randomly selected samples rather than convenience panels of volunteers. Britain’s National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles found that about 37% of women aged 16 to 44 reported masturbating in the past month during 1999–2001, and that number rose to roughly 40% by 2010–2012.1PubMed. Trends in Masturbation Prevalence and Associated Factors: Findings from the British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles An earlier analysis of the same British dataset put the four-week figure at about 37% of women, with wider confidence intervals pointing to somewhere between 35% and 38%.2PubMed Central. Prevalence of masturbation and associated factors in a British national probability survey
In the United States, a nationally representative study of adult women found that solo masturbation was most common among women aged 18 to 39, with prevalence declining at older ages.3PubMed. Sexual behaviors, relationships, and perceived health status among adult women in the United States: results from a national probability sample A separate U.S. survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic confirmed that more men than women reported both lifetime and past-month masturbation, though the study emphasized that masturbation was common across genders.4PubMed Central. Masturbation Prevalence, Frequency, Reasons, and Associations with Partnered Sex in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a U.S. Nationally Representative Survey
The difference between “ever” and “past month” matters enormously. Lifetime prevalence figures for women tend to run much higher than monthly ones. When a survey asks whether a woman has ever masturbated, the percentage who say yes will be considerably larger than when the window narrows to the last four weeks. Keep that distinction in mind whenever you compare one headline statistic to another.
How Age Shapes the Numbers
Masturbation is not something women either do or don’t do for life; it ebbs and flows across decades. Among U.S. adolescents, about 43% of 14-year-old girls reported having masturbated at least once, and that figure climbed to around 58% by age 17.5JAMA Pediatrics. Prevalence, Frequency, and Associations of Masturbation With Partnered Sexual Behaviors Among US Adolescents These numbers capture whether masturbation has ever occurred, not how often. Still, they show that by late adolescence, more than half of young women have tried it.
The picture shifts again after 40. A study of U.S. women aged 40 to 65 found that about two-thirds of premenopausal women and nearly three-quarters of perimenopausal women had masturbated in the past year. Among postmenopausal women, that dropped to about 56%.6PubMed Central. Masturbation frequency and experiences among US women aged 40-65 years: comparisons across different stages of the menopause transition Perimenopausal women were the most likely to report masturbating a few times a week, while postmenopausal women were more likely to say about once a month. The decline after menopause is real, but it is not a cliff. More than half of postmenopausal women in the study were still masturbating.
One finding from that same study is worth pausing on: among women who did masturbate, the average self-reported orgasm rate was about 81%, and it barely budged across menopausal stages. Premenopausal, perimenopausal, and postmenopausal women all landed within a percentage point of each other.6PubMed Central. Masturbation frequency and experiences among US women aged 40-65 years: comparisons across different stages of the menopause transition In other words, while fewer older women masturbate, those who do are roughly just as likely to reach orgasm as younger women.
Why the True Numbers Are Probably Higher
Sex research has a well-known problem with social desirability bias: people adjust their answers to look more “normal.” For stigmatized behaviors, face-to-face interviews tend to produce lower reported rates than anonymous computerized questionnaires. A study in rural Malawi demonstrated this clearly: when participants used a private audio-assisted computer system instead of speaking to an interviewer, they were significantly more likely to report sensitive sexual behaviors.7International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. Social Desirability Bias in Sexual Behavior Reporting: Evidence from an Interview Mode Experiment in Rural Malawi The effects were most dramatic among men, but women also shifted their answers in more private settings.
The British national survey data reinforce this concern indirectly. Women who reported masturbating also tended to report a broader repertoire of sexual activities, more frequent intercourse, and more partners, suggesting that willingness to disclose one behavior tracks with willingness to disclose others.2PubMed Central. Prevalence of masturbation and associated factors in a British national probability survey Some women who do masturbate but are less sexually forthcoming in general may simply not report it. The safe assumption is that survey figures undercount the actual prevalence by some unknown margin.
The Persistent Gender Gap
Across virtually every large survey, men report higher rates than women. In the British data, about three-quarters of men said they had masturbated in the past month, compared with roughly 40% of women.1PubMed. Trends in Masturbation Prevalence and Associated Factors: Findings from the British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles U.S. data collected during the pandemic showed the same pattern for both lifetime and past-month measures.4PubMed Central. Masturbation Prevalence, Frequency, Reasons, and Associations with Partnered Sex in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a U.S. Nationally Representative Survey
How much of this gap is biological and how much is cultural remains genuinely unclear. The reporting-bias issue described above could explain some of the difference, since women face more social stigma around masturbation in many cultures. But the gap persists even in anonymous surveys, so differential reporting alone cannot account for all of it. Hormonal differences, anatomy, cultural messages about female pleasure, and the timing of sexual socialization all probably contribute. Researchers have debated the weighting for decades without settling on a consensus.
Cross-Cultural Differences
The rates are not uniform around the world, and comparing across countries is tricky because survey methods differ. A cross-cultural study comparing respondents from Canada, Colombia, Brazil, and Israel found that about 39% of Canadian respondents said they had never masturbated, compared with roughly 27% of Colombians, 22% of Brazilians, and about 20% of Israelis.8Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa. Sexual survey: a cross-cultural perspective One striking finding from that study was that nearly half of female respondents across these populations reported never having had an orgasm during masturbation, compared with a much smaller share of men. Cultural norms, religious messaging, and access to information about female anatomy all play into these numbers.
A separate study found that younger women, women who identified as non-White, and women with stronger religious fundamentalist beliefs were more likely to report negative feelings about masturbation.9Texas Woman’s University. Women’s masturbation: an exploration of the influence of shame, guilt, and religiosity Interestingly, the same study found that generalized shame and guilt did not predict more negative attitudes in the expected way. Guilt was actually associated with fewer negative feelings, an unexpected result that the researchers attributed to possible complexity in how women process conflicting messages about their own sexuality.
Masturbation and the Orgasm Gap
Women consistently report lower orgasm rates during partnered sex than men do. Masturbation, by contrast, narrows that gap dramatically. Among heterosexual women who had experienced orgasm from masturbation, about 83% identified clitoral stimulation alone as their most reliable route, and another 14% cited simultaneous clitoral and vaginal stimulation. Only about 1% pointed to vaginal penetration alone.10Journal of Sexual Medicine & Medical Research / JSM Sexual Medicine. Heterosexual Women’s Most Reliable Route to Orgasm during Partnered Sex Versus Masturbation About 18% of the women in that sample said they had never reached orgasm from masturbation at all.
The clinical relevance here is direct. When therapists treat women who have never experienced orgasm, a technique called directed masturbation has long been the evidence-based frontline approach. A controlled study found that 90% of women who followed a directed masturbation program gained orgasmic capacity, compared with about 53% who received conventional therapy. Roughly 85% of the masturbation-program group became regularly orgasmic during intercourse as well.11PubMed. A controlled study to evaluate directed masturbation in the management of primary orgasmic failure in women A later review of treatment approaches for orgasmic difficulties confirmed that directed masturbation, alongside sensate focus and psychotherapy, had the strongest evidence base.12PubMed. Psychological and Behavioral Treatment of Female Orgasmic Disorder
Vibrator Use
The use of vibrators has become mainstream. A nationally representative U.S. study found that about 53% of women had used a vibrator at some point.13The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Prevalence and Characteristics of Vibrator Use by Women in the United States: Results from a Nationally Representative Study Women who had recently used a vibrator scored higher on measures of desire, arousal, lubrication, and orgasm, suggesting that vibrator use tracks with, and may support, broader sexual functioning.
Age plays a role here, too. Among patients in a urogynecology clinic, about 64% of younger women reported vibrator use, compared with 30% of older patients. Younger patients were also more than twice as likely to report current masturbation (51% vs. 23%).14Urogynecology. Prevalence of Sexual Function and Vibrator Use Among Urogynecology Patients Women who masturbated were far more receptive to the idea of using a vibrator for sexual health purposes, and women who had used vibrators in the past were even more so. The clinical takeaway is that comfort with self-touch and comfort with vibrator use tend to reinforce each other.
Pornography and Erotica as Context
Masturbation and pornography consumption overlap, but they are not the same thing. In a large internet-based survey, about 60% of women reported consuming some form of pornography in the past month, compared with about 92% of men.15PubMed. Pornography Consumption, Modality and Function in a Large Internet Sample The most common format was video, but women were much more likely than men to consume written erotica. The primary stated reason for using pornography was to enhance masturbation, though respondents of both genders also endorsed other motivations. These numbers come from an internet convenience sample rather than a probability sample, so they likely skew higher than the general population, but the gender differences in both rate and preferred format are consistent with other research.
Masturbation Within Relationships
A common misconception is that women in satisfying relationships don’t masturbate, or that masturbation signals dissatisfaction with a partner. The research paints a messier picture. A systematic review found that among women, 40% of the studies reviewed showed no relationship between solo masturbation and sexual satisfaction, about a third showed a negative relationship, and roughly a quarter showed a positive one.16PubMed Central. Relationship between Solitary Masturbation and Sexual Satisfaction: A Systematic Review In other words, the connection between masturbating alone and being happy with partnered sex is genuinely inconsistent across studies and populations.
Mutual masturbation, where partners stimulate themselves or each other during shared sexual activity, tends to tell a different story. A study on mutual masturbation found that recently engaging in it was positively linked with sexual satisfaction, though not with sexual self-esteem. Men reported more positive feelings about mutual masturbation than women did.17PubMed Central. The Role of Mutual Masturbation within Relationships: Associations with Sexual Satisfaction and Sexual Self-Esteem The distinction between solo and mutual masturbation is important: the two behaviors seem to relate to relationship satisfaction in different ways.
Body Image and Sexual Self-Esteem
How a woman feels about her body affects her experience of masturbation. Women with greater body-image dissatisfaction report more difficulty reaching orgasm during both partnered sex and masturbation, with no significant difference in the strength of that link between the two contexts.18PubMed Central. Body Image, Orgasmic Response, and Sexual Relationship Satisfaction: Understanding Relationships and Establishing Typologies Based on Body Image Satisfaction Body image does not just shape how you relate to a partner; it shapes how you relate to yourself.
On the flip side, women who do masturbate and feel good about it report benefits that loop back into self-perception. Research with a primarily sex-positive sample found that women were more likely to feel sexually empowered by masturbation if they had higher genital self-image, felt more sexually capable, and masturbated specifically for pleasure or to learn about their bodies.19Psychology of Women Quarterly. Women’s masturbation: Experiences of sexual empowerment in a primarily sex-positive sample The motivation behind masturbation appears to matter: women who frame it as self-exploration or pleasure report different psychological outcomes than those who frame it as a substitute for partnered sex.
Bisexual and Queer Women
Most large surveys focus on women as a whole without separating results by sexual orientation, so the data on queer women specifically are thinner. Qualitative research with bisexual and queer women found that masturbation served as a way to build comfort and skills with their own bodies, which sometimes transferred to sexual experiences with female partners.20Journal of Counseling Sexology & Sexual Wellness Research Practice and Education. “It’s Happiness and Relief and Release”: Exploring Masturbation Among Bisexual and Queer Women For women who are navigating attractions to multiple genders, masturbation can function as a private space for sexual identity exploration without the complexities of partnered dynamics.
An Ancient Behavior Across Primates
If it seems like masturbation should be more culturally loaded than biologically driven, consider that it is not unique to humans. A large-scale evolutionary analysis across primate species concluded that female masturbation was present in the common ancestors of apes, catarrhine monkeys, and broader primate groups, with high probability estimates in each case.21PubMed Central. The evolution of masturbation is associated with postcopulatory selection and pathogen avoidance in primates The behavior has been documented in at least 49 female primate species. The researchers found that masturbation in primates is associated with mechanisms related to sexual selection and pathogen avoidance, suggesting it is not a random byproduct of having genitalia but a behavior that has been maintained, and possibly shaped, by natural selection over tens of millions of years. Whatever cultural stories we tell about female masturbation, it predates culture entirely.