#GirlsShitToo

Girls Masturbate, Too

Girls Masturbate, Too

Published on April 17, 2015

Youtube Video Transcript:

Dallas here with Girls Shit Too.

I want to start this video by apologizing about what I tweeted last week. Because Adree's right: Girls who send nude selfies aren't "not smart." People who share those pictures without permission are assholes, sex offenders, and gross.

Adree keeps making me think about how as girls, we get so much more shit for our sexual expressions than men do. For dressing freely, for sexting, for exploring our sexualities with others, and even for our very personal sexual explorations, like masturbation.

Yes, I can't believe I'm talking about masturbation, but I am. Here goes.

Okay, when I was little, like probably six, my mom caught me touching myself. And she just got this horrified look on her face and was all, "Dallas, don't do that! Stop that right now! And go wash your hands!" And that was all she ever said about that, and so I was left feeling really ashamed and confused.

My older brother was a completely different story. Growing up, we'd always go on our monthly trips to Costco, and Mom would buy the most gigantic package of assorted Kleenex, and I'd be like, "Mom, there's no way we're going to use all of that. We can literally build an igloo with all that Kleenex." And she'd be like, "Well, most of it's for Josh."

And you know why my brother needed half an igloo's worth of Kleenex. But why did my mom support him so much?

Because for him, masturbation was just totally normal and acceptable, something that he just had to do 'cause he's a dude.

Even when we were really little, it was normal. He was eight when I was six, and mom never saw him touching his junk and screamed out "stop that!" and "wash your hands right now!" and "that's dirty!" She'd say things like, "Joshua, if you don't stop touching your penis so much it's going to fall off, and that wouldn't be very fun sweetie, would it?" or "Adjust your jewels in private, honey." And he never associated too much shame with those things. I mean, his private parts were his shining jewels, and he just thought he shouldn't touch them too much.

Me, on the other hand—well, Mom never really talked to me about my privates, with the exception of "wash your hands." So I just got lots of messages from that, and from society, and popular media.

And what did these messages say? That vaginas are gross and unclean. That they smell bad, like fish. That they look like roast beef curtains. "Vagina" is like, considered a bad word, and penis isn't! I mean, I called a boy in my class in fourth grade a vagina and I got sent to the principal's office. But boys would say penis all the time and everything was peachy. There was even a girl in one of my classes recently who told me that she doesn't even like her own vagina.

The shame and bad messages that I received didn't make cause me to hate my vagina or to stop me masturbating, though there were some effects. I just found other ways to do it that weren't so bad in my mind. I would masturbate with a blanket or something, because then I wasn't directly touching my "gross"/"dirty" self and it wasn't my own hand that was fully responsible.

But I will tell you: vaginas aren't dirty. Neither are vulvas. Vaginas and vulvas are awesome! So I don't know why girls have so many barriers obstructing our personal explorations with ourselves. Girls, let's give ourselves some love!