Womanizer shows: Women masturbate more often than in previous years

For the third time, Womanizer calculated the ‘International Equal Masturbation Day’ and thus symbolically draws attention to the masturbation gap between women and men. Looking at a very positive development this year, the masturbation gap has decreased from 62 percent to 47 percent! (The calculation is based on a formula of the German Federal Statistics Office, which is also to calculate the gender pay gap) This year’s global Equal Masturbation Day will take place on June 23rd and thus almost eight weeks earlier than last year (August 13th). This is the result of a recent Womanizer survey with 22,315 participants from 15 countries.

Upward trend: women masturbate significantly more than in 2021

The Equal Masturbation Day indicates that women have not yet masturbated by this day in the year, while men have been doing so since the beginning. Compared to last year, women masturbate significantly more, and in every country. On average, women masturbate 76 times a year, 23 times more than last year. The leader is Great Britain, where women masturbate an average of 100 times a year – last year it was 59 times.
However, there is still a large gap between men and women in every country: Men masturbate an average of 2.8 times per week, twice as often as women at 1.4 times per week. Over the year, male respondents masturbate an average of 145 times (2021: 140). Here, the Swiss are ahead with 162 times per year.

“The date of the Equal Masturbation Day surprised us this year. We created the day in 2020 to draw attention to the social imbalance,” explains Johanna Rief, Head of Sexual Empowerment at Womanizer. “Two years ago, Equal Masturbation Day was still at the beginning of September. The fact that this gap has now decreased by two months is a really positive development.”

Missing and incomplete sex education in schools

In previous years, we found out that most participants’ sex education was limited to contraception, pregnancy and the reproductive organs. Yet almost 31 per cent told us that they would like to learn more about pleasure or how to talk about sex. At least one in five would like to learn more about self- love and masturbation.

An open dialogue about masturbation should be encouraged not only at school, but also at home. As many as 36% of respondents believe that parents should talk to their children about masturbation starting at the age of 13. Unfortunately, 18 percent still believe that parents should not talk to children about solo sex at all. It is therefore not surprising that more than half of all participants are left alone with their questions on masturbation and had to approach it through trial and error and their own curiosity. In addition, 20 per cent of the respondents have learned about sex by watching porn – a source that often enough enforces outdated gender roles and the male gaze.

Johanna Rief says: “These results show how important it is to raise awareness about female sexuality and desire. We work continuously with campaigns like the Menstrubation Study or the cooperation with Lilly Allen to remove the taboo on female sexuality. It’s great to see that a social change is taking place and that we are allowed to contribute to it. With the Womanizer Pleasure Fund, we also want to help close another gap, the Gender Health Gap.”