Rub It Out

Dudes like to think that girls can get laid anytime we want. TRUE. But also gigantically FALSE because “can” presumes something about wanting to get laid, with all of the related boy-coming- over-to-your-apartment- jizzing-on-your-sheets- and-infecting-you-with- emotions-plus- maybe-crabs-ness that sexual intercourse involves. So, yeah, we can, but we don’t. Most of the time, when girls get the Hunger, they go it alone in any number of alone-ways, if you dig. This needs to be explained because the same guys who are leaving their Asian Fever or whatever (zzzz) in the backseat are like “Rilly!?” about how girls jerk off too. Like, tons, son!

Rubbing out is also pretty much the only part of female sexuality that has the gently-opening-flower aesthetic we’ve been told to expect and maintain since we were in the Cabbage Patch. Add a boy or another girl to getting off and the faces and sounds get weirder, which is better, but alone it’s just kind of like, ahhh. Simple. You know how we mime jerking off a penis when some asshole is talking shit? I’m going to start doing a casual rub-out motion when I want to suggest something chill. “I’m going to the park to read magazines [rub-out motion].”

Girl masturbation is especially great when we compare it with guy masturbation. As helpful as it is to watch a guy do his thing so you can take notes about how he likes his d touched, jerking off as a concept is forever tainted by the attendant imagery of circle jerks in forests, stiff Kleenexes collecting on your floor, and, even worse, the fabled tube sock. The worst porno you’ve ever self-loathingly watched half of is more palatable to us than your fucking old, gross sport socks with the toe indentations filled up with your cum. Ugughggh. Boys are great, but their jerk-off technology less so.

PILLOW/TEDDY BEAR/BLANKET
This is how girls learn how to do it, usually by unintentionally mounting one of these things and eventually figuring out that the warm feeling it produces is replicable and, one Fantasia of a day, leads to a melty-Pop-Rocks-diving-into-the-ocean feeling/catharsis that you’ll soon disgustingly call (it’s a disgusting word) “orgasm.” OK, also, shit: I forgot about how a lot of girls never do this at all, and never orgasm successfully, in adolescence or otherwise. Hrmm. I’m way out of my depth with that one. Sorry.

SHOWERHEAD/BATH FAUCET
Sometimes your vibrator is going to break and you’re going to be too broke to replace it right away and your hands are going to be unappealing as sexual instruments because you spend all your time typing on the internet and then, then! You will remember that a faucet or showerhead is lying in wait as a free, if sometimes yogicly challenging, vibrator. (Is vibrator also a disgusting word? I don’t like how it’s been reapproped by, like, TV people as a plot thing, e.g.: “Finding Jenny’s vibrator, ewwww!” Grow up. Sex toys aren’t particularly outré, they are just stuff of adult life like credit scores and an encroaching sense of futility. Also, if you think a vibrator is weird you’ve got a whole bunch of work to do, pal.) The bath/shower offers a steady and reliable force of pressure from a genitally safe material, which feels craayayayayazy when you’re used to less literal stimulation. PLUS you are already in the naked room. Just, don’t let the water go all up in there. You know not to have sex in the hot tub, right?

LEANING UP AGAINST THE HANDICAPPED-STALL DOOR
I forget if America has government-mandated handicapped stalls. Anyway, we do in Canada, and that’s where you’re going to want to go when you have to rub one out in semi-public. They are rarely occupied (but obviously get the fuck out if someone who actually needs a handicapped stall shows up) and always at the end of the restroom, too, so you have less of a chance of hearing someone’s pee-pee while you work through the cognitis interruptus of a Friday Night Lights masturbation fantasy (Smash! No, the one with the hair! No, Coach Taylor! TIP: Always choose Saracen). There’s also extra space for you to stretch your legs a little; after you come you’ll need to reestablish your relationship to your body, because coming in public is always kind of too real. Triple bonus if you do it at work and you work somewhere stupid where “an outfit” is required because the extra tension of tights around the hand you’re using is !!!.

HANDS FREE
This is the best! If you’re sitting the right way and can coax an O out of how your jeans feel on a commuter train, you are a Level 6 already.



THIRD FINGER, DOMINANT HAND
Probably the best way for girls to get off alone is to smoke a blunt and take a Xanax and wear something slippery and not have anywhere to be and spend one to two hours switching between porn and a sexy movie (by sexy movie I think I just mean Bad Boys II) and playing with your hair and just slooowly feeling up your entire area and titties and whatever you’re into with your hands and some other stuff you bought in advance at the sex store, because that is a) how you treat a lady, b) educational and good practice for sex-sex, and c) useful for having the less obvious orgasms, the ones that are more an “Oh, OK!?” than they are a “Yeah!” This is definitely what Britney was doing when she “wrote” her masturbatory epic “Touch of My Hand.” (Good song!)

But then there is the reality, which is the middle (read: strongest) finger of the dominant hand doing the reasonable and efficient masturbation, where you just land right on the clit and go for it without any preamble. It’s even worse when you’re tired and are using the orgasm as a sleep aid and do it on your side in a fetal position so that you can come and then immediately fall asleep. What are you, an animal? (Yes.)

THIRD FINGER, NONDOMINANT HAND
For when your regular hand is tired. Oh, let’s add “lying on your hand until it goes to sleep” and “using the nondominant hand to j with so it lasts longer” to things that boys do that we are ??? about.

DILDOS
Jkjkjkjkjk. Women don’t actually get off by replicating the penis experience, outside of pornography. In tandem with fingers or whatever, sure, but on its own that is just not how it works. Also, masturbation serves as a reminder to straight women that lesbianism is the right choice, we’re just too dickmatized to follow through. The time for a dildo is when your boyfriend wants to DP you, and his peen is the more appealing butt option. (I’ve actually never done that, ever, but I’ve heard things.) Anyway, dildos are half-retarded. I think it’s better to just miss dick than to get into it with a dildo, and then when you get fucked next it’s going to hurt in that really posi-aching way and you can legitimately be like, “That hurts, keep going.”

HITACHI MAGIC WAND
I’m compelled to include this one because it is the vibrator that every girl buys and falls in love with and replaces over and over (they break constantly). However, I’m just not sure. Masturbating should still be somewhat sexy and an unwieldy plug-in thing that goes VROOOOOOOM isn’t. Plus the head of a Magic Wand is white and textured, which means you can’t use it during your period, which is when you really should be masturbating a lot. A lot a lot a lot.

POCKET ROCKET
The Pocket Rocket is a frequently defective p.o.s. probably from Japan that I have bought four or five times in a row because it’s quiet and doesn’t have an overdesigned, overly cute “look” (nothing worse than a self-consciously silly vibrator) and because it’s tiny and I like how it offers a smooth, easy ride.
This—a little baby vibrator—is the move when you reeeeally want to have actual sex but aren’t going to, because it’s so wee that you can forget about how you’re using a vibrator to get off on by propping it just right and balancing your clit on it (when you’re facedown with your legs way-wide because of the Phantom Cock you’re doing it with).

THAT SCARY SYBIAN MACHINE THING
I can’t even. This should be uninvented.

Kate writes about girl stuff every week on VICE.com. You should come back and see more.