How old were you when you first masturbated?
4-6, before Kindergarten I think.
How old were you when you first masturbated to orgasm?
4-6, before Kindergarten I think. It was faster and easier for me to O as a child than it is for me now as a post-menopausal woman. It might be easier for a girl to O before puberty than a boy.
I think I did it about once a week. I obviously had an instinctual sex drive even that young.
What were you thinking about while masturbating?
Mostly nothing except how it feels. I didn't know anything at all about sex then. I remember sometimes fantasizing about being naked and spanked in public when doing it and that made it seem a bit shameful. Even knowing nothing about sex or the concept of masturbation, I must have felt there was something taboo even though I never discussed it with anyone. I did it in bed before I went to sleep.
How did you find out about sex?
When I was 8, I asked my mother where babies come from. She wisely knew to only answer the question I asked and not give me more information than I was really asking or ready for. But that meant I had to drag out the information from her bit by bit. Because back then ladies did not talk about such private matters, she could not bring herself to say the word 'vagina' or point to that area on me or her, so when I asked where it was, she had to get out an anatomy book and show me. I asked her how 'intercourse' felt (since that's what she called it), and she said 'pleasant'. I was afraid of the idea at first even though I had masturbated for years, I didn't connect the two in my mind.
But in some ways, my mom was fairly modern. On her bedroom bookshelf, she had 'Joy of Sex' which I started reading at age 8. Also at age 8, I found my dad's stack of Playboys and always sneaked in their room to see if there was a new one when they weren't home.
Fortunately, I read some feminist books of my mom's at age 8 also, including books by Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, and writings by Gloria Steinem. (I was a book worm since Kindergarten.) I remember those books saying women shouldn't be treated as sex objects and shouldn't have to shave their legs or wear bras if they didn't want to.
I realized the depiction of women in Playboy was sexist but I still liked reading it for the dirty cartoons mostly.
I think it was a very fortunate thing that I learned about sex from the book 'Joy of Sex' instead of just Playboy. 'Joy of Sex' made sex sound fun and natural and loving and a thing that happens between equals, not something pornographic or that objectifies women. It talked about women having orgasms and implied that sex is for women's enjoyment as much as men. It is sad when I hear about other women who had sex for years and never realized that women could have orgasms too.
What did you learn about it?
The Joy of Sex book was like a reference book which mostly discussed and depicted heterosexual sex, but made mention of homosexual sex and very briefly mentioned fetishes, BDSM, even golden showers I think.
What did you think about it when you first saw anything about it?
At 8 years old, I liked the idea of having sex in the future but was also sort of afraid it would hurt the first time, and I knew that I would always need to use birth control if I didn't want to get pregnant. The drawings in 'Joy of Sex' looked loving and romantic to me.
I never liked the idea of doing sexual things with males that I wasn't in love with. At ages 12-14, I used to briefly french kiss guys to see what it was like and we often played the 'spin the bottle' game with a crowd of friends where you have to french kiss the person of the opposite sex that the bottle points to. After a while, I realized I didn't even like kissing a guy unless I was 'into' him emotionally and physically attracted to him.
I had unrequited crushes in my teens and then a very religious boyfriend at 16-17 who seemed LD and repressed (a sexual mismatch for sure) so we only kissed. I was a virgin until 18 when I started dating a guy that I loved and was compatible with (who wasn't prudish about sex), and only after I went on birth control.
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It is surprising to me that so many people never even seemed to touch themselves or get the idea to masturbate until they were teens. It obviously felt good when I touched myself 'down there', so it is mysterious to me that others could go so many years without noticing that. Maybe I just had more hormone levels than others as a child, so maybe for others, they felt nothing special down there until they hit puberty.
Also, I'm surprised other people didn't ask their parents about sex at that age (e.g. age 8-10 years). Weren't other preteen kids curious how babies are made, it didn't even occur to them? Even in Kindergarten I couldn't avoid seeing the drawings or etchings of erect penises and sexual comments on the desks and bathroom doors at school. I don't understand how kids in the elementary and early middle school years weren't curious enough to ask their parents (before teen years when you start being self-conscious and more independent of your parents)? Or maybe many parents lied or dodged the questions.
I told my kids only the mechanics of how babies were made (P goes in V and baby comes out of V) at age 3 or so (there are lots of children's books that help with this) but of course didn't discuss the 'feelings' of sex. I didn't give them 'Joy of Sex' but I did put various books on their bedroom bookshelves meant to introduce teens to sex and puberty.
I think my kids learned that making babies is associated with sexual excitement, romance, kissing around age 8-10 from watching TV shows. Many shows are sort of PG-13 these days that show people passionately kissing, talking about sleeping with each other etc..
I also learned a lot about sex and relationships from watching the daytime soap operas. I remember being so confused at around 7 years old about why in the soap operas there were so many affairs and how a child could be discovered to have a different father than his mother's husband. That led to asking my mother some questions.