Some women suggest that female arousal depends on emotional stimuli. I do not think I ever accepted this idea. But it is difficult to discount the experience of others. I slowly concluded that they are mistaken. This fact led me to a further conclusion that arousal is not a common place experience for women. Consequently, most women have no idea what it entails.
I wondered why I always have to focus so intensely on erotic fantasy before I was conscious of any arousal. I have concluded that I am never conscious of any state of arousal except as a precursor to masturbation. I also wondered why I needed complete privacy and silence to achieve the arousal I needed for orgasm. I have concluded that this is also due to the intensity of mental focus that is required to generate arousal from nothing. Women do not have the advantages men have of hormonal or biological arousal. Nor do they respond during the day to real-world erotic triggers.
Although Kinsey noted that women engage in sexual activity without having an orgasm, he did not relate this finding to female masturbation techniques. Most of Kinsey’s data came from private interviews. He also observed individuals engaging in sexual activity, including a woman who masturbated by lying face down on the bed. Her instinctive rhythmic thrusting of her hips reminded Kinsey of the action of the penetrating male during intercourse. [i] I had never thought of how it might look to an observer before. When we act instinctively, we do not tend to won-der why we do so. Our motivation is subconscious and the activity feels natural.
Even when one accepts that the clitoris is the organ responsible for female orgasm, there is a further intellectual step in understanding women’s responsiveness. The parallel in anatomy is only part of a bigger picture. Responsiveness is a characteristic of male reproductive function. Male orgasm triggers the reproductive process. Women are only capable of orgasm because they have anatomy and psychology that has evolved from the sexual development of the male. Hence the rarity of female orgasm.
Masturbation involves a woman stimulating anatomy equivalent to the penis (the phallus). Orgasm involves the erectile sex organ (penis or clitoris). So, by masturbating, a woman is instinctively (not consciously) emulating (both mentally and physically) the penetrating male. A woman focuses on the male role (as penetrator) in intercourse when she instinctively uses fantasy to view sexual activity from the perspective of the penetrating male. The pelvic muscular action involved, when a woman masturbates in this fashion, also emulates the copulatory movements of a man in intercourse.
[i] The muscular action which is involved when a female masturbates in this fashion is typical of the copulatory movements of the male (Alfred Kinsey)
Excerpt from Understanding Sexual Response (ISBN 978-0956-894762)