Maybe this is naive of me, but I had no idea that men felt so passionately about masturbation—dudes responded in droves to our list of songs about self-love, and a little bitterly, I might add. So obviously, this got my frisky mind working and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to talk to the guys on our IM about their own masturbation habits. We have a couple newbies joining us (including one who didn’t even want an alias), and two of our regulars wanted to be completely anonymous. Guess guys are a little shy when it comes to dishing about diddling. Their responses to my nosy questions, after the jump…

Writing a song about self love isn’t as easy as it sounds, I imagine. How do you pen a tune about masturbation that doesn’t sound obvious or conjure up disturbing images? The following artists did it right, in no particular order (and check out clips of the songs, after the jump).

9. “And when my hand touches myself/I can finally rest my head/And when they take from his body/I think I’ll take from mine instead/Getting off, getting off while they’re all downstairs.”—Tori Amos, “Icicle”
Lyrical analysis isn’t my forte, but it seems like Tori is saying she’s diddling herself while her man’s funeral is going on downstairs. Scandalous!

This really is no surprise but super uptight couch sister, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, from The View, says she wouldn’t be pleased if her husband watched porn. And she sure as hell wouldn’t ever use a vibrator because she wants the intimacy of lovemaking with her husband more than anything. Honey, what about when he’s making treks around the country playing football games? Don’t you ever get a little horny and need to attend to some maintenance? Between pedicures you still pumice the soles of your feet (or some other ridiculous metaphor), right?

Ayveq, a 2,700-pound Pacific walrus who lived at the New York Aquarium passed away on Sunday of a bacterial infection. Ayveq loved to whistle and flip his flippers at the glass to attract attention, but he may be best known for regularly masturbating. “Ayveq’s frequent public self-gratification made him the Coney Island institution’s singular attraction,” wrote The Brooklyn Paper. May you find a mate in heaven so you can give your fins a rest, Ayveq. [The Brooklyn Paper via NYMag.com]

May is National Masturbation Month. In the mid-‘90s, when U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders recommended masturbation be taught as a form of safe sex, she was fired.  To protest, Good Vibrations, a San Francisco based sex toy company run by Dr. Carol Queen, started the annual celebration of self-love. This year, the company will host its 11th Live Masturbation-A-Thon, a benefit to raise privates and private funds for community-based sex education and health organizations. So far, the event has set a world record—Norine Dworkin got off for over 6 hours.  Impressive! [AC via Nerve]

“What percentage of women have an orgasm during intercourse? The stats I’ve read really seem to vary, with some studies making it seem kind of rare. Is that true?” - Curious About Climaxes, Cleveland, OH

General statistics (which vary as much as your orgasms do) show a whopping 75% of women failing to reach orgasm during intercourse. 12% percent NEVER EVER achieve one, even through self-stimulation.
A lot of this has to do with knowing your body well enough to determine what turns you on and what doesn’t. I didn’t achieve my first orgasm until my mid-20’s, and didn’t find a partner I could have regular orgasms with until I was almost 30 (I’m 29 now, so you do the math).

Guys have been flushing carcinogens out of their bodies since puberty, and they probably didn’t even know it! Researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria in Australia found that men who masturbated more than five times each week were one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer. Sadly, sexual intercourse does not seem to have the same effect. This is not because men are more turned on by their hands, but rather, intercourse increases the risk of getting an STD, which might raise the risk of cancer. [Fox News]

“If I masturbate too much will I be unable to get off when a guy goes down on me?”—Solo Satisfier, Baltimore, MD

Unlike guys, the more a girl masturbates the more likely she is to have an orgasm during sex (intercourse or oral). Masturbating might actually help you achieve an orgasm FASTER. The more we know our bodies (and what movements turn us on), the more we’re able to translate that experience in the sack.

In an attempt to spice things up, a 50-year-old man bought a vibrator for his wife, but now she seems to have lost interest in him. The husband knows she uses the vibrator, so he thinks it’s the vibrator’s fault that she doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore. This is kind of sad because he was only trying to bring her pleasure by introducing a toy, but maybe he should have known that women are more likely to orgasm from masturbating than from having sex. An Australian study found that 56 percent of women who were sexually active without a partner had an orgasm every time they masturbated, compared with 24 percent of women having sex with a partner. Also, was this his wife’s first vibrator? If so, we’re definitely sadder for her that she missed out on all the fun for 50 years. [The Guardian]