“Women have sexual desire and women masturbate.”
On paper, that sounds obvious. Yet when some people try to imagine it as part of the ordinary private life of women they know, their brain suddenly goes:
“Wait… really?”
“Why does this feel like an urban legend?”
The interesting part is not that female masturbation is rare. It is that a completely private behavior can feel much less real than its actual prevalence because we almost never observe it directly.
Brain meeting:
Brain: “Women do that too?”
Statistics: “Yes. Quite a lot of them.”
Brain: “But I have never seen it.”
Statistics: “That is generally the point of a private activity.”
This article looks at adult sexual-behavior surveys and separates what we know from what we do not: prevalence, frequency, the male-versus-female gap, media used during masturbation, the clothing question, and whether it can simply start because touching feels good rather than from some dramatic burst of sexual desire.
0. Five-second answer — not an urban legend, but not “everyone” either
In Japan’s 2022 NInJaS quasi-national survey of 8,000 adults aged 20–49, 48.1% of women and 88.3% of men reported masturbating.[1]
Among people in their twenties, masturbating at least three times per week was reported by 7.7% of women and 41.5% of men.[1]
A 2025 scoping review of Japanese sexual-behavior research found that in online surveys from the 2020s, roughly one in five women aged 20–39 reported masturbating at least weekly, while weekly masturbation was the majority pattern among men through their forties.[2]
So the short version is:
Women commonly masturbate, but the distribution is not the same as men’s.
And a population percentage never tells you what a particular person does. Statistics are not X-ray vision for someone else’s private life.
1. Why does it feel like an urban legend? Because the behavior is almost invisible
Masturbation is usually solitary and private.
You can observe people eating, commuting, shopping, gaming, exercising.
Masturbation?
Unless someone tells you, there may be no observable trace at all.
There are also large individual, cultural, generational, and gender differences in how comfortable people are talking about sexual behavior. Surveys themselves rely on self-report, so embarrassment and social-desirability effects can never be completely eliminated.
The result is a visibility gap:
Male masturbation
→ more jokes, internet talk, peer discussion
→ “Obviously that happens.”
Female masturbation
→ fewer direct observations
→ “I know it exists, but it somehow does not feel real.”
That is not evidence of absence. It is missing logs.
Human: “No logs, so I assumed the feature was never implemented.”
Reality: “It has been running in production the whole time.”
2. Even 88.3% for men can feel surprisingly low — why not 100%?
There is another stereotype in the opposite direction:
“All men masturbate. Surely it is 100%.”
The data do not say that.[1]
But it is also a mistake to read 88.3% as “11.7% of men have never masturbated in their lives.” Surveys differ in reference period, age range, wording, and response categories. “Not currently,” “not in the past year,” and “never” are not the same thing.
In JEX Japan Sex Survey 2020, among adults aged 20–69, “never masturbated” was 5.8% for men and 43.4% for women.[3] Weekly-or-more masturbation totaled 58.8% for men and 12.2% for women.[3]
The 2024 JEX survey of 5,029 adults aged 18–69 again summarized the broad pattern as fewer than one in ten men but more than four in ten women reporting no lifetime experience, and more than 70% of males in the 10s–20s group masturbating at least weekly.[4]
Different surveys produce different numbers because their designs differ.
So when a number makes you say, “Only 88%?” the first question is:
What exactly was the denominator and time frame?
That is statistics’ version of asking, “Did you remember your pants?”
3. How often do women do it? The distribution is wide
In NInJaS 2022, 48.1% of women reported masturbation, but the high-frequency group was much smaller than among men: 7.7% of women in their twenties reported three or more times per week.[1]
In JEX 2020, women overall reported:
- daily: 1.2%
- 4–6 days/week: 1.3%
- 2–3 days/week: 4.7%
- once/week: 5.0%
- 2–3 days/month: 6.5%
- once/month: 4.9%
- a few times/year: 12.2%
- not for more than one year: 20.7%
- never: 43.4%.[3]
So female masturbation is not well described by “yes or no.” The pattern ranges from frequent to occasional to long periods of none.
Among women in their twenties in JEX 2020, for example, 10.0% reported 2–3 times per week and 7.3% once per week.[3]
The useful answer is:
A substantial share do it, and frequency varies enormously.
4. What do women look at? Live-action adult video is absolutely part of the picture
The stereotype that women only use imagination does not fit the data.
In the JEX 2020 question asking respondents about their main masturbation “material” with multiple responses allowed, women in that respondent group reported:
- nothing in particular: 47.8%
- live-action adult video: 28.5%
- fantasy: 18.8%
- manga: 9.0%.[3]
Among women in their twenties:
- live-action adult video: 51.7%
- nothing in particular: 22.3%
- manga: 19.0%
- fantasy: 18.1%.[3]
So in this young female respondent group, live-action pornography was a major, ordinary option.
A crucial detail: “nothing in particular” and “fantasy” were separate answers.
Therefore:
47.8% “nothing in particular”
does not mean
47.8% “imagining a specific attractive person.”
Turning that into a claim would be statistical fan fiction.
The 2024 JEX summary also reports live-action video as a major source, with anime standing out more among younger groups and manga relatively more common among women.[4]
Old stereotype: “Women do not watch explicit video.”
Women in their twenties in the 2020 table: “51.7%.”
Stereotype: “I did not ask.”
5. Do they get completely undressed? Strangely, this is where the data get thin
After surveys have asked about frequency, media, positions, stimulation and devices, you might expect a neat national table for:
fully naked / lower body only / underwear moved aside / through clothing.
Not really.
Research on women’s masturbation has examined stimulation sites, motives, positions, and direct versus indirect techniques. A Portuguese survey of 3,687 women, for example, reported a variety of direct and indirect techniques.[5]
But in the literature checked for this article, we did not find a high-quality population estimate telling us what percentage of women are fully undressed versus partly clothed.
So it is reasonable to say that people use different levels of undressing and different direct or indirect methods. It is not reasonable to invent a percentage such as “X% keep their underwear on.”
Researchers:
frequency: measured
position: measured
media: measured
device use: measured
underwear status: somehow not the headline variable
Reader: “That was the question I came for.”
Research literature: “Priorities were chosen.”
6. Can it simply start because touching feels good?
Yes. Masturbation motives are not limited to “extreme horniness.”
In a U.S. nationally representative survey, women who had masturbated in the past year reported reasons including:
- it feels pleasurable: 63.6%
- feeling horny: 49.0%
- stress relief: 36.2%
- relaxation: 25.8%
- helping with sleep: 25.7%.[6]
A qualitative study of women also identified masturbation as a form of routine tension release.[7]
So there is not one universal script:
“desire spike → search explicit content → formally begin masturbation.”
For some people it can be:
“touching feels good,”
“I want to relax,”
“I am trying to sleep,”
“I want to release stress.”
Again, that is not every woman. It simply shows that sexual behavior has multiple entry points.
The app called sexual desire has more than one launch icon.
7. Conclusion — the “urban legend” feeling is really a private-log problem
The evidence can be summarized simply:
- In Japan’s 2022 survey, 48.1% of women and 88.3% of men reported masturbation.[1]
- Frequency differs sharply: among people in their twenties, 7.7% of women versus 41.5% of men reported at least three times weekly.[1]
- Reviews of Japanese surveys in the 2020s place weekly-or-more masturbation around one in five among women aged 20–39, with higher frequencies among men.[2]
- In JEX 2020, live-action adult video was common among younger female respondents; 51.7% of women in their twenties selected it in the material question.[3]
- “Nothing in particular” was also common and was separate from fantasy.[3]
- Reliable population percentages for how much clothing people remove are surprisingly absent.
- Motives include pleasure, arousal, stress relief, relaxation and sleep.[7][6]
- None of these population statistics let us infer the private behavior of a specific individual.
In other words:
Female sexual desire is not an urban legend.
It simply generates very few public logs.
Brain: “I have never seen it!”
Statistics: “You were not supposed to.”
Brain: “Fair.”
Statistics: “Please stop trying to turn prevalence into mind reading.”
One research gap remains magnificently unresolved:
Someone, please add the clothing-status question to a proper population survey.
Humanity has collected an impressive amount of sexual-behavior data and somehow left that database field nearly blank.
References (7)
- Ghaznavi C, et al. “Sexual Behaviors among Individuals Aged 20-49 in Japan: Initial Findings from a Quasi-Representative National Survey, 2022.” The Journal of Sex Research doi.org
- Sexual Inactivity in Japan: A Scoping Review.” The Journal of Sex Research, 2025 doi.org
- JEX / Japan Family Planning Association, “JEX SEX SURVEY 2020. jfpa.or.jp
- JEX / Japan Family Planning Association, “JEX JAPAN SEX SURVEY 2024. jex-sh.jp
- Carvalheira A, Leal I. “Masturbation Among Women: Associated Factors and Sexual Response in a Portuguese Community Sample. doi.org
- Masturbation Prevalence, Frequency, Reasons, and Associations with Partnered Sex in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Fahs B, Frank E. “Notes from the Back Room: Gender, Power, and (In)Visibility in Women's Experiences of Masturbation. doi.org
