Who engages in self pleasure?

Who engages in self pleasure?

Everybody! People of all ages, genders, abilities, sexualities, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and relationship statuses have a right to experience pleasure and explore it through self pleasure.

Exploring turn ons
Sexual arousal has mental, physical, and emotional parts to it. Some signs to notice that you might be getting aroused include:

Feeling warm or your skin becoming flushed
Your heart beating faster
Heavier breathing
Nipples becoming hard or erect
Penises*, vulvas*, and clitorises* becoming erect/engorged
Producing precum or vaginal* fluids
Having sexy thoughts
Feeling more connected to your body
For more info on how arousal can affect genitals, please see our Below the Belt fact sheets.

It can take a bit of time and experimenting to discover what works for you. Some common experiences include:

Your turn ons and how your body responds to them can change based on a lot of factors like your energy levels, emotional state, time, comfort, stage of life, etc.
What turns you on one time may not be satisfying when you try it again, or maybe it only works under certain conditions.
You might notice yourself getting turned on by something first, and then that makes you want to engage in self pleasure.
You might decide to try self pleasure first, and then it takes some effort to get yourself turned on.
You may notice that a sensation feels nice, but isn’t sexy to you.
Your body might not react to things that you imagine will be sexy.
You might find that some things are fun to think about, but you have no interest doing them in real life.