How a Friend Inspired Me to Masturbate for the First Time

Kicking off #MasturbationConversations with none other than India's foremost sex positive creator Leeza Mangaldas! In this intimate piece, Leeza tells us how a chat with a friend encouraged her to explore masturbation for the first time – and learn how to “push the right button” when indulging in self pleasure. I promise this one’s for you to get inspired! Subscribe here to receive a notification when our new Masturbation Conversations mini doc is released on May 27th & watch a free movie while you wait!

As a teenager, I had never masturbated. Even after my first several sexual experiences. I thought that having sex was somehow superior, or more legitimate. That masturbation was for people who “weren’t getting any”, an inferior and pathetic substitute.

This subconscious shame and distaste around masturbation, particularly around women masturbating, is hardly unique and comes in large part due to social/cultural conditioning. But for me, it was also from ignorance because I had in fact never even tried.

As a result, up until my mid twenties (I’m 31 now), there was so much about my own body that I hadn’t yet discovered. At the time, I didn’t know the extent of pleasure I was capable of experiencing.

One evening I was chatting at a party with a friend who is bisexual, and she had been seeing only women for the last couple of years. She told me that she had recently had a crush on a guy—but that after getting physical with him, she was terribly disappointed.

“How do you straight girls manage?” she asked incredulously. “He had no clue what he was doing! I’d forgotten how much guys need to be schooled! I’m definitely not bothering with a one night stand with a dude again after this—my vibrator is just so, so much better, and I don’t even have to shave my legs!”

I had never owned a vibrator, and I had no idea what I was missing. But if the look in my friend’s eyes when she said “so, so much better” was anything to go by, clearly I was missing a lot. I asked her to tell me all about it. “Having a one night stand with a guy when you have a high quality dual action vibrator at home is quite literally like choosing to take the bus when you own a Ferrari,” she laughed.

I ordered one online the next day.

I will admit that back then it wasn’t the easiest thing to purchase high quality sex toys in India, but that is a whole other story, and it is getting easier, so back to the point.

The first time I used it, I was so overwhelmed by what I experienced that I thought to myself that if I could make one wish right now, I would wish that it rained vibrators. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than for every vulva owner in the world to have access to the incredible depths of pleasure our bodies are capable of.

I think of my sex life now as pre- and post-vibrator. They feel like vastly different eras.
It was only after I had experimented with my toy that I realized how much more there was to my own arousal and pleasure than I had previously even imagined. And we were only just getting started.

Before I bought the vibrator, I used to think that my orgasms were a mysterious and rare occurrence. That it took so much effort to even attempt to get there, that it was so hit or miss, that on most nights I’m better off just faking it. Plus, even on the occasions that there did seem to be some magic, it was hard to enjoy myself with abandon, it was hard to stop worrying about how I look and feel and taste and smell, and whether he’s having a good time. It was hard to just focus even for a moment on myself.

But alone with my toy, I was able to do just that.

There’s something about doing an activity alone rather than in front of another person.
Consider even an activity as banal and every day as eating. Wouldn’t you eat a bit differently in front of people than you might when you’re on your own? And sometimes don’t you just want to eat chocolate ice cream straight from the tub, as much of it as you want, without anyone watching you? It takes a spectacularly high level of self confidence and self awareness to do any task in front of another person exactly the way you would do it if no one was watching. I don’t think it's any different with sex.

My first year playing with my vibrator, I learnt more about my body than I ever had before.

Intricately, deliberately, thoughtfully, lovingly figuring out for myself exactly how my body works in relation to pleasure has genuinely been one of the most important steps on my path to sexual self-discovery. I realized that my orgasms are much less complicated and elusive than I had mistakenly assumed, and that I can and should make my own pleasure a massive priority.

The mainstream tells us women’s orgasms are tricky, and puzzling, and hard--we’re made to believe that for women, orgasms are inherently difficult to achieve. But that’s because we’re taught that sex is fundamentally about penetration. We’re taught that focused and consistent stimulation of the penis is required for sex. Even today, in sex ed in schools, in conversations at doctors’ offices, the clitoris is rarely mentioned.

If we were taught that focused and consistent stimulation of the clitoris was also required, and that the clitoris isn’t just the “pea shaped button” at the top, but in fact a much larger organ that extends internally too, believe me we’d be having orgasms just as often as men do.

Just imagine if we got into elevators without knowing we had to press the buttons, or got into cars without knowing we needed keys, that is literally how most straight couples approach sex in relation to female pleasure-- without knowing enough about the clitoris. Penetration alone is rarely enough to make a woman orgasm-- which is why most straight women end up having to fake it.

Deliberate, attentive stimulation of the clitoris is a one way ticket to orgasm for many many many women. And a vibrator will show you that — that our pleasure is actually not “difficult” at all.

I’ve also gotten so much better at being able to explain to a partner how my pleasure works. Thanks to what I learned from masturbation, it has become so much easier for me to communicate effectively with my partner during sex. And as I became better acquainted with the most intimate parts of my body, and more familiar with my own preferences, I also became much more confident and communicative in my romantic life.

After all, if we don’t discover and share what works for us, how can we expect our partners to know? I learned more about my pleasure and my body over the first year using my vibrator than I had over all previous years of being sexually active combined. It has literally been a revelation.

In fact, since I’m really baring my soul here, (or is it my vulva? 😉) it was this experience of self discovery via self pleasure, that inspired me to further my study of sexuality and sexual health in my own time and begin creating pleasure positive sex education content on YouTube and Instagram since 2017, as a passion project alongside my career as a TV presenter. I’m delighted my digital content has become sustainable over the years, allowing me to now focus on Sex Ed full time.

To help you make the most out of this Masturbation Month, you can now enjoy a 50% discount on my platforms Lust Cinema, XConfessions, and Else Cinema. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Lust Zine to receive a notification when our Masturbation Conversations mini-doc is released & watch a free movie in the meantime!