A brief his­to­ry of female mas­tur­ba­tion in the movies

In pornog­ra­phy, female mas­tur­ba­tion is a main­stay. Male fan­ta­sy dic­tates that it is almost always a tit­il­lat­ing act for a man to watch before plac­ing him­self in the action. Accord­ing­ly, it tends to serve as an appe­tis­er to the main dish of pen­e­tra­tive sex. Cin­e­ma, while gen­er­al­ly less explic­it, fol­lows a remark­ably sim­i­lar line of log­ic on the sub­ject of female self-pleasure.

The ear­li­est exam­ple of a film depict­ing a female orgasm might well by 1933’s Ecsta­sy, in which Hedy Lamarr’s face is framed in rav­ish­ing close-up. But she’s with a man, and when there are men involved, the focus invari­ably shifts. Women have long been denied the phys­i­cal know-how or self-con­fi­dence to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own plea­sure – a prob­lem fos­tered by both Catholic and Freudi­an ideas about female sex­u­al­i­ty. For as long as mas­tur­ba­tion was seen as shame­ful or psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly sus­pect, cin­e­ma large­ly reflect­ed that by ignor­ing it altogether.

When the gaze of the cam­era is male, the man­nequins onscreen behave not only accord­ing to male fan­ta­sy, but to his ego. Sex­u­al­ly vora­cious or self-grat­i­fy­ing women are often there sim­ply for tit­il­la­tion. Sharon Stone’s full-frontal nudi­ty in 1993’s Sliv­er, for exam­ple, allows the audi­ence and the voyeur to watch as she reach­es cli­max in the bath. Con­tem­po­rary art­house fare such as Palme d’Or win­ner Blue is the Warmest Col­or is hard­ly bet­ter. What should have been a sen­su­al explo­ration of a les­bian affair often reads like a straight man’s lusty por­tray­al of it. As Adèle Exar­chopou­los writhes and grasps at her bare breasts in her mas­tur­ba­tion scene, Abdel­latif Kechiche’s cam­era hun­gri­ly roves over her body. These per­for­ma­tive soft-core scenes are a far cry from the sweaty and less pic­turesque reality.

But auto­eroti­cism for women can also exist in defi­ance of male sex­u­al pow­er, as a sort of chal­lenge to his sex­u­al suprema­cy. Maybe that’s the rea­son so many onscreen mas­tur­ba­tors are depict­ed as either com­ic or dark­ly neu­rot­ic. Even respect­ed male film­mak­ers are guilty of this. In Noah Baumbach’s Mar­got at the Wed­ding, Nicole Kidman’s cru­el pro­tag­o­nist strug­gles to get off while the appar­ent ease of male mas­tur­ba­tion is high­light­ed. In Mul­hol­land Dri­ve, Nao­mi Watts’ tear­ful mas­tur­ba­tion scene is laden with sym­bol­ism and despair. The mias­ma of shame still hangs heavy around these women characters.

Even when the atti­tude is more free­wheel­ing, as with Lars von Trier’s 2013 two-parter Nympho­ma­ni­ac, cer­tain issues remain. The juve­nile Char­lotte Gains­bourg is preter­nat­u­ral­ly at home with touch­ing her­self, and in Vol 2, she exper­i­ments in order to regain sen­sa­tion in her nether regions. But von Trier’s view­point is jad­ed and mis­er­able on the sub­ject of sex­u­al­i­ty, see­ing noth­ing joy­ous or even par­tic­u­lar­ly sexy about the act. These dis­mal depic­tions of female mas­tur­ba­tion do it a rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al dis­ser­vice, per­haps even more than the pic­turesque­ly sexy ones do. Sur­pris­ing­ly, it’s a some­what more ano­dyne film, Pleas­antville, where a 1950s house­wife learns the thrills of self-stim­u­la­tion for the first time, which sug­gests that women might actu­al­ly mas­tur­bate for fun.

Mov­ing fur­ther into the realm of art­house cin­e­ma reveals a more lax atti­tude towards the sub­ject at hand. In Park Chan-Wook’s Stok­er, a goth­ic psy­chodra­ma of deli­cious sex­u­al impro­pri­ety, Mia Wasikowska’s inex­pe­ri­enced teen has a cathar­tic show­er scene while think­ing of her debonair Uncle Char­lie (Matthew Goode) com­mit­ting mur­der on her behalf.

Cather­ine Breillat’s often dis­turb­ing work on female sex­u­al­i­ty, which reg­u­lar­ly involves humil­i­a­tion and rape, does offer an alter­na­tive explo­ration of the same sub­ject. In Romance, a film that was likened to pornog­ra­phy upon its release in 199, pro­tag­o­nist Marie (Car­o­line Ducey) explores her own body with tri­umphant results. She may have some guilt about plea­sur­ing her­self when she has a boyfriend around, but her solo dal­liances and fan­tasies – which fea­ture some very explic­it shots of erect penis­es – are nonethe­less thrilling.

In Paul Verhoeven’s Elle, anoth­er film fas­ci­nat­ed by the intri­ca­cies of pow­er in sex­u­al rela­tion­ships, Isabelle Hup­pert plays a fiftysome­thing woman who has no prob­lem casu­al­ly knock­ing one out while watch­ing her hunky neigh­bour out the win­dow. It’s this ​‘no big deal’ atti­tude toward female mas­tur­ba­tion that seems sore­ly lack­ing in most cinema.

More gen­er­al­ly, female desire onscreen can be a tricky sub­ject. When the issue is not mutu­al attrac­tion, but sex­u­al long­ing – the kind which would engen­der fan­ta­sy and mas­tur­ba­tion rather than an actu­al encounter – the log­i­cal con­clu­sion is often miss­ing. The pin­ing women we see onscreen are not shown mas­tur­bat­ing or reach­ing solo orgasm. Take Don Siegel’s The Beguiled, a film of roil­ing horni­ness and teenage hor­mones run amok. With a rugged young Clint East­wood as the object of affec­tion, it’s not sur­pris­ing that the clois­tered, sex­less school­girls – and their teach­ers – are knot­ted-up nests of long­ing. The women of Mag­ic Mike XXL, mean­while, may stare and gig­gle, but we can only guess at what they do when they leave the gyrat­ing Chan­ning Tatum behind.

That long­ing is per­haps more eas­i­ly shared by cin­ema­go­ers when sex­u­al activ­i­ty is with­held. That abil­i­ty for sub­tle­ty means tra­di­tion­al cin­e­ma still has its fair share of arous­ing moments. Pornog­ra­phy reveals every­thing with the stat­ed intent to turn you on, and while fem­i­nist pornog­ra­phers like Eri­ka Lust offer plen­ty to choose from, it seems that fea­ture film­mak­ing isn’t far behind. For a Bus­tle poll where women were asked to talk about Hol­ly­wood sex scenes they mas­tur­bate to, a wide vari­ety of unex­pect­ed choic­es appear. These even include shots of Megan Fox in the Trans­form­ers series. Per­son­al taste may be fick­le, but it seems that a sim­ple lin­ger­ing shot of a par­tic­u­lar actor is as good as porn for some viewers.

Still, when it comes to tru­ly real­is­tic, nor­malised images of female mas­tur­ba­tion, it’s tele­vi­sion that seems to be doing it best. Broad City​’s non­cha­lant treat­ment of dil­do use and pen­cilled-in ​‘me’ time nor­malis­es the act in a qui­et­ly rad­i­cal way. In Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge has a ho-hum wank next to her sleep­ing boyfriend – until, lo and behold, a Barack Oba­ma press con­fer­ence comes on and she can fin­ish spec­tac­u­lar­ly. It’s fun­ny, but it com­mu­ni­cates the sim­i­lar­i­ties between women and men when it comes to mas­tur­ba­tion. It can be earth-shat­ter­ing or mun­dane, but there’s noth­ing shame­ful or rare about it.