Life
Millennials may just be the self-love generation — not only because we're widely billed (or stereotyped, whatever word you prefer) as selfish adult youths stubbornly pursuing our own agendas. In honor of Masturbation Month — this month, May, did you know? — let's take a look at millennial masturbation habits.
Modern legend has it that millennials are less interested in sex and less inclined to pursue it than their forbearers, and yet, at the same time, tend to be pretty open about sex and sexuality. (Despite the bottomless well of think pieces on our prudish nature that suggest we're not actually getting any.) Maybe that's because we're busy setting our financial futures on fire with untenable consumption of artisanal avocado toasts, or tweeting; maybe it's because we're satisfied to simply pleasure ourselves. millennials, by which I mean people in their late teens to mid-thirties, masturbate a lot: Often, to improve their sexual technique; sometimes with a buddy; and with relatively few qualms when it comes to discussing these habits openly.
As the following five points demonstrate, most of us do it, and to our own benefit: What better way to build sexual confidence, empower yourself, and — especially in the era of the unrelenting, 24/7 news cycle — mitigate stress than with a little self-love? Read on to see exactly how millennials are doing it.
1The Overwhelming Majority Of Millennials Masturbate
Millennials are ready and willing to give themselves a hand: Condom brand LifeStyles interviewed 3,938 people between the ages of 19 and 36 for SKYN's 2018 Millennial Sex Survey, and found that 91 percent of respondents masturbated. Within that camp, the gender gap was slim, with 96 percent of people who identified as men and 86 percent of people who identified as women engaging in solo sex.
Most of those surveyed masturbated on a weekly basis, but some intrepid souls set aside some "me" time every single day: 38 percent of the man group and 14 percent of the woman group, to be exact.
2As A Result, We Seem To Know Our Bodies Pretty Well
True fact: masturbation is the best way to determine what your body likes and responds to. Millennials would seem to be quick studies: According to a recent survey of Vice readers, the majority of millennial masturbators — 67 percent — always achieve orgasm when they give themselves a hand. 74 percent of man-identifying participants and 63 percent of woman-identifying participants said masturbation was a guaranteed O-getter.
Granted, numbers on a page can't tell us much about the baseline level of satisfaction any given person enjoys in any given encounter. But as we have previously reported, masturbation improves sex: it makes you more comfortable with yourself, strengthens your pelvic floor muscles, and keeps you in the mood — among other perks.
3We're Into Sex Tech
The popularity of sex toys continues to climb, with the 2018 SKYN survey showing a 23 percent increase in vibrator use among women. (Which makes perfect sense, considering the ever-expanding selection of high-design models on the market.)
According to the company's 2017 Millennial Sex Survey, older millennials tend to gravitate more toward toys, constituting 44 percent of the avowed vibrator users. Among the 25- to 30-year-olds, only 34 percent used vibes, while only 22 percent of the 18-to-24 camp said the same. For the newbs among you: these are the 12 best sex toys for beginners. Let's spread that wisdom around.
4We Watch Porn, Alone And Together
We know that millennials watch a lot of porn: According to a 2015 data dump from premier tube site, Pornhub, this generation accounted for 60 percent of their viewership at the time. Our penchant for adult content doesn't seem to have changed much in the intervening three years. Vice's poll found that 70 percent of male-identified participants watched porn on a weekly basis, versus 23 percent of women.
Now, it's eminently possible people are watching with a sex friend. The SKYN survey offers some insight into our habits there, too: 36 percent of homosexual and bisexual participants said they incorporated porn into partnered sex, while 21 percent of heterosexual participants reported the same. The daily masturbators, however, seem to appreciate pornography, with 39 percent of people who masturbate multiple times each day and 30 percent of once-daily masturbators acknowledging adult content as an aid.
5Kids Seem To Kill Our Solo Mojo
One possible reason why millennials have reportedly chosen to parent house plants over human babies: Having a kid makes it reaaaaaally hard to find time for sex, whether with yourself or with a partner. (I joke; probably, this phenomenon has a lot more to do with our generation's financial precarity, around-the-clock commitment to work, and more liberal values than anything else.)
Anyway, this year's SKYN sex survey suggests that children can really cramp a person's self-love style — 68 percent of childless millennials masturbate at least weekly, whereas 50 percent of millennial parents say the same. And yeah, kids require a lot of time and energy; they also have a special talent for barging in on situations at the worst possible times, so it makes sense that masturbation would fall by the wayside. Priorities!
