Did you know that May is International Masturbation Month? That’s right, the entire month of May is dedicated to prioritizing your longest relationship: the one with yourself. Aside from reducing stress, improving your mood, helping you to learn more about your body and giving you a lot of pleasure, masturbation has so many health benefits and is a key component of self-care. Unfortunately, we’re not often educated about the importance and benefits of masturbation and are left in the dark about what this type of sexy self-care might look like. That’s why this masturbation month we’re sharing 10 sexy ideas about how to touch yourself.
But before we dive into the many techniques for female orgasm, let’s go over how to create the best experience possible.
How to have the best masturbation experience
Set the mood
Before you lay a finger on yourself, carve out some time to get into the mood. For some women that might mean lighting some candles or running a hot bath or steamy shower. For others, it may simply involve removing children’s toys from the room and getting comfortable in bed or on the couch. Do what you need to do to set yourself up for success.
Arouse your mind
After a stressful and hectic day, it’s no surprise if you find it difficult to get in the mood for sex. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to kick-start your desire and arousal. You could do this by unleashing your imagination and reveling in a naughty fantasy, looking at some erotic photos or films or listening to some audio erotica. Or why not check out The Emjoy app? It offers over 300 sexy stories featuring diverse characters and storylines to get your juices flowing. It could be just the thing you need to light your fire!
Gather all the equipment
Although the vagina and vulva are self-lubricating, some women may not produce enough for a comfortable experience and most of us will feel dry when we start touching ourselves. Lubricant makes everything more comfortable and can intensify our orgasms, so whenever you embark on a solo sex adventure, remember to use it.
While not strictly necessary, sex toys can really add an extra dimension to your masturbation sessions. Whether using a vibrator, butt plug, nipple clamps or clit sucker, (or a combination of all because why not?) adding toys into the mix can give you more intense sensations and help you to stimulate several areas at once (more on that later).
How to touch yourself to achieve female orgasm:
Conscious belly breathing
There’s no bigger libido killer than a wandering mind that keeps going back to your to-do list. One technique that helps many women to stay present in the moment is conscious belly breathing.
At the beginning of your masturbation session, take a series of deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, completely filling the belly on the inhale and completely emptying it on the exhale. This diaphragmatic breathing, also called “belly breathing” has many benefits. It can lower your stress levels, reduce your blood pressure, and is a great way to prepare your body and mind for the pleasure that’s about to come.
And deep and conscious belly breathing isn’t just for the beginning of your solo sex sessions, you can use it the entire time you masturbate to increase your pleasure. Although we naturally tend to take shallow breaths and even hold our breath in the build up to orgasm, maintaining deep and steady breaths throughout activates our pelvic floor muscles and intensifies our orgasms. Hooray!
Shallowing
When it comes to masturbation, it’s usually the clit that gets all the attention. With over 8,000 sensitive nerve endings, it’s no wonder we tend to focus on this pleasure hot spot, but there are many more erogenous zones to explore.
One of them is the G-zone, an erogenous area located around 2-3 cm inside the vagina. One particularly pleasurable way to stimulate this area is by shallowing. Shallowing involves penetrating just inside the entrance of the vagina with a finger, sex toy, penis, tongue, or lips.
For some women, this technique is more intense than deeper penetration and orgasm can be achieved from stimulating this area through gentle and soft motions. In fact, according to a study, around 84% of women find vaginal penetration more pleasurable with shallowing.
Edging
The reward is worth the wait with this next masturbation technique. If you’ve never heard of it before, edging is basically a technique where you tease yourself until you’re about to come, and then you stop. Then you start to build your arousal all over again.
This cycle can be repeated as many times as you like, or at least as many times as you can bear. You need a lot of self-control to stop on the brink of climax but many women find that edging can result in extended and more intense orgasms.
If you’d like to explore edging, check out the guided edging session on the Emjoy App.
Give your Clit some TLC
It probably goes without saying that one of the easiest ways to achieve female orgasm is by stimulating the clit. While it’s tempting to always use the same technique to climax, there’s more than one way to enjoy clitoral orgasms.
First of all, you can mix up your strokes. So if you normally use circular motions, why not try zig-zags or up-and-down movements? Or if you usually rub, why not tap your clit? You can also gently squeeze your clit between your thumb and index finger and move the skin of your clitoral hood up and down – kind of like a hand job for your clit.
And you don’t just have to stick to using your hands. You could invest in a clitoral suction device that provides a unique kind of stimulation, often compared to licking. Mmmmm, dreamy!
Breast Play
If you’re wondering how to touch yourself without involving the genitals, breast and nipple play is a fantastic (and often overlooked) way to increase your sexual pleasure and achieve female orgasm.
Some techniques include using the palms, full hands, fingertips and even just fingernails to make circular movements around the whole breast, before working your way closer to areolas and nipples. You can also use your hands to stroke and caress underneath the breasts and the sides of the breasts, as well as introducing some pressure by squeezing them, starting from bottom to top and from the sides to the center.
You could also tease yourself with the super light touch of a feather tickler or a silk tie. And using massage oil or lube will help your hands really slide around on the breasts and can go a long way to increasing your enjoyment!
For more ideas about how to pleasure the breasts, check out 10 Hot Ideas for Breast Play and Nipplegasms.
Nipple Play
Usually a component of breast play, nipple play can be intensely pleasurable. In fact, up to 25% of women report having had an orgasm just through stimulation of their nipples alone.
By far the most sensitive part of the breasts, we recommend saving the nipples for last, after you’ve stimulated the breasts. This builds up sexual tension and when you do eventually stimulate the nipples, you’ll be burning with desire.
You can stimulate the nipples by caressing them, rubbing them and perhaps even pinching or tugging them. You can also use nipple-sucker sex toys which create sucking pressure around the nipple and areola, mimicking the feeling of a mouth. If you like a more intense touch, nipple clamps may be worth exploring. And don’t worry about it being painful – you can buy adjustable nipple clamps to control the pressure.
To get more ideas about breast and nipple play, listen to Emjoy’s guided masturbation session.
Don’t forget your butt
Because anal play allows for prostate stimulation, a lot of people think anal orgasms are just for men. But that’s just not true. Women can also enjoy anal orgasms, through stimulation or penetration.
Perhaps anal sex has never crossed your mind but many women love it. You might be one of them too. But there’s only one way to find out! If you’re curious about booty play, the best way to start is through masturbation.
When touching your anus, there are some specific things to bear in mind. Unlike the vagina, the anus isn’t self-lubricating, so it’s extra important to use lube. And remember that to avoid any nasty infections, you can stimulate the vagina followed by the anus, but not the other way around.
When engaging in butt play, it's super important to spend time warming up the area. You can do this by massaging the area around the anus in circular motions. This should feel good and help you to relax. When you feel ready, trying penetrating your anus just a little, either with a finger or a toy created specifically for anal sex, like a butt plug.
Experiment with shallow and deeper penetrations and alternate between penetration and massaging the outside of the anus. Practise contracting and releasing your anus – this will help you to orgasm during anal. You might also like to stimulate your clit at the same time with your other hand, or with a toy, and notice how the pleasure increases.
If you’d like to find out more about more about booty play, checkout our wellbeing collection All About Anal on the Emjoy app.
Stimulate multiple areas simultaneously
As you’ve seen, there are many different areas that make you feel good. Why not combine them? After all, when we simultaneously stimulate multiple areas we activate more nerves that can increase our pleasure. And who can say no to more pleasure?
This could involve stimulating the clit and the G-zone at the same time with your hands and/or a toy. Or how about touching your breasts and G-zone? Or anus, clit and nipples? The combinations are up to you. Experiment and find out what feels good!
Control your timing
Aside from mixing up the areas we stimulate and the pressures we use, we can also play with our timing to intensify our orgasms.
One way to do this is to increase your speed in stages when stimulating your clitoris. Start off by gently touching yourself with light pressure around your clit. Choose how you want to touch yourself and once decided, don’t change it.
Masturbate like this for a few minutes until you feel like you’re really aroused and need more. Once you feel more turned on, increase your speed and intensify the pressure of your caresses. Keep at it until you’re close to orgasm.
At this point, you may be able to reach orgasm by continuing at the same pace. If you think you need a faster speed, you can increase it to a third level. Keep up this pace without speeding up or slowing down until you enjoy a glorious orgasm.
While this can be a little tricky, building up the speed of stimulation in stages is a fantastic way to intensify clitoral orgasms.
Have a showergasm
If you want a steamy solo sex session that will leave you both super wet and squeaky clean, make sure to try out this technique next time you’re in the bath or shower:
Sit, stand or lie down and bring the detachable shower head close to your body. Move your hands down, and find your vulva. Allow the water to pass through your outer lips and play with different water pressures. When you find something you enjoy, stay there for a while.
Little by little, with your free hand, open your outer lips, leaving your clitoris a little exposed, and explore how it feels to stimulate this area. Move the shower-head in circular motions, from the top to the bottom of your vulva. Again, if you find something that’s enjoyable, keep doing it.
Spend some time exploring what gives you pleasure and enjoy the delights of the showergasm!
Learn New Masturbation Techniques with Emjoy
We hope you've enjoyed learning some new ways to experience pleasure. If you'd like to learn about how to touch yourself and find what feels good, download the Emjoy app and discover our guided masturbation sessions. Oh, and make sure to check out Masturbation Tips video on our Youtube channel.
