Almost 30 years ago, President Bill Clinton fired US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for saying that masturbation “is something that is a part of human sexuality and… something that perhaps should be taught” in sex-ed classes. (Yes, that Bill Clinton.) Her comments were in response to a question she received during the 1994 United Nations World AIDS Day Conference. Specifically, she was asked what she thought were the “prospects of a more explicit discussion and promotion of masturbation.” As a result of her benign comments, Dr. Elders — the first African American and the second woman to serve as surgeon general — was forced to resign.
You might not know it today, but the forced resignation of Dr. Elders tipped the scales in helping to normalize self-pleasure. Angered by the mistreatment of Dr. Elders, a group of activists at the sexual retailer Good Vibrations brainstormed ways to show support for the former surgeon general. Huddled in their San Francisco office, the team of about 40 people decided that May should, from then on, be known and celebrated as National Masturbation Month. Since 1995, it has been.
“I was in the room when we invented masturbation month,” recalls author, pleasure activist, and sex educator Carol Queen, PhD, who’s been with Good Vibrations since 1990. “We didn't think we were going to get Joycelyn Elders reinstated, but we knew people had to talk more frankly about masturbation and sexuality in general,” Dr. Queen tells Teen Vogue. “We wanted to prevent things like that from happening in the future because, honestly, she said such a simple and sensible thing.”
But it’s never really been “simple” for us to talk about sex, gender, and sexuality. State legislators are still forcefully trying to shame us out of these critical conversations. At the time of this writing, there have been 482 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the United States this session, according to the ACLU’s tracker. Currently, there are only four states that have not drafted these types of bills. (Shout-outs to Delaware, Illinois, New York, and Wisconsin.)
Here are two examples, out of nearly 500: In Arizona, Senate Bill 1001 would prevent school staff from using “a pronoun that differs from the pronoun that aligns with the student's biological sex” (without written permission from a parent) if that student is under 18 years of age. The bill was introduced by Republican John Kavanagh, a 72-year-old white man and self-proclaimed “proven conservative leader.”
In April, Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, expanded the so-called Parental Rights in Education bill, originally passed in March 2022, to apply to K-12 public school students. Among other things, this bill “prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels,” which is why people refer to it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The best thing we can do, though, according to sexuality experts, is talk openly about sex, gender, and sexuality, including masturbation — in contrast to abstinence-only education. During an interview with the National Visionary Leadership Project, Dr. Elders famously said, “Eighty percent of women masturbate. Ninety-five percent of men masturbate. And the rest lie.”
Various surveys back that up — the first two parts, at least.
According to a 2021 survey published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, “approximately 60% of men reported engaging in masturbation in the prior month as compared to 36.5% of women.” Moreover, when asked how many of them had ever masturbated, the gender-diverse sample saw about a quarter of women and 10% of men who'd never masturbated. The survey’s findings also stated that “for gender nonbinary participants, 11 indicated they had masturbated in the prior month and one indicated having never masturbated.”
(To help paint a better portrait of the cultural landscape around masturbation, I took to Instagram: In a poll answered by about 120 people, four individuals said they “don’t talk about that,” which translates to about 3%. I also got six people who said they “absolutely do not” masturbate, which was approximately 4%. Unsurprising to me, because my friends are a liberal bunch, a whopping 109 people — 92% — shared that they shamelessly self-pleasure.)
So, if a majority of us have done it, why did Dr. Elders get fired for saying schoolchildren should learn about masturbation? And why do we still struggle to talk about it openly? Critics of open conversations chant “Protect our kids!” but sex educators say that’s not really what this is about.
Cindy Luquin was a nine-year-old girl when Dr. Elders was fired (e.g., one of the children conservatives were trying to “protect”). Luquin is now a certified sex educator and the founder of the sexual-health education company Pleasure to People. “Dr. Elders basically called it out and said, ‘By not teaching the children such sex education, we're actually setting them up to be in potentially harmful situations,'” says Luquin.
“Masturbation and abortion, those two things are not separate," says sex and gender historian Hallie Lieberman, PhD, of the unjust uproar caused by Dr. Elder’s comment. "It's always been — and is still — about controlling our bodies and sexuality. We’ve made great strides in talking about masturbation, she adds, but some people are still trying to censor it as they did in the ’90s.
Exhibit A: There is still an anti-sex toy law in Texas, where it’s illegal to own more than six “obscene” devices. Exhibit B: There are now strict porn regulations in Louisiana, where you have to show ID to access any pornography website. Exhibit C: “There are also talks in Texas to bring back the Comstock laws,” says Dr. Lieberman. The Comstock laws, in case you’re unfamiliar, are a series of 19th-century laws named after conservative Christian anti-vice activist Anthony Comstock.
Comstock successfully persuaded politicians to pass a federal law — as well as a slew of state laws — that banned “the mailing, importation, and transportation” of allegedly “obscene” paraphernalia and media through the postal service, essentially allowing the church to use the state to enforce its religious beliefs. As Teen Vogue has previously reported, Comstock’s national crusade served as a roadmap for the modern religious right. In fact, the federal Comstock Act was cited by at least one anti-abortion group in its case to bar access to the abortion pill.
In a past interview, Dr. Elders said that her critics accused her of “wanting to teach the children how to masturbate,” but Dr. Elders wasn’t advocating for teaching a six-year-old how to masturbate. What Dr. Elders actually meant, she later clarified, was that we should teach kids that masturbation is natural and that we all do it.
As a first-generation Mexican Catholic turned sex writer, I’ve learned firsthand (pun absolutely intended) that there are myriad benefits to masturbation. Masturbating has boosted my self-esteem, taught me loads about my body, and relieved so much stress after a long day. What’s more: Talking about masturbation with my friends and family has been freeing. I no longer worry that I’m going to hell for standing (okay, maybe lying down) in my right to self-pleasure.
The only way that we can get over a given fear is by facing it. It follows, then, that if we’re scared to talk about masturbation, we're going to have to, well, talk about masturbation. By reading this article, in my not-so-humble opinion, you’re already complicit in that — so thank you!
As a parting gift, here are more wise words from Dr. Elders: “Masturbation never made anybody go crazy. Hair won’t grow on your hands. It’s never given anybody a disease. It’s never gotten anybody pregnant. And you know you’re having sex with somebody you love.”
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