Surprisingly, Ellis hit the nail on the head (while, perhaps far less surprisingly, pathologizing gay and racialized people while he was at it). It is, as physician and eugenicist Havelock Ellis observed in 1927, a masturbation technique that is often acquired innocently at a young age – with the added bonus that it involves “no indecorum.” The frequency with which you lay or sit with your thighs pressed together makes it exponentially more likely that you will discover pleasure in this position as compared to, say, with a hand spontaneously rubbing on your clit. Physiologically, it makes sense, said marriage, family and sex therapist Courtney Watson. That’s at least one other girl on my obscenely large high school cross country team who nodded along in confusion when our teammates mentioned “flicking the bean.”īut 3 percent starts to look deceptively conservative when you take into account that thigh clenching is the most common way that children with clitorises discover masturbation. “I’m not sure if it’s a norm, but it’s a large minority, if not.”Īccording to the landmark yet woefully outdated Hite Report, at least 3 percent of the women interviewed for the 1976 study reported masturbating by pressing their legs together. “Research suggests that most people with clitorises masturbate with their legs in a semi closed or closed position, even when they’re using another manipulator,” Sheila Addison, a life, marriage and family therapist, told me in a phone interview this August. Of course, what I was missing was some Booksmart-grade representation, not a guarded secret to self-pleasure. I intrinsically knew that what happened when I pressed my thighs together and held my breath was masturbation, too, but as my Encyclopedia of Wank expanded with no reflection of my own methods, it became clear that I was missing a fundamental element of jerking off.
Through frank conversations with cross country mates and cheeky hints in coming-of-age films, I learned that masturbation is something people do to their vaginas with fingers, shower heads and (though I often doubted it) hairbrush handles. I remember him opening the door, only to slowly and suspiciously close it after glimpsing me belly-down on the bedroom floor, legs tightly clasped together.Īlthough I soon learned to indulge only behind locked doors, leg squeezing remained my self-pleasure method of choice throughout the remainder of my childhood and adolescence. Alas, although I hastened my business as the footsteps of an unsuspecting family member plodded closer, I cut it too close. I was five, maybe six years old and had stashed myself behind my parents’ bed to wait out the hunt – and to indulge in a certain tingly pleasure. One of my first memories is of hide and seek.