Inside Her Mind: The Psychology of Self-Pleasure

We all do it: men, women, maybe cats in another dimension. Sometimes daily, sometimes more often than once, and always for a constellation of reasons. Biology differs, so simultaneously, the reasons we masturbate differ, too. Lust and desire are complicated beasts: a cocktail of hormones, sensations, shame, fantasy, joy, and memory — the full toolbox. But science is only just starting to assemble that toolbox. It wasn’t long ago that if a woman said she was turned on, the standard diagnosis was: hysterical, over‑emotional, or morally wayward. The truth is simpler: maybe she just needed a goddamn orgasm! Recognizing women as masturbating, emotional humans with brains, needs, and fantasies, that’s all still pretty new in the medical sphere. And dipping around the world as Khloé, it’s become painfully clear to me how little we actually know, or care to know, about the other gender’s preferences. We assume, we project, we Google at 2AM. But real insight is often rare. 

I was recently deep in conversation with someone close, and we found ourselves swapping notes on the flashbacks of our encounters that cling to memory like an unplaceable perfume. He told me he keeps many of them, filed away like short films in his mind, each one meticulously preserved. Like a film director, carefully curating his own erotic highlight reel. To his surprise, I didn’t, or at least not like that. I barely remember the choreography such as the exact positions, the timing, or the technicalities. I’m usually too busy riding the wave to press save. With all those petits morts racing through my brain, who has the time to take mental notes? Thats’s why my archive is not a highlight reel, but rather a moodboard. I don’t recall entire scenes, but I do remember fragments like a look, a line, or the way his hand gripped my thigh just before everything dissolved. It made me wonder if I, and the friends I talk about these things with, are just outliers, or if most women feel the same. I wasn’t sure, so I started to dive deep. Into research, of course. Although, truthfully, I wanted nothing more than him diving deep into me.

Why Female Fantasy Isn’t Just Visual

I won’t waste your time parsing every underfunded study where a dozen psychology undergrads were shown grainy porn clips while strapped into an fMRI machine like horny lab rats. Nor will I bore you with the usual disclaimer: yes, most sex research samples are small, biased, and almost exclusively involve people willing to masturbate for science under fluorescent lighting. And of course, not every body is the same, and every brain is different. However, when you zoom out and look at the meta-analysis (science’s way of connecting a dozen half-baked theories and hoping for a pattern), things start to get interesting.

One meta-analysis by van’t Hof et al. (2021) on erotic brain imaging found that while both male and female brains light up in response to erotic content, where and how they spark depends heavily on the type of stimulus. Building on that, a 2023 fMRI study by Putkinen et al. drilled deeper into the specifics: male brains showed stronger activation in the visual cortex and reward centres when exposed to explicit imagery, while female brains lit up in the hippocampus and limbic system, which are responsible for memory, emotion, and narrative processing. But that’s not all. A 2024 study by Pinto et al. found that women also activated the default mode network (the brain’s internal narrator) significantly more than men during arousal. This is the system responsible for self-reflection, autobiographical memory, and narrative construction. So while men were zoning in on nipples, women were layering emotional memories, personal associations, and that one time he said something vaguely thoughtful in the car. Put simply: same stimulus, different cognitive journeys. 

Between Cue and Context

Some people might argue that this is all social conditioning. That women are taught to want love stories, and men are handed a joystick and told, “There are no rules, just smash the buttons“. And yes, there’s definitely some truth to that. Female-coded media often teaches girls to associate intimacy with narrative, romance, and worthiness, while male coded media is more visual, power-driven, or novelty-focused.  But it’s not fair to say that all men need only the visual. Plenty of research shows that context, novelty, and nostalgia can turn the dial for men, too (specially with age, or when arousal becomes more psychological than biological). Still, the data holds that explicit imagery tends to hit men harder, faster, and with far less cognitive negotiation. From an evolutionary lens, men evolved to respond quickly to visual fertility cues, while women had to weigh risk, safety, and attachment. So the same image that activates male attention circuits often triggers relational processing in the female brain. It’s not “What’s she doing?” but rather “Why is she doing it?” 

„But wait, does that mean women never ever think about just genitalia? Never replay how he folded her like a pretzel three nights ago and left her seeing stars?“ 

Oh, they do. But female desire is like IKEA instructions: theoretically straightforward, but emotionally chaotic, and you’re always missing one screw!

Director’s Cut: Female Edition

Research shows that when women use memory during masturbation, it’s rarely a literal replay. Instead, the brain engages in cognitive elaboration: it selects the most emotionally or sexually charged details and discards the awkward or neutral parts. Neuroscience suggests this is because the prefrontal cortex (the region responsible for memory and imagination) usually recalls only what feels most arousing (Georgiadis, 2012). In effect, the “memory” becomes a kind of rescripted simulation, richer or more idealized than the original event.  But not all women rely on autobiographical memory, though. Some generate constructed fantasies, imagining strangers, role play, or “what if” scenarios with past and current lovers. However, not all women lean on autobiographical memory, but rather construct entirely new scripts: a stranger on a train, a boss in a different context, or an alternate ending to a past encounter (Lehmiller, 2018). Others are less visual and more affective: they fantasize about the emotional arc (anticipation, surrender, intimacy), or the power dynamics (being pursued, taking control, being “forbidden”). Even auditory cues can trigger arousal according to Murray et al. (2017), which is why audio-erotica platforms like Dipsea and Femtasy are booming.

And according to Schleifenbaum (2024), fantasy isn’t just shaped by psychology, but runs on a hormonal clock, too. And hormones don’t just influence whether women want sex, but what kind they want. Unlike men, who operate on relatively steady testosterone, women navigate a 28-day biochemical rollercoaster. Estrogen and testosterone surge mid-cycle (ovulation), heightening sexual desire, confidence, and risk tolerance. This is when primal, dominant, even anonymous fantasies often surface in women. But in the luteal phase (post-ovulation), rising progesterone softens the scene: the brain seeks safety, closeness, and emotional resonance. Cue why one week it’s “throw me against the wall and take me,” the next it’s “hold me closer.”

Sex Ed Missed a Spot

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that still believes women are “so hard to please” when actually, the tools and scripts are just written for male pleasure. But the orgasm gap isn’t a biological flaw, it’s a cultural one. We built an entire sexual playbook off male arousal mechanics and then handed it to women with a shrug and a “Good luck, mate!” For decades, we taught them to fake moans, to pretend anal didn’t hurt, and to prioritise male satisfaction while ignoring their own pleasure maps completely. No one mentioned the clitoris, but somehow everyone knew where her cervix was? The math isn’t mathing. Which is exactly why female masturbation is a shifting genre. Sometimes it’s softcore nostalgia: that one time in Spain, the balcony, his hands. Other times, it’s straight-up primal: a body, a scent, a moan. And occasionally, it’s an entire emotional screenplay. So no, it’s not because women can’t think about “just dick.” It’s that sometimes the scene needs set dressing, some character development and a good angle. Female desire isn’t a Google image search, but rather an editorial shoot with perfectly curated mood boards. 

That doesn’t mean men don’t fantasize or that women don’t enjoy visuals. It means that, statistically, male arousal tends to be more immediate and stimulus-driven, while female arousal often arrives through the brain’s emotional network. But the real difference is that men often masturbate to get aroused, while women often need to already be aroused to masturbate. However, no matter which system you’re running, one thing remains true: the fantasy lives in the brain, and not in the breasts, the biceps, or the browser history. And the brain, as it turns out, has a very dirty mind. So the next time you feel like sending someone ‘dick.jpg’, try adding a soundtrack. Or better yet: ask what their brain actually wants. Turns out, it rarely starts and ends with the genitals.