Womanizer declares June 23, 2022 International Equal Masturbation Day, calculated to symbolically draw attention to the masturbation gap between women and men. This year marks positive developments with the global masturbation gap decreasing from 62 percent to 47 percent!1 Resulting with the day landing2 and thus almost eight weeks earlier than last year (13 August 2021). This is the result of a recent Womanizer survey with 22,315 participants from 15 countries3.
Upward trend: Women masturbate significantly more than in 2021
The Equal Masturbation Day indicates that women have not yet masturbated by this day in the year, while men have been doing so since the beginning. Compared to last year, women masturbate significantly more, and in every country – on average, women masturbate 76 times a year, 23 more than last year. The leader is Great Britain, where women masturbate an average of 100 times a year – last year it was 59 times.
Despite the upward trend, there is still a large gap between men and women in every country: Globally men masturbate an average of 2.8 times per week, twice as often as women at 1.4 times per week. This year, male respondents masturbate an average of 145 times, with the Swiss leading with 162 times per year.
“The date of the Equal Masturbation Day surprised us this year. We created the day in 2020 to draw attention to the social imbalance,” explains Johanna Rief, Head of Sexual Empowerment at Womanizer. “Two years ago, Equal Masturbation Day was still at the beginning of September. The fact that this gap has now decreased by two months is a really positive development.”
The following are the national days per country surveyed:
| Country | 2022 National`Equal Masturbation Day | 2021 National Equal Masturbation Day | 2020 National Equal Masturbation Day |
| UK | 8 May | 29 August | 4 October |
| Hongkong SAR | 14 May | 23 July | 29 August |
| Spain | 26 May | 14 August | 25 August |
| USA | 31 May | 28 June | 7 August |
| Australia | 7 June | 22 August | 25 August |
| Italy | 10 June | 3 August | 1 September |
| Germany | 10 June | 14 August | 9 September |
| Canada | 14 June | 7 August | 8 October |
| Austria | 3 July | 22 August | 21 August |
| Korea | 9 July | 9 July | 3 May |
| Japan | 12 July | 08 October | 2 November |
| Switzerland | 19 July | 20 September | 23 September |
| France | 24 July | 18 August | 14 August |
| New Zealand | 3 August | 2 July | / |
| Taiwan | 31 August | 5 September | 11 October |
| Singapore | 27 September | 27 September | 15 October |
The United States in international comparison
In 2022, the masturbation gap in the US stands at 41%, which is down from 49% in 2021. This means that this year’s national Equal Masturbation Day took already place on May 31st. On average, American men will masturbate 167 times a year, compared with women who will masturbate 98 times (In 2021, American men masturbated 172 times compared with women who masturbated 87 times). 22% of women do not masturbate at all, compared to only 11% of men, which is in line with the global figure for male participants. In comparison, globally, 24% of women never masturbate.
Libido – United States
The results also revealed a change in the libido of American men and women. In 2022, American men ranked their sex drives at an average of 6.1 out of 10, compared to women who ranked their libidos at 6.8. In 2021, these figures were 7 for men and 6 for women. Women masturbated less in 2021, but they also had lower sex drives than when compared with 2022.
Missing and incomplete sex education in schools
In previous years, we found out that most participants’ sex education was limited to contraception, pregnancy and the reproductive organs. Yet almost 31% told us that they would like to learn more about pleasure or how to talk about sex. At least one in five would like to learn more about self-love and masturbation.
An open dialogue about masturbation should be encouraged not only at school, but also at home. As many as 36% of respondents believe that parents should talk to their children about masturbation starting at the age of 13. Unfortunately, 18 percent still believe that parents should not talk to children about solo sex at all. It is therefore not surprising that more than half of all participants are left alone with their questions on masturbation and had to approach it through trial and error and their own curiosity. In addition, 20 per cent of the respondents have learned about sex by watching porn – a source that often enough enforces outdated gender roles and the male gaze.
Johanna Rief says: “These results show how important it is to raise awareness about female sexuality and desire. We work continuously with campaigns like the Menstrubation Study or the cooperation with Lilly Allen to remove the taboo on female sexuality. It’s great to see that a social change is taking place and that we are allowed to contribute to it. With the Womanizer Pleasure Fund, we also want to help close another gap, the Gender Health Gap.”
1 The calculation is based on a formula of the German Federal Statistical Office, which is also used to calculate the gender pay gap.
2 47% of 365 is around 172. The 172nd day in 2022 is 23 June.
3 The representative survey was conducted in cooperation with Lucid in May 2022. 22,315 men and women from 15 countries participated (Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK, USA). Further results on request.
