OK so this is purely a question and not some form of cynical commentary. I hope nobody finds the subject matter offensive.
Has anybody heard this one before? “Taiwanese women (girls) don’t masturbate,” as a rule, generally, sort of across the board, meaning any TW woman who does (masturbate) is considered deviant or lesbian. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.
Back story: I’m a male; I have a neighbor-slash-drinking buddy, mid-30s TW woman; professional, smart, and well-traveled; now single again since she just dumped her laowai boyfriend–here’s where it becomes sort of interesting–after catching him masturbating to porn on the Internet. Apparently, this is considered “cheating” to some women, and not the over-arching issue. Heard that one. At any rate, she gives him the boot. She tells this story to the regular crew (at the pub) and it becomes a conversation. My question to her was, “What’s the big deal? Everybody does it. Maybe not in front of a computer, but they do it. We all do it.” My drinking buddy says horrified, “It’s shameful!” She is genuinely repulsed at the thought of it. I look around at the crew and everybody has the poker face. I say to my buddy, “Don’t tell me you don’t masturbate.” She cries, “OF COURSE NOT! I WOULD NEVER DO THAT. Taiwanese women don’t [and instead of saying it she shook her head to finish the sentence].” Poker faces all around the bar. “Really? You’re telling me that Taiwanese women don’t masturbate? As like a rule?” My drinking buddy is now clearly finished discussing her personal information and so I turn to the bartender and say, “Is she kidding me?” He shrugged and said, “I don’t think so.” Note: I have been in a few relationships w/ TW women and they must have been deviant, since they were quite open about the whole thing. OK, long story short, the male regulars said they had no idea if TW women masturbate or don’t–their girlfriends, spouses, etc., no clue, as in they had never discussed it or even thought about discussing it. Aside from my drinking buddy, the other two women present all of a sudden lost their ability to converse in English and said in Chinese, “I don’t know what the fuck this guy is talking about” or something to that effect. One guy said something about only lesbians do it to each other. I finally managed to get the bartender to ask them directly: is it true that most TW women don’t masturbate? Neither answered directly–both shook their heads. “What does that mean?” I say to the bartender. “That means that they don’t,” he says.
Even if they were just toying with me the stupid laowai, I couldn’t help but think there might be something similar to a truth behind this. Common sense tells me that the Taiwanese in general are no more or less masturbatory than anybody else. Certainly there is a major cultural gap in terms of discussing it. I realize it’s just silly pub banter. Not a big deal. But again, the question is has anybody heard this before and if so, drop some science on me.
Pretty much 100% of men masturbate. There may be an exception here or there, but masturbation is pretty universal among males.
For women it’s a different story. A significant percentage (I’ve forgotten the exact figure I learned in my Human Sexuality class in college, but I remember it being something like 40%) of women don’t masturbate. I would expect this to hold true in Taiwan, and perhaps even more so given the BS kids are routinely fed by their parents here regarding sexuality. And even if they did, chances are they would never admit it, given it’s taboo-ishness. Taiwanese society is quite prudish, much more so than Western society, even though many individual Taiwanese people might be sexually liberated.
Certainly plenty of Taiwanese women masturbate. I suspect that the woman in question didn’t masturbate, and assumed that her personal experience applied to the general population. She was probably taught by parents and authority figures that it’s a nasty, deplorable, unthinkable act.
Yeah, I think most sexuality studies show that women masturbate far less than men. And you are also talking about an age group (30s) that has a huge percentage of virgins as well. It’s doubtful many of them masturbate because if they had a normal sex drive they would not have lasted till that age without intercourse.
In my experience Taiwanese women are either very down to earth about sex (at least in private), or exceptionally prude and repressed. Quite sad really.
Well i think in polite company no self respecting taiwanese girl is going to admit to masterbating. But i did find that those little “facial” vibrators are highly popular. I have a feeling…you know…they arent just for faces.
That particular taiwanese girl probably does NOT masterbate as she kicked out her bf for masterbating. So that tells you where she stands on that subject.
She should have just gotten ahold of the “situation” and helped her bf out, but she didnt.
And her being so prudish may be why he is even masterbating when the real thing is right there.
[quote=“tommy525”]And her being so prudish may be why he is even masterbating when the real thing is right there.
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Yeah, I thought that too, though oddly studies show that men masturbate more when in a sexually active relationship. Part of it is that it’s healthy to clean out the pipes the more you have sex to avoid disease.
But yes, anyone tossing a bf for masturbating is likely rather repressed.
This is what I was thinking, but since I have no idea what kids here learn about sex, I couldn’t jump to that conclusion. But now that it’s been more or less confirmed, it makes Muzha Man’s comment even more true. It is sad. But oh well.
Don’t make me come up there! Look, I’m pretty liberal about stuff (in my own opinion), but this is a topic that can I can see getting “out of hand” (pardon me, I couldn’t help myself (Dang! pardon me again!)) rather quickly. Keep this PG13, please! Tommy’s already on the verge of getting the thread temped. I’m willing to let it stand if the discussion stays on an intellectual, cultural level.
I read somethin’ a while back. It said that the largest gender difference was in incidence of masturbation: Men had the greater incidence (d = .96). There was also a large gender difference in attitudes toward casual sex: Males had considerably more permissive attitudes (d = .81). There were no gender differences in attitudes toward homosexuality or in sexual satisfaction. Most other gender differences were in the small-to-moderate range. Gender differences narrowed from the 1960s to the 1980s for many variables. Chodorow’s neoanalytic theory, sociobiology, social learning theory, social role theory, and script theory were discussed. Anyone else read that?
if it were so, why’d they sell dildos and stuff in Taiwan ?
some taiwanese people are very liberal, some other are more conservative, jsut like in occidental countries. and you could find the same kind of girls in france who think that her gender fellows don’t masturbate…
Basic cultural misunderstanding. What people say they do and what they actually do are two different things. In any culture. The only thing that varies is the thing they deny doing (in America, for example, everyone eats very healthy food and almost never goes to McDonald’s). If you do a quick verbal survey, you’ll find that 85% of unmarried Taiwanese women are virgins (the actual figure, of course, is somewhat lower). Same thing with masturbation. Of course, there’s some chance that she’s telling the truth (about her personally) in which case, make a mental note not to bother hooking up.
FWIW, and in my limited experience, Taiwanese women are no more or less prone to flicking the bean than any other nationality. And as somebody else just said, there are lots of suspiciously-shaped “personal massagers” in pharmacies, everything-shops, etc…
My gf does it when im not at home. Often 3 times a day and she enjoys watching porn. She tells me all this and laughs. However she doesnt like it when im doing it when she isnt there. Somehow thats almost like cheating??? Crazy. :loco: I’m thinking shes def not the norm for taiwanese girls.
It’s not equivalent. There is a large percentage of genuine virgins in their late 30s and 40s. Women who have never even been on a date. This is not the case in western countries.
A female Taiwanese friend of mine told me that she doesn’t really desire sex outside of love. In her words, ‘I just do it myself when I need to.’ But, I suspect, she’s in the progressive part of a far more liberal younger generation (she’s about 22). On the other hand another friend, who is about 26, is very ashamed that she doesn’t live with her parents but, instead, with her boyfriend .
She is one of those girls.
Coming from a culture where sex and masturbation are healthy and normal, and scientifically known to be so, this is just conservative stupidity.
I have no idea where ‘the line’ is regarding temp, so I hope I haven’t crossed it. Sex is good, right? I’ve never understood why our culture glorifies violence yet censors sex. That makes no sense at all. tommy525 ‘taking over’ seems perfectly harmless to me.
TMI. 
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