Lily Allen: ‘Women masturbating in a relationship isn’t wrong’

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Interview by Sinead GarvanNewsbeat entertainment reporter

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]]> “If you’re hungry, you don’t wait until your partner gets home to have a slice of toast.”

Except Lily Allen isn’t talking about being hungry or indeed toast. She’s talking about masturbation – and why she thinks women are still judged for enjoying “self-love”.

The singer’s never been afraid to speak her mind but admits there aren’t many other high-profile women speaking about masturbation.

“It’s still such a taboo subject but it’s something most people do. So why wouldn’t we talk about it with pride and without guilt?” she tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

Saying women shouldn’t be ashamed to talk about sex is, of course, nothing new. But that doesn’t mean anything changes – especially when it comes to relationships.

Which takes us back to the toast analogy.

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]]> ‘A co-dependent attitude to pleasure’

“When a woman talks about masturbation, it’s always: ‘Well you’re clearly not getting sex from a male partner so you must be undesirable – or disappointed with your partner’s ability. It’s lazy, archaic and just not true,” she says.

“There’s a reason our bodies are made as they were. Women are given clitorises and G-spots – because they’re there to have orgasms with.

“You can do it yourself and then enjoy it with your partner. It’s quite a co-dependent attitude to pleasure – that we have to rely on someone else – when we’re perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.

Lily says that the quicker women can discover this, then communication in relationships will become “much easier”.

‘We’re not taught about female arousal’

Ruth Davies-Mourby is 21 and from London. She says it’s great to have role models like Lily Allen speak out and advocate female pleasure.

“We’re taught in school that male arousal is normal and natural, but we’re never taught about female arousal to the same extent,” she tells Newsbeat.

“We’re taught that women have sex for reproduction and nothing more.”

Ruth says she’s started feeling more comfortable speaking to her friends about masturbation in the past year or so.

image copyrightRuth Davies-Mourby ]]> image caption’Slut-shaming also plays a big part in the taboo around female masturbation’

“I’m the friend that would recommend you sex toys, I’ve taken steps to make my friends more comfortable talking about sex positivity.

“Pleasure is something that benefits your health physically and mentally – it’s a shame that women feel like it’s something they can’t do or mention.

“There’s a lot of internalised misogyny so women feel like they should not be seeking their own pleasure,” she adds.

‘A vessel for male pleasure’

When it comes to things that make some people feel anxious or ashamed, Lily very much believes “you need to get it out in the open”. She wrote about sex and her discovery of sex toys very candidly in her 2018 autobiography.

She’s now put her name to brand of vibrators and makes it known her title is “Chief Liberation Officer”.

Lily, 35, admits she doesn’t know whether it’s getting easier for younger women to talk about sex.

“Certainly amongst my generation it isn’t – and the older you get, the more inhibited people get about talking about masturbation,” she believes.

image copyrightWomanizer

She also wishes she’d had more open conversations about masturbation when she was younger.

“I felt very alone and not very well-versed in this subject. And then going into my 20s, it felt like it was something everybody else was doing but nobody talked about and I didn’t engage with it.

“I felt I was objectified and a vessel for male pleasure when it came to my sex in my adolescence.

“It wasn’t until I committed to masturbation, self love and ultimately sex toys that I considered my own needs. And I’m in a much healthier place now at the grand old age of 35.

“I wish I’d come to terms with it much sooner, it would’ve saved me a lot of headaches.”

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