Female sexual response to masturbation is about the same as for males. Some women have reported orgasm 30 seconds from the start of self stimulation, while the usual time is a little less than 4 minutes. Because of a woman's ability to have multiple orgasms, she may maintain her threshold of orgasm far longer than a man.
When mutual masturbation is employed during intercourse, it may greatly enhance sexual response; some women report that they receive more intense pleasure from masturbation either by themselves or by their partner than they do from coitus.

Male masturbation techniques are also influenced by a number of factors and personal preferences. Techniques may also differ between circumcised and uncircumcised males, as some techniques which may work for one can often be quite painful for the other.

The most common technique is to simply hold the penis with a loose fist and then to move the hand up and down the shaft until orgasm is achieved. When uncircumcised, stimulation of the penis comes from the pumping of the foreskin. This gliding motion of the foreskin reduces friction. When circumcised the stimulation is sometimes from direct contact with the hand. Many massage (with some using a personal lubricant to reduce friction) the glans, the rim thereof and the notched indent left over from the removal of the frenulum.

Another technique is to place just the index finger and thumb around the penis about halfway along the shaft and move the skin up and down. A variation on this is to place the fingers and thumb on the penis as if playing a flute, and then shuttle them back and forth.

The prostate gland is one of the organs that contributes fluid to semen. As the prostate is touch-sensitive, some directly stimulate it using a well-lubricated finger or dildo inserted through the anus into the rectum.

Although most males desire to ejaculate as the result of masturbation, they vary in their techniques of reaching that goal. A man may stimulate the head, corona, or shaft of his penis by placing his fingers in specific positions and stroking, rubbing, squeezing, or pinching the organ. He may roll his penis between his palms, rub it against his stomach, or rub it against inanimate objects.
The masturbatory play may be very rapid; some men have reported ejaculation within 30 seconds of start. The usual time is 2 or 3 minutes. The stroking movements may start slowly, they usually speed up as the man approaches orgasm; most men stop all movements and simply hold their penis during ejaculation.

'In some cultures, infants have been gently masturbated by their mothers or nurses to calm them so that they can sleep. Some sexologist's have reported the activity by infants in utero. During the first year of life, there is progression in an infant's discovery of its body and its exploration, including the genitals. The fingering or simple pleasurable handling of the genitals is referred to as genital play. Infants in their first year are generally not capable of the direct, volitional, rhythmic movement that characterizes masturbation, while genital play requires little coordination and begins as early as the second half of the first year of life.
The greater autoerotic satisfaction climaxing in orgasm depends largely on rhythmic, repetitive movement. Rhythmic manipulation of the genitals involving use of the hands does not generally begin until the child is approximately 2 or 3 years old, probably because small muscle control is not well enough developed earlier.
However, in most cases, conscious and regular masturbation does not begin until adolescence. Boys are often taught how to masturbate by other boys, or they hear about it in conversations. In contrast, girls are more likely to discover masturbation alone and by accident. Some of them are introduced to it through experimentation and others read about it in books or magazines.' (Vern and Bonnie Bullough, 1994)

'By age 18 virtually every adolescent male and most adolescent females have practiced masturbation. In the past several decades, there has been little change in the masturbation practices of adolescents. About 25% of heterosexual adolescent males have had mutual masturbation with another male by age 14 and about 60% of gay males report mutual masturbation by age 14 years.'

Masturbation can be a very satisfying substitute for sexual intercourse which relieves tension, exercises the body, stimulates the imagination, and keeps the sexual capacities alive. It can help people to learn about their genitals, sexuality and pleasure.

It is held in many mental health circles that masturbation can relieve depression and lead to higher self esteem. Masturbation can also be particularly useful in relationships where one partner wants more sex than the other, in which case masturbation provides a balancing effect and thus a more harmonious relationship.

Both from the standpoint of avoiding unwanted pregnancy and that of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation is the safest of sexual practices. There is no credible scientific or medical evidence that manual masturbation is damaging to either one's mental or physical health. In fact, studies show that men have a lower rate of prostate cancer if they ejaculate regularly.

Orgasm is the ultimate goal of masturbation. For men, masturbation generally ends with ejaculation. Females, with their potential for multiple orgasms, can masturbate for a longer period of time.

Masturbation can help both males and females to discover what really pleases them, thus offering insight into their sexuality and how to orgasm. The Shere Hite Report concluded that only 30% of women from the study orgasmed regularly from sexual intercourse (penetration). Most women (90%) orgasmed from masturbation. Of the 10% of women in this study who never orgasmed, most of them had also never masturbated. All women in the Hite Report say they were brought up with bad attitudes towards masturbation and were not encouraged to explore their bodies.

This study investigated the cardiovascular, genital, and endocrine changes in women after masturbation induced orgasm.
Sexual arousal and orgasm produce a distinct pattern of neuroendocrine alterations in women, primarily inducing a long-lasting elevation in plasma prolactin concentrations. These results concur with those observed in men.

There are depictions of male masturbation in prehistoric rock paintings around the world, though these are all entirely matters of interpretation. Male masturbation was an important image / myth of ancient Egypt.
In many religions, such as some forms of Conservative Protestantism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism and Islam - masturbation is regarded as taboo, a sinful practice. In the Victorian Era, medical censure of masturbation was in line with the widespread social conservatism and opposition to open sexual behavior common at the time. Procedures such as electric shock, infibulation, restraining devices like chastity belts and straitjackets, the surgical excision of the genitals and routine circumcision was widely adopted as preventive measures.

'Insanity, syphilis, blindness, deafness, cancer, afflictions of the female reproductive organs, nosebleeds, heart murmurs, sterility, acne, undesirable odors of the skin, epilepsy, headaches, infantile paralysis, infantile rheumatism, pederasty, and homosexuality were only a few of the conditions thought to be caused by masturbation.'

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