Gender, self and pleasure: Young women's discourse on masturbation in contemporary Shanghai

Abstract

This study examines views and experiences of young Shanghai women with respect to masturbation. Through in-depth interviews with forty young women in Shanghai aged 22 to 39 from May 2004 to July 2007, the study explores women's understandings of masturbation, their desires and their lives as modern Chinese women. The focus of the analysis is on how women talk about their masturbation experiences and make sense of their experiences in the context of their sexual relationships and lifestyle choices. By analysing women's narratives about masturbation, the paper suggests that women's self-articulation is actually an engagement in self-image construction. The strategies they use to position themselves in relation to different social discourses on masturbation, how they describe and perform the acts and how they articulate their experiences of masturbation are examined to illustrate how young women in Shanghai perform gender and sexual intimacies in a fast changing city.