Several grown women I know claim not to masturbate, and this astonishes me. To be honest, I have real trouble believing that any sexually active female hasn’t tried a little do-it-yourself even once, and I find it a shame that female masturbation is still frowned upon.

Young men are encouraged to explore their sexuality from the outset, and male masturbation is seen as an acceptable example of this. There are so many terms for it ... jerking off, wanking, slapping the salami, shakin’ the bacon, pulling the pud, having a bat ... the list is endless.

(Yet what exactly IS the term for a female practitioner of the masturbatory arts ? ... a jerkess ?. Do we really believe that so few women masturbate that we don’t need a word for it ?).

As a woman, I can tell you that just lying there waiting for man to make you come is near useless as far as achieving orgasm goes. It alright for men, they get the genital equivalent of a joystick to experiment with, and it’s not too hard (pardon the pun) to figure out how it all works.

But we girls have extra bits. Bits we can’t see. Bits that, if we don’t work out how to use them for ourselves, will likely go ‘unworked out’ for all time. You owe it to yourself to find out what you like, not expect someone else to work it out for you.

So, if you have a vagina, don’t be scared of it. It won’t bite. Get ‘under the bonnet’ and have a look. As the wonderful Woody Allen once said: "don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone you love".