Question from a guy (hope that's ok). I'm 31, and my girlfriend is 28. We've been together for three years, and our sex life has been great: frequent and a good variety. She told me a while back, though, that she doesn't masturbate and has never tried doing it. More recently, we were talking about sex and she said the reason she doesn't masturbate is that she finds the idea of touching her vagina gross. She's only really touched herself to remove a tampon the few times she uses one. Going further in our discussion, she said she'd be afraid to use a mirror to look at her own vulva, but might be able to get there slowly. (Note: she isn't avoiding this due to religious belief or anything.)
I was kind of caught off guard by all of this: it sounded all very squeamish to me, and more than that, that she was completely uninformed of a normal, healthy relationship with your own body at the age of 28. Incredibly, she says the first time she was exposed to female masturbation as a normal thing was a few years ago, seeing 'Black Swan.'
How can I help her with this? Should we see a therapist or some sort of 'adult sex ed' class? I'm also having trouble comprehending all of this 'unawareness' on her part. She says it's because girls' first interaction with their vagina is often with their first period, and the uninformative sex ed classes in school. But I'm aware that the vast majority of women our age masturbate regularly, etc., and, after this conversation, I kept on thinking about how probably all of my female friends have a healthy relationship with their vaginas, except my girlfriend. Is this lack of sexual self-understanding something you've heard of before? How can I encourage her along towards touching herself and masturbating without being pushy? I feel confused about learning all this and what it means for our sex life.