Getting to know your body, by Jude

Jude, 27, works for a magazine and lives with her boyfriend. 

I masturbate from time to time, not because I'm not satisfied with my boyfriend but because it's a great way of pleasing yourself on your own, it relaxes you, and at the end of the day you know your body better than anyone else and you know how you like to be touched! It's the best way of getting to know your body. I first started to masturbate when I was still at school, but I didn't know what it meant at the time - it was just nice.

When and how do you do it?
I don't use anything - using a toy makes it seem more serious, and I think it'd make me more ashamed of it. Obviously I do it at home on my own! What sort of question is that?!

What do you think of it? 
I don't talk to anyone about it, even my close friends and my boyfriend. It's so personal and intimate - I could never do it in front of him. Still, it's normal! I don't think you can ever be fully sexually aware and sexually satisfied if you don't know how to please yourself and how you like to be pleased, especially women - we all have different ways of getting to orgasm. Unfortunately, it tends to be women who struggle to talk about it. Female masturbation was completely taboo for a long time - and still is, to a certain extent.