Love Yourself

An extremely popular and recent song, Love Myself by Hailee Steinfeld, is one of very few popular pieces of mainstream media that discusses the topic of masturbation. While I wouldn't classify it as an piece of "edu-tainment," I do believe that it adds value and breadth to a media landscape that - while "two thirds of all shows included sexual content" - has a very small scope of what they depict as sexual activity (Brown et al., 2004, pg. 420).

A very large majority of the sexual activity shown or insinuated in mainstream media is only intercourse. As Ward et al., point out, this could be problematic for adolescent women growing up and learning about sexual activity through media because they aren't learning about any other kinds of potentially safer sexual activity - "there needs to be an acknowledgement of diverse forms of sexual pleasure, including masturbation" (Ward et al., 2006, pg. 67).

Some lyrics that really embody the message of the song - that a woman doesn't need a man to make her feel good, she can do it herself - are below.

"Gonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else."
"Feeling good on my own without you, yeah... The beautiful, it comes without you."
"I'm gonna put my body first and love me so hard 'til it hurts"
"I know how to scream my own name."

Not only do these lyrics embody a sense of female empowerment to take sexual pleasure into their own hands, it also expresses that masturbation is a viable and pleasurable alternative to sexual intercourse. Young women "turn to the media as a relatively safe" place to learn about sexual activity and should therefore have several depictions of what sexual activity can look like in order to be able to make informed and safe decisions (Brown et al., 2004, pg. 421). If they never see or hear about masturbation, they may not even know it as an option for sexual activity.

It's very interesting that sexual intercourse - arguably the most intimate activity in the world - is so casual within media and society, while masturbation and other forms of sexual stimulation are so taboo. Pieces of media such as Hailee Steinfeld's song are moving media into a more responsible and realistic direction, and young women will become more informed because of this.

Brown, J., Halpern, C., & L'Engle, K. (2004). Mass media as a sexual super peer for early maturing girls. Journal of Adolescent Health, 36, 420-427.

Ward, L., Day, K., & Epstein, M. (2006). Uncommonly good: Exploring how mass media may be a positive influence on young women's sexual health and development. New Direction for Childre and Adolescent Development, 112, 57-70.