When I was 19, I won a Twitter giveaway contest, the prize of which was a ticket to a handjob workshop. It felt like a sweet little wink from the universe, because I’d just recently become sexually active with a penis-possessing person for the first time, and had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

The messaging that young women receive about penises is confusing as fuck. On the one hand (pun barely intended), we’re told again and again that “guys are easy” (even though not all guys have dicks and not all dicks have guys), and that if you want to make a cock explode, all you really need to do is touch it a bit, and it’ll go off like a firework. On the other hand, we’re also told (as are people of all genders, frankly) that sexual skill is highly prized and hard-won, and that you have to “know what you’re doing” or you’ll just embarrass yourself and disappoint your date.

I had been practicing my handjob technique, because my then-boyfriend had told me he loved HJs – which was confusing to me in and of itself, given all the discourse I’d seen online and in American Pie-type movies about how handjobs were a waste of time. Why bother getting jerked off by another person, this line of thinking argued, when one could instead just jerk oneself off, probably more skilfully?

As a sex toy reviewer and devout masturbator, I understand this to some extent – I don’t tend to get off solely from partners fingering me, for instance, because they inherently can’t do it in the exact ways I need, and it’ll always feel better physically when I do it. But the thing is, sex isn’t just about physical sensations. If it were, I’d never have any reason to seek out a sexual partner, because my own hand or a trusty vibrator would inevitably achieve better results.