The man in front of me at the grocery store the other night checked out with a baguette, two sticks of string cheese, an apple and a super sized tube of KY Jelly.

I, on the other hand, had a cheese-free pizza and some Pamprin. Guess who’s having the better night?

As I contemplated the various ways his evening might turn out, I began to formulate ways to make my evenings alone even better. I’ve always been a fan of masturbation but part of what’s made this dry spell so hard is that I just haven’t had it in me lately, pun intended.

Seeking ways to spice up my self-love life, I contacted Babeland, a store “offering information and encouragement to women who want to explore their sexuality.” Their representative responded to my email inquiry almost immediately and suggested some remarkable items that go above and beyond the normal vibrating slimliner.

As I wait for my new toys to arrive, I’ve been picking and choosing through the old classics. I’m a sex positive lesbian with more toys than the average person, yet I still lack creativity and diversity in my collection. Hell, I can’t even come up with creative words for the act of masturbation.

In hope of pleasureful slang, I went to an online thesaurus. Here’s what they offered: autoeroticism, malthusianism, onanism, self-abuse, self-pollution.

Self-pollution? Self-abuse? I mean, sometimes I hurt after, but I’m far from abusive.

I had to look up malthusianism and onanism. Turns out the former is a belief that self-sexual control will save the world from over population and doom. The latter is based on the biblical character Onan, who, instead of knocking up his dead brother’s wife, jerked off on the floor, spilling his seed and causing God to smut, I mean smote, him.

Leaving the obviously biased thesaurus, I found a more sex positive site that offered three columns of synonyms for male jacking off, but only one column for female jilling off (including that one).

Apparently, we females need to start talking about tickling our fancy more often and we need to do it using trashy slang. Many of the terms in the boy section could be used for girls also—see “polish the low-quarters” and “grease the sprocket”—but instead we’re stuck with cutesy ones on our list like “dialing the pink telephone.”

Dudes may one up us on the slang, but we beat them off in the sex toy department. I honestly feel bad for men, stuck in their double standard world. Male masturbation is definitely more accepted, expected and talked about than its female counterpart, yet if a man owns a pocket pussy he’s often considered a perv whereas people almost expect women to have a vibrator these days.

A vibrator may be expected, but a 12 inch dildo with vibrating butt plug and tongue-like clit licker usually is not. Many women, especially lesbians, have issues with phallic shaped sex toys and I know very few women who will talk about anal masturbation.

Stigmas and insecurities aside, the real reason I stick to the safe old classics is that I know they work. Exploring takes time, effort and creative energy that I just haven’t had lately. I have focused so much on finding someone else to get me off, I haven’t had energy to take matters into my own hands.

It’s a fact that you’re better in bed if you know your body, so I owe it to my future sex partners to continue to explore. I live on my own and I have a comfy bed, I should take advantage of that more often, starting right about now…