Archives of Sexual Behavior – Solo masturbation is a common form of sexual expression across the lifespan, without risk of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STI), and regardless of partner availability or interest.
Masturbation can help people explore their sexuality, experience pleasure, and learn about their bodily responses in ways that may support healthy sexual development, self-esteem, and body positivity.
Indeed, masturbation is often included as part of therapeutic treatment plans for sexual difficulties, such as premature ejaculation and anorgasmia.
Despite these well-documented individual, relational, and health benefits, masturbation has been stigmatized (particularly for women), prohibited, and remains understudied in comparison with research on partnered sex reflecting far less scientific attention to how people behave sexually with themselves than with other people.
According to the study, “The most frequently endorsed reasons for masturbating related to pleasure, feeling ‘horny,’ stress relief, and relaxation.” Apparently an extensive scientific undertaking by four university professors was needed to figure this out. – HH
Prevalence and Frequency of Masturbation
Masturbation is prevalent in countries around the world including Australia, China, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the UK, and the USA.
More men than women report lifetime masturbation and recent masturbation; also, men report more frequent masturbation as compared to women.
In the 2009 National Survey of Sexual Health Behavior (NSSHB), a U.S. nationally representative survey of 5865 men and women ages 14–94, 28% of men ages 70 + , 43% of men ages 14–15 and 60–69, and more than half of men ages 16–59 reported having engaged in solo masturbation in the prior month.
Twenty percent of women across the lifespan reported solo masturbation in the prior month (with rates exceeding 40% only for women ages 20–29), with 12% of women over 70 years of age reporting past-month masturbation.
More recently, in a comparison of sexual behaviors reported in the 2009 and 2018 waves of the NSSHB, although all forms of partnered sex assessed had decreased from 2009 to 2018, solo masturbation among adults did not decline during this time frame.
Since that time, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted daily life around the world. Some studies have shown an increase in solo masturbation toward the beginning of the pandemic (Gleason et al., 2021), though population-level data are needed …
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