Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 MASTURBATION: SOLITARY SEX 
If you listened to physicians 75 years ago, you would have been told that
 masturbation, 
sexual self-stimulation often using the hand to rub the genitals, would lead to a wide 
variety of physical and mental disorders, ranging from hairy palms to insanity. If those 
physicians had been correct, however, most of us would be wearing gloves to hide the 
sight of our hair-covered palms because masturbation is one of the most frequently 
practiced sexual activities. Some 94% of all males and 63% of all females have mastur-
bated at least once; among college students, the frequency ranges from “never” to “sev-
eral times a day” (Hunt, 1974; Michael et al., 1994; Laqueur, 2003, Polonsky, 2006).
Men and women typically begin to masturbate for the fi rst time at different ages, 
as you can see in Figure 1. Furthermore, men masturbate considerably more often 
than women, although there are differences in frequency according to age. Male 
masturbation is most common in the early teens and then declines; females both 
begin and reach a maximum frequency later. There are also some racial differences: 
African-American men and women masturbate less than whites do (Oliver & Hyde, 
1993; Pinkerton et al, 2002; Das, Parish, & Laumann, 2009). 
masturbation
Sexual self-stimulation.
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Module 34 
The Diversity of Sexual Behavior 
365
Although masturbation is often considered an activity to engage in only if no 
other sexual outlets are available, this view bears little relationship to reality. Close 
to three-fourths of married men (age 20 to 40) report masturbating an average of 24 
times a year, and 68% of the married women in the same age group masturbate an 
average of 10 times a year (Hunt, 1974; Michael et al., 1994; Das, 2007). 
Despite the high incidence of masturbation, attitudes toward it still refl ect some 
of the negative views of yesteryear. For instance, one survey found that around 10% 
of people who masturbated experienced feelings of guilt; 5% of the males and 1% of 
the females considered their behavior perverted (Arafat & Cotton, 1974). Despite 
these negative attitudes, however, most experts on sex view masturbation as a healthy 
and legitimate—and harmless—sexual activity. In addition, masturbation is seen as 
providing a means of learning about one’s own sexuality and a way of discovering 
changes in one’s body such as the emergence of precancerous lumps (Coleman, 2002; 
Levin, 2007; Herbenick et al., 2009).
Heterosexuality
People often believe that the fi rst time they have sexual intercourse they have 
achieved one of life’s major milestones. However,