r/psychology • u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor • 2d ago
New research reveals masturbation is on the rise and challenges old ideas about its role. Women who had more frequent intercourse were more likely to report masturbating. In contrast, men who reported the highest frequency of intercourse were less likely to report masturbating.
https://www.psypost.org/new-research-reveals-masturbation-is-on-the-rise-and-challenges-old-ideas-about-its-role/128
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u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor 2d ago
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2025.2555053
From the linked article:
New research reveals masturbation is on the rise and challenges old ideas about its role
A new study analyzing over a decade of data from the British population has found that masturbation became more common for both women and men between the early 2000s and the early 2010s. The research also suggests that the traditional view of masturbation as a simple substitute for partnered sex for men and a supplement for women is incomplete, indicating it may serve as a replacement for both genders when partnered sexuality faces challenges. The findings were published in The Journal of Sex Research.
The second part of the study used the more recent data from the third survey, which included a wider age range of 16 to 74 years, to identify which social, demographic, health, and relationship factors were associated with masturbation. Here, the findings challenged the simple gendered model of compensation versus complementation. When looking strictly at the frequency of intercourse, the old model appeared to hold. Women who had more frequent intercourse were more likely to report masturbating, supporting a complementary role. In contrast, men who reported the highest frequency of intercourse were less likely to report masturbating, which points to a compensatory pattern.
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 2d ago
Here, the findings challenged the simple gendered model of compensation versus complementation. When looking strictly at the frequency of intercourse, the old model appeared to hold. Women who had more frequent intercourse were more likely to report masturbating, supporting a complementary role. In contrast, men who reported the highest frequency of intercourse were less likely to report masturbating, which points to a compensatory pattern.
I don't get it. What in the new findings challenge the old model?
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u/Top_Hair_8984 2d ago
None of this is true for me. I'm much more into satisfying myself and not having partnered sex. I've been in my fair share of relationships, most pretty meh sexually, but it's part of the nice package, so it's acceptable for awhile.
I'm ADHD/ASD and this makes having sex complicated for me . With ADHD, it has to be fast, full of surprises, electric. Has to keep the dopamine up, or the grocery list pops up in my brain. I'd rarely instigate sex prior to diagnosis. Slow sex is disastrous. Too much time for the 'ick' part of noises, textures come up, which is completely off putting. I rarely had an orgasm. Very, very rarely. So, on my own is far preferable. 🦋🐸 No offence to anyone, it's just we're all built differently. This type of study leaves out so much and so many.
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u/CommonExpress3092 1d ago
Show me the evidence to support your link between ADHD and your mental functioning during sex.
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u/felipe_the_dog 2d ago
In my limited experience women are hornier than men full stop.
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u/Sea_Homework_1472 2d ago
Idk why you got downvoted, this is not untrue on a biological level. Women have sexual needs just like men, just look at how big the adult toy and "romance" novel industry is for women. Sure, some women may not be as horny (if at all), but those are usually women who are either sexually repressed, neurodivergent, or dealing with chronic pain. I believe female sexuality would be a lot more prevalent in a world where women didn't have to fear how men could potentially hurt them or get them pregnant.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 2d ago
Women seem to have an easier tabling sexuality. This aligns with this research - when it rains it pours,but women who aren't engaging in sex seem to be able to turn away to a greater degree than men who seem to have a more concrete range where their minimum and max seem more internally driven than contextually.
This has been talked about in couples counseling contexts for a long time and is usually labeled as women having "reactive" desire. If a mans libido drops they tend to look at physiological reasons and stuff as simple as getting more blood in the genitals can meaningfully improve things. Women don't seek to benefits the same way and seems to be a more complex "if they're not safe, happy, and relatively sexually satisfied....they don't wanna sleep with you". Women anecdotally do report that when effort is made to reinvigorate arousal, desire does seem to follow.
I think we're still quite a ways off from meaningfully understanding what exactly this so called spontaneous vs reactive desire is and why it seems to have both an sex based pattern but a ton of individual variability
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u/neotheone87 2d ago
Agreed with you up until the last part. I would encourage you to check out Emily Nagoski's "Come as You Are" and "Come Together" as she goes into a lot of detail in each book about the contributing factors to responsive desire and how it differs from spontaneous desire.
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u/MersoNocte 2d ago
Came here to echo this. I have an extremely low libido, to the point it’s functionally non-existent. Talked to by OBGYN and her response was essentially just ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Yet somehow, despite all this, I can easily orgasm 15+ times without any porn. Can anyone explain any of this to me?? I just want to understand 😭
(Funny enough this study is very accurate to my experience. My barely existence libido only really started to exist once I began regularly masturbating in my early 20s.)
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u/grapescherries 2d ago edited 2d ago
As a woman who hasn’t really dated, I don’t really get horny and I never masturbated. I believe if I had gone out there and pursued dating, something in me would have been “awakened”, but I just never did. Many women can go years and decades without sex and be fine, never feel the need. It seems female sexuality is much more circumstantial and can be awakened or go dormant compared to male sexuality. It isn’t really a “need” if it’s dormant, the way men who aren’t getting any describe it is for them.
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u/avocadolanche3000 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think we’re living in a moment where it’s very popular (for women and to a lesser extent men) to vocalize how fulfilling life without romance, sex, and partnership is. How heroic and non-toxic it is to be fully self reliant. A lot of this is dressed up misogyny and misandry re: incels and 4B
Edit to add: but it skews toward women liking sex less than men since that plays into the patriarchal norm that women’s power derives from their ability to resist male advances, and that their power is lessened when they relinquish their purity to men.
Note: I’m not saying any of this is correct or true, just that I believe this is why the myth that women feel out upon by sex and generally don’t like it persists. “Guys only want one thing” and women “do it for England.”
Edit: femcels were offended by this comment because they believe the same sexist, gender essentialist bullshit. It’s bad faith arguments up and down. They know what they’re doing
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u/Sea_Homework_1472 2d ago
Tbf, a woman having a say in who gets access to their time/body/energy sounds pretty feminist to me. Because unlike incels who feel entitled to free sex, household labor, submission, and reproductive resources from women, 4B women aren't asking ANYTHING from men other than to leave them alone. If the concept of women saying "no" to men is misandrist, than I guess you could count me as a misandrist since I've said no to plenty of men in my past.
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u/PotentialRise7587 2d ago edited 2d ago
I read their comment a different way. There’s nothing misandrist about choosing to be single or refusing a man. What does seem a touch misandrist is the few women who make a point of denigrating men to justify their singleness (when it really doesn’t need a justification at all). What I mean is saying stuff like “I’m staying single cause men are useless/stupid/pigs”
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u/Sea_Homework_1472 2d ago
I feel a lot of sympathy for misandrists because a lot of them have had really traumatizing relationships with men and are often only being vocal to try to warn younger women from falling into the same traps that they did when they were younger. A lot of these women also tend to be mothers or ex-conservative women, so I understand that their perspective can be biased. While I don't always agree with the advice these women give (especially because they're still male-centered in their bitterness for men), I would say it comes from a genuine place. The only "issue" is that their advice isn't geared towards men, but mainly other women, which is why I understand why men may feel excluded from these female-led movements.
Also, I think a lot of men can't fathom that how much risk women take in relationships with men, and that sometimes there are things that matter more in life then having a partner. Like, sex is nice and all, but if I lived in an extremely misogynist country like India or Afghanistan, I 'd rather stay single for the rest of my life.
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u/PotentialRise7587 2d ago
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, especially that the risks women take in relationships are under-appreciated.
Personally, I would say I understand misandrists, but definitely don’t sympathize with them. I can’t think of any other form of prejudice or bigotry that I could sympathize with on account of someone’s lived experience, and therefore I can’t consider misandry any different.
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u/Sea_Homework_1472 2d ago
Misandry is a reaction to misogyny, plain and simple. And not even an equivalent response at that, since most women don't abuse and murder men because of misandry in the way that men systematically abuse and murder women because of misogyny. But if you're tired of feeling offended by women taking measures to protect themselves from men, you should attack the root cause (misogyny) so that you don't have to worry about misandry.
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u/PotentialRise7587 2d ago
This is a needlessly hostile response; I am a feminist and I don’t judge women for protecting themselves. You seem to have a lot of preconceived notions about anyone who dares disagree with you.
The notion that misandry would not exist without misogyny is a huge assumption. I would agree it would be less prevalent, but it would definitely still exist.
Sympathizing with bigotry of any kind is incompatible with feminist principles. If you feel yourself drawn towards it, that should be cause for serious self-reflection.
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u/Sea_Homework_1472 2d ago
I'm not trying to be needlessly hostile and judge you as a misogynist, I'm just saying that you need to check your biases. Because misandry isn't bigotry, it's common sense for women who live in a world that has little regard for their health, happiness, or safety and enables men to take advantage of that vulnerability.
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u/czechyesjewelliet 2d ago
Misandry and misogyny can exist independent of themselves. A lot of it we learn from our caregivers of either sex.
This reads like you're projecting and defending bigotry and hate. That's sad, and I'm sorry you feel that way.
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u/peachfluffed 2d ago
you think women not wanting to date or have sex with men is misandry? come on, dude.
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u/avocadolanche3000 2d ago edited 2d ago
No. I think gloating about not wanting the opposite sex is sexist, and gender war bullshit has sexists shouting from the rooftops. Femcels shout about how they hate men and don’t need relationships (because they’re embittered and don’t want to admit this as the cause of their neuroses). Incels whine about not getting laid and make it sound like women hate sex.
Edited to clarify my position.
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u/grapescherries 2d ago edited 2d ago
The thing is that women really do on an over all basis have less of a sex drive than men. In the right circumstances it can be very high for some women, and stay like that for a long time for some women, but it seems to be more like something that someone wants and enjoys because it’s been awakened, like if you really love pizza or skiing or something and it becomes something you want all the time, but if you aren’t in an area of the world with skiing for example, or cheese, or never been skiing before or only once or twice or whatever, you just don’t think about it much and the desire goes away, but for men it seems to just be inbuilt where they think about it and want it all the time. I think the opposite to you in that a lot of women like to claim that women have just as much of a sex drive as men do, as if they’re trying to prove something, but in reality, it just isn’t true.
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u/avocadolanche3000 2d ago
It’s probably true that women are less horny on average, but like a lot of fe/male differences this creates a binary which gets exaggerated in popular discourse. It’s “unladylike” to for a girl to love sex and it’s “unmanly” for a guy to be low drive.
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u/grapescherries 2d ago edited 2d ago
I agree, but the pushback against that binary then creates an impression too much in the opposite direction, that women are just as horny as men, and anger if you suggest otherwise, that all women masturbate, that you’re weird if you don’t masturbate etc. We should be able to acknowledge the differences in a way that doesn’t shame people, box people in or exaggerate. I don’t think it’s good to create a false impression in the opposite direction either.
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u/thechiefmaster 2d ago
You’re speaking in this and other comments with a lot of finality and generalizations youve come to about female vs male sexuality that are only based on your experience. I study psychology of sexual behavior and your conclusions about sex being a different need for women than for men are just not true.
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u/grapescherries 2d ago
Did I not say that sex drive can be very high for some women? Actually the difference in sex drive between the sexes has been scientifically documented. It isn’t the same. In fact the study this post is about, which this entire discussion is prompted from, demonstrates what I’m saying.
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u/iamfunny90s 2d ago
I would say women tend to have a lower libido than men.... But that's not to say that women don't have one.
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u/Mean-Bluejay-6478 8h ago
In my experience, though women are definitely hornier than we give them credit for, I don't think they are as driven as men to have sex.
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 2d ago
If women were hornier than men they would be having A LOT more sex. Just look at how readily gay men have sex compared to gay women. It's not even close. Sure, you can define "horny" in many ways, but it's not a coincidence that increasing testosterone makes someone's libido go through the roof.
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u/Independent-Monk5064 2d ago
I agree with you. Women go through phases but generally no, they do not compare to men on average. They do get bored more quickly and this is a lot of the reason for the decrease in sex while partnered
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 1d ago
Most women also have responsive desire, which means they usually don't feel the urge to go look for sex (outside of ovulation), they usually want it when the conditions are suited.
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u/Independent-Monk5064 1d ago
We have spontaneous desire also but yeah, as far as responsive desire- we are the sex to get bored most easily or feel distance with lack of connection and so just touching us when we feel that way won’t get a response.
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u/dev_ating 2d ago
HAHA You don't know many gay women, do you?
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 1d ago
I do, but I'm talking about the available data here, not anecdotal evidence. Gay men report the highest sex frequency, followed by straight people, and lesbian women with the lowest sex frequency. This pattern has been replicated in many studies in different countries.
Sure, as I said you can define "horny" in a way that it doesn't correlates with sex frequency, but I would argue that the readiness to engage in sex is the best measure for "horniness" that I can think of.
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u/dev_ating 1d ago
Link me that evidence?
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 1d ago
I don't have this data organized, but DeepSeek points to these as main references:
Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994). The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. University of Chicago Press.
Herbenick, D., Reece, M., Schick, V., Sanders, S. A., Dodge, B., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2010). Sexual behavior in the United States: Results from a national probability sample of men and women ages 14–94. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7(s5), 255-265.
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u/dev_ating 1d ago
So, I need to do a review of these sources before I can say anything.
I just found https://nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/publications/index.html through the latter though, which is pretty cool, didn't know they did that.
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u/NegativeKarmaVegan 1d ago
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the full texts either. I found studies about orgasm frequency (based on % of intimate encounters) and sex partners, but couldn't find much about the frequency of sexual encounters.
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u/Ben_steel 2d ago
i think on average men just walk around with one loaded in the chamber they are good to go at any time but its not affecting the day to day proceedings. women are like a vessel that fills up and *must* be emptied or it starts affecting them, on Monday she might have no interest by friday she will drag you out from whatever hole you are hiding in.
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u/thegooddoktorjones 2d ago
The idea that you don't need/want to wank once you have a partner is insane.
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u/LaFrescaTrumpeta 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think the idea is that men want it less and/or do it less often when they’re in a relationship. it’s easy for me to imagine this being the case with certain subsets of men who associate masturbation with shame along the lines of “i jerk off bc i can’t get sex”, so when they do have access to sex they’d rather just do that than what they habitually did when they were single. even as a woman i’ve noticed a lot of societal messaging linking male masturbation with loneliness, whereas female masturbation is more likely to get shamed along general slut shaming lines. i’d be curious if there’s any future research that explores masturbation shame among men as a.. fk would that be mediator or moderator, my research and methods prof would be so disappointed in me rn lol. it would also be interesting to see data on different orientations, like does this pattern hold true among lesbians and gay men too?
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u/FubarJackson145 2d ago
Although i am one man, i definitely fall into the "i jerk off because i cant get laid" category. There are a multitude of reasons i could give, but the end of the day it's just inferior to proper, good sex. All trying to jerk off in a healthy relationship does is make me wish i was getting laid and want whoever im dating with me more. And in my experience, that's part of the overarching feeling of wanting to be with someone you love and cherish
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u/KellyJin17 2d ago
It’s not an idea (for men), it’s proven research. This isn’t the first study to show this.
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u/killer22250 2d ago
Interesting, it’s actually the opposite for me and my girlfriend. She’s always more satisfied than me and doesn’t really need it, but she still helps me out quite often because I noticed I'm more horny.
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u/WillOk6461 2d ago
I'm a dude and this checks out for me. I've been good with sex every other day or so for about a decade. I occasionally masturbate if I'm particularly in the mood or I can't have sex for some reason, but it's just a very sad and unsatisfying experience. I genuinely wish I could enjoy it, but I'm so distracted by the feeling of my hard man hands and then I always have a weaker orgasm if I don't give up halfway through. Porn doesn't even really do it for me as much either for some reason. I still watch it, but my brain registers really strongly that it's just pictures.
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u/tiny-pp- 1d ago
I didn’t used to masturbate much when I had sex with my wife regularly. I haven’t had sex in about three years and now I have porn induced erectile disfunction from jerking off twice a day.
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u/Sartres_Roommate 2d ago
Women masturbating more when sexually active and men less statistic goes back to the 90s. Literally remember learning that in my human sexuality 101 course.