Sexual Education and Attitudes toward Masturbation

The long-standing social stigma surrounding masturbation has led to its prohibition from being included in public school curriculum as a healthy sexual practice. Furthermore, not only is masturbation a healthy sexual practice for the individual, research has demonstrated masturbation to be helpful in treating sexual dysfunctions for couples. Therefore, if the topic of masturbation is included in comprehensive sexual education as a healthy sexual practice, it may promote sexual health among individuals both intra- and interpersonally. The present study recruited from a convenient sample from a medium sized state university in the upper Midwest. Participants completed two surveys, administered through an online data collection platform. The first survey, Attitudes Towards Masturbation, is an established measure with sound reliability and validity, which assessed the participants’ comfort and beliefs about masturbation. The second survey was created specifically for this study and assessed the type of sexual education (comprehensive versus abstinence) received at home and in formal school settings. It was predicted that participants who received positive masturbation education (at home or at school) will have more positive attitudes toward masturbation than participants who received negative or no masturbation education. The results of the study indicate that positive messages learned are not correlated with positive attitudes. However, negative messages are associated with negative attitudes towards masturbation