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 intraand 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. 2 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 14 [2014], Art. 8 https://cornerstone.lib. mnsu.edu/jur/vol14/iss1/8 Introduction The promotion of sexual health may be hindered by the consequences of viewing masturbation as taboo (Bockting, 2002). Such taboos have been maintained in spite of the fact that masturbation is associated with higher self-esteem, marital and sexual satisfaction, more orgasms, greater sexual desire and arousal (Hurlbert & Whittaker, 1991). Coleman (2002) points out that there are some who believe that it is linked to orgasmic capacity, healthy sexual functioning, and sexual satisfaction in relationships. Masturbation plays a key role in sexual development and “must be appreciated as a complex sociological issue, in need of research examining what masturbation means to different people at different points in their lives” (Tiefer, 1998, p. 10). As many studies have illustrated, masturbation is a means of self-actualization and appreciation (Bockting, 2002; Hurlbert & Whittaker, 1991). Despite these advantages, promoting safer sex is deemed inappropriate (Bockting, 2002). It appears that many young people have internalized the more prevalent taboos, as evidenced by their tendency to report feeling guilty and fearful of being exposed (Abramson, 1973) and a fear of social censure (Langston, 1973) with regard to their own masturbation. However, Story (1979) found that subjects’ attitudes toward masturbation became increasingly more positive two years following course instruction in human sexuality. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the current attitudes toward masturbation based on previous sexual education in order to gain a better understanding of the possible advantages of masturbation. Method Participants Participants included 342 undergraduate college students from a medium-sized, Midwestern university. Demographically, subjects were predominantly female (77.2%). 22.8% 3 Ray and Afflerbach: Sexual Education and Attitudes toward Masturbation Published by Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2014 of participants were male. Subjects were predominantly white (85.1%). These demographics were derived on the basis of students’ self-report. Measures Attitudes toward masturbation were assessed through the use of the Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Inventory (NATMI; Abramson & Mosher, 1975). This 5-point, Likert-type scale consists of 30 statements (10 of which have reversed scoring) about masturbation (anchored by not at all true to extremely true). Higher scores reflect more positive attitudes, fewer negative beliefs, and less sex guilt. Abramson and Mosher found that factor analysis (using an orthogonal varimax procedure) of college students’ responses to this inventory yielded three factors (1, 2, 3) accounting for 31.0%, 6.7%, and 5.7% of the total variance, respectively. Factor 1 (positive attitudes toward masturbation in general) included items such as “Masturbation can provide an outlet for sex fantasies without harming anyone else or endangering oneself. ” Factor 2 (false beliefs about the harmful nature of masturbation) included statements such as “Masturbation can lead to homosexuality,” and this factor clearly seem to represent the cognitive attitudinal component. Factor 3 (personally experienced negative affects associated with masturbation) included items such as “When I masturbate, I am disgusted with myself” and seemed to represent guilt. Abramson and Mosher (1975) report that the split-half reliability coefficient corrected by the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula was . 75; all but the first statement significantly correlated with the total score, with 24 of the 30 statements significantly correlated beyond the . 001 level (Presto, Sherman, & Sherman, 1985). Test-retest reliability data were not reported. Abramson and Mosher also report that the total score from the inventory correlated moderately with measures of sex guilt, sex experience, and frequency of masturbation. Although these 4 Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 14 [2014], Art. 8 https://cornerstone.lib. mnsu.edu/jur/vol14/iss1/8 measures were not correlated with each of the three factors of the NATMI, the sex-guilt and sexexperience scales have been used in studies that support their construct validity (see Mosher, 1973, 1979). Further, items accounting for two factors of the NATMI (false beliefs and sex guilt) and Mosher’s (1979) sex-guilt and sex-myth scales seem well matched (Presto et al., 1985). The Sexual Education Survey was created for this study in order to assess the type of sexual education (comprehensive versus abstinence) received at home and in school settings. Participants were instructed to endorse the content areas in sexuality they received during formal and informal education through a 39-item assessment. Research team members used a ranking system to decide which items should be deemed as positive and which items should be deemed as negative. This was accomplished by each individual rating a list of statements from 1 to 5 based on his or her opinion of the degree to which each item was considered a negative statement (1) or a positive statement (5), with (3) considered neutral. Items that the research team deemed as positive (a rating of 4 or 5) included items such as “How to obtain and use birth control/contraception” and “How to make healthy decisions about sex and to adopt healthy sexual behaviors. ” Items that the research team deemed as negative (a rating of 1 or 2) included items such as “How sex will likely lead to negative consequences” and “That early initiation of sexual behavior will make you undesirable to others. ” Items that the research team deemed as neutral (a rating of 3) included items such as “How to get an abortion” and “Risk factors that affect early initiation of sexual activity. The average score of all the research team members was used as the key number in determining whether or not students’ responses were positive, negative, or neutral (see Appendix).