According to the Kinsey data, masturbation is chiefly a phenomenon of young unmarried men, although it occurs to some extent among both sexes at every age and marital status level. Eighty-eight percent of the single males from sixteen to twenty in the Kinsey sample masturbated; the proportion of married males at this age level was considerably less (39%), presumably because marital intercourse was a preferred substitute. For young single males, masturbation represented the highest proportion of total outlet (60%). After age forty, masturbation was a relatively lower percentage of the total outlet (about 40% for the active sample). The average frequency of masturbation in the active single male sample dropped from 1.7 times per week in the teens to once a week or less by age forty. Kinsey did not report masturbation data for single males over fifty. Masturbation accounted for a lower proportion of the total outlet for married males than single males at every age. The average frequencies per week were from four to five times lower for married men.
Sixty-two percent of Kinsey’s total female sample reported that they had masturbated at some time, and 58% of these women had masturbated to orgasm. Among the single active sample, the average frequency of masturbation was .3 to .4 per week; for married females the mean was directionally lower (.2 per week). There was very little change in the active median frequencies for single and married women from the late teens through the fifties. Masturbation represented the highest percentage of total sexual outlet for single women; for married women, it accounted for 10% of the total outlet. Average frequencies of masturbation for single women showed virtually no decline with age (about 1 per week from the late teens through the fifties). For married women, average frequencies per week went from 1 in the teens, to .60 at age forty, to .2 at age fifty. For every age group, the percentage of total outlet was from three to seven times as great for single as for married women. Based on their clinical experience, Masters and Johnson suggest that both married and single women who masturbated during their adult years continue to masturbate in old age, although the frequency declines after age sixty. Christenson and Gagnon reported that 25% of a sample of postmarital women in their seventies were masturbating.
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