,

Masturbation Frequency Among Members

Stephen C

•

First for the caveats and perspectives. 

  • Masturbation is a human behavior, worthy of study and quantification like any other behavior. It’s a real thing, it’s a thing some people do. Furthermore, it’s a thing the Church has taken a position on. Therefore, it is fair game for quantification vis-a-vis Church members as long as it is treated appropriately. It has been heartening to see BYU professors, for example, publishing frequently in top sexuality journals.

 

  • A lot of rhetoric around masturbation (perhaps influenced by Seinfeld’s famous competition episode) sort of takes for granted that just about everybody masturbates, so the world is divided up between hypocrites and authentic people when, as we’ll see, a significant portion of the population doesn’t masturbate on any frequent basis. Sometimes there’s this quasi-freudian, quasi-intellectual take that not masturbating bottles things up and causes mental issues, but there’s really no evidence for that perspective.

 

Okay, with that, how often do self-identified Church members masturbate? I found one survey from about ten years ago that has enough members (332) that asks the question that we can do a quick analysis (at this sample size I’m not worrying about weights). 

When did you last masturbate?
Male (%) Female (%)
Refused
1
0
Today
8
1
Yesterday
9
5
2-4 days ago
11
3
5-6 days ago
4
1
1-2 weeks ago
6
3
3-4 weeks ago
3
1
More than one month ago
4
9
More than six months ago
3
6
More than a year ago
29
21
Never have
20
51

So no, contrary to popular perception, a significant portion of Latter-day Saints simply don’t masturbate much if at all. Specifically, about four out of ten Latter-day Saint men masturbated in the last month, while 14% of women did the same.

What about non-Latter-day Saints? Here about seven out of ten men have masturbated in the past month, while about four out of ten women have. So Latter-day Saints clearly masturbate less than non-Latter-day Saints, but a majority of non-member women and about a quarter of non-member men haven’t masturbated in the last month, so the Seinfeldian tableau on this in popular culture where everybody’s doing it on a frequent basis is inaccurate.

Male %

 Female %
Refused
3
2
Today
13
3
Yesterday
16
6
2-4 days ago
20
11
5-6 days ago
8
6
1-2 weeks ago
9
10
3-4 weeks ago
4
6
More than one month ago
6
10
More than six months ago
3
7
More than a year ago
10
15
Never have
9
25

 

Comments

27 responses to “Masturbation Frequency Among Members”

  1. REC911

    Interesting topic….some thoughts from my perspective.

    “factory” pamphlet : I cant find my copy to get the exact words but towards the end of the booklet it said something like “even though this is not a serious (maybe the word grievous?) sin”….
    I think the leaders forgot about or didn’t read that part. IMO, they turned it into a serious sin. I believe there was an idea amongst professionals in the 70’s and 80’s that masturbation could lead to homosexuality and I think the church was concerned, hence the factory talk/pamphlet. (I could have made this part up in my mind tho)

    When I was bishop: from 07 to 2012, there was nothing that I recall about masturbation in the handbook and serving a mission, yet both the stake presidents that I served with would not allow kids to serve missions until they didn’t masturbate for a period of time…I want to say three months. That has been going on since the 80’s though. I dont know if that was ever HQ policy or over zealot local leaders….It seemed like every priesthood session of GC back then had a least one talk about the ills of porn and masturbation so that fueled the “serious sin” attitude I think.

    As a bishop, the YM that served missions (maybe 9 total) only 1 (male) did not have a masturbation habit. I personally have never heard of a missionary getting sent home for masturbation. I have always wondered if they were not getting sent home, then why the demand to stop before they go on a mission?

    Towards the end of my service as a bishop, I noticed an uptick in married women with porn/masturbation habits. I thought that was interesting. I also saw an increase in same sex attraction issues.

    So, my ward didn’t match the survey #s.

    Conclusion: I think 70% of non member males masturbating in the past month qualifies for the general term “everybody’s doing it” used in the Seinfeld episode.

    I’m out!

  2. DaveW

    Just yesterday I was wondering to myself how long church leaders have to go without mentioning a topic before membership has the green light to not worry about it anymore. What’s the statue of limitations? Or perhaps a more complicated formula where every conference talk gives some doctrinal weight to an idea (perhaps weighted by the position of the speaker) which then has some sort of half-life decay rate, and once the total doctrinal weight has decayed below a certain threshold we no longer have to concern ourselves about journaling, or gardening or women having jobs. Because the church never comes out and says “never mind . . ” they just stop talking about some topics (after having spend a lot of time talking about it over and over again).

  3. Anon

    This is just one more topic which serves as a Rorschach test for local leaders. How local leaders deal with it reveals much about how they view their fellow human beings and what they feel about sexuality. Personally I believe that this is simply a topic that should be addressed non-salaciously, as a n encouragement towards discipline and self-control. But if the word on the street is to be believed, currently missionaries are being sent home for failing to eliminate the behavior and it gets associated with “porn addiction.” The sad part is that young men I know cannot discern the difference between “wet dreams” and masturbation. But can anyone, including an untrained Bishop or Stake President?

  4. adano

    A question on that topic is ripe for social desirability bias, meaning respondents not fully admitting to behaviors they perceive as socially frowned upon. This underreporting would be strong among subsets of respondents who have a stronger sense that the behavior is frowned upon–in this case, LDS respondents. I don’t disagree with the broader point that there are definitely people who aren’t doing it–but this survey won’t necessarily capture that rate accurately.

  5. ji

    Well, bishops and stake presidents are not supposed to ask that question anymore, and there really is no need to ask that question at all, but I wonder if some of them still do.

  6. RLD

    @adano: Yes, but I’m not sure which way the bias goes! Secular society, or at least a lot of it, considers masturbation to be normal and healthy and frowns upon not doing it. So whether people are inclined to underreport or overreport may depend on which audience they’re thinking about at the time of the interview.

    @DaveW: I’ve puzzled over that too, and you’ve got a good list of examples. I don’t think this one fits, though. For whatever reason, the Church seems to have developed an aversion to the word masturbation. But it’s pretty clearly covered by this passage from For the Strength of Youth:

    “In your choices about what you do, look at, read, listen to, think about, post, or text, avoid anything that purposely arouses lustful emotions in others or yourself.”

  7. Stephen C

    Rec911: I would not be surprised if there’s been an uptick in women having porn issues.

    DaveW: That’s a good point, I’ve wondered that myself. Since most things change through cohort replacement, basically once the generation that that affected is gone I imagine.

    Anon: If I recall correctly even the little factories pamphlet made a distinction with wet dreams, so sure, maybe there are some people somewhere that don’t see it as different, but the published material has been pretty clear on.

    ji: I haven’t seen any materials saying they shouldn’t ask the question, but yes, it would probably be inadvisable to make that a standard question or to start ferreting out the masturbators, but in the context of somebody having, say, a porn addiction it might be relevant.

    RLS: Bingo, the Church doesn’t really use the word “masturbate anymore, but it refers to it in other terms.

  8. ji

    Stephen C,

    But you have seen the brethren specify exactly what questions should be asked in temple recommend interviews and in prospective missionary interviews, with instructions not to deviate from the specified questions. “Do you masturbate?” is not on the list of specified questions.

    And, you are aware that our handbook says masturbation is not a reason for church discipline.

    So, that’s why I wrote that the question should not be asked, and that there is no reason to ask the question.

    I sustain the brethren in specifying the exact questions and instructions not to deviate. But I wonder if some bishops and stake presidents still ask the question. Interviews, especially youth interviews, should never turn into interrogations.

    I am okay with the principle of teaching members correct principles and letting them govern themselves. I don’t think the brethren want to insert the church into private matters, and I sustain that, too. I know some other members will disagree with me.

  9. Charles (a pseudonym)

    Anon brings up a good point. There are some things that are clearly wet dreams, and some things that are clearly masturbation. But what about the gray areas? What if someone is having a dream, and then while they’re kind of awake but not totally, they do the act, even though they wouldn’t do it in the middle of the day? Does that count? I suppose that might be one reason for the Church to say less about this topic; they don’t want people to feel shame for things they do when they’re not totally conscious.

    In 2014 or 2015, I had a YSA bishop ask me in tithing settlement, “How is the battle going against pornography and masturbation?” I assume he asked the question of everyone, because there was no reason for him to ask me that specifically. I found it an odd, and possibly inappropriate, question to ask unprompted, especially in a routine tithing settlement. (He was otherwise a great, compassionate, wise bishop. I just thought this one time it was a questionable thing to do.)

  10. Stephen C.

    I guess I’d quibble with the idea that the temple recommend questions are all that should be asked *in all circumstances*. Yes, that is all that should be asked for temple recommends, but with general consulting with a bishop, again especially when dealing with pornography, he’s not necessarily limited to those points.

    Temple recommend interviews do ask about the law of chastity which, again, a straightforward read of the general authority midrash would suggest includes masturbation. So not having it as a temple recommend question does not ipso facto mean it is not considered a sin.

    However, I do suspect that we agree in the spirit of things: it’s probably in the Church’s interest to not start delving too much into fine-grained particulars about law of chastity outside the obvious ones like adultery, fornication, and habitual, long-term pornography use. How many dirty thoughts before you’re not temple recommend worthy? How long since you masturbated? How many sex scenes that you watched a little too long before fast forwarding? And Anon and Charles give another good example of a gray area. Given that four out of ten LDS men admit to having masturbated in the past month, it would require a Torquemada type inquisition to try to root it out in wards if we were to be proactive about it, probably burning through all the Church’s personal capital with people in the process. So yes, I agree that this shouldn’t be something proactively hunted down (and I assume the Church’s council on this is stemming from some experiences with overzealous local leaders), but at the same time it does not necessarily follow that it is 100% okay and that masturbation is the same as washing your hands or clipping your fingernails; it’s a continuum.

  11. ji

    Stephen, Were you responding to me? I never said or suggested it was not a sin, was 100% okay, or that it is the same as washing your hands or clipping your fingernails.

  12. Anon

    There are many other factors that make this a “gray area” in which bishops and stake presidents should be fearful of entering. Sexuality is influenced by genetics, age, abuse of various types, hormone levels, psychological and emotional factors of many types, etc. It is simply unreasonable and unwise to expect untrained clergy to navigate through this issue. Count me as one who would advocate against placing such a burden on both interviewers and interviewees. I know of several cases in which youth were harmed by aggressive tactics employed by bishops in my area at the express instruction of their stake presidents. Some of these kids will never come back.

  13. joshc

    interesting article and comments.

    how priesthood leaders choose to counsel with members on this issue is up to them, but the issue of masturbation is something that the church has published specific guidance on in recent years.

    – the current church handbook uses the term ‘masturbation’ in section 32.6.4.1
    – the church publication “Missionary Standards for Disciples of Jesus Christ” (2019) uses the term ‘masturbation’
    – the question of pornography use has been standardized in pre-mission interviews (2017) but does not specifically use the term ‘masturbation’.

    also, the church never taught specifically that masturbation caused homosexuality, but even as late as 1992 they did note and were concerned with the correlation between masturbation, pornography use and homosexuality.

    for more data see: https://mormonr.org/qnas/y4j20/masturbation

  14. rogerdhansen

    This subject seems strangely irrelevant. This is a personal matter and certainly not a religious one. Most professionals disagree with Church leaders. The Church has a sad history when it comes to sexual issues: birth control, family size, sexual positions, rape, used chewing gum, interviews, etc. Leaders need to stay out of issues they don’t fully understand.

  15. Mariner

    I had a YSA bishop from 2008-2012 who would have this as a topic in his bishopric meetings. I was serving as the executive secretary. His concern was not enough members of the elders quorum were coming to him to confess masturbation issues. He said he told the stake president the percent of active elders who had confessed and he knew there were more out there who hadn’t come in to confess. He also told the stake president that he would call in each elder individually for a worthiness interview to ascertain those who hadn’t confessed.

    The stake president must not have objected as the bishop did follow through on his plan. At one point I approached the stake president about this bishop due to several other things he was doing which were highly improper. The stake president shut me down by saying he had made his decision on the bishop and it was final. I moved from the area (this bishop being one of the reasons, albeit minor) while numerous other members (both male and female) went inactive. From what I heard, attendance dropped to 20-30 members and the ward was eventually disbanded. It was a shame as I really enjoyed the people in the ward though the bishop did make attending a challenge.

  16. Carey F.

    Here’s an interesting correlation:

    “There is a direct correlation between masturbation and orgasm, as masturbation is a common and effective method for achieving orgasm, with studies showing that specific masturbatory techniques and subjective, emotional, or affective experiences (like desire and pleasure) are significantly related to higher levels of orgasmic satisfaction. It is also a way for people to learn about their bodies and what they enjoy.”

  17. Ace

    While serving as a senior missionary in the last decade, my mission president told me he had an elder (didn’t betray confidence) who came to an interview with bags packed — sure he would be sent home for confessing. The president told him if he sent everyone home who masturbated, there would be no one left in the mission — including its mission leaders.

    After reading The Miracle of Forgiveness the ‘70s, my bishop told me there were two kinds of men in the world — “those who do it and those who lie, including the General Authorities. Just learn to bridle your passions.” Still love that man.

  18. Stephen C

    rogerdhansen: “This is a personal matter and certainly not a religious one.” Most religious matters are personal ones.

    Ace: Hmm, again I think the results above show that the “everybody masturbates” narrative just isn’t correct.

    Carey: I don’t want to segue this into the interminable “is masturbation good” argument, but it’s also associated with depression and all sorts of sexual dysfunction. Causality is difficult, of course, since depressed people might self-medicate with masturbation, but again the idea that it’s some salubrious catharsis or sexual creatine is more conventional knowledge than established scientific fact.

  19. ji

    Mariner and Charles, I am so sorry that your bishops abused their office with you, and am yet glad you are still here. From what you wrote, there was no pastoral reason for your bishops to ask the question, and I can only think that they did it for their own prurient pleasure. Shame on them.

    Inasmuch as the church delights in truth, maybe your stories could be told somewhere in the press? Sunshine is a wonderful disinfectant, and might help to stop future abuse by other bishops.

  20. REC911

    ji, there is pastoral reasons to ask this question. As I stated in my experience, the stake required that missionaries had to be masturbation free before going on a mission. As the bishop, I couldn’t start the mission papers until this was achieved. I am not saying I agree with this policy, as I dont, but this is why bishops have been asking this question to YM for like 50+ years. Probably started when the factory pamphlet was given to every YM. Still not sure if this interview question was from HQ or culture. If all the bishops and SP were asked the same question when they were young, they may have assumed they have to ask when they became leaders. (spitballing here) There are lots of policies that local leaders are asked to do from HQ that are not in handbooks. (or at least there was in my day)

    Stephen C, The depression, IMO, comes from the guilt members deal with for doing this. YM felt they were not worthy to participate in the sacrament, (prep or take) temple, and missions because some bishops told them they weren’t.

    No parent feels bad that their son doesn’t get the eagle scout award anymore. If the church would allow masturbation, the guilt would go away for most. Like most of our LDS sins, we are trying to prevent more serious sins through complete abstinence of lessor sins. These lessor sins then become as serious as the sins we are trying to prevent. Booze is a good example of this as is lusting etc. The sin was drunkenness not drinking booze.

  21. ji

    REC911, In the two stories that were shared here, and to which I was responding, there was no pastoral reason to ask the question.

    To help curb prurient excursions by bishops and stake presidents, the brethren have specified the questions that are to be asked for temple recommends and prospective missionaries, with instructions not to deviate, and that question is not included. I wish bishops and stake presidents would follow instructions from the First Presidency.

  22. Expert Hook Baiter

    I believe the correct term is “self abuse.”

  23. Matthew B.

    REC911, you serious? If we allowed masturbation to not be a sin, that opens the door to allowing OTHER sins to be tolerated! Should we suddenly allow fornication to be tolerated? Same-sex behavior? Pornography? Where does it all end? I’m all for reducing shame over masturbation, given how imperfect we are as human, but there’s a big difference between saying “It’s OK. You’re not alone here. This is something a lot of people deal with.” and saying “It’s OK. This is not a sin. It’s perfectly OK to do.”. The latter is clearly endorsing the behavior, which is not what our Maker wants.

  24. davidwayner

    Would anyone care to comment on masturbation as prostate therapy, especially in older men?

  25. Stephen C

    Expert Hook Baiter: Lol

    REC911: Those results weren’t specific to Latter-day Saints.

    davidwayner: The last time I read up on the whole “masturbation is good for prostate health” literature I wasn’t really convinced, but it’s been a while so things may have changed. But sure, I could in theory see some specific health issues that might justify it in my mind. For example, you have testicular cancer, are unmarried, and want to preserve your sperm for later use, you’re going to have to masturbate to provide a sample, and I think that’s fine in that context.

    However, I would be wary of a slippery slope; kind of an analog to using medical marijuana to alleviate post-surgery nausea symptoms versus using “medical marijuana,” when we really know what it’s about, but again I don’t think the Church should come out with a legalistic tome about exceptions and such, and think they’re right to mostly leave those kinds of details up to the individual.

  26. REC911

    Matthew B,

    It is NOT a sin so you can receive the priesthood, go to the temple and serve a mission.

    It IS a sin but you can receive the priesthood, go to the temple and serve a mission.

    This is the difference I am talking about and how we label it. If it is not a serious enough sin, but a sin, to prevent YM from doing these things then lets drop the shame and move on.

    I thought the Maker wanted us not to commit adultery?

  27. Matthew B.

    REC911

    So you’re suggesting that it should be seen as a smaller sin? Do I hear that right? Just basically “This is something that’s bad, but it’s not disqualifying”? Is that what you’re suggesting?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.