The objective of the research was to carry out a revision on the beliefs about the masturbation. For it, a search of the works was made published on the topic, it was analyzed and it was selected the most outstanding. The authors expose that the masturbation was considered an illness, studied by the medicine, especially for the psychiatry and the psychology. It concludes that the masturbation is a common sexual activity in both sexes and in some cases, it is used as therapeutic technique in the sexual disfunctions.