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Masturbation and Relationship Satisfaction

Relationship satisfaction often declines after marriage or cohabitation and between 40-50% of marriages end in divorce. Furthermore, many couples who stay together report feeling unsatisfied in their relationships. Thus, it is important to examine factors that contribute to enduring and satisfying relationships. One factor that has been closely linked to relationship satisfaction is the sexual relationship of the couple. One aspect of the sexual relationship that has received little attention is masturbation. Although most psychologists hold positive views about masturbation, and recommend masturbation in many instances, the empirical data examining the association between masturbation and relationship satisfaction has mixed findings, with the majority of studies reporting a small negative relationship between these variables. The purpose of the present study was to further explore the association between masturbation and relationship satisfaction, focusing on possible moderators and mediators of this relationship including: masturbation guilt, openness with an individual's partner about masturbation, gender, object of arousal during masturbation, and reason for masturbating. Overall, masturbation frequency did not have a significant association with relationship satisfaction. However, the object of arousal during masturbation and openness about masturbation moderated the association between masturbation frequency and relationship satisfaction. Specifically, individuals who (a) used objects of arousal other than the partner when masturbating and (b) were less open about the masturbation reported a more negative association between masturbation frequency and relationship satisfaction.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc271884
Date05 1900
CreatorsRamos, Marciana Julia
ContributorsHook, Joshua N., Lane, Timothy M., Watkins, Clifton E.
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Ramos, Marciana Julia, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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