Masturbation is one of the most underreported sexual behaviors in adolescence. This is mainly because adolescent masturbation is a sensitive topic, and adolescents are often somewhat reluctant to admit to doing it (C. J. Halpern et al., 2000a). Masturbation during adolescence is more likely to be reported during adulthood than during adolescence itself.
As boys and girls enter adolescence, masturbation sharply increases, and the activity is more directed toward achieving orgasm than simply producing pleasurable sensations. Kinsey and his colleagues (1953) found a sharp increase between the ages of 13 and 15 in boys, with 82% of boys having masturbated by age 15. The girls’ pattern was more gradual, with 20% having masturbated by age 15 and no sharp increase at any point. A study by Leitenberg and colleagues (1993) found that twice as many college — age males as females had ever masturbated, and men who masturbated during adolescence did so three times more frequently than women who masturbated. The authors also note that no relationship was found between the frequency of masturbation as an adolescent and later experience with sexual intercourse, sexual satisfaction, sexual arousal, or sexual difficulties in relationships.
Masturbation is a very common sexual behavior for adolescent males (Laumann et al., 1994). In fact, almost all studies find that at every age from adolescence into adulthood, more males masturbate and masturbate more frequently than females. Many boys worry that they masturbate more than other boys, but studies of male adolescents show that the average male teen masturbates between three and five times a week (Lopresto et al., 1985; Schwartz, 1999). Boys’ masturbatory activities decrease when they are having regular sexual intercourse, whereas girls’ increase; this may be because boys mastur-
bate significantly more than girls in general or because girls are less likely to reach orgasm during intercourse than boys and supplement it with masturbation.