MASTURBATION AMONG THE MARRIED: PROPORTION OF TOTAL OUTLET
Among the married, the temporary resurgence of masturbation is not evident in the control and prison groups. It is clear only in some of the sex-offender groups—especially in the exhibitionists. There is no over-all explanation for this phenomenon. It does not presage a sex offense, it does not seem linked with marital dissolution, nor does it equate with the childbearing period.
The separated, divorced, or widowed men for whom we have data tended to find an increasing proportion of their total outlet in masturbation during the fourth or fifth decade of life but less thereafter. Whatever factors account for this they do not apply to all currently unmarried males: the premarital and the postmarital masturbatory increases are not generally synchronous nor do they coincide with the marital. The groups which the public would regard as sexually the most “normal,” the control and prison groups and the offenders vs. adults, show some fluctuation in the proportion of postmarital sexual outlet derived from masturbation, but the peak occurs in their forties. The other groups, i.e., all the sex offenders save the offenders vs. adults, have their peaks in their thirties or even before.
Marital status exerts a profound effect upon the proportion of total outlet obtained through masturbation. With marriage and the more routine availability of coitus, masturbation becomes, in most groups, relatively unimportant—generally accounting for less than 10 per cent of all orgasms. The only groups with larger proportions in the younger years of marriage are those known to have serious heterosexual problems: the exhibitionists and the homosexual offenders vs. adults. In the latter group between ages twenty-one and thirty masturbation accounts for from roughly one quarter to one third of their outlet.
Marriage almost obliterates masturbation in both the control and prison groups and in the heterosexual offenders vs. adults (depressing the proportions to less than 5 per cent as a rule). Moreover, in these groups masturbation never clearly resurges. In most of the other groups, however, marriage has a somewhat less violent effect and the proportions often increase. This resurgence, while it cannot be linked to an offense, we regard as a symptom of marital sexual difficulty and it is probably also indicative of general heterosexual problems. Some groups, particularly the incest offenders vs. minors and adults, appear essentially the same as the control groups until this resurgence appears to label them as sex offenders.
At this point we should announce that when one is considering individuals rather than groups, substantial amounts of masturbation by married men are not necessarily indicative of heterosexual difficulty or of an impending sex offense. The greater amount of masturbation may simply reflect unavoidable absences, the illness of a spouse, or pregnancy. In groups, however, such extenuating circumstances cannot be expected to play an important role, and large masturbatory proportions of total outlet must be construed as symptomatic of marital trouble or of inhibition regarding coitus.
After marriage has ended, the degree to which masturbation regains the predominance that it held in early premarital life varies markedly in our comparative groups. The question arises: Will the sexual behavior revert to the premarital status or, because of habits and preferences formed or reinforced during marriage, will it be essentially a continuation of the marital pattern?
The answer to this question is obscured by the fact that reality does not parallel the wish; much as an unmarried man might prefer coitus over masturbation, the former is frequently very difficult to obtain. Consequently, among the groups who masturbated least during marriage (the control and prison groups and the offenders vs. adults) we find that the proportions of total outlet comprised by masturbation in postmarital life fluctuate rather strongly according to what most men would term luck, and sometimes approach premarital levels, though never exceeding 25 per cent.
The groups whose members have difficulty in obtaining sexual partners—a difficulty represented by sexual activity with children— also derive very large proportions of their total postmarital sexual outlet from masturbation. The homosexual offenders vs. children have proportions ranging from 35 to 50 per cent, and their postmarital percentage essentially equals their premarital in one age-period. Similarly, the heterosexual offenders vs. children have large proportions (60 per cent, grading down with age to around a 35 per cent level) that often equal or surpass premarital figures. The exhibitionists, a third group with serious sociosexual problems, also show large masturbatory proportions of total outlet in postmarital Me, in one instance exceeding the premarital. The homosexual and heterosexual offenders vs. minors-minors being more available and of a socially more suitable age—never display postmarital percentages equaling the premarital. Those whose sexual targets were adult unrelated females (i.e., the control and prison groups and the offenders and aggressors vs. adults) display relatively small proportions of postmarital masturbatory outlet—always (with one dubious exception) below premarital levels.
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