Does Masturbation Help or Hurt Your Marriage? Here’s What the Data Says

Where This Started

Nearly a year ago, March 2025, someone submitted this comment to our anonymous question page:

“You should do a survey on mutual masturbation among married couples. The surveys on oral sex and other aspects of sex are fantastic.”

And I had done one back in 2014, when we had a much lower readership, and ended up with only 155 responses.  Now, at the time, I was thrilled with that number, but these days we can do better.

So I decided to redo the survey and expand the question set. The intent was to gather as much information as possible about the topic without being overly burdensome. I might have expanded it a bit too much, as it was hard to get people to fill out, and the topic probably made that harder too.

Nevertheless, we managed to get over 1,000 people to anonymously fill out over 130 data points. That’s what we’re going to dig into today.

Before we get into the data, I want to be upfront about my hypotheses going in:

• That partnered sex with your spouse would be correlated with higher marital satisfaction
• That solo masturbation would be correlated with lower marital satisfaction
• That mutual masturbation with your spouse would act like partnered sex and increase marital satisfaction

A quick note on what this data can and can’t tell us: because we use anonymous surveys, I can’t follow the same people over time. That means we can see correlations (patterns) but we can’t definitively prove causation. I’ll be careful about that distinction throughout. But some of the patterns here are strong enough that they’re telling us something real.

Who Responded

In total we got 1,043 responses: 724 men, 261 women, and 58 who preferred not to disclose their gender. The vast majority are married Protestant Christians, such a large percentage that it makes the sample internally consistent, though it also limits how broadly we can generalize the findings.

After filtering to married Protestant Christians, we have 1,112 people in our primary analysis. Ages ranged from 22 to 88. Marriage length ran from newly married to 65+ years. That range is helpful because it tells us that the patterns we see aren’t just a snapshot of one stage of marriage.

Total Responses	Male	Female	Primary Sample
1,043	69%	25%	1,112 (Married Protestant Christians)

On average, respondents have sex with their spouse 1.6 times per week. I’ve been tracking this across multiple surveys and that number has been drifting downward. It used to hover closer to 2–3 times per week. Whether that reflects broader cultural shifts or a change in who reads this blog, I’m not sure which it is. I tend to attract more people who are struggling now than I did early on.

Here’s how other activities broke down on average per week:

Average frequency per week of sexual activities reported by married Protestant Christian respondents (n=1,112).

Most of these activities get mixed together in a single session: oral and manual together, or intercourse that includes manual stimulation. So these numbers reflect a typical week, not separate isolated encounters.

The Solo Masturbation Puzzle

Things get interesting immediately in our analysis. People reported that their spouses masturbate less than 8 times a year on average. But people reported masturbating themselves about once a week. So, something doesn’t add up.

We’re each dramatically underestimating what our spouse is doing, and how often:

	What Spouses Think	Self-Report
Husband masturbates at least monthly	36.3% of wives think so	68.3% of husbands say yes
Wife masturbates at least monthly	15.9% of husbands think so	32.3% of wives say yes
Husband’s frequency	Wives guess ~0.8x/wk	Husbands report ~1.8x/wk
Wife’s frequency	Husbands guess ~0.9x/wk	Wives report ~1.0x/wk

Each spouse underestimates the other’s frequency by roughly half. Interestingly, husbands are actually closer to accurate about their wives than wives are about their husbands.

About 1 in 20 wives are actively hiding a masturbation habit. Only about 40% of those who do masturbate are openly talking about it with their husband. For the men, it’s about 1 in 13 who actively hide it, and only about 30% are openly talking about it.

It’s worth noting that the person motivated to fill out a survey like this may masturbate more than average, which could inflate the gap somewhat. But given that 1 in 13 men report actively hiding the behavior, the perception gap appears to be real and not just a survey artifact.

Secrecy, Openness, and What It Does to Your Marriage

Here’s where the data becomes very clear. I looked at satisfaction across six levels of spousal awareness, from fully open and discussed, all the way to actively hiding. The pattern is remarkably consistent.

Sexual and relationship satisfaction by spousal awareness of solo masturbation. Each step toward more secrecy corresponds to lower satisfaction on both measures.

Husbands who actively hide their masturbation habit are about 3x more likely to report being dissatisfied with their sex life, and 4x less likely to report being very satisfied. Among men who are very satisfied sexually, 33% openly discuss masturbation, and only 5% are hiding it. Among men who are very dissatisfied? 18% are actively hiding it.

I recognize this dynamic personally. During seasons where we’re not having sex for whatever reason (illness, travel, exhaustion), it’s not the lack of sex itself that’s hardest. It’s not being able to talk about it. Men often don’t bring it up because they don’t want to seem manipulative or make their wives feel guilty. But that silence is costly.

This isn’t just about the masturbation. It’s about trust, transparency, and being aligned as a couple.

What About Not Masturbating at All?

I also looked at the group that reported zero solo masturbation, and the numbers are striking.

Both husbands and wives in this group are almost twice as likely to report being very satisfied sexually, and about half as likely to report sexual dissatisfaction. That extends into marital satisfaction too: 52.5% of men and 50% of wives who don’t masturbate say they are very satisfied with their marriage. Only 3.3% of men and 6.0% of wives report being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Percentage reporting “Very Satisfied” (solid) and “Dissatisfied” (hatched) for sexual and relationship satisfaction, by gender and solo masturbation status.

Now, I want to be careful here. We can’t say from this data that solo masturbation causes dissatisfaction. The causation could run either direction: people who are already very satisfied may have less reason to masturbate, or perhaps not masturbating channels more energy toward the marriage. Both are plausible. But the correlation is clear and consistent regardless of direction.

The Dose-Response: More Solo, Less Satisfied

One of the most compelling patterns in the data is what happens when you look at solo masturbation frequency as a spectrum. As frequency increases, satisfaction doesn’t just level off. It steadily declines:

Sexual satisfaction by masturbation frequency. Solo masturbation (red) shows a consistent downward trend; mutual masturbation (green) shows the opposite.

That’s a nearly full point difference in sexual satisfaction between non-masturbators and those who do it two or more times a week. On a 5-point scale, that’s enormous.

And importantly, this holds up even when we control for how often the couple is having sex, how often they engage in mutual masturbation, age, and years married. The statistical analysis (multiple regression) confirms: solo masturbation frequency independently predicts lower satisfaction. It’s not just explained by “these people are having less sex.”

Mutual Masturbation Is Different

Now here’s where the data tells a genuinely striking story. Mutual masturbation behaves completely differently from solo masturbation. Where the solo line goes down, the mutual line goes up. They’re nearly mirror images.

The correlation between mutual masturbation frequency and sexual satisfaction is r = +0.23. For solo masturbation it’s r = −0.17. Similar magnitude, opposite direction.

More mutual masturbation → more satisfied. More solo masturbation → less satisfied. The same pattern holds for relationship satisfaction overall, not just sexual satisfaction.

In 2023, a study (The Role of Mutual Masturbation within Relationships: Associations with Sexual Satisfaction and Sexual Self-Esteem) found the same thing: mutual masturbation was positively associated with sexual satisfaction in both men and women, and the researchers suggested it might function as a form of shared relational sexuality rather than a substitute for it. That framing fits exactly what I’m seeing here.

Now, that study found it was a small effect size, whereas we’re seeing quite a large effect in our study.  Perhaps that due to the protestant Christian framework surrounding it, there is an added layer of guilt (conviction?).

I think the most reasonable explanation is this: solo masturbation is, by definition, something you’re doing alone, and in many cases something you’re doing instead of turning toward your spouse. Mutual masturbation, whatever form it takes, is something you’re doing together. It keeps the sexual energy inside the relationship rather than outside of it.

Putting the Whole Picture Together

Let me show you the four groups side by side: those who do only solo masturbation, those who do only mutual masturbation, those who do both, and those who do neither.

Mean sexual and relationship satisfaction by masturbation group.

Percentage reporting “Very Satisfied” sexually vs. sexually dissatisfied by group.

A few things jump out immediately:

1. The Solo Only group is in a category of its own. Over 42% report being sexually dissatisfied, which is more than 4x higher than the Neither group, and more than 4x higher than the Mutual Only group. If you’re masturbating solo but not with your spouse, and you’re dissatisfied with your sex life, you’re far from alone in that pattern.
2. The Mutual Only group comes out on top on nearly every measure: highest relationship satisfaction, lowest rate of sexual dissatisfaction. These are people who engage in mutual masturbation but not solo, and the numbers look a lot like a healthy, connected sex life.
3. The Neither group is interesting. They’re not reporting the most thrilling sex lives (the “very satisfied” percentage is actually the lowest), but they’re also the least likely to be dissatisfied. Not much misery here, just a lot of people in a stable middle, which fits what we saw earlier: not masturbating solo correlates with less dissatisfaction, but doesn’t automatically produce more satisfaction on its own.

What the Data Can and Can’t Tell Us

This is a cross-sectional survey. We asked everyone the same questions at one point in time. We don’t know what came first.

Does solo masturbation cause lower satisfaction? Maybe. Does lower satisfaction cause people to masturbate more? Also possible. Maybe a third factor (low desire, a sexless season, unresolved conflict) that is driving both. The data can’t tell us which direction causation runs.

What I can say: the patterns are consistent, they’re statistically significant, and in several cases they hold up after controlling for other variables. When I ran a regression model, essentially asking “does solo masturbation frequency predict lower satisfaction even when we account for how often you’re having sex?” The answer was yes. That suggests it’s not just explained by “people who masturbate more are having less sex, and that’s why they’re dissatisfied.” Something else is going on.

The secrecy data is probably the most telling, because secrecy is a choice. The fact that hiding masturbation from your spouse is so consistently associated with lower satisfaction, more so than simply not discussing it and more so than your spouse just not knowing, and this points toward something relational and behavioral, not merely circumstantial.

Are People Actually Happy With Their Solo Masturbation Habit?

We asked respondents how satisfied they are with the role solo masturbation plays in their life. Not just how often they do it, but whether it’s working for them. The answer, for a lot of people, is no.

Satisfaction with the role of solo masturbation (red) vs. mutual masturbation (green) among those who engage in each activity.

Among solo masturbators, nearly 30% are dissatisfied with the role it plays in their life, compared to only 33% who are satisfied. The largest single group, 37%, sits at neutral. That’s not a picture of a habit that’s working well for most people.

Mutual masturbation tells a very different story. Among those who engage in it, 52.7% are satisfied with the role it plays in their marriage, and only 20.9% are dissatisfied.

And this matters beyond how people feel about the activity itself. Among solo masturbators who are dissatisfied with their habit, mean sexual satisfaction drops to 2.84 and relationship satisfaction to 3.88. Among those who feel good about their solo habit, those numbers rise to 3.58 and 4.29 respectively. Whether someone has made peace with their solo masturbation, or whether it feels like something they’re struggling against, seems to matter as much as the behavior itself.

If you’re masturbating solo and it feels like a problem, that feeling is probably telling you something real.

The Gender Gap: Who Wants More Mutual Masturbation?

We also asked whether respondents would like to explore mutual masturbation more with their partner. Nearly 60% said yes overall, but that number looks very different depending on gender.

Percentage wanting to try or do more mutual masturbation, by gender and current practice.

68% of men want to try or do more mutual masturbation. Only 38.5% of women say the same. That gap holds whether or not they’re already doing it. Men who already engage in mutual masturbation still want more of it (69.7%), while women who don’t currently engage are the least interested group overall (30.5%).

This is worth sitting with for a moment. It doesn’t mean mutual masturbation is only for husbands, or that wives who aren’t interested are doing anything wrong. But it does suggest that for many couples, the husband may be more interested in exploring this than the wife is aware of, and that a conversation about it might surface a gap in desires that’s currently just sitting unspoken.

Given what we saw earlier about openness being associated with higher satisfaction, that conversation is probably worth having even if the answer turns out to be no.

So What Do You Actually Do With This?

If you’re hiding a masturbation habit from your spouse: the data is pretty clear that the secrecy itself is the most harmful part. Not because your spouse has a right to police what you do, but because secrets create distance. They make you less able to talk honestly about your needs, your desire, the places where you’re struggling. Starting that conversation is scary, but the couples who’ve had it are consistently doing better than those who haven’t, and you don’t have to resolve everything in one talk. You just have to start.

If you’re the spouse who suspects something but hasn’t asked: ask. Gently, without accusation. The goal isn’t to catch anyone. It’s to make your marriage a place where this stuff can be talked about. The couples in our survey who talk openly about masturbation aren’t necessarily having fewer struggles. They’re just facing them together.

If you’re in the Solo Only group and dissatisfied: it’s worth asking honestly whether your solo habit is serving you or draining you. Is it a release valve that lets you avoid addressing the real issue in your marriage? Is it feeding into a porn habit? Is it making you less likely to initiate with your spouse because that edge is already taken off? Are you turning away instead of toward? Those aren’t accusations. They’re honest questions worth sitting with.

If mutual masturbation isn’t part of your relationship: it might be worth exploring, if you’re both open to it. The data doesn’t prove it causes better outcomes, but the association is strong and consistent enough that it fits the pattern of what healthy, connected married sexuality looks like. And if nothing else, the conversation about trying it is itself an act of sexual openness, and we’ve already seen what that tends to do for a marriage.

As always, I’m curious what you think. Does any of this match your experience? Did any of it surprise you? Leave a comment below. And if you’ve had conversations with your spouse about masturbation, mutual or otherwise, I’d love to hear how you approached it and how it turned out.  Share below or email me directly at [email protected].