Told You So - Masturbation is a good thing.

Finally, somebody is studying teens and masturbation. A study published last month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reports on a survey of 800 American Teenagers. The survey asked them if they masturbate, how often, and then asked them other questions about their sexual activity and practices. What they found was that boys who masturbate are much more likely to use condoms. Health.com reports that 'Robbins (the study author) and her team concluded that “the association of masturbation with other sexual behaviors indicates that masturbation is an important component of adolescent sexuality rather than an isolated or transient phenomenon.” In that regard, they urge that teens be educated and reassured that the act is a “normal” part of growing up.' Yeah, score one for our team!

The study also found that, surprise, surprise, about twice as many boys masturbate as girls. They postulate on why that might be but they don't entertain what, to me, is one of the obvious answers, girls don't want to talk about it. I think that still, even after Sex and the City and the dawn of the age of the vibrator, girls still think that they shouldn't masturbate. So my guess is that the number who actually do masturbate is quite a bit higher than the number who said that they do.

I just love this study, especially because it was done in the states, but I'll just sit back and wait for the conserative backlash to this. The study found that the boys and girls they surveyed who said that they masturbated were more likely to have had sex with a partner than those who said they didn't masturbate. It just makes sense to me. If you masturbate, you are probably more interested and comfortable with sex than if you don't. And if you have had partner sex, I think you're quite likely to be interested in masturbation. But the abstinence only crowd will have a hissy fit, I'm sure, choosing to see this supposed 'negative' instead of the positive.

Here's a link to the study.