Many men who masturbate carry a quiet question that has little to do with medicine: is this fine, or does it say something about me? Four studies published between 2022 and 2026 approach the question from other angles: why people masturbate, how guilt relates to well-being, whether masturbation is associated with sleep, and when distress and masturbation travel together. None of them settles the moral question, and none was designed to.
A scale-development study asked this directly. In the study by de Jong and Adams (2024), 2,960 adults aged 18 to 84 who had masturbated in the past year (60.2% men, 36.8% women) answered items about their reasons. Factor analysis retained eight motives: fantasy, pleasure or arousal, compulsion, improvement, sexual dissatisfaction, coping, efficiency, and avoidance of risky sex. The structure held across men and women and across people with and without a sexually active romantic partner.
The authors note that earlier findings on masturbation and well-being conflict, and suggest that motives might help disentangle them. As an illustration of ours, not the authors’, the same behavior can serve pleasure for one person and coping for another. Preliminary correlations linked the motives to sex drive, religiosity, depression, anxiety and attitudes toward masturbation.
The limits are clear. This was a validation of a measurement scale, so it measures reasons, not outcomes; it rests on a single self-reported survey, and it does not show which motive goes with better or worse well-being. From a clinical point of view, asking a client why, and not only how often, seems more informative than a frequency count; this is a clinical opinion, not a finding of the study.
A man alone on the edge of his bed at dawn: guilt and distress are among the variables studies have measured alongside masturbation — Image: AI-generated
Quotable line: According to one scale-development study, people report at least eight different reasons for masturbating.
What is the relationship between sexual guilt and well-being?
The study by Wacks and colleagues (2022) examined 165 single men, average age 23.3, from the national-orthodox Jewish community in Israel, for whom masturbation, pornography and premarital sex can conflict with religious law. Sexual guilt and shame were positively associated with anxiety and depression and negatively associated with life satisfaction.
The surprise was the moderator. The authors had expected the link to be strongest among the most religious men. The opposite appeared: at a low level of religiousness, guilt and shame were associated with worse psychological outcomes, while at a high level of religiousness no significant relationship was found. The authors suggest that religion may contain elements that help a person cope with guilt.
The limits are equally clear: one religious community, young single men, online questionnaires without follow-up, and a guilt measure that covered several behaviors, not masturbation alone. Applying these findings to men in other religious or cultural settings is a hypothesis, not a conclusion.
A psychoanalytic reader would add a question here: what exactly is the guilt attached to, the act, the fantasy, or the prohibition itself? Freud wrote on the subject in 1912; this is an interpretive lens, not a finding of the study.
Quotable line: In this sample, guilt and shame were linked to more anxiety and depression, but the link was not significant among the most religious men.
Does masturbation improve sleep?
A common belief says it does. The study by Oesterling and colleagues (2023) tested it with 256 participants, mostly students, in two parts. In the questionnaire, both men and women perceived partnered sex and masturbation with orgasm as improving the time needed to fall asleep and sleep quality, while sexual activity without orgasm was perceived as harmful to sleep, most strongly by men.
The 14-day diary told a narrower story. Across 2,076 diary entries from 159 participants, only partnered sex with orgasm was associated with shorter sleep latency (b = -0.08) and better sleep quality (b = 0.19). Masturbation, with or without orgasm, was not associated with changes in sleep, and no gender differences emerged.
The limits: mostly students, subjective sleep ratings, and an observational design.
Quotable line: In a 14-day diary study, only partnered sex with orgasm was associated with better sleep; masturbation was not.
When do distress and masturbation go together?
The study by Engelhardt and colleagues (2026) used a nationally representative US sample of 2,773 adults (53.7% women). Problematic pornography use correlated with anxiety, depression, loneliness, and with the frequency of both pornography use and masturbation. Two interactions stood out: loneliness combined with frequent pornography use (β = 0.10), and mental distress combined with frequent masturbation (β = 0.11), were associated with higher problematic pornography use.
The authors suggest that people who feel loneliness alongside pornography use, and mental distress alongside masturbation, may be especially vulnerable. The design is cross-sectional, so it cannot say whether distress drives the behavior, the behavior deepens distress, or both. The outcome measured was problematic pornography use, not masturbation as such.
From a clinical view, frequency alone does not seem to be the signal; what the behavior is doing for the person, such as relief, avoidance or company against loneliness, seems to matter more. This is a clinical opinion, not a finding.
Quotable line: Distress combined with frequent masturbation was associated with problematic pornography use, but this design cannot show which comes first.
The studies reviewed here do not show masturbation itself harming mental health. What they show are associations: guilt and shame were linked to more anxiety and depression in one sample of religious young men, and mental distress combined with frequent masturbation was linked to problematic pornography use. These are associations, not proof of cause.
Does masturbation help you fall asleep?
Not in the diary data. In the study by Oesterling and colleagues (2023), masturbation with or without orgasm was not associated with changes in sleep, although participants believed in the questionnaire that masturbation with orgasm helps. Only partnered sex with orgasm was associated with better sleep.
Why do some people masturbate when stressed or lonely?
Coping was one of the eight motives found by de Jong and Adams (2024); the others include avoidance of risky sex, and the study did not examine loneliness as a motive. Whether coping through masturbation is helpful or harmful over time was not tested.
When is it worth talking to a professional?
The reviewed studies did not test a threshold. As a clinical recommendation, not a research finding, it is worth a conversation when the behavior feels out of control, is accompanied by lasting distress or guilt, or begins to interfere with relationships, work or sleep.
What Can the Research Say Together?
The data are limited: 2,960 adults in the motives study, 165 single men in the guilt study, 256 participants (159 in the diary part) in the sleep study, and 2,773 adults in the distress study. None of the studies tested whether masturbation causes or treats anything.
My position is clear: what the behavior means to the person, and how much guilt or distress travels with it, deserves more clinical attention than its frequency. The moral question lies outside this evidence.
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de Jong DC, Adams KN. The Motives for Solo Masturbation Scale: Development and Preliminary Validation. J Sex Marital Ther. 2024;50(7):855-877. PMID: 39155865. DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2024.2391348
Wacks Y, Lazar A, Sommerfeld E. The Moderating Effect of Religiousness on the Relation Between Sexual Guilt and Shame and Well-Being Among Jewish Religious Single Men. Arch Sex Behav. 2022;52(4):1549-1559. PMID: 36522562. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-022-02494-2
Oesterling CF, Borg C, Juhola E, Lancel M. The influence of sexual activity on sleep: A diary study. J Sleep Res. 2023;32(4):e13814. PMID: 36646500. DOI: 10.1111/jsr.13814
Engelhardt R, Maes J, Grubbs JB, Trommer D, Kraus SW. Problematic Pornography Use and Psychological Distress in the USA: A Nationally Representative Study. Arch Sex Behav. 2026;55(1):427-440. PMID: 41559436. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-025-03266-4
Freud S. Contributions to a Discussion on Masturbation (1912). In: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 12. London: Hogarth Press. [Needs further verification: page range not checked.]
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