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By Root 811 0

of the influence of religion. For this reason, the findings included here are taken from the latest available data (2008) of the General Social Survey.10 The research showed that married individuals tend to have the most sex, compared to widowed, divorced, separated, and never-married respondents.

Frequency of Sex Percentage

Among Married

Persons Percentage

Among Married

Protestants Percentage

Among Married

Catholics

4 or more times per week F7.1% F6.9% F7.1%

2–3 times per week F20.5% F18.6% F20.1%

1 time per week F24.3% F22.5% F25.3%

2–3 times per month F16.9% F18.4% F14.5%

1 time per month F14.5% F14.5% F17.7%

1–2 times per year F7.7% F7.9% F6.9%

0 times in the past year F9.3% F11.3% F8.4%

A More Finely Grained Look at Married Protestants

FFrequency of Sex FPercentage

Among Fundamentalist

Protestants FPercentage

Among Moderate

Protestants FPercentage

Among Liberal

Protestants

4 or more times per week F7.6% F10.2% F2.9%

2–3 times per week F21.3% F13.9% F16.0%

1 time per week F23.7% F19.3% F22.3%

2–3 times per month F14.7% F23.4% F22.5%

1 time per month F12.4% F18.5% F16.0%

1–2 times per year F8.9% F3.8% F8.9%

0 times in the past year F11.4% F11.0% F11.4%

To summarize, married couples in the United States are mostly having sex on a weekly basis. Protestant and Catholic couples reflect similar percentages of sexual frequency, with fundamentalist Protestant couples being the most sexually active, followed by moderate, then liberal orientations.11

Masturbation in the United States

Masturbation is rarely studied, perhaps because it is viewed as such a private act.12 In Mark Regnerus’s recent book on sex and religion among American adolescents,13 he is only able to devote a few pages to the topic, noting that the data set he used14 did not ask respondents about masturbation or its morality.

He suggested, “It seems that we too have trouble saying the word,” and he called for researchers to collect more reliable data on masturbation.15

We have encountered the same trouble as Regnerus in pooling together the existing literature on masturbation. Even large surveys with the explicit intention of measuring sexual behaviors and attitudes rarely discuss masturbation, and when they do, respondents are not asked how often they masturbate, but rather whether they have ever masturbated or if they have masturbated in the last year, month, or week. The sole exception, and the most famous and comprehensive study of human sexuality in the last twenty years, is the Chicago study by Laumann.16 In 1992, they conducted a nationwide survey of 3,432 American men and women between the ages of 19 and 59. Even this study, however, cited by many as the best source for data on sexual conduct among Americans, only allowed respondents to state the category which best fit their masturbation frequency.17 We cannot determine a mean frequency of masturbation from this kind of data.18

These surveys are also limited because they often focus on small, specific subsamples of the broader population. The best update of Laumann’s study is the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP). Unfortunately, this study only focused on adults aged 57 to 85, so it adds nothing to our understanding of sexuality among younger and middle-aged adults. Other studies of sexual activity that include masturbation measures analyze non-U.S. samples or only look at college students.19 An additional problem with current masturbation data is that, since it is self-reported and socially taboo, many researchers are concerned that it is underreported.20 Even with these poor and limited measures, we are able to see clear patterns of masturbation by gender, religion, marital status, and age. The data presented here are either from previous studies or from our own analysis of the National Health and Social Life Survey.21

General trends

According to 1992 data from the National Health and Social Life Survey, about half (50.31 percent) of the sample did not masturbate at all in the previous year.22 This means that one-half of the sample did masturbate.