Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale

Abstract

The Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale (ATMS), developed by Charlene L. Muehlenhard and Chantal D. Young (2009) at the University of Kansas, represents an extensive psychometric instrument designed to capture the multidimensional, nuanced, and frequently conflicting cognitions, motivations, and affective responses individuals harbor regarding autosexual behavior. Earlier instruments, most notably Abramson and Mosher’s (1975) Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Inventory (NATMI) and Miller and Lief’s (1976) Masturbation Attitude Scale (MAS), yielded unidimensional global scores and evaluated cultural or generalized attitudes toward masturbation in the abstract rather than an individual’s personal, idiographic appraisals of their own behavior. The ATMS addresses these conceptual limitations through a comprehensive 179-item inventory organized into 28 subscales across three primary domains: (a) 13 Reasons for Wanting (or Being Tempted) to Masturbate subscales, (b) 10 Reasons for Avoiding (or Trying to Avoid) Masturbating subscales, and (c) 5 Feelings Related to Masturbation subscales.

Responses are scored on 7-point Likert-type metric scales ranging from 0 (Not a Reason / Not at all) to 6 (A Very Important Reason / Very Strongly). The ATMS yields individual subscale scores as well as four broader composite scores: the Wanting Composite, Avoiding Composite, Negative-Feelings Composite, and Positive-Feelings Composite. Psychometric analyses demonstrate high internal consistency, with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .71 to .97. Construct, criterion-related, and discriminant validities are evidenced by significant differences across actual behavioral engagement and gender cohorts, alongside empirical cluster analytic validation that delineates distinct motivational profiles: enthusiastic, lukewarm, high-guilt, and ambivalent. The ATMS provides sex researchers, clinical psychologists, and sex therapists with an empirically validated diagnostic and empirical tool applicable across diverse populations regardless of personal sexual history.

Keywords

Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale, ATMS, autosexuality, sexual attitudes, sexual guilt, psychometrics, factor analysis, human sexuality assessment, sexual motivations, Charlene Muehlenhard.

Authors

The Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale was conceptualized, developed, and validated by:

• Chantal D. Young, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States.
• Charlene L. Muehlenhard, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology and Courtesy Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Department of Psychology, 426 Fraser Hall, 1415 Jayhawk Blvd, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045–7556. E-mail: [email protected].

Purpose

Solitary sexual behavior represents one of the most prevalent yet culturally contested aspects of human sexuality. Despite historical shifts toward secularization and sexual liberation, autosexual behaviors remain steeped in cultural ambivalence, socioreligious prohibitions, and interpersonal shame. Prior to the development of the ATMS, sexological research relied predominantly on measures conceptualized during the mid-1970s. Abramson and Mosher’s (1975) Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Inventory and Miller and Lief’s (1976) Masturbation Attitude Scale provided foundational insight into sexual conservatism, but their psychometric structures suffered from two fatal limitations: they measured masturbation as an abstract societal construct rather than a personal experience, and they collapsed varied emotional reactions into a single global index of guilt or permissiveness.

The primary purpose of the ATMS is to capture the complex, multidimensional, and often paradoxically co-occurring thoughts, intentions, and emotional states that define individual autosexual experience. Grounded in motivational psychology and cognitive appraisal theory, the ATMS investigates not only why individuals choose to engage in masturbation, but also why they actively avoid or attempt to suppress it, alongside the exact affective aftermath of such behaviors. Crucially, the instrument was intentionally constructed so that it could be completed meaningfully by both sexually active individuals and individuals who have never masturbated or who actively abstain from doing so.

In clinical practice, the ATMS serves as an assessment tool for sex therapists, marital counselors, and clinical psychologists working with clients suffering from hypersexual distress, sexual aversion, orgasmic difficulties, or internalized moral conflict. By identifying whether avoidance stems from religious prohibitions, fears of negative social evaluation, somatic discomfort, or partnership dynamics, clinicians can tailor cognitive-behavioral interventions with precise therapeutic targets. In empirical research, the scale facilitates cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations into gender differences in sexuality, sociosexual development among emerging adults, the psychological correlates of religious deconstruction, and the relational impact of solitary sexual behaviors within romantic partnerships.

Psychological Construct

The ATMS conceptualizes attitudes toward masturbation as an intricate tri-component cognitive-affective-behavioral system comprising 28 distinct subscales organized across three meta-domains:

1. Reasons for Wanting to Masturbate (13 Subscales)

This domain captures the diverse internal drives, instrumental motives, and external prompts that compel an individual toward autosexual activity:

• Pleasure: Hedonic appraisal and pursuit of physical sexual gratification and climax (e.g., items reflecting pursuit of orgasm and sensory enjoyment).
• Self-Exploration and Improvement: Instrumental motivation aimed at understanding one’s anatomical responses, refining orgasm capacity, and transferring somatic self-knowledge to interpersonal sexual contexts.
• Mood Improvement: Utilizing masturbation as an emotional coping mechanism to elevate depressive states, dissipate bad moods, or self-soothe.
• Relaxation and Stress Relief: Somatic tension discharge aimed at inducing calm, alleviating acute anxiety, and assisting sleep onset.
• Avoidance of Partner Sex: Deliberate substitution of solitary masturbation to circumvent interpersonal sexual encounters due to moral reservations, contraception concerns, infection prevention, or low self-esteem.
• Arousal Decrease: Pragmatic autosexual behavior undertaken to diminish distracting physiological arousal so that cognitive focus can be restored to daily tasks.
• Compulsion: Perceived loss of volitional control, automaticity, and distressing habitual engagement characterized by uncontrollable urges.
• Pleasure of Partner: Interpersonal autosexual expression where masturbation is performed to stimulate or entertain an observing sexual partner.
• Adherence to Social Norms: Conformity motivations driven by the desire to feel sexually “normal,” emulate peer groups, or align with perceived cultural scripts.
• Substitution for Partner Sex: Compensatory masturbation in the context of partner absence, sexual frustration, or relationship sexual frequency discrepancies.
• Importance of Fantasy: Utilizing masturbation as a cognitive sanctuary to enact taboo, socially unacceptable, or physically unfeasible erotic narratives.
• Feeling Unattractive: Compensatory engagement prompted by negative body image, perceived unsuitability for romantic partners, or feelings of rejection.
• Boredom: Solitary sexual stimulation utilized as a time-filling activity when alternate sensory or occupational stimuli are absent.

2. Reasons for Avoiding Masturbation (10 Subscales)

This domain measures the inhibitory mechanisms, normative barriers, and cognitive evaluations that restrain autosexual behavior:

• Immorality: Spiritual, religious, and philosophical taboos framing autosexuality as sinful, contrary to divine commandments, or intrinsically unethical.
• No Desire or Interest: Hypoactive autosexual appetite, lack of subjective appeal, and absence of physical urge to stimulate oneself.
• Preference for Partner Sex: Valuation of interpersonal eroticism over solitary stimulation, evaluating dyadic intimacy as qualitatively superior.
• Fear of Negative Social Evaluation: Social phobia, embarrassment regarding reputation, and dread of detection by peers, parents, or roommates.
• Sex Negativity: Pervasive discomfort, somatic repulsion, or disgust directed toward genital anatomy and sexual behaviors in general.
• Negative Mood State: Inhibitory reactions wherein feelings of depression, acute stress, or somatic worry suppress sexual inclination.
• Detraction from Partner Sex: Anticipatory anxiety that autosexual climax will deplete subsequent sexual stamina, desire, or orgasmic response during dyadic sex.
• In Committed Relationship: Cognitive beliefs framing solitary masturbation as an emotional or sexual betrayal of an exclusive romantic bond.
• Bothered by Thoughts: Intrapsychic distress elicited by the intrusive sexual imagery, fantasies, or taboo thoughts that accompany autosexual arousal.
• Self-Control: Ascetic valuation of willpower, impulse containment, and deliberate mastery over bodily desires.

3. Feelings Related to Masturbation (5 Subscales)

This domain evaluates immediate post-behavioral (or anticipated) emotional reactions across five empirical clusters: Satisfaction (joy, relaxation, feeling refreshed, healthy, and physically in control), Guilt (remorse, moral compromise, feeling dirty, sinful, or pathetic), Anger (frustration, acute somatic irritability, aggression), Anxiety (nervousness, tension, awkwardness), and Indifference (emotional detachment, emptiness, passive neutrality).

Theoretical Framework

The construction of the ATMS is grounded in several theoretical traditions across clinical psychology, cognitive science, and human sexology:

Cognitive Appraisal and Ambivalence Models

The ATMS operates under Richard Lazarus’s transactional model of stress and coping, alongside psychodynamic and cognitive formulations of attitudinal ambivalence. Traditional unidimensional attitude scales presume that positive and negative evaluations sit at opposite poles of a single continuum. In contrast, the ATMS models attitudes as bivariate constructs: an individual may concurrently endorse extreme levels of hedonic desire (Wanting) while simultaneously experiencing profound moral prohibition and affective guilt (Avoiding). This explains the psychological distress observed in individuals exhibiting “erotophobic ambivalence”—wherein sexual appetite operates in direct cognitive collision with internalized socio-religious scripts.

Sexual Scripting Theory

Drawing on the sociological frameworks of John Gagnon and William Simon (1973), the ATMS operationalizes how cultural scenarios, interpersonal scripts, and intrapsychic scripting dictate autosexual behavior. Cultural scripts historically construct autosexuality as pathological, immature, or a poor substitute for heterosexual coitus. The ATMS items explicitly dissect these cultural mandates (e.g., Adherence to Social Norms, Immorality, Detraction from Partner Sex) and contrast them with personal hedonic motivations (e.g., Self-Exploration, Somatic Release), mapping how individuals negotiate sociocultural restrictions against biological impulses.

Behavioral Incentive and Avoidance Motivation

From a behavioral perspective, the dual-system architecture of the ATMS mirrors Jeffrey Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST). The 13 Wanting subscales reflect activation of the Behavioral Approach System (BAS), driven by appetitive stimuli, reward pursuit, and tension reduction. Conversely, the 10 Avoiding subscales reflect activation of the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and Fight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS), governed by threat appraisal, punishment sensitivity, social exclusion fears, and conditioned moral anxiety.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the ATMS was established through extensive empirical evaluation across multiple independent samples:

Content and Face Validity

Scale construction relied on an inductive, multi-stage empirical protocol. In Phase 1, an initial qualitative cohort of 236 undergraduate women and men answered open-ended essay questions regarding their attitudes, feelings, inhibitions, and motivations toward autosexuality. Researchers extracted core experiential themes and synthesized them with historical literature (e.g., Clifford, 1978; Elliott & Brantley, 1997). This generated a 223-item prototype, ensuring comprehensive semantic coverage and high face validity across diverse sexual phenomenologies.

Construct and Criterion-Related Validity

In Phase 2, Young and Muehlenhard (2009) administered the inventory to 518 undergraduate students (stratified by biological sex and masturbatory experience). Criterion-related validity was established by comparing individuals who regularly masturbated against non-masturbators:

• Controlling for biological sex, masturbators demonstrated significantly higher scores across 9 of the 13 Wanting subscales and the Satisfaction subscale ($p < .001$).
• Non-masturbators scored significantly higher across 5 of the 10 Avoiding subscales and recorded significantly elevated scores on the Guilt, Anger, Anxiety, and Indifference subscales ($p < .001$).

In an independent replication study, Stroupe (2008) examined 210 women to determine the relationship between autosexual attitudes and orgasmic functioning. Women who had never masturbated scored significantly lower on the Wanting Composite and Positive-Feelings Composite and significantly higher on the Avoiding Composite and Negative-Feelings Composite compared to women with consistent autosexual experience. Women reporting infrequent autosexual behavior yielded exact intermediate mean values, confirming a clean linear dose-response relationship between attitudinal valence and behavioral frequency.

Known-Groups and Divergent Validity: Gender Profiles

Validation data conformed robustly to established meta-analytic patterns regarding gender disparities in autosexuality (Oliver & Hyde, 1993; Petersen & Hyde, 2007). Men scored significantly higher on 18 of the 28 subscales, reflecting stronger approach motivations and lower moral avoidance. However, when statistically controlling for lifetime masturbation status, critical nuanced divergence emerged: women scored significantly higher on Self-Exploration and Improvement, Avoidance of Partner Sex, and Pleasure of Partner among Wanting scales, while scoring significantly higher on No Desire or Interest, Fear of Negative Social Evaluation, Sex Negativity, and Anxiety among Avoiding scales.

Typological Validation via Cluster Analysis

Young and Muehlenhard (2009) conducted a person-centered k-means cluster analysis on subscale profiles, isolating four distinct psychological phenotypes:

• Enthusiastic Cluster: Marked by elevated Wanting scores and exceptionally low Avoiding scores; populated predominantly by experienced masturbators with minimal sexual guilt.
• Lukewarm Cluster: Characterized by low Wanting scores and even lower Avoiding scores, reflecting general affective apathy toward autosexuality without moral angst.
• High-Guilt Cluster: Displaying low Wanting scores and elevated Avoiding scores; characterized by profound moral prohibition and negative affective loading.
• Ambivalent Cluster: Demonstrating concurrent peak elevations across both Wanting and Avoiding subscales; these individuals experience high physical sexual motivation in direct, distressing conflict with acute moral, social, and emotional inhibitions.

Reliability

The ATMS demonstrates excellent internal consistency across its 28 subscales and four composite indices:

• Internal Consistency: In the primary validation cohort ($N = 518$), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients across all 28 individual subscales ranged from $\alpha = .71$ to $\alpha = .97$, indicating exceptional item-to-construct homogeneity without excessive redundancy.
• Domain Alphas:
  • Reasons for Wanting Subscales: Coefficients ranged from $.74$ (e.g., Boredom, Pleasure of Partner) to $.93$ (Self-Exploration and Improvement, Pleasure).
  • Reasons for Avoiding Subscales: Coefficients ranged from $.71$ (Detraction from Partner Sex, Self-Control) to $.96$ (Immorality).
  • Feelings Subscales: Coefficients ranged from $.81$ (Indifference, Anger) to $.97$ (Satisfaction, Guilt).
• Composite Reliability: The four major summary composites demonstrate high internal consistency coefficients exceeding $.88$: Wanting Composite ($lpha = .92$), Avoiding Composite ($lpha = .94$), Positive-Feelings Composite ($lpha = .97$), and Negative-Feelings Composite ($lpha = .91$).
• Standard Error of Measurement: Low standard errors of measurement across both male and female subsamples confirm stability across diverse measurement contexts.

Factor Analysis

The structural validity of the ATMS was verified via systematic principal components analysis (PCA) accompanied by oblique (Promax) and orthogonal (Varimax) factor rotations conducted during the scale derivation phase:

Item Retention Criteria

From the initial 223 pilot items, 44 items were eliminated due to low factor loadings ($< .40$), cross-loadings across divergent theoretical domains ($> .30$ discrepancy failure), or substantial degradation of subscale Cronbach’s alpha. The resulting 179 items resolved into a stable 28-factor architecture nested within three empirically discrete categories:

Factor Architecture of the Three Domains

• Reasons for Wanting (13 Factors): Factor 1 (Pleasure, accounting for 24.1% of the within-domain variance), Factor 2 (Self-Exploration), Factor 3 (Relaxation/Stress Relief), Factor 4 (Avoidance of Partner Sex), and nine subsequent factors capturing mood regulation, social conformity, fantasy utility, and compulsive urges. Individual item loadings on primary factors ranged between $.48$ and $.89$.
• Reasons for Avoiding (10 Factors): Factor 1 (Immorality, accounting for 31.4% of within-domain variance, eigenvalue > 12.0), Factor 2 (No Desire or Interest), Factor 3 (Preference for Partner Sex), Factor 4 (Fear of Negative Social Evaluation), and six subsequent factors tapping relationship boundaries, bodily embarrassment, and perceived cognitive distress. Factor loadings ranged from $.51$ to $.91$.
• Feelings Related to Masturbation (5 Factors): Yielded five clean, non-overlapping affective dimensions: Satisfaction (eigenvalue > 8.5), Guilt, Anger, Anxiety, and Indifference. Factor loadings for individual emotional descriptors on their designated subscales exceeded $.60$ in all cases.

Inter-factor correlations confirmed that while subscales within each broad domain correlate moderately (e.g., Immorality and Fear of Social Evaluation, $r = .54$), they retain substantial unique variance, validating their treatment as 28 separate subscales rather than a collapsed unidimensional construct.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The complete technical profile for administering, interpreting, and scoring the Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale is structured as follows:

• Test Type: Multi-scale self-report psychological inventory / multidimensional attitude questionnaire.
• Format: Standard paper-and-pencil format or secure computerized survey administration.
• Number of Items: 179 items total, divided into 28 subscales across three sections:
  • Section 1: Reasons for Wanting to Masturbate (Items 1–72; 13 subscales)
  • Section 2: Reasons for Avoiding Masturbation (Items 73–134; 10 subscales)
  • Section 3: Feelings About Masturbation (Items 135–179; 5 subscales)
• Response Metrics:
  • Sections 1 and 2: 7-point Likert scale: 0 = Not a Reason, 3 = A Moderately Important Reason, 6 = A Very Important Reason.
  • Section 3: 7-point Likert scale: 0 = Not at all, 3 = Somewhat, 6 = Very Strongly. Administered conditionally: respondents who masturbate rate how they actually feel; respondents who do not masturbate rate how they would feel.
• Administration Time: Approximately 15 to 30 minutes.
• Target Population: Individuals aged 18 and older, regardless of sexual orientation, marital status, or autosexual history.
• Subscale Item Allocation:
  • Pleasure: 1, 2, 35, 41, 42, 44, 50, 51, 52
  • Self-Exploration and Improvement: 11, 13, 17, 23, 39, 54, 55, 56, 63, 68
  • Mood Improvement: 47, 60, 62, 67
  • Relaxation and Stress Relief: 6, 7, 16, 40, 46, 58, 61, 64
  • Avoidance of Partner Sex: 26, 28, 29, 30, 34, 65
  • Arousal Decrease: 18, 21, 33, 49, 59, 69
  • Compulsion: 8, 25, 27, 32, 43
  • Pleasure of Partner: 15, 66, 70
  • Adherence to Social Norms: 12, 14, 19, 20, 38, 57
  • Substitution for Partner Sex: 4, 9, 10, 22, 24, 31
  • Importance of Fantasy: 36, 37, 48, 72
  • Feeling Unattractive: 45, 53, 71
  • Boredom: 3, 5
  • Immorality: 73, 74, 75, 79, 81, 83, 105, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 131, 132, 134
  • No Desire or Interest: 76, 77, 86, 87, 88, 100, 101, 114, 118, 119, 120
  • Preference for Partner Sex: 90, 103, 104, 107, 110, 128, 129, 133
  • Fear of Negative Social Evaluation: 84, 91, 93, 95, 102, 121
  • Sex Negativity: 78, 82, 85, 94, 96, 97
  • Negative Mood State: 92, 106, 109, 117
  • Detraction from Partner Sex: 111, 112
  • In Committed Relationship: 80, 98, 108, 115
  • Bothered by Thoughts: 116, 130
  • Self-Control: 89, 99, 113
  • Guilt: 136, 138, 142, 143, 153, 154, 155, 167, 168, 169, 171, 179
  • Satisfaction: 135, 139, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 156, 157, 158, 163, 166, 170, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178
  • Anger: 159, 160, 161, 165
  • Anxiety: 144, 145, 148, 162
  • Indifference: 137, 140, 141, 164, 172, 175
• Scoring Algorithm:
  • Subscale Scores: Calculated by taking the mathematical mean of all items within that designated subscale (ranging from 0.00 to 6.00). Higher scores reflect greater importance of that reason or greater intensity of that emotional state.
  • Wanting Composite: Mean of the 13 Reasons-for-Wanting subscale averages.
  • Avoiding Composite: Mean of the 10 Reasons-for-Avoiding subscale averages.
  • Negative-Feelings Composite: Mean of the Guilt, Anger, Anxiety, and Indifference subscale averages.
  • Positive-Feelings Composite: The Satisfaction subscale mean score.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale was finalized in 2009 by Chantal D. Young and Charlene L. Muehlenhard at the University of Kansas. The instrument is placed in the public domain for scholarly, empirical, educational, and clinical applications. No licensing fees or formal permissions are required for academic or clinical usage, provided the authors are appropriately cited in all publications, dissertations, and conference presentations. Clinicians and researchers utilizing the scale are encouraged to contact Dr. Charlene L. Muehlenhard at the Department of Psychology, University of Kansas ([email protected]) with research summaries and psychometric updates.

References

• Abramson, P. R., & Mosher, D. L. (1975). Development of a measure of negative attitudes toward masturbation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43(4), 485–490. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076681
• Clifford, R. (1978). Development of masturbation in college women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 7(6), 559–573. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542383
• Elliott, L., & Brantley, C. (1997). Sex on campus: The naked truth about the real sex lives of college students. Random House.
• Gagnon, J. H., & Simon, W. (1973). Sexual conduct: The social sources of human sexuality. Aldine Publishing Company.
• Miller, W. R., & Lief, H. I. (1976). Masturbatory attitudes, knowledge, and experience: Data from the sex knowledge and attitude test (SKAT). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 5(5), 447–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542243
• Oliver, M. B., & Hyde, J. S. (1993). Gender differences in sexuality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 114(1), 29–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.29
• Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2007, November). A meta-analytic review of gender differences in sexuality: 1990–2007. Paper presented at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Indianapolis, IN.
• Stroupe, N. (2008). How difficult is too difficult? The relationships among women’s sexual experience and attitudes, difficulty with orgasm, and perception of themselves as orgasmic or anorgasmic [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Kansas, Lawrence.
• Young, C. D., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (2009). The meanings of masturbation [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)