Most people masturbate. Across large national surveys, roughly 90% of men and close to 70% of women report doing so at least once a week, and lifetime rates are even higher. It is one of the most common sexual behaviors at virtually every age, across every demographic, and in every country where researchers have collected data.
How Common It Is by Gender
The clearest picture comes from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, a large U.S. probability survey run through Indiana University. Among adults, about 90% of men and 69% of women report masturbating once a week or more. British data from the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles found that 77.5% of men and 40.3% of women reported masturbating in the past month alone.
The gender gap is real but shrinking. Between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, the share of British women who reported masturbating in the past month rose from 37% to over 40%, while men’s rate climbed from 73% to nearly 78%. Researchers attribute the shift partly to reduced stigma and partly to broader cultural openness about women’s sexual health.
Rates Among Teenagers
Masturbation typically begins in adolescence and becomes more common with each year of age. In a 2009 national survey of U.S. teens aged 14 to 17, 74% of boys and 48% of girls reported having masturbated at least once. Among 14-year-olds specifically, the figures were 63% for boys and 43% for girls. By age 17, those numbers rose to 80% and 58%.
Frequency also climbs through the teen years. About 49% of adolescent boys who masturbated reported doing so at least twice a week, compared with 23% of girls. These patterns tend to carry into adulthood, where men continue to report higher frequency on average.
How Frequency Changes With Age
Masturbation doesn’t stop at any particular birthday. Among Americans aged 50 and older, 63% of men and 47% of women reported masturbating in the past year in the Indiana University survey. The percentage does decline gradually with age, but a significant number of people in their 80s still reported being sexually active in this way. For many older adults, especially those without a partner, it remains the primary form of sexual expression.
What Happens in Your Body
During masturbation, your brain floods reward pathways with dopamine, the same chemical involved in other pleasurable experiences like eating or exercise. At orgasm, prolactin surges. This hormone acts as a natural brake on arousal, creating feelings of satisfaction and relaxation. It’s also why most people feel a distinct shift from desire to calm right after finishing.
Both men and women perceive that masturbation with orgasm helps them fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. A diary study published through the European Sleep Research Society found that this effect depends on reaching orgasm. Sexual activity without orgasm had no benefit for sleep, and in some cases was associated with worse sleep quality. The relaxation likely comes from the combined hormonal shift: dopamine drops below its baseline while prolactin rises, creating a natural wind-down effect.
Prostate Health in Men
One of the more striking findings in sexual health research links ejaculation frequency to prostate cancer risk. A large Harvard study tracking tens of thousands of men over nearly two decades found that men who ejaculated 21 or more times per month had a 31% lower risk of prostate cancer compared to men who ejaculated four to seven times monthly. In a related analysis, men averaging about five to seven ejaculations per week were 36% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer before age 70 than men who averaged fewer than two to three times per week.
These findings don’t prove masturbation prevents cancer. The relationship could involve other lifestyle factors that correlate with higher sexual activity. But the association has held up across multiple analyses and is large enough that researchers consider it meaningful.
Why Reported Rates Vary So Much
If you’ve seen wildly different statistics elsewhere, that’s normal. Masturbation data depends heavily on how the question is asked, what time frame is used, and how comfortable respondents feel being honest. Surveys asking “have you ever masturbated?” produce much higher numbers than those asking about the past week. Anonymous online surveys tend to yield higher rates than face-to-face interviews, especially among women. Cultural norms play a major role too: in societies where masturbation carries more stigma, people underreport it regardless of the survey method.
What nearly every well-designed study agrees on is that masturbation is a normal, majority behavior for both men and women across the lifespan. The people who never do it are the statistical minority, not the other way around.