Contributions of sex guilt and masturbation guilt to women's contraceptive attitudes and use

The purposes of this study were, first, to confirm inverse relationships between sex guilt and contraceptive use and attitudes and, second, to demonstrate that guilt regarding masturbation in comparison to sex guilt was a specific inhibitor of diaphragm use. In a sample of 186 single college women, sex guilt accounted for 28% of the variance in nine measures of contraceptive attitudes, thereby confirming the hypothesized inverse relationship. Users of safe, coitus‐independent, contraceptives scored lower on sex guilt than noncontraceptors. Moreover, the safe contraceptors, who used the pill or IUD, scored lower on sex guilt than women who relied on coitus‐dependent methods such as foam, suppositories, or condoms for contraception, which confirmed the second hypothesis. The third hypothesis was that masturbation guilt was inversely correlated with contraceptive attitudes. Including a measure of masturbation guilt along with sex guilt in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that masturbation guilt added, as further hypothesized, a significant increment of 4% to the variance in contraceptive attitudes beyond that explained by sex guilt alone. Finally, the use of the diaphragm was shown to be specifically related to masturbation guilt, rather than to sex guilt, as had been hypothesized. Masturbation guilt appears to inhibit the required handling of the genitals for insertion of the diaphragm.