Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale

Abstract

The Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale (NAMS), originally introduced as the Attitudes Toward Masturbation inventory by Donald L. Mosher and Paul R. Abramson in 1975, is an established 30-item psychometric instrument designed to assess individual differences in masturbation-guilt and internalized negative socialization regarding autoerotic sexual behavior. Grounded theoretically in Silvan Tomkins’ affect and script theory, the scale operationalizes masturbation-guilt as a cognitively organized, affective script that anticipates, interprets, regulates, and evaluates self-pleasuring conduct. While scored unidimensionally to provide a composite index of masturbation-guilt ranging from 30 to 150, exploratory factor analyses reveal three descriptive sub-dimensions: (a) positive attitudes toward masturbation (comprising 10 reverse-scored items), (b) false beliefs about the physically and mentally harmful nature of masturbation, and (c) personally experienced negative affects (such as disgust, shame, and guilt) associated with autoerotic acts. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate sound internal consistency, with an initial corrected split-half reliability coefficient of .75 in a normative mixed-gender collegiate cohort (N = 198) and a Cronbach’s alpha of .94 among college women (N = 186). Extensive construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity studies show that elevated NAMS scores reliably predict lower lifetime and current masturbatory frequencies, lower rates of coital and solitary orgasm, diminished subjective sexual arousal, heightened negative affective reactions to visual erotica, and objectively attenuated pelvic vasocongestion during erotic exposure as measured by thermography. Furthermore, the instrument demonstrates robust discriminant validity from generalized sexual guilt and holds significant predictive utility in reproductive health, including sexual dysfunction etiology and the psychological resistance to barrier contraception (e.g., diaphragm utilization). This article provides a comprehensive academic review of the scale’s theoretical foundations, structural and psychometric properties, clinical and research applications, and administration standards.

Keywords

Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale, NAMS, masturbation-guilt, sexual guilt, psychometrics, Donald L. Mosher, Paul R. Abramson, autoeroticism, script theory, sexual attitudes, sexual dysfunction, pelvic vasocongestion

Authors

The Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale was co-developed by:

• Paul R. Abramson, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, California, United States. Dr. Abramson is a renowned sexologist, psychometrician, and clinical psychologist whose research spans human sexual expression, evolutionary psychology, and legal aspects of sexual behavior.
• Donald L. Mosher, Ph.D. — Late Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States. Dr. Mosher was a pioneer in personality assessment and human sexuality research, widely celebrated for formulating the Mosher Guilt Inventories (measuring sex-guilt, hostile-guilt, and morality-conscience guilt) and introducing affect-script models into experimental sexology. Correspondence address noted during his active emeritus tenure: Donald L. Mosher, 648 Ternberry Forest Drive, The Villages, FL 32162; Email: [email protected].

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale (NAMS) is to quantify the degree to which an individual subscribes to cultural myths, harbors cognitive fallacies, and experiences dysphoric affective reactions—principally guilt, shame, and self-disgust—regarding autoerotic stimulation. Autoeroticism occupies a unique position within developmental and adult sexuality; historically, medical and religious traditions pathologized masturbation, framing it as a catalyst for severe physical degradation, psychiatric disorders, moral bankruptcy, and interpersonal alienation. Although contemporary psychological science views masturbation as a benign, normative, and often therapeutic aspect of healthy sexual functioning, internalized cultural sanctions persist across diverse modern populations.

From an applied perspective, the NAMS addresses critical diagnostic and therapeutic needs in both clinical sex therapy and empirical psychological research:

• Clinical Diagnosis and Sex Therapy: Masturbation-guilt represents a prominent cognitive-affective etiology in male and female sexual dysfunctions, including female orgasmic disorder, hypoactive sexual desire disorder, erectile dysfunction, and delayed ejaculation. In directed masturbation training protocols—such as those popularized by Joseph LoPiccolo and Lonnie Barbach—elevated scores on the NAMS identify explicit cognitive roadblocks, erroneous sex myths, and visceral shame reactions that must be cognitively restructured before behavioral sensate focus and self-pleasuring interventions can succeed.
• Experimental Sexology and Psychophysiology: In laboratory studies investigating human sexual arousal, the NAMS serves as an essential moderator variable. Researchers utilize the instrument to explain individual variations in physiological reactivity (such as vaginal photoplethysmography, penile plethysmography, and labial/scrotal thermography) and subjective self-reported arousal upon exposure to explicit audiovisual stimuli.
• Reproductive Health and Contraceptive Decision-Making: The scale functions as an effective predictor of contraceptive behaviors. Because effective utilization of certain birth control methods (such as the vaginal diaphragm, cervical cap, female condom, or intrauterine device insertion checks) necessitates comfortable touching and exploration of one’s own genitalia, high masturbation-guilt acts as an unacknowledged barrier to reproductive autonomy and prophylaxis compliance.
• Educational and Sociodemographic Assessment: Sociologists and developmental psychologists utilize the scale to evaluate the efficacy of comprehensive sexual education programs, assessing whether accurate physiological instruction successfully de-escalates shame and dismantles persistent autoerotic fallacies among adolescents and emerging adults.

Psychological Construct

The core psychological construct measured by the NAMS is masturbation-guilt, which is characterized as a specialized, domain-specific dispositional tendency to experience guilt, fear, disgust, and self-reproach in response to, or in anticipation of, solitary genital sexual stimulation. Masturbation-guilt is distinguished from generalized sex-guilt; while general sexual guilt encompasses interpersonal, moral, and coital prohibitions (such as premarital, extramarital, or non-heteronormative encounters), masturbation-guilt centers explicitly on the relationship an individual maintains with their own physical body, internal sexual fantasies, and autoerotic agency.

Although Abramson and Mosher constructed the NAMS as a homogeneous instrument designed to yield a unified composite score, descriptive psychometric decomposition identifies three interconnected dimensions that collectively define the construct:

1. Positive Attitudes and Sensual Acceptance (Reverse-Scored Dimension)

This construct dimension evaluates an individual’s cognitive endorsement of masturbation as a natural, pleasurable, and psychologically adaptive human activity. It captures the capacity to perceive autoeroticism without moral condemnation—viewing it as an educational vehicle for learning one’s own bodily sensations (e.g., Item 29: “Masturbation can teach you to enjoy the sensuousness of your own body”), a harmless stress-reduction mechanism (e.g., Item 17: “Masturbation can provide harmless relief from sexual tension”), and an autonomous sexual outlet (e.g., Item 27: “Masturbation is a normal sexual outlet”). Individuals scoring low on masturbation-guilt openly embrace autoeroticism as intrinsically fun, harmless, and functionally distinct from interpersonal relational failure.

2. False Beliefs and Medical/Pathological Myths

This cognitive dimension operationalizes adherence to deeply ingrained, culturally transmitted pseudo-scientific fallacies concerning the harmful somatic, psychological, and social consequences of masturbation. Rooted in historical anti-onanism propaganda dating from the 18th to the mid-20th century, these beliefs posit that autoerotic stimulation precipitates catastrophic breakdowns across multiple life domains:

• Somatic and Psychophysiological Decay: Endorsement of beliefs that frequent masturbation causes neurobiological depletion, cognitive impairment, or systemic physical damage (e.g., Item 26: “Excessive masturbation leads to mental dullness and fatigue”; Item 15: “Excessive masturbation can lead to problems of impotence in men and frigidity in women”).
• Psychiatric and Personality Disorganization: Framing autoeroticism as an inherently pathological, compulsive, or neurosis-inducing addiction (e.g., Item 19: “Excessive masturbation is associated with neurosis, depression, and behavioral problems”; Item 21: “Masturbation is a compulsive, addictive habit which once begun is almost impossible to stop”).
• Interpersonal and Psychosexual Maladaptation: The conviction that autoerotic habits directly undermine adult heterosocial competence, coital satisfaction, and sexual orientation stability (e.g., Item 2: “People who masturbate will not enjoy sexual intercourse as much as those who refrain from masturbation”; Item 7: “Masturbation can lead to homosexuality”).

3. Personally Experienced Negative Affect and Self-Condemnation

This visceral, affect-laden dimension captures the actual self-directed emotional distress elicited by the act of masturbating. It moves beyond abstract cognitive agreement to assess intrapsychic emotional sequences characterized by acute guilt, public shame, moral violation, and visceral disgust:

• Genital and Self-Disgust: Visceral aversion directed toward genital contact and the bodily sensations of sexual release (e.g., Item 18: “Playing with your own genitals is disgusting”; Item 23: “When I masturbate, I am disgusted with myself”).
• Loss of Inhibitory Control: Shame stemming from an inability to suppress sexual urges, interpreted as a failure of moral willpower and bodily sovereignty (e.g., Item 30: “After I masturbate, I am disgusted with myself for losing control of my body”).
• Existential Degradation and Social Anxiety: Lingering dysphoria following orgasm and fear of reputational exposure (e.g., Item 10: “After masturbating, a person feels degraded”; Item 25: “I would be ashamed to admit publicly that I have masturbated”).

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual framework underpinning the Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale rests upon the integration of Tomkins’ Affect and Script Theory with Donald Mosher’s social-learning model of personality dispositions and sexual guilt.

Tomkins’ Affect and Script Theory

Silvan Tomkins conceptualized human personality through the interaction of primary biological affects (e.g., interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy, shame-humiliation, fear-terror, disgust-dissmell) organized into psychological “scripts.” A script represents an internalized cognitive rule-set derived from repeated socialization scenes. These scenes co-assemble emotional states, interpersonal consequences, and cognitive attributions, establishing enduring rules for interpreting, predicting, regulating, and evaluating future encounters characterized by family resemblance.

In Mosher’s formulation, masturbation-guilt functions as an internalized script. During childhood and adolescence, nascent solitary sexual exploration frequently collides with direct parental reprimand, religious proscription, cultural secrecy, and moralizing discourse. In these scenes, innate positive affects of interest-excitement and sexual enjoyment are abruptly truncated by negative socialization affects: shame (over bodily exposure), fear (of punishment or illness), and disgust (directed at genital fluids and manipulation). Over developmental time, these recurring scenes form a coherent masturbation-guilt script. Whenever autoerotic urges arise or masturbatory acts take place, this script automatically activates, suppressing sensual pleasure, generating anticipatory anxiety, and driving retrospective self-loathing.

The Historical Continuum of Anti-Onanism

The scale’s theoretical architecture is also historically informed. In 1760, Swiss physician Samuel-Auguste Tissot published L’Onanisme, arguing that seminal loss and nervous exhaustion from masturbation produced severe neurological and constitutional decay. This medicalization of sexual guilt persisted through the 19th and early 20th centuries through figures such as Sylvester Graham and John Harvey Kellogg, embedding itself into social mores, educational systems, and child-rearing manuals. Mosher recognized that even when modern culture intellectually adopts permissive attitudes toward sexuality, early social conditioning leaves residual historical scripts operational within individuals. The NAMS provides an empirical metric to assess the degree to which an individual remains enculturated within this historical anti-onanism framework.

Distinction from Generalized Sex-Guilt

Within Mosher’s broader trait taxonomy, generalized sex-guilt represents a generalized expectancy for self-mediated punishment following the violation of culturally internalized standards of proper sexual conduct. While generalized sex-guilt regulates interpersonal scenarios (such as premarital sexual encounters or non-traditional sexual practices), masturbation-guilt operates at the intra-individual level. The theoretical necessity of developing the NAMS stemmed from empirical observations that individuals could possess relatively permissive or low-guilt attitudes toward partnered heterosocial sexuality while maintaining intense, compartmentalized guilt, disgust, and misinformation regarding self-stimulation.

Validity

The validity of the Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale has been established through diverse experimental, psychophysiological, clinical, and survey methodologies across five decades of sexological research.

Construct and Behavioral Validity

Initial validation studies by Abramson and Mosher (1975) confirmed that higher NAMS scores were robustly correlated with lower lifetime masturbation frequency and reduced probability of achieving orgasm through autoerotic stimulation in both men and women. In subsequent research, Mosher and O’Grady (1979) established that when individuals with high masturbation-guilt engaged in masturbation, they exhibited significantly elevated state anxiety, post-orgasmic dysphoria, and subjective self-disgust compared to their low-guilt counterparts.

Psychophysiological and Experimental Validity

A compelling demonstration of the scale’s construct validity appears in physiological laboratory paradigms. Abramson, Perry, Rothblatt, Seeley, and Seeley (1981) employed contact thermography to measure female pelvic vasocongestion (labial temperature elevations indexing involuntary genital blood flow) while participants read explicit erotic narratives. Women scoring high on the NAMS exhibited significantly attenuated pelvic vasocongestion alongside suppressed subjective sexual arousal relative to women with low scores. This confirmed that cognitive-affective masturbation scripts directly interfere with the neurovascular cascades underlying involuntary physical genital excitation.

Further laboratory experiments by Mosher and Abramson (1977) exposed participants to explicit films depicting male and female masturbation. Individuals with elevated NAMS scores reported significantly reduced subjective sexual arousal, marked elevations in state disgust, shame, and anger, and elevated skin conductance response indices reflecting psychological distress rather than sensual responsivity. Abramson and Mosher (1979) additionally analyzed projective stories composed in response to visual depictions of solitary masturbation; participants with high masturbation-guilt generated narratives dominated by negative interpersonal judgment, physical illness, severe remorse, and moral retribution.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

The scale demonstrates substantial convergent validity when correlated with general sex-guilt (as measured by the Mosher Guilt Inventory), sexual conservatism, religious fundamentalism, and erotophobia (as measured by the Sexual Opinion Survey). However, its discriminant validity remains well-substantiated:

• Incremental Predictive Power: In regression analyses examining sexual responses to autoerotic stimuli, the NAMS accounts for significant unique variance above and beyond generalized sex-guilt scales (Mosher & O’Grady, 1979).
• Contraceptive Modality Selection: In an influential study by Mosher and Vonderheide (1985) exploring female contraceptive choices, masturbation-guilt emerged as a distinct and superior predictor (compared to general sex-guilt) for women’s avoidance of the vaginal diaphragm. Because fitting and inserting a diaphragm requires direct, uninhibited tactile manipulation of the vaginal canal and cervix, the visceral disgust and body-shame components captured specifically by the NAMS directly impeded adoption of female-controlled barrier methods.
• Affective Recall: Green and Mosher (1985) demonstrated that during guided imagery protocols, NAMS scores specifically predicted intrusive negative affect during the autobiographical recall of masturbatory events, whereas general sex-guilt failed to reliably differentiate affective quality in autoerotic autobiographical memory.

Reliability

The Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale exhibits strong reliability across diverse adult populations, demonstrating high internal consistency and score stability over time.

Internal Consistency

• Split-Half Reliability: In the initial psychometric validation study conducted by Abramson and Mosher (1975), a corrected split-half reliability coefficient of .75 was obtained in a normative collegiate sample of 198 undergraduate men and women. Given that split-half estimates can fluctuate depending on item partitioning, subsequent analyses evaluated full-scale item homogeneity.
• Cronbach’s Alpha: Subsequent large-scale investigations utilizing complete 30-item administrations reported exceptionally high internal consistency coefficients. Most notably, Mosher and Vonderheide (1985) observed a Cronbach’s alpha of .94 in a sample of 186 young adult women, demonstrating that despite the thematic breadth of the scale (incorporating somatic fallacies, affective revulsion, and sensual appreciation), the items cohere tightly around the central latent dimension of masturbation-guilt.
• Item-Total Correlations: Published psychometric item evaluations consistently show that across the 30 items, corrected item-total correlations range from moderate (.35) to high (.78), with reverse-scored items exhibiting comparable psychometric strength when inverted.

Temporal Stability

Test-retest evaluations over intervals spanning two to eight weeks in stable non-clinical collegiate cohorts have yielded temporal stability coefficients typically exceeding r = .80, indicating that masturbation-guilt operates as an enduring personality disposition rather than a transient, state-dependent mood. However, the scale exhibits meaningful sensitivity to targeted clinical interventions: systematic sex-educational coursework, cognitive-behavioral desensitization, and directed masturbation therapies produce statistically significant downward shifts in total NAMS scores, confirming its responsiveness to therapeutic modification.

Factor Analysis

When Abramson and Mosher (1975) first examined the psychometric structure of the 30-item instrument, they subjected the inter-item correlation matrix of 198 respondents to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal components extraction followed by orthogonal (Varimax) rotation. Although the scale was designed primarily as a single-factor, homogeneous inventory—a practice supported by the massive first unrotated factor explaining substantial common variance—the rotational solution revealed three clinically useful, descriptive factors.

Factor 1: Positive Attitudes Toward Masturbation

This factor accounts for the largest proportion of common variance among the sub-dimensions and consists entirely of the 10 reverse-scored items. These items load positively on an open, healthy, sensually affirming view of autoerotic practices:

• Item 27 (“Masturbation is a normal sexual outlet”) — Primary loading ~ .74
• Item 22 (“Masturbation is fun”) — Primary loading ~ .71
• Item 17 (“Masturbation can provide harmless relief from sexual tension”) — Primary loading ~ .68
• Item 29 (“Masturbation can teach you to enjoy the sensuousness of your own body”) — Primary loading ~ .66
• Item 5 (“Masturbation in childhood can help a person develop a natural, healthy attitude toward sex”) — Primary loading ~ .58

When reverse-coded, these items reflect the cognitive absence of guilt, representing sensual self-acceptance, somatic comfort, and freedom from internalized taboos.

Factor 2: False Beliefs and Pathological Consequences

The second descriptive factor clusters statements that endorse historical, medicalized, and social myths asserting that masturbation leads to somatic decay, mental illness, sexual dysfunction, or social deterioration:

• Item 19 (“Excessive masturbation is associated with neurosis, depression, and behavioral problems”) — Primary loading ~ .69
• Item 26 (“Excessive masturbation leads to mental dullness and fatigue”) — Primary loading ~ .67
• Item 15 (“Excessive masturbation can lead to problems of impotence in men and frigidity in women”) — Primary loading ~ .64
• Item 21 (“Masturbation is a compulsive, addictive habit which once begun is almost impossible to stop”) — Primary loading ~ .61
• Item 7 (“Masturbation can lead to homosexuality”) — Primary loading ~ .54

This factor highlights cognitive distortions and internalized anti-onanism propaganda that frame autoeroticism as an inherently destructive behavior.

Factor 3: Personally Experienced Negative Affect and Self-Degradation

The third factor reflects the immediate, visceral, affective consequences of autoeroticism experienced by the individual respondent:

• Item 23 (“When I masturbate, I am disgusted with myself”) — Primary loading ~ .75
• Item 30 (“After I masturbate, I am disgusted with myself for losing control of my body”) — Primary loading ~ .73
• Item 12 (“I feel guilty about masturbating”) — Primary loading ~ .70
• Item 18 (“Playing with your own genitals is disgusting”) — Primary loading ~ .66
• Item 10 (“After masturbating, a person feels degraded”) — Primary loading ~ .62

This factor directly assesses the affective script of shame, bodily disgust, and perceived loss of self-regulation that occurs following genital touch.

Structural Modeling and Unidimensional Scoring

In confirmatory psychometric evaluations, researchers have noted moderate to high intercorrelations among these three descriptive factors (ranging from r = .48 to .68). Because these three components are so tightly interconnected in shaping sexual behavior, contemporary psychometric consensus supports Mosher’s original recommendation: computing a single composite score reflecting overall masturbation-guilt rather than treating the sub-dimensions as distinct orthogonal scales. However, for specialized clinical assessments, inspecting subscale scores can offer targeted diagnostic insight into whether a patient’s primary inhibition stems from cognitive misinformation (Factor 2) or visceral affective disgust (Factor 3).

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale (NAMS; originally published as Attitudes Toward Masturbation).
• Authors: Paul R. Abramson, Ph.D., and Donald L. Mosher, Ph.D. (1975).
• Construct Measured: Masturbation-guilt (internalized negative affect, misinformation, and cognitive prohibitions regarding autoerotic sexual behavior).
• Format / Administration Mode: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized self-report questionnaire. Machine-scoreable answer sheets or direct digital survey forms are typically utilized.
• Item Count: 30 items.
• Completion Time: Approximately 7 minutes.
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (originally normed on college populations; accessible to literate individuals aged 16 and older).
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type scale with the following anchors:
  • 1 = Not at all true for you
  • 2 = Somewhat untrue
  • 3 = Undecided
  • 4 = Somewhat true
  • 5 = Strongly true for you
• Scoring Protocol:
  • Directly Scored Items (20 items): Items 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 (scored according to key), 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, and 30 are scored directly as marked (1 = 1, 2 = 2, 3 = 3, 4 = 4, 5 = 5).
  • Reverse-Scored Items (10 items): Items 3, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 22, 27, and 29 reflect positive or permissive attitudes toward masturbation and must be reverse-scored prior to summing:
    • Response 1 is recoded as 5
    • Response 2 is recoded as 4
    • Response 3 is recoded as 3
    • Response 4 is recoded as 2
    • Response 5 is recoded as 1
  • Total Score Calculation: The sum of all 30 scored/recoded items yields the final composite index of masturbation-guilt.
  • Score Range: Theoretical scores range from 30 to 150. Higher total scores reflect stronger negative attitudes, higher masturbation-guilt, greater adherence to sexual fallacies, and elevated shame and disgust. Lower scores reflect autoerotic comfort, sexual permissiveness, and healthy sensual acceptance.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Scale was first published in 1975 in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology by Paul R. Abramson and Donald L. Mosher. Under standard academic psychometric conventions, the instrument is available for educational, non-commercial scientific, and clinical research purposes without licensing fees, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the authors and primary journal publications.

Commercial utilization, digital platform integration, or inclusion in monetized clinical software requires formal permission from the copyright holders or their estates. Academic researchers wishing to implement the NAMS can refer to the original source publications or consult established compendia such as the Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures (Fisher, Davis, Yarber, & Davis, Eds.). Donald L. Mosher maintained open academic correspondence through the University of Connecticut throughout his career.

References

• Abramson, P. R. (1973). The relationship of the frequency of masturbation to several aspects of behavior. The Journal of Sex Research, 9(2), 132–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224497309550788
• 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/h0076878
• Abramson, P. R., & Mosher, D. L. (1979). An empirical investigation of experimentally induced masturbatory fantasies. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 8(1), 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541217
• Abramson, P. R., Perry, L. B., Rothblatt, A., Seeley, T. T., & Seeley, D. M. (1981). Negative attitudes toward masturbation and pelvic vasocongestion: A thermographic analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 15(4), 497–509. https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-6566(81)90045-8
• Fisher, T. D., Davis, C. M., Yarber, W. L., & Davis, S. L. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203864319
• Green, S. E., & Mosher, D. L. (1985). A causal model of sexual arousal to erotic fantasies. The Journal of Sex Research, 21(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498509551241
• Mosher, D. L. (1966). The development and multitrait-multimethod matrix analysis of three measures of three aspects of guilt. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 30(1), 25–29. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023072
• Mosher, D. L. (1968). Measurement of guilt in females by self-report inventories. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 32(6), 690–695. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026601
• Mosher, D. L. (1979a). The meaning and measurement of guilt. In C. E. Izard (Ed.), Emotions in Personality and Psychopathology (pp. 105–129). Plenum Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3000-4_5
• Mosher, D. L. (1979b). Negative attitudes toward masturbation in sex therapy. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 5(4), 315–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/00926237908403738
• Mosher, D. L., & Abramson, P. R. (1977). Subjective sexual arousal to films of masturbation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 45(5), 796–807. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.45.5.796
• Mosher, D. L., & O’Grady, K. E. (1979). Homosexual threat, negative attitudes toward masturbation, sex guilt, and males’ sexual and affective reactions to explicit sexual films. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47(5), 860–873. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.47.5.860
• Mosher, D. L., & Vonderheide, S. G. (1985). Contributions of sex guilt and masturbation guilt to women’s contraceptive attitudes and use. The Journal of Sex Research, 21(1), 24–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224498509551242

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)