Author(s)

Binggen Zhu^1,2*, Zheng Li², Kayama Jo²

¹Pudong New Area Mental Health Center, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
²Department of Psychiatry, Tenth Peoples’ Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

Although the child masturbation is recognized as not uncommon behavior, our understanding of normative sexual development in humans is fairly limited. To investigate the possible relationship between early childhood masturbation and subsequent sexual cognition, we retrospectively researched three adolescents who had been reared male and who masturbated in early childhood in similar ways, but had different subsequent sexual cognition. The three young people all recalled primary sexual pleasure from masturbation at age 4 or 5. Their distinctive sexual attitudes could be discerned at age 15 to 20. One was transgender, one was homosexual, and one was heterosexual. Combining recent findings of the neural mechanisms of sexual pleasure and cognition, it can be inferred that the early sexual pleasure in preschoolers might have little significance for the development of sexual cognition in adolescence.

Childhood Masturbation, Sexual Attitude, Sexual Cognition, Sexual Development, Adolescents

Zhu, B. , Li, Z. and Jo, K. (2020) Common Childhood Masturbation, But Different Sexual Attitudes in Three Male-at-Birth Adolescents: Possible Implications for Sexual Development. Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 9, 160-167. doi: 10.4236/ojmp.2020.94013.