ABSTRACT

Masturbation is one of the most common sexual behaviors in humans. It is also a phylogenetically widespread trait of various other mammalian and some non-mammalian species. Several hypotheses have been proposed aiming to explain the function of masturbation in primates and other species. These were mainly based on observations of nonhuman primates such as rhesus macaques or bonobos and rodents such as African ground squirrels. Based on these observations various scholars suggested that masturbation improves ejaculate quality, decreases the risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections or is merely a by-product of sexual arousal and thus an alternate outlet to copulation. While these theories may explain some facets of masturbation in some species, they do not explain why masturbation is so widespread and has developed in various species as well as our hominid ancestors. Moreover, the research on which these theories are based is scarce and heavily focused on male masturbation, while female masturbation remains largely unexplored. This sex difference may be responsible for the one-sided theorizing that attributes a specific biological benefit to masturbation. We propose that the widespread prevalence of masturbation in the animal kingdom may be better explained by viewing masturbation as a primarily self-reinforcing behavior that promotes pleasure both in human and in nonhuman species.

摘要

自慰是人类最常见的性行为之一。它也是各种其他哺乳动物和一些非哺乳动物物种在系统发育上广泛存在的特征。人们提出了几种假设，旨在解释灵长类动物和其他物种的自慰功能。这些主要基于对恒河猴或倭黑猩猩等非人类灵长类动物以及非洲地松鼠等啮齿类动物的观察。基于这些观察，许多学者认为手淫可以提高射精质量，降低感染性传播感染的风险，或者仅仅是性唤起的副产品，因此是性交的另一种出口。虽然这些理论可以解释某些物种自慰的某些方面，但它们并不能解释为什么自慰如此普遍并在各种物种以及我们的原始人类祖先中得到发展。此外，这些理论所依据的研究很少，而且主要集中在男性自慰上，而女性自慰在很大程度上仍未得到探索。这种性别差异可能是导致自慰具有特定生物学益处的片面理论的原因。我们认为，通过将手淫视为一种主要的自我强化行为，可以促进人类和非人类物种的快乐，可以更好地解释动物王国中手淫的广泛流行。