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It means you should be happy that your son is a normal, healthy young man.

You are obviously a caring mother who wants what she thinks is best for her child. In fact, the challenge of being a single mom makes it even more difficult as you have never had the experience of being a teenage boy to draw upon. It's great that you are seeking the opinions of others in some of these matters.

The average 14 year old boy masturbates over 9 times a week. Some less, some more, but nearly all do. It is the time for them to learn their body and explore their own sexuality. Through fantasy and experimentation they will begin to figure what their likes and needs are. Because a human male is constantly producing sperm (at this age more than any other time), masturbation will also allow the "release" that their biology has created a need for. Not to be over looked is the fact that masturbation is also simply time where people make themselves feel good. All this means two things: First, your son couldn't stop even if he wanted to, and second, he shouldn't want to.

Unless your friend's son was damaged in some way (which would be a tragedy), he hasn't stopped masturbating. He has either become better at hiding it or he has begun lying about it (probably both).

Your son will not stop masturbating. So basically you are left with two choices. Either you can accept that it's a natural, healthy part of adolescence and reinforce to him that he's normal and that there's nothing to be ashamed of. Or you can try to teach him that he is doing something wrong which will make him feel undeserved shame, isolate him from you, and damage both his emotional health as well as your relationship with him. Please forgive my directness, but absolutely nothing good will come from you trying to correct this behavior.

I also have to question the medical advice of your friend. So far as I know there is absolutely no correlation between circumcision and masturbation frequency. Also, unless there's a strong medical case for performing a circumcision (such as an infection), most doctors will discourage the operation. While it's relatively easy to perform on a baby, a circumcision is a fairly serious medical operation for someone who is old enough to be sexually functional. Most doctors won't remove an appendix that isn't causing trouble, and likewise most doctors won't perform an unnecessary circumcision.

Finally, rather than a medical procedure, I'd suggest that the solution may involve a conversation with your son, especially with regards to his masturbating "openly," something you mentioned a couple of times. If you're tired of catching him at it or are worried that other people might be embarrassed by surprising him, rather than hiding your knowledge of the situation you might take a minute and ask him to be more cautious. Tell him to do it behind closed doors. Or, if you're not ready for a conversation, the next time you catch him all you have to do is let him know. Rather than hiding the knowledge, just walk into the room and tell him something like, "Why don't you do that in your room?" There isn't a 14 year old in the country who wouldn't be embarrassed enough by that to make sure he stays out of sight from then on.

—Abby

Related question: See Is "Circumcision to Stop Masturbation" For Real?