Surely masturbation=males evolving to age faster=shorter life spans? [Answered - No]

[MrSandman]

Well also you have take into consideration that males do more physically strenous work. Females just aren't built for it. The male body when doing physical work will wear down faster, thus causing earlier death. There is men that way out lived their wives. There is so many factors in why you die early. They may be all part of it.

[DrDNA]

Remember the good ol days, when all you had to do to propagate your own unique genetic traits was to find a potential mate, bust 'er in the side of the head then fend off all other potential suitors, drag her behind a rock or a bush and impregnate her only to find another potential mate and do it all over again? Life is so much more complicated now.

[ecoli]

Remember the good ol days, when all you had to do to propagate your own unique genetic traits was to find a potential mate, bust 'er in the side of the head then fend off all other potential suitors, drag her behind a rock or a bush and impregnate her only to find another potential mate and do it all over again? Life is so much more complicated now.

 

wait... so that's not ok any more? Sigh... political correctness is getting way out of control.

[DrDNA]

Unfortunately this strategy only seems to work well for tom cats, rock stars, and professional athletes any more.......

[CDarwin]

Unfortunately this strategy only seems to work well for tom cats, rock stars, and professional athletes any more.......

 

Oh, those pesky females with thier seperate reproductive interests.

[Paralith]

Oh, those pesky females with thier seperate reproductive interests.

 

Well guys, next time you want to take the load off and bring the kid to term for us - oh wait, you can't. Only we can. =p

[Mr Skeptic]

Remember the good ol days, when all you had to do to propagate your own unique genetic traits was to find a potential mate, bust 'er in the side of the head then fend off all other potential suitors, drag her behind a rock or a bush and impregnate her only to find another potential mate and do it all over again? Life is so much more complicated now.

 

Is there actually any evidence that this is how things used to be? I've never heard of any species whose primary way of reproducing is to knock the female unconscious then rape her.

 

--

 

I hear some rapists are using condoms nowadays. Um, yay for DNA testing?

[DrDNA]

Is there actually any evidence that this is how things used to be?

 

Cave drawings found in the grotto under Hef's mansion.

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa.

 

It is not the grandmother hypothesis. It is the grandparent hypothesis. Among our great ape cousins it is normal for the female to have a much longer lifespan than the male. This is due to the male having a short reproductive life. When the chimp alpha male is knocked off his perch, essentially his reproductive time is over, and he dies young. The females have to live longer to raise the offspring, regardless of who is alpha male.

 

However, in humans, things are different. Males live ALMOST as long as females. European males about 78 years today, versus about 81 for females. Rather different to chimps!

 

The reason human males live so long is that grandfathers are also important to the survival of their grandkids. Thus evolution keeps them alive for almost as long as the grandmothers. Of course, in most human societies, they get to be grandparents by age 40. So living and staying fit to 50 is a big advantage to the grandkids, who get up to two extra sets of parents to hunt, gather food, protect them, and teach them.

 

Back to masturbation. There is actually one proven benefit, which may be enough to add an evolutionary advantage. Apparently sexually non active males maintain their reproductive organs in better condition, as shown by higher sperm count, if they have regular orgasms. This is another example of the universal principle of 'use it or lose it.'

[DrDNA]

Back to masturbation. There is actually one proven benefit, which may be enough to add an evolutionary advantage. Apparently sexually non active males maintain their reproductive organs in better condition, as shown by higher sperm count, if they have regular orgasms. This is another example of the universal principle of 'use it or lose it.'

 

Along those lines, a high frequency of ejaculation may actually reduce overall prostate cancer1, while there is an increase in prostate cancer in men with low levels of sexual activity2. But contrary to popular belief, prostate cancer mortality specifically in celibate priests is comparable to that of the general population2.

 

1. Leitzmann MF et al. Ejaculation frequency and subsequent risk of prostate cancer. JAMA 2004; 291: 1578-1586.

2. Ross RK et al. A cohort study of mortality from cancer of the prostate in Catholic priests. British Journal of Cancer 1981; 43: 223-235.

[immortal]

Well there is certainly a benefit if you mastrubate twice in a week, because any sexual activity twice in a week will increase your level of immunoglobins by 35%. So you will be immune to micro organisms and be more healthier compared to persons who does'nt have any sexual activity with an increase of immunoglobins by just 7%.

[DrDNA]

Well there is certainly a benefit if you mastrubate twice in a week, because any sexual activity twice in a week will increase your level of immunoglobins by 35%. So you will be immune to micro organisms and be more healthier compared to persons who does'nt have any sexual activity with an increase of immunoglobins by just 7%.

 

Do you perhaps mean that IgG levels go up 35% it you have unprotected sexual activity with Paris Hilton twice a week? That I would believe.

 

How can people that don't have any sexual activity have an increase of 7%? Compared to what? Where's the baseline? Maybe I just don't understand where the 7% number came from. Got a reference or link?

[immortal]

Do you perhaps mean that IgG levels go up 35% it you have unprotected sexual activity with Paris Hilton twice a week? That I would believe.

 

How can people that don't have any sexual activity have an increase of 7%? Compared to what? Where's the baseline? Maybe I just don't understand where the 7% number came from. Got a reference or link?

 

Sorry I have lost the link and I read about it in the distant past. May be that 7% refers to those people who have sexual activity less than once in a week compared to those people who don't have any sexual activity.

 

One explanation for this would be since sexually active people are exposed to different antigens more often than sexually inactive people they are bound to have high levels of immunoglobins. I suppose you will be exposed to more antigens if you have sex in your bathroom.

[lucaspa]

Fitness is the contribution made to future generations; it's possible to have a higher fitness with fewer offspring and lower survival rates.

 

 

You must mean "have a higher fitness with fewer offspring and HIGHER survival rates."

 

BTW, fitness is defined as the ratio of the progeny (allele frequency) actually produced to the progeny (or allele frequency) expected from Mendelian inheritance.

 

To lucaspa.

 

It is not the grandmother hypothesis. It is the grandparent hypothesis.

 

No. "Grandmother". Originally proposed by Kristen Hawkes:

 

Am J Hum Biol. 2003 May-Jun;15(3):380-400.

 

Grandmothers and the evolution of human longevity.

 

Hawkes K.

 

Deparment of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.

hawkes@anthro.utah.edu

 

"Great apes, our closest living relatives, live longer and mature later than most other mammals and modern humans are even later-maturing and potentially longer-lived. Evolutionary life-history theory seeks to explain cross-species differences in these variables and the covariation between them. That provides the foundation for a hypothesis that a novel role for grandmothers underlies the shift from an ape-like ancestral pattern to one more like our own in the first widely successful members of genus Homo. This hypothesis links four distinctive features of human life histories: 1). our potential longevity, 2). our late maturity, 3). our midlife menopause, and 4). our early weaning with next offspring produced before the previous infant can feed itself. I discuss the problem, then, using modern humans and chimpanzees to represent, respectively, genus Homo and australopithecines, I focus on two corollaries of this grandmother hypothesis: 1). that ancestral age-specific fertility declines persisted in our genus, while 2). senescence in other aspects of physiological performance slowed down. The data are scanty but they illustrate similarities in age-specific fertility decline and differences in somatic durability that are consistent with the hypothesis that increased longevity in our genus is a legacy of the "reproductive" role of ancestral grandmothers. Among our great ape cousins it is normal for the female to have a much longer lifespan than the male. This is due to the male having a short reproductive life. When the chimp alpha male is knocked off his perch, essentially his reproductive time is over, and he dies young. The females have to live longer to raise the offspring, regardless of who is alpha male."

 

You appear to be discussing something different. Perhaps you could post the scientific paper that is your source? Or perhaps not.

 

This is another example of the universal principle of 'use it or lose it.'

 

I didn't know you were a Lamarckist.

[SkepticLance]

To lucaspa

 

The grandmother/father principle is discussed on another thread. However, did it not occur to you to be really strange that humans, alone of the primates, should have male longevity almost as great as female, in the total absense of any selective advantage?

 

This was discussed in a New Scientist article some months back. Sadly, I did not record the issue number.

 

No, I am not a Lamarckist, and I assume you were being ironic. Evolution by natural selection has equipped organisms of all types with the ability to adapt to outside pressures. Of course, that specific adaptation is not passed down through genes, though the ability to adapt in different ways is.

 

A male that is not having much sex, will divert physical resources into survival. Perhaps building up fat reserves for a time of famine? A male that is having lots of orgasms will develop the 'busy' part of his body to cope with the current need. It is no different in principle to a person who runs a lot developing the stamina to cope - getting fit. That is the basis of 'use it or lose it'.

[CDarwin]

To lucaspa

 

The grandmother/father principle is discussed on another thread. However, did it not occur to you to be really strange that humans, alone of the primates, should have male longevity almost as great as female, in the total absense of any selective advantage?[/Quote]

 

But there is. Human males can continue to reproduce throughout almost all their "natural" lifespan (that-is, the lifespan that isn't inflated by modern medicine), which certainly isn't more than 60 years. The selective advantage is continued reproduction.

 

Female human are unique among primates because of their long potential post-menopausal lifespan, during which it is completely impossible for them to reproduce. That's the adaptionist dilemma.

 

I personally don't subscribe to the grandmother hypothesis. When human evolution was occuring, few if anyone would have been living past 30 anyway, so the post-menopausal stage never have really kicked in. I prefer to see the long potential human lifespan a byproduct of our slowed life history, which serves to allow us a long childhood to learn how to interact socially. But that's just me.

 

No, I am not a Lamarckist, and I assume you were being ironic. Evolution by natural selection has equipped organisms of all types with the ability to adapt to outside pressures. Of course, that specific adaptation is not passed down through genes, though the ability to adapt in different ways is.

 

A male that is not having much sex, will divert physical resources into survival. Perhaps building up fat reserves for a time of famine? A male that is having lots of orgasms will develop the 'busy' part of his body to cope with the current need. It is no different in principle to a person who runs a lot developing the stamina to cope - getting fit. That is the basis of 'use it or lose it'.

 

That's pretty much the definition of Lamarckianism, as far as I understand the term... Of course, epigenetics are showing that in some ways Lamarckianism isn't totally off, but that's still Lamarckianism.

[lucaspa]

To lucaspa

 

The grandmother/father principle is discussed on another thread. However, did it not occur to you to be really strange that humans, alone of the primates, should have male longevity almost as great as female, in the total absense of any selective advantage?

 

1. Which thread? You are implying that we have 2 different theories.

2. Longevity WHEN? Now, with modern health care? Doesn't count, does it? Mean male lifespan has been going up in the last few hundred years. The gap has gotten narrower, but it was much wider in the past.

3. CDarwin has noted an independent possible selection criteria for male longevity: continued fertility. Of course, it is going to be difficult to distinguish that from an accidental benefit from female longevity.

 

This was discussed in a New Scientist article some months back. Sadly, I did not record the issue number.

 

So, no, you don't have a scientific source. What a surprise. Perhaps you can browse thru the back issues and find it? Or not. BTW, New Scientist is a magazine about science. It doesn't have primary articles itself.

 

No, I am not a Lamarckist, and I assume you were being ironic.

 

I wasn't being ironic.

 

Evolution by natural selection has equipped organisms of all types with the ability to adapt to outside pressures. Of course, that specific adaptation is not passed down through genes, though the ability to adapt in different ways is.

 

Quite an assertion. Where is your data? Also, your language is confusing. When you say "specific adaptation" are you referring to the "ability to adapt to outside pressures"? Because that would be a specific adaptation.

 

(For others here, you want to look up "Baldwin effect")

 

A male that is not having much sex, will divert physical resources into survival. Perhaps building up fat reserves for a time of famine? A male that is having lots of orgasms will develop the 'busy' part of his body to cope with the current need. It is no different in principle to a person who runs a lot developing the stamina to cope - getting fit. That is the basis of 'use it or lose it'.

 

Lots of bold assertions, but absolutely no data to back it up. I think you think the assertions are logically necessary, but they are not. There is no requirement that a male that is not having much sex divert physical resources into survival. What about just laying around looking at the sky?

 

Now, there is data to contradict the second of your assertions: males that have lots of ejaculations in a short period of time have lower semen volume and sperm counts: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/semenandsperm.htm

http://health.ivillage.com/infertility/infertmen/0,,5kxp,00.html

 

Therefore he is NOT developing the "busy" part of his body to cope. This is not like muscles which indeed change during exercise. "testicles and muscles" is another way of saying "apples and oranges". You can't validly equate them.

[Mr Skeptic]

I personally don't subscribe to the grandmother hypothesis. When human evolution was occuring, few if anyone would have been living past 30 anyway, so the post-menopausal stage never have really kicked in. I prefer to see the long potential human lifespan a byproduct of our slowed life history, which serves to allow us a long childhood to learn how to interact socially. But that's just me.

 

I recently read that the low life expectancy before modern medicine was because they factored in the very high infant mortality rates. That people who lived to 40 could expect to live another 20 years. That's from wikipedia, so it may need some verification.

[SkepticLance]

Man!

 

The last two posts are full of misunderstandings. At least I hope they are just misunderstandings.

 

First to CDarwin

 

Yes, human males have continued fertility. However, recent research has shown that offspring from older fathers have a much higher rate of deformities. Plus the fact that male fertility is much lower in older men. Plus the fact that few young, fertile women care to breed with old men. With the notable and very unusual exception of very rich old men!

 

Overall, compared to reproductive success of young men, the reproductive success of old men is decidedly low. This would also most likely be the case in more 'primitive' societies. This would imply that the evolutionary advantage of continued, albeit much reduced, male fertility is not actually too much of an advantage. It may be a factor in evolution, but is not likely to be the major factor.

 

There is some lessons to be learned from other primates. Humans are the only great apes to have great male longevity. However, some other species, like some of the tamarin monkeys, have similar longevity for male and female. The golden lion tamarin, for example, has an average lifespan of about 14 years, for both genders. They are special in that both genders share the task of caring for the young.

 

Other great apes do not have both genders share that task, but humans do, even if the actual nurturing task are not quite the same. Females more directly, and males indirectly through providing protection and food collection. By comparison to what happens with other primates, this is the logical reason for almost equal longevity for male and female.

 

In the days of 'primitive' tribal hunter-gatherer human societies, the average life span was low. However, a child mortality rate that often exceeded 50% before age 12 months was the main reason. Of those adults that reached an age at which they successfully reproduced, most would survive at least into early middle age.

 

This meant that they could become grandparents and assist in the survival of the second generation. In those societies, a person became a grandparent often by age 35. By that age, they would produce few if any, of their own children. If they survived to 55, they would then have a very big input into the survival of their grandchildren. And of course, we all know the biblical (over 2000 years ago) description of life span was three score years and ten.

 

If you look at recent hunter-gatherer societies, you will find grandfathers hunt and gather food for their grandchildren. This means that they will contribute to their survival.

 

On the business of orgasms and sperm count, there may be confusion over the time period I was referring to. Yes, of course, in the short term, sperm count is down. An orgasm involves loss of sperm. This means, in the short term, less sperm.

 

However, over a longer period more sperm is produced. This is because the testes are stimulated into greater activity. Any organ in the body that works harder tends to develop and become more effective.

 

And references to Lamarck are just plain insulting. If I pump iron, my muscles grow stronger. This is basic biology, not Lamarck. If a man's reproductive organs work harder, they too develop. Do you disagree with this general principle?

[CDarwin]

Man!

Yes, human males have continued fertility. However, recent research has shown that offspring from older fathers have a much higher rate of deformities. Plus the fact that male fertility is much lower in older men. Plus the fact that few young, fertile women care to breed with old men. With the notable and very unusual exception of very rich old men!

 

Overall, compared to reproductive success of young men, the reproductive success of old men is decidedly low. This would also most likely be the case in more 'primitive' societies. This would imply that the evolutionary advantage of continued, albeit much reduced, male fertility is not actually too much of an advantage. It may be a factor in evolution, but is not likely to be the major factor.[/Quote]

 

It depends on how old you're talking, and how fit the old man is. Young women will often go for older, more experienced men, and men can be surprisingly fecund well into their elder years. Yes, deformations are a factor, but having a few non-deformed children is more selective than being dead and having no children. There's also the "coat-tails" factor that Lucaspa referred to and the generally slowed human life history that I did.

 

Here are some ages at which men in modern societies can continue to be fertile:

 

In all six groups, women stopped having children on average by their 50s, while some men continued to reproduce. The age after which men showed no reproduction varied among the groups and included:

Canada—Men showed fertility until 55 years old.

!Kung—55 years old

Gambia—75 years old

Yanomamo—70 years old

Ache—65 years old

Tsimane—60 years old

 

http://yannklimentidis.blogspot.com/2007/09/old-men-mate-with-young-women-as.html

 

There is some lessons to be learned from other primates. Humans are the only great apes to have great male longevity. However, some other species, like some of the tamarin monkeys, have similar longevity for male and female. The golden lion tamarin, for example, has an average lifespan of about 14 years, for both genders. They are special in that both genders share the task of caring for the young.

 

Other great apes do not have both genders share that task, but humans do, even if the actual nurturing task are not quite the same. Females more directly, and males indirectly through providing protection and food collection. By comparison to what happens with other primates, this is the logical reason for almost equal longevity for male and female.

 

I do applaud your reference to non-human primates as a model. Too many people don't put human evolution in its proper primatological context and it leads to problems. However, these differences can also be explained by life history patterns:

 

Great apes are highly (compared to humans and tamarins at least) sexually dimorphic. This dimorphism is achieved chiefly though a dramatic adolescent growth spurt in males. This growth spurt expends a lot of energy and effectively "accelerates" male maturation beyond that of their female peers, which means they likewise die earlier. It seems to be one of the trade-offs of mammalian life history: the faster you develop, the faster you die.

 

"Monogamous" primates like humans and tamarins have, for various reasons, much less sexual dimorphism. This means the differences between the intensity of the male and female adolescent growth spurts is much less, and so the two sexes develop at a more similar pace. Now humans have slightly more dimorphism than tamarins, and thus there is more discrepancy in the ages at which the two sexes terminate.

 

There are also many examples of primates where males offer direct "nurturing" to young and yet show a great discrepancy between male and female lifespans and who are polygynous like great apes. Baboons for example. Even in the (African at least) great apes, males will devote a certain amount of energy to looking after their offspring.

 

In the days of 'primitive' tribal hunter-gatherer human societies, the average life span was low. However, a child mortality rate that often exceeded 50% before age 12 months was the main reason. Of those adults that reached an age at which they successfully reproduced, most would survive at least into early middle age.

 

This meant that they could become grandparents and assist in the survival of the second generation. In those societies, a person became a grandparent often by age 35. By that age, they would produce few if any, of their own children. If they survived to 55, they would then have a very big input into the survival of their grandchildren. And of course, we all know the biblical (over 2000 years ago) description of life span was three score years and ten.

 

If you look at recent hunter-gatherer societies, you will find grandfathers hunt and gather food for their grandchildren. This means that they will contribute to their survival.

 

If you have people who are only living to their 50s, then they aren't substantially outstripping their reproductive period, so the grandparent hypothesis is unnecessary. It doesn't matter if they're grandparents at that time or not. I'm not saying that the theory isn't sound, I just wonder how important those selective pressures really were compared to the pattern of generally slowed life history that humans show.

 

Can you provide any explanation, for example, why the same selective pressures wouldn't apply to other social primates? Couldn't chimpanzee offspring benefit from care from their grandparents as much as humans would?

 

On the business of orgasms and sperm count, there may be confusion over the time period I was referring to. Yes, of course, in the short term, sperm count is down. An orgasm involves loss of sperm. This means, in the short term, less sperm.

 

However, over a longer period more sperm is produced. This is because the testes are stimulated into greater activity. Any organ in the body that works harder tends to develop and become more effective.

 

And references to Lamarck are just plain insulting. If I pump iron, my muscles grow stronger. This is basic biology, not Lamarck. If a man's reproductive organs work harder, they too develop. Do you disagree with this general principle?

 

But that won't be passed on to the next generation.

[lucaspa]

I personally don't subscribe to the grandmother hypothesis. When human evolution was occuring, few if anyone would have been living past 30 anyway, so the post-menopausal stage never have really kicked in.

Natural selection will work even if most of the population dies for reasons other than that particular trait -- nonselective. What you are saying is that most of the people are dying of disease, starvation, predation, etc. Very few are living longer. However, even if there are just a few and they take care of their grandchildren, that will cause the increase in frequency of that trait in the population.

 

"Thus much, perhaps most, of the mortality suffered by a population may be random with respect to this locus or character [hoofs in horses, for example] These nonselective deaths may be contrasted with selective death, those that contribute to the difference in fitness between genotypes. Even if most mortality is nonselective, the selective deaths that do occur can be a potent source of natural selection. For instance, genetic differences in swimming speed in a small planktonic crustacean might well not affect the likelihood of being eaten by baleen whales, which might be the major source of mortality. But if swimming speed affects escape from another predator species, even one that accounts for only 1 percent of the deaths, there will be an average difference in fitness, and swimming speed may evolve by natural selection." Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, pg 368.

 

On the business of orgasms and sperm count, there may be confusion over the time period I was referring to. Yes, of course, in the short term, sperm count is down. An orgasm involves loss of sperm. This means, in the short term, less sperm.

 

However, over a longer period more sperm is produced. This is because the testes are stimulated into greater activity. Any organ in the body that works harder tends to develop and become more effective. ... If a man's reproductive organs work harder, they too develop. Do you disagree with this general principle? If I pump iron, my muscles grow stronger.

 

1. The sites I posted don't comment on this. They are also very specific that fertility depends not only on sperm count, but on volume of semen. That decreases with frequent orgasm and thus fertility decreases.

 

2. Comparing testes and and muscles is comparing apples and oranges. Development with working harder is not a "general principle". For instance, the cartilage in knees and intervertebral discs do not "develop with use". Instead, they degrade. Kidneys don't "develop" if you drink lots of water and force them to filter more blood.

 

Some organs do develop. The prime example are organs that involve muscle cells: skeletal muscle, heart, and the smooth muscle of blood vessels. The individual muscle cells get bigger. It's called "hypertrophy". So, when you pump iron you don't get any more muscle cells in the muscle, but each myofiber (a multinucleated cell extending from origin to insertion) gets larger in diameter.

 

Bone remodels in response to mechanical stress and strain. It's called "Wolff's Law". You can use this to study the origin and insertion points of muscles and ligaments on fossil bones to get an idea of the musculature. BTW, you can also overstrain the system. The Israeli army in the 1960s tried a new training program for its elite commandos. It involved very heavy physical training and the recruits began having fractures in the long bones. They were putting too much use on the bones and microfractures were accumulating faster than the remodeling process could repair them and the bones were breaking. Again, another example where the body did not "develop" with use: the repair process didn't increase.

 

Skeptic, your "general principle" is not general.

 

Also, Skeptic, for the idea that frequent masturbators would be able to reproduce because of "development" and that their offspring would also have the same characteristic -- which you at least implied -- then you do have to have Lamarckism.

[SkepticLance]

I've just got back from a 2 week holiday, and have a lot to do. Thus a brief answer.

 

Lamarckism is not involved in any way. I have never suggested any passing on from one generation to another. The only evolutionary (hence genetic) change is the potential to develop muscles, bones and organs. A good other example of a non muscle or bone organ that develops with use is the human brain. Its functioning gets more efficient with more use.

 

We have evolved the potential to develop certain body structures with greater use. Such development is only within one generation, but we can evolve the potential to so develop.

[mooeypoo]

I was just reading this article:

http://frostfirefizz.com/why-males-die-before-females

 

And suddenly realised this:

Since apparently our brains are quite primitive, that means that our bodies can't tell the difference between mastubation and sex, right?

Something just struck me as I've read this part, so I have to point it out and ask if I am right about this -- it seems to me that since our brains are *part of us*, then the body does "know" how to separate between sex and masturbation?

 

I am not sure how relevant this is for evolution, as was pointed out in the thread, but I was just wondering about this part, specifically..

[iNow]

The question is a little too general. The "brain" as a whole doesn't know anything. There will be certain parts of the brain and body being activated as if actual coitus were occurring, no difference. Most of the mechanisms will follow the same course and activate in the same ways. It's kind of like a car... doesn't matter who is driving, as the key bits are in turning the key, igniting the engine, and adding more gas to get the pistons and cams churning.

 

There will, though, be slight differences mostly in the brain. The touch and scent receptors, for example, will be able to tell the difference, and also those emotional/memory areas that associate positive feelings attributed to another person will not really be activated.

 

When we touch someone, feel them against us, and smell them, it creates a whole different set of neural cascades and chemicals that make us feel differently than simply touching ourselves. The difference is in the perceptual and emotional machinery, but when viewed only from the body and its component parts, there is no real difference.

 

So, it really depends on how broadly you define brain/body, and which specific area to which one is referring. In some areas, there really are no differences, but in others the differences are profound.

[SkepticLance]

To mooeypoo

An orgasm, whether male or female, whether generated by sex, or masturbation, or even third type of stimulation, will generate biochemical changes. For example : there is a release of pleasure giving and pain deadening endorphins. The brain cannot detect the difference between causes, but experiences the effects, of these biochemical changes.

 

Frequent male orgasms, for example, result in a higher background level of testosterone. Again, the effects can be profound, but the brain is not geared to knowing the difference between testosterone from orgasms, and from other sources - even injection.

 

Female orgasms no doubt also generate changes in sex related hormones. I suspect an increase in oxytocin, but I am not up to date on the effects of orgasms on hormone balance in the female body.