Benefits and Drawbacks of Sexual Abstinence

[Moontanman]

This is because science is a slow process and takes time to catch up toconfirming facts of nature. Also I'd said nothing about hormones aside fromstating the research. It is sufficient grounds to confirm my claims.

 

So what? If you want to wait for X number of years for research onthe nootropic benefits to make life-changes while there have been examplesafter examples of people seeing the benefits of abstinence, then its reallyyour loss not mine. Life is an uphill battle and we need every nuance of ourbody to work in our favor. Sacrificing long-term gains for short-term pleasureis myopic.

 

Science isn't everything. It is slow to name one of its flawsthough it is the very foundation of all we know. But Intuition is a veryvaluable asset that guides further research. Believe what you will, these twotopics-mine and the previous one on celibacy-should be enough to convince youthat there are at the very least some benefits to abstinence.

 

I've made no attempts at trying to pass off my claims as scientifically congruent. I am hoping to appeal to your intuition through available information in human culture thus far.

 

 

Since we are obviously just dealing with opinions here, I think that sex enhances your life, mental concentration, ups your self esteem and has no harmful side effects.

 

The links I provided would seem to indicate that ejaculation is a trivial event as far as cost to the organism, unless you can show that ejaculation contains some significant amounts of something the body has only in very short supply I see no way your assertion can be shown to true.

 

You have no understanding of science or what evidence means, claims made by people who's philosophy centers around the glorification of seminal fluid as some sort of essence of a man and is in short supply is silly. Most of this idea that ejaculation is somehow bad thing also comes from religious people who have a problem with any sex that doesn't result in a baby.

 

Intuition is meaningless in the absence of evidence... If you want to abstain from sex I say go for it but you have not given us any reason what so ever to think that ejaculation is anything but a trivial event that matters very little if any in the long term health of an individual.

[iNow]

I've made no attempts at trying to pass off my claims as scientifically congruent. I am hoping to appeal to your intuition through available information in human culture thus far.

Intuition is no match for evidence. If it were, quantum mechanics would not work and nor would your computer or GPS.

[Miser]

Since we are obviously just dealing with opinions here, I think that sex enhances your life, mental concentration, ups your self esteem and has no harmful side effects.

 

The links I provided would seem to indicate that ejaculation is a trivial event as far as cost to the organism, unless you can show that ejaculation contains some significant amounts of something the body has only in very short supply I see no way your assertion can be shown to true.

 

You have no understanding of science or what evidence means, claims made by people who's philosophy centers around the glorification of seminal fluid as some sort of essence of a man and is in short supply is silly. Most of this idea that ejaculation is somehow bad thing also comes from religious people who have a problem with any sex that doesn't result in a baby.

 

Intuition is meaningless in the absence of evidence... If you want to abstain from sex I say go for it but you have not given us any reason what so ever to think that ejaculation is anything but a trivial event that matters very little if any in the long term health of an individual.

 

It is thus necessary to explain the values behind such claims. If a person seeks intelligence and contribution to society through career achievement as the end goal of life, then abstinence is a worthy sacrifice. In terms of the average Joe, masturbation can serve a very useful utility indeed to prevent many social ills .

 

My main argument revolves around its drug-like qualities; its relevance in dopamine and opiate receptors. Having it as a goto habit for anything ranging from low-self-esteem(not saying that you have it), depression, anxiety and boredom is not productive. There are better things to do that will benefit society or the self like playing an instrument or working on a project that is long overdue. And please don't try to claim that you jerk off only because your shooting off poisonous toxins so that you don't get prostate cancer. Most people I know are "dependent" on this habit as its hard for them to go a day without it.

 

Also, it may have nootropic effects, but it isn't yet substantiated by science. Such tests would be simple, have experimental group abstain from any sexual behavior for an X number of days, then run a battery of cognitive tests to see if abstinence can improve cognition or memory or concentration or any of my claims. Sounds easy, but curiously, it hasn't been done. Not once. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of its absence. So stay tuned.

 

To claim that I have no understanding in science is an insult. Why else would I repeat that there isn't research if I don't understand the importance of research on knowing. Do you go into science so you can feel superior to people by winning arguments? That is very unpleasant to say the least

 

 

I challenge you to go 15 days without masturbation. Only then will you find out how dependent you are on this habit and how much energy you'll have for life.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Miser

[Moontanman]

It is thus necessary to explain the values behind such claims. If a person seeks intelligence and contribution to society through career achievement as the end goal of life, then abstinence is a worthy sacrifice. In terms of the average Joe, masturbation can serve a very useful utility indeed to prevent many social ills .

 

Again you are assuming that masturbation detracts from life in some way, I see no reason what so ever to assume anything of the kind.

 

 

My main argument revolves around its drug-like qualities; its relevance in dopamine and opiate receptors. Having it as a goto habit for anything ranging from low-self-esteem(not saying that you have it), depression, anxiety and boredom is not productive. There are better things to do that will benefit society or the self like playing an instrument or working on a project.

 

Just exactly how much time a day do you spend masturbating, for me it couldn't be more than 30 minutes or so. Again you need to show some reason why masturbation has those effects, so far you have not done so. I could masturbate several times a day with no significant time taken up.

 

Also, it may have nootropic effects, but it isn't yet substantiated by science. Such tests would be simple, have experimental group abstain from any sexual behavior for an X number of days, then run a battery of cognitive tests to see if abstinence can improve cognition or memory or concentration or any of my claims. Sounds easy, but curiously, it hasn't been done. Not once. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of its absence. So stay tuned.

 

The fact that an ejaculation is a trivial event in it's cost to an organism would seem to show you are wrong and that your ideas are in fact based on your own problems with masturbation not any evidence it harms anyone.

 

To claim that I have no understanding in science is an insult. Why else would I repeat that there isn't research if I don't understand the importance of research on knowing. Do you go into science so you can feel superior to people by winning arguments? That is very unpleasant to say the least

 

Quite the contrary I stand by what i said, you ignore anything that disagrees with you and only use meaningless drivel to support your stance.

 

I challenge you to go 15 days without masturbation. Only then will you find out how dependent you are on this habit and how much energy you'll have for life.

 

 

I am 57 years old, i have in my life spent much longer time periods not masturbating it had no effect on me other than my dreams became very overtly sexual. BTW, i have plenty of energy for life, how can you assume I am lacking in energy because I have sex regularly?

 

You seem to want to make an ASS/U/Me, you keep making these sweeping claims that make no sense...

 

I think you need to look deep inside your own mind and figure out why you seem to be obsessed with masturbation...

[iNow]

Miser obviously is content to make shit up and not support a single thing he says. He's doing little more than spreading old wives tales. It's unfortunate that he doesn't realize how weak his position here is.

[Ringer]

It is thus necessary to explain the values behind such claims. If a person seeks intelligence and contribution to society through career achievement as the end goal of life, then abstinence is a worthy sacrifice. In terms of the average Joe, masturbation can serve a very useful utility indeed to prevent many social ills .

 

Seeing that over 90% of people masturbate and many people still succeed in life, the idea that people who seek intelligence and contribute to society don't masturbate is pretty ridiculous.

 

My main argument revolves around its drug-like qualities; its relevance in dopamine and opiate receptors. Having it as a goto habit for anything ranging from low-self-esteem(not saying that you have it), depression, anxiety and boredom is not productive. There are better things to do that will benefit society or the self like playing an instrument or working on a project that is long overdue. And please don't try to claim that you jerk off only because your shooting off poisonous toxins so that you don't get prostate cancer. Most people I know are "dependent" on this habit as its hard for them to go a day without it.

 

Your main argument can be extended to ANYTHING that makes you feel happy. How do you know these people are dependent on masturbation? Did they fill out a survey? How do you know that they are the only ones that do it, maybe they are just the only ones you notice.

 

 

To claim that I have no understanding in science is an insult. Why else would I repeat that there isn't research if I don't understand the importance of research on knowing. Do you go into science so you can feel superior to people by winning arguments? That is very unpleasant to say the least

 

Does that mean you know you insulted the rest of us in your earlier comment? Why would you use the lack of specific research to give ridiculous ideas?

 

I challenge you to go 15 days without masturbation. Only then will you find out how dependent you are on this habit and how much energy you'll have for life.

 

Done that, nothing changed other than achieving orgasm faster than usual when I resumed.

[Moontanman]

The only thing I've noticed from abstaining from sex is that I think about sex more and more, in fact it becomes quite distracting...

[iNow]

I'd like to know why and how Miser thinks masturbation is functionally different from getting a hand job, blow job, or engaging in coitus.

[Miser]

In light of the lack of evidence, I submit to further discussion. There needs to be more research done on the topic. This could be made more complicated by the fact that abstinence is effective when one follows a particular Taoist guideline of redirecting your essence. Otherwise one becomes agitated, aggressive and thinks about sex all the time. This generalizes to coitus with a partner and the goal in that would be to refrain from ejaculation thereby reaping what they call the full body orgasm. This entails up to six hours of feeling invigorated. So bottom-line is, if you expel your seed while awake, then you are no longer abstinent.

 

There's also, again anecdotal reports of people feeling more social when they refrain from masturbation and yes thats subject to confounds too.

 

The only available doctrine that backs up my claims are religious and spiritual practices which doesn't hold water in the court of science. I have read here and there that its used as a means to achieve greater things but alas science is not on my side. Here's a link if you're interested in reading religious philosophy on masturbation. http://www.godrealiz...sturbation.html

 

iNow, do you not realize that I realize the weakness of my positions but merely trying to appeal to the intuition of people. I am not here to prove anything, I rather do that in real life where I can be rewarded. I am trying to get a sound discussion on masturbation going; testing the waters, if you will, on this hunch of mine, and dare I say many others. Without hunches like these, there would be no progress in science.

 

Does it not make you wonder why so many religions abhor masturbation? From an evolutionary perspective, is it possible that it serves an adaptive purpose?

 

I'd like to conclude with my flawed opinion that people of science are less inclined to do research on the ills of masturbation as it would go against a culture that stigmatizes anything that has a trace of conservative ideology. Perhaps in time we will discover more about this issue

 

Seeing that over 90% of people masturbate and many people still succeed in life, the idea that people who seek intelligence and contribute to society don't masturbate is pretty ridiculous.

 

 

 

Your main argument can be extended to ANYTHING that makes you feel happy. How do you know these people are dependent on masturbation? Did they fill out a survey? How do you know that they are the only ones that do it, maybe they are just the only ones you notice.

 

 

 

 

Does that mean you know you insulted the rest of us in your earlier comment? Why would you use the lack of specific research to give ridiculous ideas?

 

 

 

Done that, nothing changed other than achieving orgasm faster than usual when I resumed.

 

The real statistic of people who masturbate is 61 percent.

 

This activity works directly on your dopamine and opiate receptors. It is much easier than most other things in life that would give the same amount of pleasure. However, admittedly, dependency may be a stretch. In the yourbrainonporn.com community, the chaser-effect occurs after masturbation. It's basically "After you masturbate, you would crave to do it again shortly after". This exemplifies the powerful lure masturbation has on men.

 

Read all that I wrote. I've acknowledged that already.

 

I'm just happy that abstaining from this has brought me a great deal of control over life. Indeed, that energy has to go somewhere if the pressure valve is kept closed and it hasn't let me down so far. Do what you will, it's your body and your life.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Miser

[Moontanman]

In light of the lack of evidence, I submit to further discussion. There needs to be more research done on the topic. This could be made more complicated by the fact that abstinence is effective when one follows a particular Taoist guideline of redirecting your essence. Otherwise one becomes agitated, aggressive and thinks about sex all the time. This generalizes to coitus with a partner and the goal in that would be to refrain from ejaculation thereby reaping what they call the full body orgasm. This entails up to six hours of feeling invigorated.

 

There's also, again anecdotal reports of people feeling more social when they refrain from masturbation and yes thats subject to confounds too.

 

The only available doctrine that backs up my claims are religious and spiritual practices which doesn't hold water in the court of science. I have read here and there that its used as a means to achieve greater things but alas science is not on my side.

 

iNow, do you not realize that I realize the weakness of my positions but merely trying to appeal to the intuition of people. I am not here to prove anything, I rather do that in real life where I can be rewarded. I am trying to get a sound discussion on masturbation going; testing the waters, if you will, on this hunch of mine, and dare I say many others. Without hunches like these, there would be no progress in science.

 

Does it not make you wonder why so many religions abhor masturbation? From an evolutionary perspective, is it possible that it serves an adaptive purpose?

 

I'd like to conclude with my flawed opinion that people of science are less inclined to do research on the ills of masturbation as it would go against a culture that stigmatizes anything that has a trace of conservative ideology. Perhaps in time we will discover more about this issue

 

 

 

 

The real statistic of people who masturbate is 61 percent.

 

This activity works directly on your dopamine and opiate receptors. It is much easier than most other things in life that would give the same amount of pleasure. However, dependency may be a stretch.

 

 

Read all that I wrote. I've acknowledged that already.

 

 

There are people who masturbate and those who lie about it. The reason so many religious philosophies seem to say masturbation is harmful is due to their need to control everyone, they are the same dolts who say a mans semen is his essence and contains too much in the way of nutrients to be allowed to be wasted. This is demonstrably not true as the links i have already provided show.

 

many people are uncomfortable with sex due to upbringing, religion, and i am sure there are other factors but you are approaching this from the wrong direction. If you want info on this remember that investigations do not start out trying to prove or disprove something. The correct attitude would be what are the effects of sex on the human body. Not how can I show that sex is bad for the human body, it shows you have an agenda and that agenda is not neutral but in fact fueled by your own sexual views, all you are doing is trying to justify your own views, this is not science or the way to proceed with studying something...

 

old wives tales are not the way to investigate something...

 

 

damn I'm gonna have to shave my palms again! and where are my glasses...

Edited November 21, 2012 by Moontanman

[iNow]

iNow, do you not realize that I realize the weakness of my positions but merely trying to appeal to the intuition of people.

I honestly don't know WHAT you realize, but I don't care. You're here making tons of assertions and you've proven completely incapable of supporting any of them in a meaningful way. You've also plainly failed to answer any of the on-topic questions put you or to defend against the criticisms of your points. Finally... Let's be clear here... I'm not defending masturbation. I'm merely attacking your bullshit posts and specious arguments.

[Miser]

There are people who masturbate and those who lie about it. The reason so many religious philosophies seem to say masturbation is harmful is due to their need to control everyone, they are the same dolts who say a mans semen is his essence and contains too much in the way of nutrients to be allowed to be wasted. This is demonstrably not true as the links i have already provided show.

 

many people are uncomfortable with sex due to upbringing, religion, and i am sure there are other factors but you are approaching this from the wrong direction. If you want info on this remember that investigations do not start out trying to prove or disprove something. The correct attitude would be what are the effects of sex on the human body. Not how can I show that sex is bad for the human body, it shows you have an agenda and that agenda is not neutral but in fact fueled by your own sexual views, all you are doing is trying to justify your own views, this is not science or the way to proceed with studying something...

 

old wives tales are not the way to investigate something...

 

 

damn I'm gonna have to shave my palms again! and where are my glasses...

 

Let's not completely deny old wives tales either. As Nietzsche once said "What if truth is a woman." Women approach truth from a whole different perspective, wholly different from that of philosophy and science. Their subjectivity sometimes stumble upon truth that can only be achieved through tediousness via men.

 

One has to see that religion gets things right some of the time too. Embedded in the practice are many structures that needs to made sense of from a modern scientific perspective. Especially in the realm of ethics is where I find religion to be powerful. The seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride are all shown to be less than productive means of going about life through my studies in psychology.

 

 

What abstinence could do to benefit a person could be many. It could be, by withholding sex and thereby deriving from a habit and achieving a goal, strengthen one's willpower as achieving small incremental goals and deriving from habits has been shown to increase willpower.

 

I've read widely on the subject and I know that it has at least some form of effect on the human psyche and not all of it positive. Nothing ever is wholly positive.

 

The most important aspect of abstinence to me-the nootropic effects of it-hasn't any scientific backing as of this point. But as I said before absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I know this doesn't make too convincing a case, but I look forward to the day when I have the privilege of conducting such a research.

 

I honestly don't know WHAT you realize, but I don't care. You're here making tons of assertions and you've proven completely incapable of supporting any of them in a meaningful way. You've also plainly failed to answer any of the on-topic questions put you or to defend against the criticisms of your points. Finally... Let's be clear here... I'm not defending masturbation. I'm merely attacking your bullshit posts and specious arguments.

 

Gee, you must be a real winner in real life. If all knowledge is to you is the combative conquest of an opponent, then you must have lots of anger toward life.

 

I've addressed your responses as best as available knowledge has to offer. You pick and choose what I've said to respond to.

 

Science is a mere means to making knowledge more concrete and precise. I am merely paving the way with findings outside of science. Meditation was only recently confirmed through fMRI to induce neurogenesis in the medial prefrontal cortex yet it was known for thousands of years that its conducive to well-being.

 

I will prove my assertions in time. In the mean time, keep on jerking it, it's your life that you're wasting away. Not mine

[Ringer]

The real statistic of people who masturbate is 61 percent.

 

I may have highballed a bit, but I've almost never seen a good statistic that low for masturbation. http://www.kinseyins...ml#masturbation

 

This activity works directly on your dopamine and opiate receptors. It is much easier than most other things in life that would give the same amount of pleasure. However, admittedly, dependency may be a stretch. In the yourbrainonporn.com community, the chaser-effect occurs after masturbation. It's basically "After you masturbate, you would crave to do it again shortly after". This exemplifies the powerful lure masturbation has on men.

 

No, this is called someone with an addiction problem. If someone has a tendency toward addiction it doesn't matter if it's work, masturbation, heroin, exercise, etc they will be obsessive about it. It's not the masturbation itself.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Ringer

[Miser]

I may have highballed a bit, but I've almost never seen a good statistic that low for masturbation. http://www.kinseyins...ml#masturbation

 

 

 

No, this is called someone with an addiction problem. If someone has a tendency toward addiction it doesn't matter if it's work, masturbation, heroin, exercise, etc they will be obsessive about it. It's not the masturbation itself.

 

 

Great site. This is where I found my statistics http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/200903/how-common-is-masturbation-really

 

Again, I can't claim anything that has any scientific backing. But I think each time one masturbates, one consumes an amount of energy disproportion to the time spent doing the activity. It is common to hear boys do it every single day. Whether this is addiction, or habituation is up to debate. If it is true that it drains one's energy and it occurs on a regular basis, then the effects would add up dramatically.

 

Me, and the OP, both understand that there isn't research to back this claim up. To take a step back though, many men are reaping the rewards of pornographic abstinence which must be done coupled with masturbation. I'm curious as to whether the abstinence of masturbation has as big an effect on the increase in function that so many men saw.

 

 

More on www.yourbrainonporn.com

 

As a side note, this site is not motivated by the religious. All the claims are substantiated by citations to peer reviewed research on neuroscience.

[John Cuthber]

OK, lets do science.

The suggestion has been put forward that masturbation causes poor thinking. (The claim isn't new: I think we can say it's at least as old as Plato)

 

It would be interesting to check that hypothesis directly by experimentation .

Take a statistically large group of people and assign them (in fairly early adolescence) randomly to the masturbating group or the control group then somehow enforce that behaviour.

I don't see the ethics committee accepting that suggestion for a research project.

 

OK, direct experimentation is out.

 

Can we do a retrospective study?

Well, sort of. There have been two, and they give contradictory outcomes.

I'm guessing that the results were distorted by some sort of bias, probably related to prudishness etc.

I can't think of a way to avoid that sort of thing in any similar study.

 

Also (probably more importantly I think) there are many confounding variables which we don't know about so we can't correct for them

 

So retrospective studies are out.

 

What's left?

 

How about a thought experiment?

Let's consider a pair of hypothetical populations 1 and 2 where the suggestion is true and false respectively.

How will they fair over the generations?

 

We need to agree a few other parameters.

As has already been pointed out, there's no way for the man's body to "tell" if it's ejaculating in company or on his own (or, indeed in the company of another man- but that's another story). (In the absence of any plausible mechanism suggesting otherwise, this is the only reasonable assumption)

 

So in population 1 where the suggestion is true men who have a lot of sex won't be bright. (And the corollary of that is that the bright men won't have a lot of sex- especially if they are bright enough to realise that it's bad for them).

 

In population 2 there will be no such correlation.

 

It's reasonable to assume that randiness and intellect are initially randomly distributed.

 

What will evolution do to these populations?

 

In population 1 the children will be predominantly fathered by the fecund men and, in this group that means most of the fathers are dim.

 

In population 2 there will be a random spread of intelligence among fathers- some dim and some bright.

 

Intelligence is, to at least some extent, a heritable trait.

So, the children in the first group will, on average, be less bright than their parents.

On the other hand, the children in the second population will have the same intelligence as the parents.

 

Let this repeat and the effect will be clear.

Population 1 will have a steadily falling mean intelligence.

On the other hand, the second group's intelligence will not be affected by this and so should remain constant.

 

 

Now, let's compare our theoretical populations to the real people.

Is I Q falling?

No, if anything it's rising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

 

So I conclude that our populations observed rise (or, at least not fall) in IQ with time is

1 consistent with sex not being bad for the brain

2 inconsistent with the original suggestion by Plato and others.

3 consistent with the idea that sex is good for the brain.

 

We can , therefore, on the basis of the available evidence, reject the suggestion implicit in the OP.

Edited November 21, 2012 by John Cuthber

[Miser]

OK, lets do science.

The suggestion has been put forward that masturbation causes poor thinking. (The claim isn't new: I think we can say it's at least as old as Plato)

 

It would be interesting to check that hypothesis directly by experimentation .

Take a statistically large group of people and assign them (in fairly early adolescence) randomly to the masturbating group or the control group then somehow enforce that behaviour.

I don't see the ethics committee accepting that suggestion for a research project.

 

OK, direct experimentation is out.

 

Can we do a retrospective study?

Well, sort of. There have been two, and they give contradictory outcomes.

I'm guessing that the results were distorted by some sort of bias, probably related to prudishness etc.

I can't think of a way to avoid that sort of thing in any similar study.

 

Also (probably more importantly I think) there are many confounding variables which we don't know about so we can't correct for them

 

So retrospective studies are out.

 

What's left?

 

How about a thought experiment?

Let's consider a pair of hypothetical populations 1 and 2 where the suggestion is true and false respectively.

How will they fair over the generations?

 

We need to agree a few other parameters.

As has already been pointed out, there's no way for the man's body to "tell" if it's ejaculating in company or on his own (or, indeed in the company of another man- but that's another story). (In the absence of any plausible mechanism suggesting otherwise, this is the only reasonable assumption)

 

So in population 1 where the suggestion is true men who have a lot of sex won't be bright. (And the corollary of that is that the bright men won't have a lot of sex- especially if they are bright enough to realise that it's bad for them).

 

In population 2 there will be no such correlation.

 

It's reasonable to assume that randiness and intellect are initially randomly distributed.

 

What will evolution do to these populations?

 

In population 1 the children will be predominantly fathered by the fecund men and, in this group that means most of the fathers are dim.

 

In population 2 there will be a random spread of intelligence among fathers- some dim and some bright.

 

Intelligence is, to at least some extent, a heritable trait.

So, the children in the first group will, on average, be less bright than their parents.

On the other hand, the children in the second population will have the same intelligence as the parents.

 

Let this repeat and the effect will be clear.

Population 1 will have a steadily falling mean intelligence.

On the other hand, the second group's intelligence will not be affected by this and so should remain constant.

 

 

Now, let's compare our theoretical populations to the real people.

Is I Q falling?

No, if anything it's rising

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Flynn_effect

 

So I conclude that our populations observed rise (or, at least not fall) in IQ with time is

1 consistent with sex not being bad for the brain

2 inconsistent with the original suggestion by Plato and others.

3 consistent with the idea that sex is good for the brain.

 

We can , therefore, on the basis of the available evidence, reject the suggestion implicit in the OP.

 

 

Fair thought experiment. I would argue that an experiment would be permitted by an ethics committee because similar experiments were conducted in the past-notably the Chinese experiment. An experiment of the kind proposed earlier-involving abstinence and non-abstinence group followed by a battery of cognitive tests would be the ONLY kind of experiment that would ward against confounds.

 

Our rising IQ can be due to many concurrent environmental reasons. Members of countries with enriched environments tend to have higher IQs than those who do not. Nutrition may also be a factor in early childhood IQ development. So we would expect an increasing trend of IQ over time and this is what has been found.

 

Also, an assumption of the phenotypic IQ, modified by abstinence, is passed on wholesale to the next generation may also be illusory.

 

Lastly, IQ may not the only trait appropriate for measure. Recall, focus, cognition and reflex may all be possible areas of study.

 

 

P.S.: I'm glad this has moved to its rightful home in "Speculation".

Edited November 21, 2012 by Miser

[John Cuthber]

" I would argue that an experiment would be permitted by an ethics committee because similar experiments were conducted in the past-notably the Chinese experiment. "

Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of an ethics committee. How would you like to be in the (compulsory) masturbating group?

 

To avoid (at least some of) the confounding factors you would need a randomised double blind study (make up your own punch lines folks)

 

"Also, IQ may not the only trait appropriate for measure. Recall, focus, cognition and reflex may all be possible areas of study."

which would be relevant if you could show evidence that they are falling, but I don't think there's any evidence for that.

[Ringer]

Great site. This is where I found my statistics http://www.psycholog...urbation-really

 

That's why I said good statistic. The percent they found was from face to face interviews. They'll teach you in virtually any research class that when asking very personal questions it should be done anonymously and without an interviewer.

 

Again, I can't claim anything that has any scientific backing. But I think each time one masturbates, one consumes an amount of energy disproportion to the time spent doing the activity. It is common to hear boys do it every single day. Whether this is addiction, or habituation is up to debate. If it is true that it drains one's energy and it occurs on a regular basis, then the effects would add up dramatically.

 

How much energy do you think is expended. You could do rough calculations fairly easily, though it would be a bit time consuming.

 

Me, and the OP, both understand that there isn't research to back this claim up. To take a step back though, many men are reaping the rewards of pornographic abstinence which must be done coupled with masturbation. I'm curious as to whether the abstinence of masturbation has as big an effect on the increase in function that so many men saw.

 

Why would pornographic abstinence be coupled with masturbation?

 

 

 

[Miser]

That's why I said good statistic. The percent they found was from face to face interviews. They'll teach you in virtually any research class that when asking very personal questions it should be done anonymously and without an interviewer.

 

 

 

How much energy do you think is expended. You could do rough calculations fairly easily, though it would be a bit time consuming.

 

 

 

Why would pornographic abstinence be coupled with masturbation?

 

 

 

 

Science has a lot of dirty work that's not for the faint of heart. All the better, I'm willing to make that sacrifice. I've recently broken out of my nihilistic despair and found the meaning of life and that's to contribute to society as efficiently as possible. Society, in turn, will reward you proportionally to your contribution.

 

Its hard to say. And I hate to give you my subjective experience because it could be confounded. But I must say, in brief, abstaining from masturbation has made me much more productive in that I crave social activity and exercise because they are necessary to fill the void masturbation left. Like the OP said, I can feel my breathing becoming strained as another day is added and the only way for that to go away is to step on the treadmill.

 

So I'm going to put my foot down and say masturbation is an unnecessary habit and gives one a reward that comes too easily; going back to its relevant biochemical pathways-dopamine, opiates-, its 'danger' primarily lies in its similarity in why the general consensus of cocaine and heroin is bad. It makes one content in doing nothing. So in this sense, because one is content, one feels less motivated to get the reward from external, more productive sources.

 

The people that the website attracts are usually addicts of porn who watches porn and jerks off on a daily basis. There has been links between depression and social-anxiety and excessive porn use (intensity ranging from normal hardcore videos to fetishes to even transexual porn). To wean off pornography, it is proposed to go ninety days without porn so as to "rewire" (plenty of information on what this means on the website) their brains normally-a daunting task for most. So in order for this to be maximally effective, one should abstain from any cues that would even remind one of porn. Naturally, this includes masturbation, even without porn, because its likely that one would use fantasy from porn to aid this process. Also, masturbation causes what's called the chaser effect, during which one feels a strong sexual burning to masturbate again.

 

Also, to respond to a comment that was posted a while back, I have no religious affiliations. Though I've become more conservative over the years, it is because I see myself as an open-minded liberal. Reason triumphs but one must not neglect the emotional/subjective side of life. Especially that of poetry because poetry can be a source of eternal truth that complements scientific truth to make our understanding of the world whole.

 

Sorry for the babbling, its very cathartic you see.

 

" I would argue that an experiment would be permitted by an ethics committee because similar experiments were conducted in the past-notably the Chinese experiment. "

Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of an ethics committee. How would you like to be in the (compulsory) masturbating group?

 

To avoid (at least some of) the confounding factors you would need a randomised double blind study (make up your own punch lines folks)

 

"Also, IQ may not the only trait appropriate for measure. Recall, focus, cognition and reflex may all be possible areas of study."

which would be relevant if you could show evidence that they are falling, but I don't think there's any evidence for that.

 

The better question would be "who wouldn't want to be in the compulsory masturbating group"? That's why you pay them a sum of money so they would do it. Though compliance could be an issue. My brain hurts

 

No, there's not. These are just the patterns I've seen.

[Ringer]

Science has a lot of dirty work that's not for the faint of heart. All the better, I'm willing to make that sacrifice. I've recently broken out of my nihilistic despair and found the meaning of life and that's to contribute to society as efficiently as possible. Society, in turn, will reward you proportionally to your contribution.

 

Its hard to say. And I hate to give you my subjective experience because it could be confounded. But I must say, in brief, abstaining from masturbation has made me much more productive in that I crave social activity and exercise because they are necessary to fill the void masturbation left. Like the OP said, I can feel my breathing becoming strained as another day is added and the only way for that to go away is to step on the treadmill.

 

Well if we're going on subjective experience I'll give it a go. I masturbate fairly regularly, am married, am double majoring in college, work as a lab tech, am a wrestling instructor, train in muay thai and jiu jitsu, currently researching lamprey photoreceptor development, and currently researching effects on the opacity of language in reading comprehension. I would say that masturbation isn't detrimental in me being productive.

 

So I'm going to put my foot down and say masturbation is an unnecessary habit and gives one a reward that comes too easily; going back to its relevant biochemical pathways-dopamine, opiates-, its 'danger' primarily lies in its similarity in why the general consensus of cocaine and heroin is bad. It makes one content in doing nothing. So in this sense, because one is content, one feels less motivated to get the reward from external, more productive sources.

 

Unnecessary habit, yes, but so are the thousands of other things people do every day (like visiting a web forum). Like I said, your argument extends to any activity that makes you feel good. The general consensus of why cocaine and heroin are bad has nothing to do with the biochemical pathways it works on. Since morphine and other opiates are still legal as a prescription and it has the same biochemical pathways there is obviously more to it. So your argument falls flat at its face.

 

The people that the website attracts are usually addicts of porn who watches porn and jerks off on a daily basis. There has been links between depression and social-anxiety and excessive porn use (intensity ranging from normal hardcore videos to fetishes to even transexual porn). To wean off pornography, it is proposed to go ninety days without porn so as to "rewire" (plenty of information on what this means on the website) their brains normally-a daunting task for most. So in order for this to be maximally effective, one should abstain from any cues that would even remind one of porn. Naturally, this includes masturbation, even without porn, because its likely that one would use fantasy from porn to aid this process. Also, masturbation causes what's called the chaser effect, during which one feels a strong sexual burning to masturbate again.

 

Again, this is a problem with addiction, not masturbation in itself. The arguments 'masturbation is bad' and 'excessive masturbation is bad' are completely different. Also, I know what it means when it says rewire, but it's an overhyped term. It's not a daunting task to rewire the brain, it happens everyday.

 

Also, to respond to a comment that was posted a while back, I have no religious affiliations. Though I've become more conservative over the years, it is because I see myself as an open-minded liberal. Reason triumphs but one must not neglect the emotional/subjective side of life. Especially that of poetry because poetry can be a source of eternal truth that complements scientific truth to make our understanding of the world whole.

 

No one is saying to neglect the emotional side of life, it's just that it shouldn't be part of an objective (i.e. scientific) argument.

 

 

The better question would be "who wouldn't want to be in the compulsory masturbating group"? That's why you pay them a sum of money so they would do it. Though compliance could be an issue. My brain hurts

 

Those who have moral or religious problems with masturbation.

 

 

 

[John Cuthber]

Miser, you seem to have missed my point.

Evolution selects strongly against "bad things" .

If there was a link between sex and "bad things" then evolution would select against that lin.

It would have died out by now.

 

In many cases in biology you should ask yourself

"What would evolution do?"

 

In this case it would destroy the effect you are talking about.

[Miser]

Miser, you seem to have missed my point.

Evolution selects strongly against "bad things" .

If there was a link between sex and "bad things" then evolution would select against that lin.

It would have died out by now.

 

In many cases in biology you should ask yourself

"What would evolution do?"

 

In this case it would destroy the effect you are talking about.

 

Evolution is not an adequate explanation for a lot of things. You can't say evolution explains a thing unless:

 

1) it is shown that individual or geographic variation in a trait has a genetic basis-in this case, masturbation is a behavior that could have its basis in our genotype but the choice to do it is not. Just because a behavior is conducive to reproductive success doesn't mean it is good for the individual. For example, take the disposable nature of males in recent history; sending boys off into war may prove to be productive for the population at large, but not for the individual soldiers. The behavior enhances the reproductive success of the group, but it potentially kills the individual. This doesn't mean abstinence can't be productive individually, especially in light of a technologically and socially demanding world.

 

2) The trait has to be shown to influence reproductive success. Without it, there is no basis for including that the trait evolved over evolutionary time by natural selection. In this case especially, we are talking about an activity that may potential strengthen one's body. To speculate: in many cases, masturbation is counterproductive to a species reproductive success as semen is being expended on personal satisfaction rather than fertilizing a female. It would be sensical to say that a male who is willing to retain his semen in his alone time would be more conducive to him passing on his gene because he'll be more driven to find a mate. Contrary to that, a male who fails to find a mate may use masturbation, during periods of solitude, to self-soothe, the adaptive advantage of masturbation in this case is a salve to mend pains. In any case, masturbation cannot be shown to affect reproductive success either way. And in neither cases does it contradict my claim that masturbation could boost one's mental and physical being-the best it could do, is to soothe a damaged ego. Though sex is undoubtedly helpful in reproduction, the man is satiated afterwards and often exhausted. And this too could be used as ammunition for my argument. One must be careful when appealing to evolution for its explanatory powers.

 

3) There also needs a mechanistic account explaining the links between the trait and reproductive success in the wild. Well many things humans do can't be found in the wild. Meditation doesn't exist in the wild. Neither does building sky-scrappers, driving cars, or going on the internet. Yet all these things are productive. Abstinence, along with all aforementioned activities, is a uniquely human feature. And its origin cannot, and should not be explained, through evolution.

 

4) The fourth type of evidence for adaptation concerns experiments. The hypothesis that variation in the trait is adaptive should be independently confirmed by experimentally manipulating the selective environment or the trait itself. Again, fundamentally, the behavior of abstinence is not a genotype but a behavior. It can be passed down through social means, if one chooses to have sex solely for reproduction, but not any other.

 

Take the case of the female orgasm. It is dubious whether evolution gives inadequate explanations because all the claims that's made on the basis of evolution doesn't account for its existence satisfactorily. Whether it has an adaptive function is very questionable. Its even found to occur in the females of species where the length of time of intercourse is insufficient for orgasm by stimulating their genitalia for a prolonged period. There is, at this point, no adequate evolutionary explanation for female orgasms. This should warn you against making rash evolutionary accounts on human behavior.

 

Much of this is taken from pages 4-6 in The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, written by Elisabeth A. Lloyd in case you want to check her book out. And before you think she's a creationist bashing science, she is not.

Edited November 22, 2012 by Miser

[iNow]

Take the case of the female orgasm. It is a question that evolution gives inadequate explanations because all the claims that's made on the basis of evolution doesn't account for its existence satisfactorily.

Sure they do. You're ignorance of the explanations does not mean those explanations do not exist. Seriously, Miser. You should try to avoid speaking with such confidence about subjects for which you clearly lack a full and functional understanding.

 

Here's just one article among a countless many that inarguably demonstrate how you've not read or educated yourself well enough on this subject: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/04/orgasm.aspx

[Miser]

Sure they do. You're ignorance of the explanations does not mean those explanations do not exist. Seriously, Miser. You should try to avoid speaking with such confidence about subjects for which you clearly lack a full and functional understanding.

 

Here's just one article among a countless many that inarguably demonstrate how you've not read or educated yourself well enough on this subject: http://www.apa.org/m.../04/orgasm.aspx

 

Why don't you sum it up for me so I know you read it instead of doing a quick google search. Women don't need orgasms to reproduce successfully. I won't comment further until you do.

 

You are quite a loser. I want you to think about how your life went wrong, get out of your house and do something worthwhile instead of being an anonymous asshole on the science forums

Edited November 22, 2012 by Miser

[iNow]

You are quite a loser. I want you to think about how your life went wrong, get out of your house and do something worthwhile instead of being an anonymous asshole on the science forums

Great approach there, champ. You have no idea who I am as a man nor what I do with my life nor all of the beauty and people in it, but none of that matters anyway. Personal insults are the last refuge of the intellectual coward and of those who have no quality arguments to make. It's perhaps no surprise that you began insulting people from the start.