I did nofap for a month back in 2012 after a friend said he was going to give it a go. I've never considered myself to have issues with sexuality or porn (I'm an advocate for indulging in both)...
I did nofap for a month back in 2012 after a friend said he was going to give it a go. I've never considered myself to have issues with sexuality or porn (I'm an advocate for indulging in both) but was interested to see if it was as difficult as the folks in r/nofap made it seem or if there were actually any benefits. Honestly, it had the outcome I expected and probably most stable folks do. I was slightly hornier and I had a minuscule amount of extra time in the day. All in all it was a wash. So I posted that. The response was a weird and aggressive. I was pretty surprised about the groups reaction. At that point I was still pretty taken with Reddit, most of the communities were still pretty welcoming. I'm not particularly surprised that Nofap is aligned with toxic masculinity spaces and seeming getting weirder.
It's also hijacking the month of Movember (or No Shave November), which is about prostate cancer awareness, and trying to promote not doing something that is thought to significantly lower your...
It's also hijacking the month of Movember (or No Shave November), which is about prostate cancer awareness, and trying to promote not doing something that is thought to significantly lower your risk. (It's known to be inversely correlated at a certain frequency, but I believe the causality is still inconclusive.)
Anyway, Cult Leader Starter Kit Item 1 is usually "socially control sexuality to make followers more compliant," so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's all tied to right wing lunatics. Same energy as ye olde laws prohibiting vibrators (still on the books in some places), or trying to ban birth control (coming to a Supreme Court near you, probably).
So there's population-based evidence that ejaculation frequency appears to have a significant correlation with reduced prostate cancer risk. The explanation for this effect is still lacking. In...
So there's population-based evidence that ejaculation frequency appears to have a significant correlation with reduced prostate cancer risk. The explanation for this effect is still lacking. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea to add a healthy bit of fapping or intercourse to your daily exercise routine, since there's no reliable evidence at all that there's any harm from it.
I'm terminally horny, and when nofap started I had some mild insecurity about how much I jerked off or if I should. Then I started seeing people talk about their "superpowers" and how they could...
I'm terminally horny, and when nofap started I had some mild insecurity about how much I jerked off or if I should. Then I started seeing people talk about their "superpowers" and how they could smell women menstruating and whatnot. Now I laugh.
Can you provide a scientific source for this debunking? We lack the specialized organ to detect pheromones, so unless smell in this case means literally just detecting a scent (and thus no induced...
the whole "humans can't smell pheromones" thing was debunked a while ago; a fun and interesting example is that liking of truffles appears to align relatively closely with sexual orientation, as they contain androstenone, a male-sex pheromone.
Can you provide a scientific source for this debunking? We lack the specialized organ to detect pheromones, so unless smell in this case means literally just detecting a scent (and thus no induced response outside of a normal smell/memory connection) then I find this difficult to believe.
Some humans may have physical remnants of a VNO, but it is vestigial and non-functional.
...
Among studies that use microanatomical methods, there is no reported evidence that human beings have active sensory neurons like those in working vomeronasal systems of other animals. Furthermore, there is no evidence to date that suggests there are nerve and axon connections between any existing sensory receptor cells that may be in the adult human VNO and the brain. Likewise, there is no evidence for any accessory olfactory bulb in adult human beings, and the key genes involved in VNO function in other mammals have pseudogenized in human beings. Therefore, while many debate the structure's presence in adult human beings, a review of the scientific literature by Tristram Wyatt concluded that on current evidence, "most in the field... are skeptical about the likelihood of a functional VNO in adult human beings."
Similar to @nCeon I'm interested in your source for this? A quick Google search doesn't suggest anything of the sort. I know that sows are often used in truffle hunting because they are attracted...
a fun and interesting example is that liking of truffles appears to align relatively closely with sexual orientation, as they contain androstenone, a male-sex pheromone).
Similar to @nCeon I'm interested in your source for this? A quick Google search doesn't suggest anything of the sort. I know that sows are often used in truffle hunting because they are attracted to the smell and will seek it out without training (and not male pigs), but I can't find any information on human sexuality and truffles. Anecdotally, as a bisexual man, I can't stand truffles, but I know straight men who like them so I'm not convinced without seeing further information about this.
***The top-level Tildes link seems to be broken, but the URL in the post description works? The article is accessible via search on the LA Review of Books site, or archive. From the article: I...
***The top-level Tildes link seems to be broken, but the URL in the post description works? The article is accessible via search on the LA Review of Books site, or archive.
From the article:
Men throughout history—from Pythagoras and Yeats to Kellogg’s and the Proud Boys—have been anxious about masturbation.
If you’ve spent time on the internet, you’ve undoubtedly heard of “No Nut November” (NNN)—an annual Reddit-based challenge that dares young men to abstain from ejaculating (or “nutting”) for the full 30 days of the month. While NNN has gone viral as a tongue-in-cheek meme in its own right since 2017, its anti-ejaculatory ethos can be traced to the online “NoFap” community, whose adherents—almost entirely cisgender, heterosexual men—tout its near-magical self-help benefits. There, abstaining from masturbation is presented as a tool not only for quitting addictions to pornography but also for curing depression, finding a girlfriend, succeeding in one’s career, and generally regaining confidence, autonomy, and masculine power.
The movement was founded in 2011 by web developer Alexander Rhodes, who was inspired by a 2003 study claiming that men who did not masturbate for seven days experienced a 145.7 percent spike in testosterone levels. Though the study was debunked in 2021, the popularity of its principles among men has skyrocketed. The r/NoFap subreddit currently boasts 1.1 million members, along with several hundred thousand on website forums and countless spin-off Facebook groups. One YouTube channel that promotes “fapstinence,” Improvement Pill, has amassed upwards of 4.6 million views for videos such as “Why the People of NoFap Become Successful.” Meanwhile, Stanford neuroscientist and self-styled wellness guru Andrew Huberman (who has 4.2 million YouTube subscribers), appears routinely on podcasts and interview circuits—including Jordan Peterson’s channel, which boasts 7.5 million—to preach the dangers of masturbation and its easy dopamine high, along with the focus, energy, and success that can be attained through abstaining from it. Some NoFappers limit themselves to policing masturbation as a solitary act and encourage men to seek real intimacy with real women, while hard-liners discourage ejaculation tout court in pursuit of the aforementioned testosterone magic.
As entertaining as an entire community of men bonded together by self-denied orgasms may be, the movement has a darker underbelly. While many NoFap adherents genuinely struggle with porn addiction, loneliness, and a dearth of intimacy, the community has also come under fire for its ties to far-right, fascist, and misogynistic groups. In the last years, numerous articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, and The New Statesman exposing the overlaps between NoFap and the Proud Boys, who make it a membership requirement to abstain from jerking off and to engage in toxic online campaigns harassing and threatening adult film stars. These campaigns are peppered with calls to “kill all pornographers” and with antisemitic conspiracy theories connecting the pornography industry to the “global cabal,” accusing the nonexistent group of promoting “degeneracy” and “moral decline” in the West. Likewise, NoFap ideology has taken root in many “involuntary celibate” (incel) forums. In addition to creating noxious communities of self-loathing, often spilling over into real-life violence, incels have acquired a negative reputation for their hatred of women, female sexual liberation, and feminism—which they interpret as forms of subjugation of men through denial of sex.
Nutting, it seems, has never been more in crisis: where to do it, whether to do it, and who to hate for doing it are all openly contested questions in masculine spaces, articulating a fundamental concern with men’s loss of power in a modern world that legally and technologically empowers women. And yet, the fear of fapping is not as simply vile or puerile as it may seem. Seed-spilling has served as a potent metaphor for anxieties over power long before being “extremely online” was even a possibility. There is a surprisingly long history to this fixation—stretching as far back as 4,000 years ago.
I thought long and hard about where to post this article... ~life, ~humanities, ~books... If, after reading it, someone else concludes there's a better spot, by all means, relocate the post. However, there's a running thread throughout on how the medical expertise of various periods underpinned the proclamations of individual and social harms from the most personally accessible of pleasures. It also explores the political and religious exploitation of common anxieties about sex, control, and power.
One of the best essays I've read in a while - enjoy and discuss!
Masturbation or sex does not “impede” the function of a person’s body. Quite the opposite, it is a function of the body. If anything, abstention is the abnormality.
Masturbation or sex does not “impede” the function of a person’s body. Quite the opposite, it is a function of the body. If anything, abstention is the abnormality.
While I don't know that I agree with you, I think it's odd to compare and contrast menstrual cycles to male masturbation and not, say, female masturbation.
While I don't know that I agree with you, I think it's odd to compare and contrast menstrual cycles to male masturbation and not, say, female masturbation.
Deleted my other comment as it was poorly worded rather than editing it to avoid confusion if a reply was being typed in response to a comment that I wholly altered afterwards. The disagreement...
Deleted my other comment as it was poorly worded rather than editing it to avoid confusion if a reply was being typed in response to a comment that I wholly altered afterwards.
The disagreement expressed in the 2nd comment was general about masturbation, meaning that was their view regardless of male or female. So it wouldn't make sense to compare male and female masturbation at that point. The disagreement was about "impeding" functions of the body, so OP of this comment chain chose a different function of the body to illustrate the point. At this point I don't even really care about the conversation itself, I just found the confusion over what was being stated to be a bit odd.
The initial comment talks in depth about young men and masturbation and compares the hormonal response to menstrual cycles. Ignoring the false binary being presented, it's bizarre to not compare...
The initial comment talks in depth about young men and masturbation and compares the hormonal response to menstrual cycles. Ignoring the false binary being presented, it's bizarre to not compare masturbation to masturbation.
My response was not about the 2nd person's comment or even the original commenter's response to it. It was just to the original commenter.
My hunch is that there isn’t a comparable prevalence of “no-fap” among women, but there is comparable prevalence of menstrual cycle alterations (through hormonal BC and pregnancy). I agree it...
My hunch is that there isn’t a comparable prevalence of “no-fap” among women, but there is comparable prevalence of menstrual cycle alterations (through hormonal BC and pregnancy). I agree it isn’t the best comparison.
I don't know if it's "comparable" in numbers as its about 65% of women's that used HBC alone. I actually am in favor of people addressing their pornography usage and probably finding something...
I don't know if it's "comparable" in numbers as its about 65% of women's that used HBC alone.
I actually am in favor of people addressing their pornography usage and probably finding something besides masturbation to do if it's that obsessive of a behavior, but I also don't think "no fap" is an ideal for the majority of folks of any gender.
I just think the assumption in the initial comment, and by many people is that men feel a biological and hormone driven desire to masturbate and that women (again, false binary but ) don't. Testosterone is gonna do what testosterone does, sure, but socialization is a huge part of this assumption. That and the fact that women are supposed to know all about men's bodies and habits but not vice-versa.
I still think women masturbating is rather more comparable to men masturbating as I think it effects women's hormones at least somewhat equivalently to men's. I am just pointing out a very...
I still think women masturbating is rather more comparable to men masturbating as I think it effects women's hormones at least somewhat equivalently to men's.
I am just pointing out a very lopsided comparison.
I think that masturbation effects women's hormones similarly to men's does not seem that complicated so I'm not sure what you're looking for in further detail, can you provide a counterpoint? And...
I think that masturbation effects women's hormones similarly to men's does not seem that complicated so I'm not sure what you're looking for in further detail, can you provide a counterpoint? And evidence for it?
Looking through studies, changes in the levels of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, prolactin, endocannabinoids,. norepinephrine, etc. all are side effects of orgasm and none of the studies I'm finding show a stark difference by gender.
Even if there are differences they're unlikely to be binary and very likely to be along a spectrum.
All of this is stimulated by immediate behavior quite different to an internally regulated cycle of hormones causing a menstrual cycle from aged 10-50ish as a primary sexual characteristic. It's wild to assume that stimulation of the same nerves after different development are less similar IMO
It seems like absent very strong evidence to the contrary, the obvious common sense assumption is that male masturbation is more similar to female masturbatiom than it is to menstruation.
It seems like absent very strong evidence to the contrary, the obvious common sense assumption is that male masturbation is more similar to female masturbatiom than it is to menstruation.
I didn’t raise an issue with your comparison because I didn’t want to argue with you. I have no idea why you are being so combative. But I would appreciate it if you would not assume I have some...
I didn’t raise an issue with your comparison because I didn’t want to argue with you. I have no idea why you are being so combative. But I would appreciate it if you would not assume I have some sort of ulterior motive.
I don't think trying to find a romantic partner has anything to do with masturbating and the correlation is tenuous at best. Loneliness as it is today is far more intricately linked with social...
I don't think trying to find a romantic partner has anything to do with masturbating and the correlation is tenuous at best.
Loneliness as it is today is far more intricately linked with social media, loss of the so-called "third places", and the overall polarization of the citizenry. In fact, I'd go as far as saying abstaining on purpose for the reason of trying to be more effective at finding a partner directly feeds into that by making the other sex binary: they either like you or don't, because you either masturbated or didn't. Which is quite frankly stupid.
If it's purely for the reason of experimentation just to see how your body responds then.. sure. No harm in that. Anything beyond that just becomes silly, if not downright harmful.
If I read your postulates correctly, it seems you've assumed the normal refractory period after orgasm, which usually lasts no more than 24 hours, accumulates to physiological or psychological...
If I read your postulates correctly, it seems you've assumed the normal refractory period after orgasm, which usually lasts no more than 24 hours, accumulates to physiological or psychological depletion of greater duration. There is no evidence for this assumption.
There is evidence for culturally-bound psychological and psychosomatic disorders arising from shame and anxiety about masturbation and semen loss. In fact, this paper is worth a read as a broad overview of the knowns and unknowns in health effects of male masturbation.
This part seems particularly relevant:
Human sexual behavior is influenced by psychosocial and cultural aspects and is not solely determined by biological factors. Literature on hypersexuality and problematic pornography consumption repeatedly found self-reported feelings of guilt, shame, or perceived wrongdoing in study participants. A phenomenon called “masturbatory guilt” has been described in individuals. Individuals who masturbate but on the other hand despise masturbation as morally reprehensible (Grubbs et al., 2019b) experience feelings of guilt. Superstition and ostracism have been banned from the general scientific discourse. However, it may persist in day-to-day behavior and thoughts of laypersons. Although societal attitudes have fundamentally changed, masturbation still remains a supplanted and tabooed topic for many. Negative effects of masturbation are caused by feelings of guilt, moral attitudes, and religious beliefs and not by the behavior itself, for which no ill effects have been found (Coleman, 2003). Pivotal for negative health effects of masturbation is a subjective evaluation of the behavior and its accompanying physical reactions. Massive guilt is experienced by some individuals, which then, in turn, influences psychological and relational well-being. One study (Castellini et al., 2016) reported that this so-called ego-dystonic masturbation was significantly related to higher scores of anxiety and depression scales, sexual dysfunctions, and relational as well as intrapsychic problems in a sample of over 4,000 human male outpatients of an andrology and sexual medicine clinic in Italy. The results indicate that masturbation seems to be a common behavior even in individuals with negative attitudes toward it. In their study, intra- and interindividual psychological strain was caused by the moral attitudes that were in conflict with the individual behavior. One study (Chakrabarti et al., 2002) portrays a man in a single-case study, who developed a depression of clinical extent on the ground of masturbatory guilt. He was successfully treated by providing education and information about human male sexuality and masturbation. Although this case study can only function for illustrative purposes, it underlines to which extent beliefs might mediate the relation between masturbation and health.
A theoretical framework that incorporates moral beliefs, norms, and personal attitudes has been proposed (Grubbs et al., 2019a, b). It provides a to-be-tested idea of how masturbatory behavior generally impacts mental health. The authors (Grubbs et al., 2019b) promote the idea that not the behavior itself or its frequency is the driving force in the reported psychological strain but its moral evaluation. Hence, self-reported psychological difficulties might be understood as an expression of moral incongruence: a discrepancy between beliefs and behavior. The theoretical framework was tested in exploratory studies in the area of pornography consumption, reporting that the strongest predictors of self-reported pornography addiction are religiousness and moral incongruence (Grubbs et al., 2019a). We believe that the framework could be suitably applied to masturbation accompanied by negative feelings.
It seems to me that rather than practicing a discipline of masturbatory abstinence, it might be more helpful to practice a discipline of self-acceptance and loving exploration of one's own body as necessary factors in building healthy relationships.
I fundamentally disagree that a partnership or finding a partner relies on sexdrive and therefore it's a non factor in the search for one. While I won't advocate for waiting on sex until marriage...
I fundamentally disagree that a partnership or finding a partner relies on sexdrive and therefore it's a non factor in the search for one. While I won't advocate for waiting on sex until marriage for a plethora of reasons, the fact that large amounts of people around the world put that concept into practice quite handily debunks the entire idea that you need sexdrive to find or be with a partner. For arguments sake I feel I should mention asexuality too. An entire personality trait sexual orientation that thrives on not having sex at all.
Again, for exploratory reasons I find no issue in trying to abstain or reduce. What I often see, and is highlighted in the article, is that under the veneer of exploration and self improvement is the idea that you should feel shame at not being able or wanting to abstain/reduce, as if you're actively damaging your self improvement; self improvement which isn't all that obvious in its results in the first place. I feel that is more damaging to people's psyche more so than just being sexually active.
Not disagreeing or agreeing with anything you said but I do want to flag the bolded portion below for possible revision: It is generally regarded as a sexual orientation, or lack thereof, not a...
Not disagreeing or agreeing with anything you said but I do want to flag the bolded portion below for possible revision:
For arguments sake I feel I should mention asexuality too. An entire personality trait that thrives on not having sex at all.
I rewrote that part a couple of times because I've had a long weekend and couldn't find the right word. Because it's a "lack of" sexual orientation I didn't want to call it that which it isn't....
I rewrote that part a couple of times because I've had a long weekend and couldn't find the right word. Because it's a "lack of" sexual orientation I didn't want to call it that which it isn't. But it isn't a personality trait either. Nevertheless, thanks for the correction, I'll edit that.
Chiming in to say that I wholeheartedly agree on this one. I think that people would have a tendency to disagree because it challenges their beliefs and encourages them to make the difficult...
Chiming in to say that I wholeheartedly agree on this one. I think that people would have a tendency to disagree because it challenges their beliefs and encourages them to make the difficult decision of exercising self-control and choosing not to engage in self-gratification just because they feel like it.
Porn use can very quickly become an unhealthy habit or spiral into addiction, and building some discipline instead of self indulging whenever you feel an urge is probably a good thing. The weird...
Porn use can very quickly become an unhealthy habit or spiral into addiction, and building some discipline instead of self indulging whenever you feel an urge is probably a good thing.
The weird and potentially dangerous part of "no fap" is how people make a community around it.
I've seen the same trend in other addiction related communities. I have a friend who used to go to AA for years for alcohol/drug misuse and stopped, he now enjoys the occasional beer, and smokes weed every now and then. In the eyes of AA he's a failure, but learning to have a healthy relationship with something you were once addicted to is in my mind a greater success story than begrudging abstinence.
Speaking of relationships, I struggled with a breakup a few years ago, I used to read the "no-contact" subreddit as a sort of community. It was the same trend, the people who post about how it's been 5 years since they messaged their ex, sure as hell aren't over their ex.
No fap is a weird side of the internet, and I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to spend too much time there, whether they think it gives them superpowers or makes them more masculine or whatever.
However, I think it's no less concerning for your development as a healthy functioning adult than being a teen sharing deranged hentai on discord channels and masturbating 10 times a week. Both are traps for lonely men.
Eh, that's a pretty logical path for people who have decent social skills and a social network with empathy. I think more often these groups suggest things like disparaging women (i.e. negging),...
Eh, that's a pretty logical path for people who have decent social skills and a social network with empathy. I think more often these groups suggest things like disparaging women (i.e. negging), aggressive behavior, and flirt with rape culture. I see it as a net negative.
I did nofap for a month back in 2012 after a friend said he was going to give it a go. I've never considered myself to have issues with sexuality or porn (I'm an advocate for indulging in both) but was interested to see if it was as difficult as the folks in r/nofap made it seem or if there were actually any benefits. Honestly, it had the outcome I expected and probably most stable folks do. I was slightly hornier and I had a minuscule amount of extra time in the day. All in all it was a wash. So I posted that. The response was a weird and aggressive. I was pretty surprised about the groups reaction. At that point I was still pretty taken with Reddit, most of the communities were still pretty welcoming. I'm not particularly surprised that Nofap is aligned with toxic masculinity spaces and seeming getting weirder.
It's also hijacking the month of Movember (or No Shave November), which is about prostate cancer awareness, and trying to promote not doing something that is thought to significantly lower your risk. (It's known to be inversely correlated at a certain frequency, but I believe the causality is still inconclusive.)
Anyway, Cult Leader Starter Kit Item 1 is usually "socially control sexuality to make followers more compliant," so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's all tied to right wing lunatics. Same energy as ye olde laws prohibiting vibrators (still on the books in some places), or trying to ban birth control (coming to a Supreme Court near you, probably).
So there's population-based evidence that ejaculation frequency appears to have a significant correlation with reduced prostate cancer risk. The explanation for this effect is still lacking. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea to add a healthy bit of fapping or intercourse to your daily exercise routine, since there's no reliable evidence at all that there's any harm from it.
I'm terminally horny, and when nofap started I had some mild insecurity about how much I jerked off or if I should. Then I started seeing people talk about their "superpowers" and how they could smell women menstruating and whatnot. Now I laugh.
Can you provide a scientific source for this debunking? We lack the specialized organ to detect pheromones, so unless smell in this case means literally just detecting a scent (and thus no induced response outside of a normal smell/memory connection) then I find this difficult to believe.
From Wikipedia:
Similar to @nCeon I'm interested in your source for this? A quick Google search doesn't suggest anything of the sort. I know that sows are often used in truffle hunting because they are attracted to the smell and will seek it out without training (and not male pigs), but I can't find any information on human sexuality and truffles. Anecdotally, as a bisexual man, I can't stand truffles, but I know straight men who like them so I'm not convinced without seeing further information about this.
***The top-level Tildes link seems to be broken, but the URL in the post description works? The article is accessible via search on the LA Review of Books site, or archive.
From the article:
I thought long and hard about where to post this article... ~life, ~humanities, ~books... If, after reading it, someone else concludes there's a better spot, by all means, relocate the post. However, there's a running thread throughout on how the medical expertise of various periods underpinned the proclamations of individual and social harms from the most personally accessible of pleasures. It also explores the political and religious exploitation of common anxieties about sex, control, and power.
One of the best essays I've read in a while - enjoy and discuss!
Masturbation or sex does not “impede” the function of a person’s body. Quite the opposite, it is a function of the body. If anything, abstention is the abnormality.
While I don't know that I agree with you, I think it's odd to compare and contrast menstrual cycles to male masturbation and not, say, female masturbation.
Deleted my other comment as it was poorly worded rather than editing it to avoid confusion if a reply was being typed in response to a comment that I wholly altered afterwards.
The disagreement expressed in the 2nd comment was general about masturbation, meaning that was their view regardless of male or female. So it wouldn't make sense to compare male and female masturbation at that point. The disagreement was about "impeding" functions of the body, so OP of this comment chain chose a different function of the body to illustrate the point. At this point I don't even really care about the conversation itself, I just found the confusion over what was being stated to be a bit odd.
The initial comment talks in depth about young men and masturbation and compares the hormonal response to menstrual cycles. Ignoring the false binary being presented, it's bizarre to not compare masturbation to masturbation.
My response was not about the 2nd person's comment or even the original commenter's response to it. It was just to the original commenter.
My hunch is that there isn’t a comparable prevalence of “no-fap” among women, but there is comparable prevalence of menstrual cycle alterations (through hormonal BC and pregnancy). I agree it isn’t the best comparison.
I don't know if it's "comparable" in numbers as its about 65% of women's that used HBC alone.
I actually am in favor of people addressing their pornography usage and probably finding something besides masturbation to do if it's that obsessive of a behavior, but I also don't think "no fap" is an ideal for the majority of folks of any gender.
I just think the assumption in the initial comment, and by many people is that men feel a biological and hormone driven desire to masturbate and that women (again, false binary but ) don't. Testosterone is gonna do what testosterone does, sure, but socialization is a huge part of this assumption. That and the fact that women are supposed to know all about men's bodies and habits but not vice-versa.
I still think women masturbating is rather more comparable to men masturbating as I think it effects women's hormones at least somewhat equivalently to men's.
I am just pointing out a very lopsided comparison.
I think that masturbation effects women's hormones similarly to men's does not seem that complicated so I'm not sure what you're looking for in further detail, can you provide a counterpoint? And evidence for it?
Looking through studies, changes in the levels of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, prolactin, endocannabinoids,. norepinephrine, etc. all are side effects of orgasm and none of the studies I'm finding show a stark difference by gender.
Even if there are differences they're unlikely to be binary and very likely to be along a spectrum.
All of this is stimulated by immediate behavior quite different to an internally regulated cycle of hormones causing a menstrual cycle from aged 10-50ish as a primary sexual characteristic. It's wild to assume that stimulation of the same nerves after different development are less similar IMO
It seems like absent very strong evidence to the contrary, the obvious common sense assumption is that male masturbation is more similar to female masturbatiom than it is to menstruation.
I’m not trying to argue with you, just pointing out the poor choice of words.
I didn’t raise an issue with your comparison because I didn’t want to argue with you. I have no idea why you are being so combative. But I would appreciate it if you would not assume I have some sort of ulterior motive.
I don't think trying to find a romantic partner has anything to do with masturbating and the correlation is tenuous at best.
Loneliness as it is today is far more intricately linked with social media, loss of the so-called "third places", and the overall polarization of the citizenry. In fact, I'd go as far as saying abstaining on purpose for the reason of trying to be more effective at finding a partner directly feeds into that by making the other sex binary: they either like you or don't, because you either masturbated or didn't. Which is quite frankly stupid.
If it's purely for the reason of experimentation just to see how your body responds then.. sure. No harm in that. Anything beyond that just becomes silly, if not downright harmful.
If I read your postulates correctly, it seems you've assumed the normal refractory period after orgasm, which usually lasts no more than 24 hours, accumulates to physiological or psychological depletion of greater duration. There is no evidence for this assumption.
There is evidence for culturally-bound psychological and psychosomatic disorders arising from shame and anxiety about masturbation and semen loss. In fact, this paper is worth a read as a broad overview of the knowns and unknowns in health effects of male masturbation.
This part seems particularly relevant:
It seems to me that rather than practicing a discipline of masturbatory abstinence, it might be more helpful to practice a discipline of self-acceptance and loving exploration of one's own body as necessary factors in building healthy relationships.
I fundamentally disagree that a partnership or finding a partner relies on sexdrive and therefore it's a non factor in the search for one. While I won't advocate for waiting on sex until marriage for a plethora of reasons, the fact that large amounts of people around the world put that concept into practice quite handily debunks the entire idea that you need sexdrive to find or be with a partner. For arguments sake I feel I should mention asexuality too. An entire
personality traitsexual orientation that thrives on not having sex at all.Again, for exploratory reasons I find no issue in trying to abstain or reduce. What I often see, and is highlighted in the article, is that under the veneer of exploration and self improvement is the idea that you should feel shame at not being able or wanting to abstain/reduce, as if you're actively damaging your self improvement; self improvement which isn't all that obvious in its results in the first place. I feel that is more damaging to people's psyche more so than just being sexually active.
Not disagreeing or agreeing with anything you said but I do want to flag the bolded portion below for possible revision:
It is generally regarded as a sexual orientation, or lack thereof, not a personality trait.
I rewrote that part a couple of times because I've had a long weekend and couldn't find the right word. Because it's a "lack of" sexual orientation I didn't want to call it that which it isn't. But it isn't a personality trait either. Nevertheless, thanks for the correction, I'll edit that.
No problem!
It was clear to me that it was as far from malicious as possible and I’m glad I could help.
Chiming in to say that I wholeheartedly agree on this one. I think that people would have a tendency to disagree because it challenges their beliefs and encourages them to make the difficult decision of exercising self-control and choosing not to engage in self-gratification just because they feel like it.
Porn use can very quickly become an unhealthy habit or spiral into addiction, and building some discipline instead of self indulging whenever you feel an urge is probably a good thing.
The weird and potentially dangerous part of "no fap" is how people make a community around it.
I've seen the same trend in other addiction related communities. I have a friend who used to go to AA for years for alcohol/drug misuse and stopped, he now enjoys the occasional beer, and smokes weed every now and then. In the eyes of AA he's a failure, but learning to have a healthy relationship with something you were once addicted to is in my mind a greater success story than begrudging abstinence.
Speaking of relationships, I struggled with a breakup a few years ago, I used to read the "no-contact" subreddit as a sort of community. It was the same trend, the people who post about how it's been 5 years since they messaged their ex, sure as hell aren't over their ex.
No fap is a weird side of the internet, and I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to spend too much time there, whether they think it gives them superpowers or makes them more masculine or whatever.
However, I think it's no less concerning for your development as a healthy functioning adult than being a teen sharing deranged hentai on discord channels and masturbating 10 times a week. Both are traps for lonely men.
This is a remarkably good essay. It is quite funny while still taking itself seriously.
Eh, that's a pretty logical path for people who have decent social skills and a social network with empathy. I think more often these groups suggest things like disparaging women (i.e. negging), aggressive behavior, and flirt with rape culture. I see it as a net negative.