No guilt, no problem?

Recently a young man showed up on my site’s forum asking questions about masturbation. The same day, I read that a region of Spain is publicly promoting masturbation to kids with a “Pleasure is in your own hands” campaign. Not long ago, Britain’s National Health Service came up with a similar campaign sloganned, “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.” Although well intentioned, are such efforts sound?

The fact is, orgasmic pleasure isn’t in our hands. It’s largely in our brains—the result of neurochemical bursts. Without them, orgasm would be no more memorable than burping. This has important implications for arriving at the ideal masturbation advice. In a past post, I related what men have been sharing about how decreasing masturbation frequency can unexpectedly boost confidence, social skills, and even loving feelings. In this post, I’ll consider why heavy, shame-free masturbation is potentially as much of a ticking bomb as shame-laden masturbation.

Due to the way it affects our brains, masturbation entails two risks that are easily overlooked.

1. Escalation Pitfall

Although masturbation is natural, it is also natural for the search for orgasm to escalate fairly easily. This is especially true if the stimulation associated with it is very frequent or intense. Examples of uncommon intensity might be masturbation accompanied by threats or the belief that one is “going to hell,” or masturbation to today’s extreme Internet porn. In contrast, normal intensity would be a child discovering masturbation around puberty without an artificial emotional charge. (This is not to say that masturbation can never become compulsive via innocent self-discovery—but it’s unlikely.)

Orgasm can produce not just a drug-like high, but also a neurochemical recovery period as the brain returns to homeostasis. The more powerful the blast of neurochemical excitement during orgasm, the lower the lows as the brain recovers. In some of us recovery may take the form of more intense cravings due to a numbed pleasure response in the brain, (mild or severe) lethargy, depression, anxiety or, in the sexually repressed, remorse (due to projection of distress onto a harsh deity). The result is often a desire to self-medicate with more masturbation. Many don’t perceive the escalation tendency until they are free from orgasm for a period and then return to it.

Today, “the more you do it the more you want it” is generally mistaken for healthy libido. Yet it’s probably more akin to comfort eating. Labeling it as healthy simply because it’s natural averts investigation of its consequences. We warn parents and kids of the risks of compulsive junk food consumption or compulsive video gaming—but we’re unwilling to suggest moderation in masturbation, even though the same primitive brain mechanism fuels all compulsions.

It’s simpler to tell kids to eat their veggies than explain that masturbation can relieve sexual tension in the immediate term—yet make subsequent sexual frustration worse. Perhaps more family discussions should revolve around the brain’s delicate reward circuitry and how it can bleep misleading “yes” signals. Remember those rats that were wired so they could press a lever to stimulate the reward circuitry (much as an orgasm does)? They hit the lever until they dropped.

Freud pupil, Rudolf von Urban (Sex Perfection and Marriage) advises that if kids are made aware the “escalation snag” (and never shamed about sexuality), they will work out the challenge of finding the ideal amount of masturbation for themselves. After all, we humans possess more gears than “fifth” and “neutral” when it comes to sexual activity. Kids can flex their self-discipline muscles to come up with a masturbation interval that doesn’t escalate, or let wet dreams run their course, or get more vigorous exercise, or find a sweetheart. (Holding hands, adoring someone, and hanging out together are very soothing for pair-bonder brains like ours, even when intercourse isn’t an option.)

However, without information about how sexual frustration can escalate when one tries to exhaust it each time it arises, kids can be thrown onto a treadmill without controls. If they do slip into compulsion, they have no idea why it happened, how to restore balance, or what recovery will be like. In fact, they may not even know their behavior is compulsive, if frantic, frequent masturbation is the norm among their friends. If you are eating Twinkies and chips every meal because your friends are too, you might not think to ask why your cravings for sugar and fat are so intense.

This is not a minor point. Heavy porn users who choose to cut back often experience intensely uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. They don’t understand that such symptoms are normal. They also don’t know that it takes substantial time for the brain to reboot (restore equilibrium).

Surprisingly, even if they were not raised in sexually repressive homes and feel no shame about masturbating, some conclude that withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, emptiness, irritability, brain fog, headaches, intense cravings, and so forth are somehow the wages of sexual repression, rather than a predictable result of its opposite. Ignorance makes cutting back seem like a dangerous course, so escalation seems the only option.

2. Unwanted Learning

An orgasmic blast is a powerful learning experience because our genes want us to remember everything connected with making babies or even practicing. Today, a kid on the web can vicariously participate in dozens of highly stimulating sex acts in one afternoon without even taxing his own, (previously) more limited, imagination. In contrast, our hunter-gatherer brain evolved when exciting sex with a novel partner was a rare genetic bonanza.

The more dopamine released in connection with stimulation the more value the brain assigns to the event(s), and the more deeply the brain wires the experience. Obviously, watching sex with goats doesn’t necessarily merit being recorded as a valuable experience, but try telling your limbic brain that!

This same learning/wiring process can produce repercussions more tragic than goat flashbacks. For example, “forbidden” and “sinful” (that is, risky) sex jolt the brain with both dopamine (“gotta get it!”) and adrenaline (fear). This is how sexual repression can infuse otherwise normal sexual activity with a memorable drug-like aura. To gain a sense of just how good “risky” can feel, read Why bathroom sex is hot, in which a man laments being out of the closet because he longs for that altered state.

Today’s Internet porn can swiftly rewire the brain. Extreme porn produces a neurochemical wallop, particularly in young, plastic brains. Moreover, it’s always novel. Research reveals that novelty-on-demand is exceedingly enticing—and habit forming. (It’s also behind the lure of slot machines and all Internet addictions.) The upshot is that computer users around the world, who are masturbating to shocking (to them), ever-novel explicit sexual acts, are now experiencing the kind of neurochemical supranormal stimulation—and bumpy recovery period—that was formerly reserved for folks from sexually repressive households.

As Thomas Paine once observed,

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.

Masturbation itself is not wrong, but too shallow an understanding of how it can affect the brain may prove to be no small oversight. This error was understandable when we knew very little about how we wire our brains, when we believed shame was the only means of making masturbation a self-defeating obsession, and when supranormal sexual stimulation was not as ubiquitous—and therefore over-stimulation less commonplace (pre-Internet).

Today, however, “Masturbation is normal, so don’t feel ashamed” may simply not be adequate information for kids seeking answers. Innocently acquired habits can get in the way of forming healthy relationships. Is it time to set aside our codified assumptions and reopen a discussion about masturbation education with an emphasis on the importance of balance?

Comment from nofap

Throwing in the towel but hear me out (nsfw)

The success stories are true. Last night I had a woman in my bed, and I think it is in no small part due to this subreddit. Everybody should quit watching porn and try to masturbate less. But, and this is a big but, there is NO WAY I could do the ninety days. I know that now, after trying and constantly failing. Ninety days without porn, sure, probably did that already, how about this instead–no porn ever again for the rest of your life, makes more sense. But ninety days without masturbation? OK, if you have ED. If you are a really heavy porn user, wanking off twice a day, seven days a week. Quit cold turkey for ninety days, YES probably a good idea. But if you’re me–I’ll tell you what happens after FIVE days.. I go around with a constant erection, feeling excessively tired because I have too little blood pumping in my brain and too much in my penis. I sit on the bus, hear a sexy voice on the seat behind me (just a voice!) and suddenly get so hard I can’t go off at my stop, afraid someone would notice. My underpants get full with precum. My balls HURT. I think this is a great subreddit, but there is a problem. The ideal here–quitting for ninety days–is just not for everyone. As I said though, cutting down really improves you as a person. Everybody should quit porn completely and set boundaries for how often they can masturbate. (I think only every fourth day works best for me).

NOTE: YBOP is not saying that masturbation bad for you; just making the point that many of the so-called health benefits claimed to be associated with orgasm or masturbation are in fact associated with close contact with another human being, not orgasm/masturbation. More specifically, claimed correlations between a few isolated health indicators and orgasm (if true) are probably just correlations arising from healthier populations that naturally engage in more sex and masturbation. They are not causal. Relevant studies:

The Relative Health Benefits of Different Sexual Activities (2010) found that sexual intercourse was related to positive effects, while masturbation was not. In some cases masturbation was negatively related to health benefits – meaning that more masturbation correlated with poorer health indicators. The conclusion of the review:

“Based upon a broad range of methods, samples, and measures, the research findings are remarkably consistent in demonstrating that one sexual activity (Penile-Vaginal Intercourse and the orgasmic response to it) is associated with, and in some cases, causes processes associated with better psychological and physical functioning.” “Other sexual behaviors (including when Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is impaired, as with condoms or distraction away from the penile–vaginal sensations) are unassociated, or in some cases (such as masturbation and anal intercourse) inversely associated with better psychological and physical functioning.” “Sexual medicine, sex education, sex therapy, and sex research should disseminate details of the health benefits of specifically Penile-Vaginal Intercourse, and also become much more specific in their respective assessment and intervention practices.”

Also see this short review of masturbation and health indices: Masturbation is Related to Psychopathology and Prostate Dysfunction: Comment on Quinsey (2012)

It is difficult to reconcile the view that masturbation improves mood with the findings in both sexes that greater masturbation frequency is associated with more depressive symptoms (Cyranowski et al., 2004; Frohlich & Meston, 2002;Husted&Edwards, 1976), less happiness (Das, 2007), and several other indicators of poorer physical and mental health, which include anxious attachment (Costa & Brody, 2011),immature psychological defense mechanisms, greater blood pressure reactivity to stress, and dissatisfaction with one’s mental health and life in general (for a review, see Brody, 2010). It is equally difficult to see how masturbation develops sexual interests, when greater masturbation frequency is so often associated with impaired sexual function in men(Brody& Costa, 2009; Das, Parish, & Laumann, 2009; Gerressu, Mercer, Graham, Wellings, & Johnson, 2008; Lau, Wang, Cheng, & Yang, 2005; Nutter & Condron, 1985) and women (Brody &Costa, 2009;Das et al., 2009;Gerressu et al., 2008;Lau,Cheng, Wang, & Yang, 2006; Shaeer, Shaeer, & Shaeer, 2012;Weiss& Brody, 2009). Greater masturbation frequency is also associated with more dissatisfaction with relationships and less love for partners (Brody, 2010; Brody & Costa, 2009). In contrast, PVI is very consistently related to better health (Brody, 2010; Brody & Costa, 2009; Brody &Weiss, 2011; Costa & Brody, 2011, 2012), better sexual function (Brody & Costa, 2009; Brody & Weiss, 2011; Nutter & Condron, 1983, 1985;Weiss&Brody, 2009), and better intimate relationship quality (Brody, 2010; Brody & Costa, 2009; Brody &Weiss, 2011). Moreover, although less risk of prostate cancer was associated with greater number of ejaculations (without specification of the sexual behavior) (Giles et al., 2003) [Note conflicting evidence, however: “Prostate cancer may be linked to sex hormones: Men who are more sexually active in their 20s and 30s may run a higher risk of prostate cancer, research suggests.”], it is PVI frequency that is specifically associated with reduced risk, whereas masturbation frequency is more often related to increased risk (for a review on the subject, see Brody,2010). In this regard, it is interesting to note that masturbation is also associated with other problems of the prostate (higher prostate specific antigen levels and swollen or tender prostate) and, compared with the ejaculate obtained from PVI, the ejaculate obtained from masturbation has markers of poorer prostatic function and lesser elimination of waste products (Brody, 2010). The only sexual behavior consistently related to better psychological and physical health is PVI. In contrast, masturbation is frequently associated with indices of poorer health (Brody, 2010; Brody & Costa, 2009; Brody & Weiss, 2011; Costa & Brody, 2011, 2012). There are several possible psychological and physiological mechanisms, which are a likely consequence of natural selection favoring health processes as cause and/or effect of motivation to search for, and capacity to obtain and enjoy, PVI. In contrast, selection of psychobiological mechanisms rewarding motivation to masturbate is unlikely due to the severe fitness costs that would occur if it deterred one from PVI by making it irrelevant for well-being (Brody, 2010). More plausibly, masturbation represents some failure of the mechanisms of sexual drive and intimate relatedness, however common it may be, and even if not uncommonly it coexists with access to PVI. In this regard, it is noteworthy that greater masturbation frequency is associated with dissatisfaction with several aspects of life independently of PVI frequency (Brody& Costa, 2009) and seems to diminish some benefits of PVI (Brody, 2010).

Finally see this PDF – Social, Emotional, and Relational Distinctions in Patterns of Recent Masturbation Among Young Adults (2014)