this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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people have been demonizing it for most of the AD years i think but it's quite pleasant really. are there any proven negative effects?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

Easy dopamine isn't a good thing. Dopamine is finite but renewable, so if you run through all your dopamine on easy hits your going to end up having motivational issues.

And if your constantly chasing short term Dopamine hits your brain is going to adjust to seek behavours that give instant gratification over somthing that's just as rewarding, more productive for your personal or professional life, but takes longer to get that dopamine.

By all means deal with your libido in anyway that doesn't hurt the people around you, but maybe retiring the wankers cramp for a bit might do you good once in a while.

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Ejaculation lower the risk of prostate cancer, so masturbation should probably be medically advised to all men.

4-7 times a week is a good number according this study

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Oh... there's an upper limit? Is 4 times a day not healthy then?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

At least 4-7 times a week. I have not read anything about an upper limit so go for it.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Religion, capitalism. Powerful groups want more people to have more children.

Luckily I'm in a progressive enough country that even in school we were taught that masturbation is a thing and not necessarily bad.

As for negative effects - if you do it TOO much, particularly with a very strong grip, then don't be surprised if, when having actual intercourse, you're just not feeling much and might be unable to reach orgasm. You might even be uninterested in your partner sexually. A few days without masturbation will fix it though, doesn't seem to be permanent. Day 2 without doing it and I couldn't keep my eyes (or hands) off my wife's body.

Sex was very infrequent for me and my wife in the last few months of her pregnancy, so that's how I know. Soon as we started doing it on a somewhat regular basis again, I opted to quit jerking it because I wanted to enjoy the real thing more, even if it's not every single day. No long-term negative effects that I've noticed.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago

These days mutual masterbation is better for your relationship than having kids. It's not the kids fault, society has made having kids a nightmare.

And of course the reason it is demonized is that any powerfull organization/society needs peoples shoulder to stand on. So, the more people, the more power. And they don't really care if it was by rape due to sexual frustration, they just need more people to take advantage of.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago

A lot of religion has been to push a heterosexual couple together for the means of procreation. Masturbation has been seen as a way for people to lessen their urge to procreate in the appropriate canonical manner.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 79 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Jerking it is fine, but just like any coping mechanism, you can abuse it and get addicted to it, then it becomes a problem.

If you're doomscrolling porn, for example, then maybe it is having a negative effect on you.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Boobscrolling. Poonscrolling? Goonscrolling!

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (15 children)

Masturbation is totally normal and healthy, and you're spot on that it shouldn't be demonized or shamed. In men, it might even reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

At the same time, it's important to have a balanced and psychologically flexible relationship with masturbation and sexuality. As psychologist Steven Hayes, a leading expert on psychological flexibility, explains: getting too fixated on any one activity or coping mechanism, even a healthy one, can lead to psychological inflexibility if it is used to avoid experiencing your life fully (For a thorough explanation of how this works, feel free to check out A Liberated Mind by Steven Hayes). Psychological inflexibility here means getting stuck in rigid behavior patterns to the point that it messes with living a full and meaningful life.

So while I'm totally with you that masturbation is healthy and that bullshit social taboos against it should be rejected, it's also good to be mindful about your motivation behind doing it. Are you doing it because you're escaping pain? Or are you doing it because it aligns with your values and makes your life meaningful? If you rely on masturbation too much and don't have ways of accepting your emotions and connecting with the world, it could potentially tip into unhelpful psychological rigidity and a frustrating life. The key is to be able to experience masturbation while still staying flexible enough to show up fully for the rest of your life too.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What if I'm masturbating because my body demands I masturbate when I look at porn, even though I'd rather just look at porn without masturbating?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the response. What you're describing - feeling a bodily urge to masturbate when viewing porn, even if you'd prefer not to - is very common. We're kinda designed so that our bodies respond to sexual stimuli. Many people can relate to that internal tug-of-war between an impulse and a conflicting desire.

From a psychological flexibility perspective, the key is to approach those urges with mindful acceptance rather than struggle against them. Fighting with or trying to suppress an urge often just makes it grow stronger, like a beach ball you keep trying to push underwater - it keeps popping back up with greater force (1). Instead, psychological flexibility invites us to open up and make room for the urge, observing it with curiosity and letting it be fully present in our awareness.

This doesn't mean you have to act on the urge. In fact, by giving it space to exist without resistance, you gain the ability to unhook from it and consciously choose how to respond in line with your values (2). You might say to yourself "I'm having the thought that I need to masturbate right now" and feel the sensations of that urge in your body, while still maintaining the freedom to decide if acting on it is truly what you want.

Imagine for a moment that a dear friend or loved one came to you struggling with this same dilemma. How would you respond to them? Most likely with compassion, understanding, and encouragement to be kind to themselves as they navigate this very human challenge. We could all benefit from extending that same caring response to ourselves.

At the end of the day, you're the expert on your own life and what matters most to you. By practicing acceptance of your inner experiences, unhooking from unhelpful thoughts and urges, and clarifying what you truly value, you can develop psychological flexibility to pursue a rich and meaningful life - whatever that looks like for you. That means that there's no one "right" way to relate to masturbation and porn. The invitation is to approach it mindfully and make choices that align with the kind of person you want to be.

(1) You can check out the "rebound effect" or "ironic process theory." It's been studied extensively in the context of thought suppression. The seminal paper on the topic is Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(1), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.1.5

(2) This meta-analysis reviewed laboratory-based studies testing the components of the psychological flexibility model, and how psychological flexibility techniques increase behavioral flexibility. Levin, M. E., Hildebrandt, M. J., Lillis, J., & Hayes, S. C. (2012). The impact of treatment components suggested by the psychological flexibility model: A meta-analysis of laboratory-based component studies. Behavior Therapy, 43(4), 741-756. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2012.05.003

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Because they are fools, brother. They fear what we could become if we were free to train out techniques to their maximum without societal judgment

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Same reason we practice forced male genital mutilation in the United States, religion (abrahamic) says pleasure is bad.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You realize things aren't viewed the same all over the world right? Here in Sweden it's nothing bad or wrong, we generally have good sex education and parents that are fine with it as long as we keep it private and clean. And as adults it's completely normal, not that uncommon to talk about either. There was a monthly magazine for teens when I grew up that talked a lot about sex, sexual identity and stuff like that and the readers could send it questions to get answered by professionals or other readers. Very open and helped so many with things they didn't dare ask parents or others about and it was always a better source than the Internet when that came around. Pretty sure it's still a thing too.

So it's just seen as a thing everyone does and enjoys.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

There should be rules about having jerk off rooms at work. Its a human right like praying rooms!

Edit: /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think neither should exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago
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