Says Ashley Winter, "a urologist who has been publicly critical of nofap ideas," quoted in "Masturbation abstinence is popular online. Doctors and therapists are worried" (NPR).
The experts are worried — worried about respect for their authority. But whether there is "medical evidence" or not, individuals will experiment with their own body and mind and observe the results and make their own choices.
The term "nofap" originally began popping up in bodybuilding forums in the mid-2000s. But its popularity escalated when an official NoFap Reddit forum, or subreddit, was founded in 2011 by then-college student Alexander Rhodes. In a 2012 radio interview, Rhodes said he'd seen a study on Reddit claiming that men's testosterone levels increased after a week of not masturbating. "It was just, like, kind of a joke, you know," said Rhodes during that radio interview. He and other Reddit users posted about wanting to re-create the experiment at home. "And this, this was all occurring in the comments. So then really what was necessary in my eyes was just a place, a centralized location where everybody could kind of try this technique out."
I wish I'd made a tag long ago for the decline in respect for expert authority.
The NPR article begins with a link to this "Nothing scares me/Nothing hurts me" video. Is there anything worrisome about this sort of personal advice? It's not science, but if doctors like Winter want scientific evidence, let them do controlled experiments. Individuals can do unscientific experiments on themselves. Isn't every day more or less of an unscientific experiment on yourself? What works and what doesn't, and what are your ideas about why? If doctors want to malign individual experimentation, where is the "medical evidence" that it does more harm than good?
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59 comments:
"The experts are worried — worried about respect for their authority."
Covid-19 has entered the chat...
It probably doesn't help, but we know it doesn't hurt, so what is their motivation to worry?
Oh, right, it's right there--"worried about respect for their authority." Sometimes it seems that's all any expert really worries about.
I'd give it a whack.
Left yourself open there, Ann!
So the theme today is Althouse as sex guru?
Meade, you old dog!
I doubt that any doctors are actually worried; that's just newspaper hype. If course these people can find out for themselves, but there's also nothing wrong with telling them that what they're doing (or not doing) is just make-believe.
Abstinence from masturbation is a tall order in a land with the world’s biggest jerk-off “at the helm”. No joke.
The Jan. 6th riots were caused by semen retention.
Change my mind.
I should know 99percent of this stuff.
Never joining a gang is one of my biggest regrets.
And semen absorption by women, through any route, is supposedly a valuable health and psychological support.
This stopping has got to stop. I day throw a few of these assholes in jail for felony semen retention and genital neglect. People will get the message and they'll get to work.
The hysteria over this boils down to anger over self-control. The modern political class relies on the lack of self-control by most people in order to sustain its power. We stuff our faces with food, and then poison our bodies with medicines in order to treat the resultant illnesses. We dull ourselves with pornography, video games, and other media, and then drug ourselves to treat the resulting depression. Wokism is a social positioning tactic that at its core relies on people being incapable of self-control or enduring even the smallest ability to endure the hardship of opposing views. Instead, they treat the existence of wrong ideas as a literal threat to themselves, and demand that politicians and bureaucrats be given extensive powers to stamp it out.
Oh brother, I don't think the no fap guys literally believe that semen retention boosts testosterone. As far as I know, no fap guys can have as much sex as they want, it just has to be with a real person.
And if porn and masterbation don't contribute to erectile dysfunction than it wouldn't be such a talking point in popular culture.
If nothing else at least you won't go blind.
If nothing else at least you won't go blind.
Oh here's the real reason they're worried: no fap guys are more likely to vote Republican!
But many researchers and sex therapists worry that the online communities that have formed in response to these fears often endorse inaccurate medical information, exacerbate mental health problems and, in some cases, overlap with extremist and hate groups.
Semen is supposed to be good for the skin. I’m sure I’ve read that somewhere. Maybe good housekeeping? There was a movement afoot in the good ol’ days where young ladies were lead to believe swallowing it was good for their skin. I couldn’t have been the only one suggesting that. I’m sure I read it in a peer reviewed science journal.
I read that article on Sunday morning. I love how NPR presents 4chan jokes as an actual societal problem.
If you're interested in the "movement," there are websites with some good recommendations, like this one:
https://stopmasturbationnow.org/self-rape-prevention/introducing-the-anti-masturbation-cross-safely-train-your-children-to-keep-their-hands-off-their-dangerous-sin-zones/
https://stopmasturbationnow.org/civics/should-people-who-masturbate-be-allowed-to-vote/
Every penis needs an owner and a manager...and in some cases, a micro-manager.
Is there a college program for earning a degree in Masturbation Management yet?
Do we need a Bureau of Masturbation Enforcement?
There's a great passage in Neal Stephenson's (Iowa State alum) in "Cryptonomicon" about "the dreaded sperm backup." Very funny.
Click, click, click.
There you go!
The primary idea behind "nofap" months, in the online community, isn't to attain physiological benefits. It is to cut down on time spent looking at naughty videos online, to allow other more beneficial online pursuits like gaming with their friends.
Some would say "Eat Cornflakes".
There needs to be like a fitness tracker for wankers. I'm envisioning something you'd wear on your wrist. It would flash a triumphant symbol and congratulate you when you reached your goal for 10,000 strokes or whatever.
SpitBit
does ANYONE, have ANY respect, for ANY doctor, Anymore?
Wasn't is "conventional wisdom" back in the day that you didn't wank before big sporting meets? Am I really that old?
Why would I pay attention to a female urologist? Yes, she knows all the theory. I will assume. But she has no personal knowledge.
For the same reasons I've never understood why any woman would go to a male ob/gyn
Unless it's Kris Kristofferson (I can't believe there is no YouTube clip!)
John Henry
You know what else is popular online? Porn. And it's probably several orders of magnitude more popular than "masturbation abstinence." But different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Dr. Eric Cartman.
"Now, I don't avoid women...but I do deny them my essence!"
Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Dr. Strangelove
THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS *wink*
You may not have a "Respect my authoritah" tag now, but it's never too late to begin.
Go away... beat it!
You believe this?
Cum on...
The placebo effect is a powerful thing. And if it actually leads to a good result ...
"I'm out!"
GMTA, David,
I thought immediately of Cryptonomicon when reading this. Stephenson seems to have had masturbation much on his mind when writing the book.
I particularly liked his idea of the Ejaculation Control Conspiracy (of which the doctor in the article is probably a member)
Mrs. McTeague (and other old ladies like her all around the world) does the laundry only because it is her role in the giant Ejaculation Control Conspiracy which, as Waterhouse is belatedly realizing, controls the entire planet.
(SNIP)
Mrs. McTeague, and other ECC members (such as Mary cCmndhd and basically all of the other young women) are offended by easy girls, prostitutes, and whorehouses, not for religious reasons, but because they provide a refuge where men can have ejaculations that are not controlled, metered, or monitored in any way. Prostitutes are turncoats, collaborators.
John Henry
I'm a bit concerned that these Gen Zers seem to coming around to what Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority promoted in the 1980s.
After Dobbs many young women were threatening to only have sex with men they considered viable long term partners. It's not abstinence till marriage but it was a revival of the idea of premarital sex from the 1970s in contrast to random sex partners.
This late '80s interview with a young woman historian on the sexual revolution in the '60s and '70s is quaint in her use of "premarital sex" and "doing it".
https://youtu.be/_cfkutdb__s
We can't have a post like this without a Kardashian:
While speaking about her fertility journey on Thursday's episode of "The Kardashians," Kourtney Kardashian said a doctor told her to drink now-husband Travis Barker's semen "four times a week" to increase their chances of conception — flawed advice that has no basis in medicine.
https://www.businessinsider.com/kourtney-kardashian-drink-travis-barker-semen-doctor-advice-2022-5?op=1
No word on the fee that the doctor charged Travis Barker
John Henry
Self-sex relationships are selfiesh.
Critical Retention Theory (CRT)
Retaining seamen does boost testosterone, does... did not cure erectile dysfunction but the contrary, and does... did not make you more manly which is the impetus for the wicked solution... all's fair in lust and abortion.
Hmmm. Was just about to get up some porn and stroke the wand. Better take a look at the latest NPR polling numbers first.
There is nothing life threatening about not having orgasms. So if they want to try it, they can find out for themselves that this theory is hogwash.
All I've heard up until now is that having orgasms is actually better for your health. It kind of makes sense if you apply the "if you don't use it, you lose it." principle.
Puts me in mind of my 6th Grade year, when we boys all decided that leaning up against the wall with our hands in our pockets was cool (probably thanks to James Dean). The nun in charge of the playground demanded that we take our hands out of our pockets, and when we asked why, she responded in her Irish way, "So ye won't be interfering wit your sels!"
In the woke (sic) of State's Choice, the PRC normalized prostitution... clients with "benefits" in order to reduce excess semen. Perhaps CMS (e.g. Obamacares) can pay for equity and inclusion as a health care benefit in the interest of social justice.
Do the Slut Walk so that males can get sprung is NOW (pun intended) a health care initiative... imperative.
What do the avatars on Meta have to say about all of this?
Master-bation has diversitist/racist connotations.
Master nation was conceives in the left-wing ideology of National Socialists.
Taken from the Bhagavad Gita:
Sage, now kindly let me know the secret of health.” Dhanvantari replied: “This seminal energy is verily the ātman. The secret of health lies in preservation of this vital force. He who wastes this vital and precious energy cannot have physical, mental, moral, and spiritual development.”
The mind remains central to male lust. Testosterone is only central to male aggression. And old men need Testosterone for muscle retention just when it has been proclaimed to cause Prostate cancer. Catch 22 again.
FTR masturbation does trigger male guilt. Wonder why. Probably the accompanying fantasies.
Whatever it takes to quash that pesky Toxic Masculinity...
They are denying others their precious bodily fluids.
Semen Retention is the worst punk rock band I've ever seen.
In my experience, semen retention just makes me drink more beer and watch tv.
Based on what I remember from my pre-med human physiology courses, that's now how things work.
BTW No-Fap is one of the pillars of membership in the Proud Boys, FWIW.
Col Jack Ripper agrees that masturbation depletes your vital essence.
"Semen Retention is the worst punk rock band I've ever seen."
Punk rock, or spunk rock?
Sorry - not sorry.
Did any of the experts say they're worried?
That was the journalist's word, or more likely the editor's since the headline uses it.
Experts quoted seemed pretty chill.
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