Submitted 5 months ago by _number8_@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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?
Christianity and capitalism. If it doesn’t make you feel guilty the Christians don’t like it and if you can provide it to yourself for free the capitalists don’t like it.
You kidding? Porn is a 4 billion dollar industry.
You can jerk off without porn. Think of all the advertising and subscriptions on porn sites. Those have nothing to do with masturbation and everything to do with capitalism.
So, like, for the bulk of history, the people demonizing it are religious assholes.
They demonized sex out of wedlock, demonized wanking off; and any other kind of sexual release, while simultaneously deciding who you can marry (and therefore have kids with,).
It’s one of their core methods of social control, ensuring wealth is only passed on to children of wealthy and “faithful” families.
I posted a comment impulsively, then saw that you already gave the same answer better.
They also practiced polygamy, so that rich and influential men would have multiple wives and poor men would have none. Imagine the rage when you were a Shepherd tending someone else’s flocks, knowing that you will never have a wife or family.
It makes sense to have occasional wars with neighboring tribes so that excess males can be removed from the system.
Masturbation is totally normal and healthy, and you’re spot on that it shouldn’t be demonized or shamed. Tons of medical authorities and scientific studies have found that masturbation has all sorts of physical and mental health benefits. It’s a safe way to feel good sexually, relieve stress, sleep better, and possibly even reduce risks of prostate cancer and boost immune function.
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(A Liberated Mind by Steven Hayes). This 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.
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?
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. 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. doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2012.05.003
Thank you… most of the responses in this thread are really immature, arrogant, entitled, and pretty fucking cynical.
I work with people with severe depression and also the occasional sex/porn addict. Sexuality can lead us to some healthy lifestyles and can function as a healthy coping skill but it’s also one that’s easy to overdo. There are folks out there who try to treat their depression by masturbating all day long. They’re desperate for any hit of pleasure, and they have quite literally milked that cow dry.
This post reminds me of the Reddit marijuana communities, that rubber-banded so far beyond reasonable moderated consumption of a helpful medicine, but refused to see how maladaptive their ritual had become. That’s the immature, arrogant part. And the entitled cynical part is the attitude that any criticism of my precious coping tool is a criticism of me, and the cynicism is that the only reason to criticize it is because of a corrupt society! Jesus fucking christ this thread broke my brain, you all broke my brain, we all suck.
I’ve ended up having sex with my marijuana and smoking my semen… And I can’t help but ask myself, where did it all go wrong?
Psychological inflexibility here means getting stuck in rigid behavior patterns to the point that it messes with living a full and meaningful life.
Rigid behavioral patterns like having to work 40 hours a week, shop, feed yourself, clean, do laundry, go to the doctor, pay bills and so on, over and over and over again for the rest of your life?
Bro you can’t just list basically every human ADL and say it’s too much work. Just say “I’m struggling with depression” like a real man and get some help
I mean that’s definitely just a checkout aisle self-help book, though. Psychology, along with nutritional science and some other softer, more survey-based fields, has been suffering a pretty massive replication crisis, where something like 50% of papers are totally incapable of being replicated, depending on the journal and subject.
So I dunno, I’d generally be pretty skeptical of anything a book like that says about how you have to live your life or what you should be doing or how you should be doing it. Even if it’s something like “mindfulness”, right, generally thought to be a therapeutic practice, which we’re extracting from zen buddhism or whatever, just like carl jung travels around and extracts a bunch of “archetypes” from other cultures and then supposes that they’re universal when really it’s all just kinda some schizo bullshit canon he’s coming up with on the fly.
I uhh, I don’t like the scientific paint that is painted onto psychology and psychotherapy, is I guess what I’m saying. The attempt at formalization. What is just as good for one person, to be mindful, is probably something that someone else should rather not think about at all. Maybe even as a functional adaptation, a functional delusion that they can go on believing, and still end up having a fulfilling and uplifting life for everyone around them.
I mean that’s definitely just a checkout aisle self-help book, though.
Hayes is not a checkout aisle self-help book lol he pioneered a major branch of CBT
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.
Boobscrolling. Poonscrolling? Goonscrolling!
Goonscrolling is a crazy word for it, and is now what i will be using from now on lmao
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
Oh… there’s an upper limit? Is 4 times a day not healthy then?
At least 4-7 times a week. I have not read anything about an upper limit so go for it.
My guess would be the benefit plateaus at that point.
There is the factor of diminishing returns.
Username checks out
7 times a week ??? honey thats an addiction…
How do ya figure?
Because you enjoy it. If you’re fixing your issues, it must be through pain and suffering. If it doesn’t involve pain and suffering, then it isn’t fixing your issues. The “Protestant work ethic” doesn’t come right out and say that, but it’s the implication.
See also: denial of LSD and psilocybin for mental health purposes.
What if I want a hot girl to cause me pain and suffering?
Death by snu snu!
Then it’s the other way around obviously for more pain and suffering.
You can get a prescription for paid sex in the Netherlands if certain condition apply, and other EU countries are exploring the option.
I don’t know how hot she’d be though.
(Sing along with me)
Every supermarket is sacred
Every supermarket is good
Every supermarket is wanted
In your neighborhood
Remind me to never walk barefoot in your neighborhood.
You shouldn’t do that anyway.
If you bring a black light at night, it looks like the surface of the moon in direct sunlight
This mofo walks barefoot on the streets.
That last line made me change to Ray Parker Jr style funk.
“Bustin’ makes me feel good!”
Because easy dopamine hits are easy to gain unhealth addictions to.
Couple this with how incredibly unhealthy the social relationships portrayed in most pornography are, and you’re gearing up for a lot of young men addicted to wanking and having unrealistic expectations of sex.
Now, I’m not one of those weird “you shouldn’t jerk it at all” folks because that’s just extremism in the other direction.
Temperance and moderation are key in all things.
Porn “addiction” is a misnomer because it doesn’t have much in common with drug addiction, gambling addiction, etc. Porn “addicts”, when you show them images of porn, do not have brain responses like those of addicts who are shown images of whatever they’re addicted to.
But what is a great predictor for whether or not someone will self report being a porn addict is shame. Gay men in particular are significantly more likely than straight men in general to say they’re addicted to porn. So are straight men with a heavily religious background.
Which isn’t to say that people who report porn addictions aren’t really suffering, it’s just not the same as an actual addiction and is instead the result of living in a culture telling you that your normal sexual desires are wrong.
I actually agree. What’s addicting is the hit of dopamine from sexual release, not the porn itself. I see porn as more like how people who quit smoking often still find something to fiddle with in their hands and mouth. Biting on pencils, straws, etc. because part of their ritual of using the substance involved taking out a cigarette and putting it up to their mouth. The act itself isn’t the addiction, but it’s associated with it.
Like I said, moderation is key, because there’s a wide difference between masturbating a healthy amount and filling various cumjugs with figurines in them. Like if you can go out and live a normal life after jerking it, awesome, fuck yeah, that’s great. If you can’t make it through a workday without going to the bathroom to crank it, maybe you’ve got a fucking problem.
The porn is rather a social knock-on effect because people often seek out porn to make the pathway to dopamine release easier. The seeking of the orgasm has almost nothing to do with the societal implications of porn and its impact on relationships. However, the social impact is that people begin to associate unhealthy aspects of porn with a sex life and achieving orgasm in a sex life.
There is unfortunately deep layers of exploitation, unhealthy power dynamics, and control in porn that can be healthy between consenting adults who have achieved trust but some people really start digesting this porn before they’re mature enough to know how to healthily navigate those issues (especially in a society that sure as fuck isn’t teaching them, because of the aforementioned religious demonization of sex). This leads to further unhealthy experiences with sex, and I don’t think the gay community is free from that exploitation or people being exposed to it before they’ve had to education to navigate it healthily either. In fact, as a minority group, I would rather think they’re more likely to be exploited by the same people who hate their very existence… which further ingrains and exacerbates the very problems I’m speaking to, because the exploitation aspect of pornography is normalized.
I, we all rather, are “addicted” to air, water, food, shelter, safety, rest, etc. - which as you say isn’t the same as a true “addiction” at all. Wanting things that produce a healthy life is not a bad thing, and in fact quite the opposite. To the extent that religion or culture or whatever encourages the opposite (rather than e.g. moderation and consideration, like mindfulness), it is wrong and bad. Even for someone who believes in a God who is good, those false beliefs need to be cast aside, bc they hinder us from living well. I wish I had discovered this earlier in life.:-D
Couple this with how incredibly unhealthy the social relationships portrayed in most pornography are, and you’re gearing up for a lot of young men addicted to wanking and having unrealistic expectations of sex.
I don’t really get this honestly. When people watch The Flash, they know that it’s unrealistic for someone to move at that speed. When people read sci-fi, they know it’s unrealistic to expect every problem to be solved by science in their lifetime. When people watch the show Superstore, they don’t expect it to actually be a realistic representation on how a big box store runs. So I don’t see why porn would be any different. They’re all acting.
literally good for you
I actually asked my family doctor at one point about the health effects of masturbation. She said that as a guy, if you are not otherwise sexually active, it’s good for the prostate to keep the plumbing working down there.
Puritanism bullshit.
nooo the muffins 😭😭😭
how could you encrypt them 🥲
So only I can eat them. Mwahahaha!
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.
Capitalism is powered by fapping, the fuck are you talking about?
A lot of the power users in this thread have clearly never heard of “sex sells”.
Also non-zero chance some of these guys might have an association with Mindgeek. Just a hunch, given how easy reddit like sites are to manipulate.
It’s powered by there being enough of us wage slaves, which requires us to procreate, which is why red states in the US ban sex education, abortion, etc.
Of course, other capitalists have realized they can show ads on porn
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.
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.
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.
I there should be rules about having jerk off rooms at work. Its a human right like praying rooms!
Probably to sell more Corn Flakes.
To be fair, they really taste better with milk.
Religion that’s why. They have to control you.
because suffering is fetishized
Same reason we practice forced male genital mutilation in the United States, religion (abrahamic) says pleasure is bad.
What has circumcision to do with sexual pleasure? Please do explain. I’m circumcised and I have no loss of sensation from not having foreskin. I also don’t have a moist area for bacteria to multiply
Tbh, I’ve tried it. It was pleasant.
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 walkers cramp for a bit might do you good once in a while.
if you run through all your dopamine on easy hits your going to end up having motivational
That sounds very scientific, do you have some sources like peer reviewed and reproducable studies from credible universities?
This is simply wrong. Laughably wrong.
People also demonize sodomy, but it’s been proven that semen in your colon can help fight depression.
Practice safe sex, kids.
Is that causation or correlation?
I think the simpler answer is, you are so right, it barely has to be valorized. It sells itself.
I think the long answer is that porn addiction is a real thing that can affect people. Also lots of people in charge of things like sex education have historically been prudes who see masturbation as some sort of gateway to promiscuity.
Orgasms are normal, healthy and necessary.
Orgasms are normal, healthy and necessary
Yes, yes, no.
While orgasms are normal and can potentially have some physical and mental benefits, there is no physical or mental necessity to have them (plenty of asexual and otherwise celibate people of all different kinds out there to prove it).
Porn addition is a myth. Stop perpetuating it.
I imagine it’s similar to marihuana.
If people find out there’s an easy, relaxed life, they don’t work so hard, hurting corporate profits.
We should create a community about that, so we can tell the world how great it was.
I personally just did it it and it was great guys, hope you like hearing about it
I did it twice today. The second time wasn’t as epic, but damn was the one this morning great.
Christianity and Feminism.
Most the different waves of feminisms are actually quite vocal about masturbation being a positive thing regardless of gender.
Naturally people are motivated by their sex drive, so there are some related consequences. You may be less interested in dating, marriage, hygiene, and prosocial behavior.
I think people believe that onani leads to looking at p0rn, which is inherently exploitative to those involved (men and women) and a foul industry. Likewise, it can produce exaggerated sexual fantasies that are unhealthy and can create predatory relationships.
It’s hard to imagine jerking without explicit content, and once you have gone from Swimsuit edition to Softcore, it’s hard to go back… From softcore to hardcore, it’s hard to go back… From niche hardcore to regular, boring hardcore… It’s hard to go back…
And it leads to becoming a person who does this frequently… And then, what if you want a family? Do you really want to be taht guy who is looking at crazy stuff and rubbing one out while your infant daughter is sleeping 30 feet away in her room? Do you want to be the guy whose wife is out of action from giving birth and you are like “Oh, OK, I will just look at explicit hardcore content and content myself…”
It’s a bad habit.
It also creates crazy expectations of others which may even lead to so desiring some novel experience that you have an affair or “open” your marriage.
Because stroking the bratwurst can be addictive and lead to destructive behaviours.
echo@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Religion
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
If like to go a bit deeper.
I don’t think people invented socially controlling practices because they found religion, I think they found religion to frame the invention of socially controlling practices.
Masturbation is a gratifying act that relives pressure to settle into a rigid domestic arrangement that serves to make more workers and soldiers, and create dependents that need fed, and whose well-being would be threatened if a parent became defiant and provoked the ire of elites.
Masturbation is good for the individual at the expense of the nation and its rulers.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
go on…
xhieron@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Citation needed.
Emerald@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Defeat the ruling class… jerk off
secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world 5 months ago
this is exactly the truth
Stupidmanager@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Pretty sad when religion claims to abhor evil, happens to be the source of a lot of it. Right? I can’t name a single thing religion ever did for me other than make me miserable.
DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 5 months ago
IMO, and without actual data to back it up, I reckon religion (and religious difference) is responsible for the most suffering throughout the history of humankind.
pearable@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
I don’t think it’s the source. I think it’s a tool of social control that enables the powerful to create a bare minimum willingness to be ruled. For a long time the doctrine of Christianity was the Divine Right of Kings. Now it’s the Prosperity Gospel. The books did not change but the people with all the money and power ensured the church leaders who served their interest had most of the money and thus followers.
If we didn’t have religion, some other social construct would arise, and I’d argue, has arisen to fulfill it’s role. Modern economic theory justifies the current power order in an unfalsifiable way that reminds me of religion.
Religion could be a liberatory force in society. In fact it has been. The liberation theology movement in South America and numerous heretical movements in the late medieval period are both examples of progressive Christian social movements.