Anonymous has commented on: “Ejaculation: How Often for Good Health?”
Subject: does not apply to gays. at all.
As a 32 year old gay man, I feel that the ideas in this article cannot be
applied to my life. Also I find it a little bit alienating and preachy. I
don’t go around telling straight women how often they should menstruate, what
business does this straight woman have telling me how often I should
masturbate? Particularly when there are no demonstrable health consequences
of frequent masturbation other than skin soreness which can be avoided if
you’re doing it right. Here are the 3 main conflicts I have with these ideas:
1. I usually ejaculate 2 to 5 times per day. I am not interested in doing it
less frequently unless I am traveling, staying with relatives, or otherwise
unable to have privacy for a long period of time. Even when staying with
relatives with absolutely no privacy, I will masturbate in the shower every
single time. None of the benefits of less frequent ejaculation mentioned in
the article outweigh, for me, the benefit of feeling sexually satisfied and
not pent up. My voice is plenty deep. My erections are fantastic, thank you.
In fact, I wouldn’t care if you told me that frequent ejaculation *caused*
prostate cancer. I’d be like, “well, maybe I’ll die of prostate cancer, but
at least I’ll never have to be horny.” I would not expect a woman to
understand this, and fortunately, since I am gay hence my partner is also a
man, I don’t need any women to understand it.
2. Many of the guys I’ve dated have been every bit as physically attractive
(in my opinion) and willing as the gay porn stars I’ve watched. I watch a
fair amount of gay porn, and I have a pretty good amount of sex if I do say
so myself. But in porn and real life both, I am interested primarily in men
who I perceive to be like me; around the same age, attractive but not
intimidatingly so, etc. You mention a straight man who masturbates to porn
and cannot be aroused by the real women he dates, but there are some details
I wonder about regarding that situation. How old is he? What does he look
like? How big are the differences between the women he watches in porn vs.
the women he is able to attract in real life? If he is over 50 and overweight
but he watches porn that features 18 year olds with 0% body fat, well, there
is a disconnect there that is probably more important to explore, don’t you
think? Isn’t the problem that this person wants to reach for a target that is
unrealistic for him? Isn’t that kind of narcissistic? How does he perceive
himself in relation to these women?
3. I take issue with the author’s comparison between masturbation and
behaviors with well-established negative health consequences such as
overeating and substance abuse. While the author may not have mentioned
substance abuse, she did refer to the initial period of ejaculation
abstinence as a “withdrawal” period, and to anyone who has read DSM-IV it
should be clear that this is a comparison to substance abuse. Withdrawal is
the definition of dependence. The term “withdrawal” usually used when
describing symptoms that occur after cessation of the use of a drug. I do not
think it is reasonable at all to discuss masturbation using this term.
Masturbation does not involve the use of a drug. You do not need to ingest,
insufflate, or inject anything in order to masturbate. You have all the
necessary chemicals already in your body, and it is a natural behavior in
which most mammals regularly engage. To apply an addiction framework to
something like masturbation, which has no demonstrable health consequences
and is done instinctually, is folly. To me, you might as well apply an
addiction framework to sleeping or breathing, neither of which do I plan to
do any less frequently either, thank you very much.