This fall, a unique experiment took place — what if users could ask an on-cam therapist questions about masturbation?
To find out, Dr. David Ley, a member of the Sexual Health Alliance and author of ”The Myth of Sex Addiction” and ”Ethical Porn for Dicks,” spent an hour on cam with Stripchat answering any question visitors might have about masturbation.
The results were astonishing. Nearly 1,000 people crowded into the room, shouting questions about everything from mineral depletion to sex addiction. Dr. Ley, unflappable as always, took his time demystifying the anti-scientific, stigma-filled and often hilarious questions that we got from users.
The one conclusion that can’t be ignored? A lot of people still have really outdated notions about masturbation.
“Does Masturbation Make You Go Blind?”
Yes, in 2020, this myth persists. Surely people might be able to look around (well, at least the not blind ones) and see that we’re not in an epidemic.
The rumor, Dr. Ley explained, came from Benjamin Rush, a physician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Rush believed that masturbation made you go blind, and treated it with leeches.
“Masturbation doesn’t make you go blind,” Ley explained to the assembled crowd. “What Benjamin Rush was seeing is the untreated effects of syphilis and gonorrhea, sexually transmitted infections that were present in the New World, in America in the 1700s. It wasn’t masturbation that made you go blind, but it was sexually transmitted infections.”
“Can You Masturbate Too Much?”
The session was launched as a way to combat #NoNutNovember — the anti-fap movement that argues masturbation lessens virility, causes impotence and weakens the human race.
The amount you should masturbate, Ley explained, is relative. Recent science has suggested that men masturbate at least 21 times a month for prostate health, but that doesn’t mean more is worse — or that you can’t masturbate less if if you like.
“The question is better asked with another question,” Ley postited. “Do you feel comfortable with the masturbation that you’re doing? Do you feel like it’s a healthy part of your life? Because when we think about somebody masturbating too much, usually it’s too much for the context.”
“If you find yourself wondering or being told too much, too much compared to what? And let’s answer that question before we decide that masturbation is unhealthy.”
Masturbation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Religious organizations and sexual shame can make people feel like masturbating even once is sinful or weak. Science has shown that the people who struggle most with masturbation — or anti-scientific ideas like porn addiction — don’t actually masturbate any more than people who regard it as a healthy outlet.
Like so many things about sexuality, the shame we feel is the problem, not the act itself.
“Can Masturbation Deplete Vitamins and Minerals?”
This was another question that came up again and again — the idea that semen contains some magical substance that we deplete when we ejaculate.
Dr. Ley got to the bottom of this quickly, explaining that the notion originally started with a 17th century Swiss physician named Samuel Tissot:
“Samuel Tissot was concerned that masturbating makes men less manly, and basically he was arguing and concerned that, if you masturbate, that when you ejaculate, you are losing some of your masculinity,” Ley said, and related it quickly to the anti-fap and anti-masturbation movements today. “There’s a whole lot of folks that are out there saying that if you masturbate too much, it reduces your testosterone, it makes you less manly.”
In fact, it’s the opposite. According to Ley, the research actually shows, in multiple cases, that people who have sex more and people who masturbate more have higher levels of testosterone. Stopping orgasms and sex and masturbation is more likely to decrease your testosterone.
“Does Masturbation Affect the Immune System?”
Again, Ley addressed the myth with science. In fact, he says, new research suggests that masturbation and orgasms appear to increase the functioning of a healthy immune system.
“Go ahead and masturbate,” Ley told the questioner, “because the more you masturbate and the more orgasms you have the healthier your body is, and the stronger your immune system the more you’re going to fight off that flu.” (He also recommends getting a flu shot.)
“Does Masturbation Prevent Early Ejaculation?”
Many users wanted to know if they could delay premature ejaculation by masturbating before a date. (This calls to mind a famous account from Groucho Marx, who once tried a cream to delay ejaculation. “I came rubbing the stuff on!")
Unlike the other questions, this one wasn’t entirely based on myth. In fact, many sex therapists recommend that men who struggle with premature ejaculation get off prior to a sexual encounter.
“Now we have to be clear,” Ley qualified. “Premature ejaculation clinically means less than one minute. There are many people, there are many men who ejaculate sooner than they think they should because they’ve learned about sex from watching pornography where all dicks stay hard all the time and men cum on command. The real life of sex is a little more complicated than that.”
In the coming year, with the introduction of the Sexuality Resource Center on the site, we will to build on the work with Dr. Ley, helping users deal with shame and misinformation.
