As well as halting my sexual relationships with women I have also stopped any affiliation with ‘Palmala Handerson’. This has been a very difficult task as I’m sure many of my young male counterparts will appreciate. Here is an insight into some of the difficulties and misconceptions I have run into as a result of this decision.
Throughout my young life I have been told that regular masturbation is a healthy part of youthful male development. Yesterday, during the morning hours, I signed onto Facebook with the intention of getting to the bottom of an issue that was brought to my attention the night earlier. Was masturbation good for young males and more importantly would there be any negative (cancerous) effects as a result of not partaking in this activity? I changed my Facebook status to “Does not masturbating increase your chance of cancer? (Seriously)”. Here are some of the best (and funniest) responses I got:
“Not masturbating increases the chance of homicides”
“I dunno man i heard it decreases ur chance of prostate cancer”
“no but i heard they both leave a lump on ur nut… i wouldnt know”
“only if your not masturbating in a tanning bed :)”
“No way, Seb Think about monks and stuff... they don't have an increased risk of cancer!”
“actually sexual release has a lot of benefits for you and i do believe there is a correlation between frequency of masturbating or having sex and less cancer rates...altho im not the authority on it”
“what doesn't cause cancer these days... haha I don't think it does”
And then suddenly, as though my prayers had been heard by God himself the answer arrived.
“By not masturbating your sperm cells undergo their life and death cycle in your body, increasing your protein and adrenaline. So more cells are created but nothing cancerous. Cancer would be an accelerate or some chemical that changes a Stop Codon, by deleting or changing the DNA pattern.
“Cell reproduction depends on certain environmental conditions, etc. Some of the scientific BS on the Internet is due to those who fund the research.”
Which was rightfully followed by.
“Your more likely to get cancer from being outside more cuz ull spend less time in ur room ;)”
My suspicions about this online masturbation information were confirmed! I now had a reason to believe that the stories I had read on the Internet were entirely based on false reason and circumstantial evidence. But how could I be sure that I wasn’t being misled once again? This was, after all, a matter of life or death. I left the house for the afternoon and went to have sushi with a beautiful young friend of mine. Seeing as how I had spent much of the morning researching the male anatomy, sushi seemed to be the most reasonable food as I wanted to avoid watching my lunch mate consume anything remotely warm, gooey and/or penis shaped. Like many of the other people I had asked for advice she told me she knew little to nothing about the subject and spent most of the afternoon making sexually explicit comments.
After lunch I returned home, packed to the brim with sushi but still feeling empty on the subject of masturbation. I decided to take a walk and see if I could find an old friend who I hadn’t seen in more then a year. She lived not too far from me during our high school years but has been living on Vancouver Island since we both graduated. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to seek her out as I was sure that she could offer some advice on the subject.
Upon reaching her house the memories of high school came streaming back and I began reminiscing about our forgotten friendship. As I knocked on her front door I wondered weather she or her family even lived in this house any longer. Moments later that question was answered when her father opened the door. I hadn’t seen him in almost three years and we both exchanged a somewhat confused glance before saying ‘hello’. I reintroduced myself and he warmly invited me into the house after saying that his daughter was on vacation and was planning on being home later in August.
We sat and chatted for a while about what his children and I had been up to over the past few years. Then, all at once I remembered that the man I had been talking to for the last 20 minutes was a certified physician. He had worked in both developing and ‘first world’ countries and was a practicing doctor. Immediately I reoriented the conversation and told him the problems I had been encountering with regards to the misconceptions about masturbation. Along with telling me that there was absolutely no proof that masturbation was either good or bad, he stated that the only circumstance he knows of that masturbation (or not masturbating) could be considered harmful is when people with a deranged psyche (pedophiles, murders, etc.) masturbate and fanaticize about the acts they want to commit. He said this was called ‘positive reinforcement’ and that most of the mammals we know of are susceptible to this.
He went on to highlight a case study done on rats that found when rats were given the ability to release pleasurable hormones on command, using a button, the rats would kill themselves as a result of overusing the button and forgetting to eat. Although this is an extreme example I think there is a lot of truth to this in our human society. For example, many of us spent our adolescent years chasing girls, talking about how we were going to get them, and then glorifying our actions to our friends after we had disrespected Mother Nature at her essence. At the time it seemed logical to me. All I had ever been taught about being ‘cool’ through ads, TV shows, music videos and movies was that the end goal was to get the girl. This fixation dominated my attention throughout most of my teenage years. As ‘natural’ as it is to be attracted to a woman or even several women, looking back, I would have liked to have had the ability to control my own energy and power within myself to have found another agenda. Who knows what sort of great things I could have achieved if I had not been obsessed with this unfulfilling cycle of egocentric lust. I have come to believe that masturbating is a naive attempt at satisfying my own attachment to the sexual matrix that has been flourishing throughout the environment I live in.
On the other hand Dr. Curry also said that there are no scientifically proven negative effects of masturbation, so to each his (or her) own. Just remember; life is too short not to juice it for all it worth… and so is your penis.
In abstinence,
Celibacy Seb
