I was 15 years old when an older cousin told me never to masturbate. He cited a verse from the Quran:
The believers are those who protect their sexual organs except from their spouses… Therefore, whosoever seeks more beyond that (in sexual gratification), then they are the transgressors.
Having already dropped organized religion at that point, being a ‘transgressor’ wasn’t really a cause of concern, and so, I continued with my daily wanks and dug deeper into the rabbit hole that is internet porn.
Fast forward to today and I’m the one preaching that you should quit masturbating, not because you’ll go to hell if you do but because you’ll live in hell if you don’t stop.
Porn wires your brain to become a “voyeur”
Porn trains your brain to become a “voyeur” who watches “others” have sex instead of seeking it. It programs the brain to be a spectator instead of an active participant in one’s sexual life. This “voyeurism” extends (subconsciously) to other areas of one’s life as he “watches” others succeed, achieve goals, and get the girls of his dreams.
– From a thread on reddit.com/r/NoFap
Mainstream consciousness is programmed with a mentality of hero worship. Just look at the amount of rabid sports fans out there hoping for their favorite player to take the glory while they watch from the sidelines.
It’s okay to watch sports, but don’t let it get to the point where you become more emotionally invested in the success of other men than you are in your own success. Life is not a spectator sport, yet the majority of men are succeeding, fucking, and achieving vicariously through the lives of others.
I know a guy who says he doesn’t have time to lift weights, but has somehow managed to watch every single episode of House of Cards and every other popular show on Netflix. I know another guy who says he doesn’t have to time to read books, but knows exactly how many goals Cristiano Ronaldo has scored this season.
I’m sure you know men like these. Men that exemplify the spectator mentality. Men that spend their time watching other men penetrate life (and women) while completely neglecting their own growth and development. Billions of men are plagued by the spectator epidemic and step one to overcoming it is to stop watching porn.
What Sigmund Freud, Nikola Tesla, Isaac Newton, and Steve Jobs had in common
Other than producing work that changed the world for centuries, all of these men had mastered the art of sexual transmutation. In the words of Napoleon Hill:
The desire for sexual expression is by far the strongest and most impelling of all the human emotions, and for this very reason this desire, when harnessed and transmuted into action, other than that of physical expression, may raise one to the status of a genius.
Add in Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Thoreau to that list and you’ve got the original NoFap pioneers. Victor Pride writes that semen is life-energy:
When you waste your semen you are literally wasting your life-force.
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Now, you might be wondering: Is there any science to back this up? Turns out, there is. When 28 healthy male volunteers abstained for 7-days, their testosterone levels shot up to 145.7% above baseline on day 7.
In another study, 10 healthy men were assessed for their testosterone levels before and after a 3-week period of abstinence. Across the board, the men had significantly higher testosterone levels after their period of abstinence.
Testosterone fuels your drive to succeed and abstinence is a proven way to build it up for more energy, focus, and motivation.
Does ejaculation affect testosterone?
he short answer is no: masturbation-induced ejaculation does not impact testosterone levels in the short-term.
That being said, studies done on rats found that excessive ejaculation significantly reduced androgen receptor density in their brains. Not only that, but it also significantly increased estrogen receptor density.
In other words: wank off too much and you run the risk of feminizing your brain. The effects of excessive ejaculation have not been looked at in humans, but researchers study rats because their primitive brain structures are surprisingly similar to ours.
In the words of molecular biologist J. Medina:
Animal research acts as a guiding flashlight for human research, illuminating biological processes.
What about sex?
Physiologically, there is no difference between ejaculating from sex versus ejaculating from porn. Psychologically, however, there’s a huge difference – pheromones, feelings of dominance, touch, etc. are all factors involved in sex that aren’t involved in masturbation. These psychological differences go on to have a tremendous hormonal effect as well.
Forty-four men were assessed for their salivary testosterone levels during their time at a sex club. The men who had sex experienced a 72% increase in T. Even the men who merely watched others experienced an 11% increase.
In a study on heterosexual couples, both the men and women had higher testosterone on the nights they had sex versus the nights that they didn’t. And in a cross-sectional study of elderly men, those with higher levels of sexual activity also had significantly higher levels of testosterone.
Conclusion
Stop watching porn because it enforces the spectator mentality. Practice strategic abstinence to build up your testosterone and enhance your creativity, discipline, and focus.
Although masturbation does not affect testosterone levels in the short term, excessive masturbation can have feminizing effects on your brain, and having sex with another person, rather than with your hand, involves factors other than ejaculation that play a role in spiking testosterone.
Masturbation is definitely something that I continue to struggle with. I relapsed just two days ago after 15 days of NoFap. But today, I’ve leveraged $100 on Stickk to go to the National Organization of Gay Marriage if I don’t follow through on my NoFap commitment for 30 days.
Who’s with me?