Response to "The Health Effects of Mastrubation"

[Sammm]

In the “Health Effects of mastrubation” thread, I saw people repeatedly claiming that scientific studies showed that mastrubation was physically and psychologically damaging, that this was not just some arbitrary position of the church, but that this is proven. There was also a lot of mocking of people who believed that it is not physically or psychologically harmful. Posters mocked the idea it wasn’t bad, saying things, “there’s no study that shows it is okay or in any way healthy” but that “tons of studies” showed how bad it was. People talked at length how terrible it is that people just believe mastrubation is okay with no evidence to support their belief, because it has been proven that it is harmful.

But posters didn’t actually reference studies. They invited us to do so ourselves, saying “look it up yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Well I did, and this is what I found.

The only study that I found, the only one, that showed a possible danger of mastrubation was a 2004 study from the British Journal of Urology showed an association between mastrubation and prostate cancer in young men, because prostate cancer results in a higher androgen hormone count, which can raise a man’s libido and cause him to mastrubate more frequently. But the mastrubation is a symptom, not a cause. Early studies made researchers think it might be a cause, not a symptom, but those studies were urged as “preliminary” and debunked by further studies with much larger groups of people studied.

Further studies by the Cancer Council of Victoria’s Epidemiology Centre, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The New Scientist Journal, the British Journal of Urology International, and the US National Cancer Institute all produced studies showing that regular mastrubation significantly lowers a man’s risk of prostate cancer. The JAMA study found in a study surverying 30,000 men that regular mastrubators have a 1/3 lower risk of prostate cancer.

I found that mastrubating too frequently can cause a man to take a long time to climax when he is actually with a partner, but the only thing needed to solve this is go a couple days without mastrubating. It’s easily remedied. Excessive mastrubation can cause abrasions, so it’s not good to go on some mastrubation tournament lasting days. Hygene is important so you don’t spread germs to your genitals from your hands. And obviously if someone is a sex addict and mastrubating (or fornicating) so much it interferes with their day to day life, that causes personal problems. But normal, regular mastrubation…I can’t find one single “study” that shows any harmful side effects, not one. In fact, every legitimate medical site that actually used studies (as opposed to religious websites who just claim its harmful and expect you to believe them) said that religions which teach about the harmful medical effects are giving out false information to the public.

As far as it harming a relationship with your partner, I couldn’t find any evidence of that, but I found a lot of medical websites that said that women who have trouble orgasming with their partner should practice mastrubating, because the woman can explore how she likes best to be touched so that she can help guide her partner. I couldn’t find any studies (again, just claims with no research to back them up) that it in any way has negative effects on a relationship with one’s partner, but I did find lots and lots and lots of doctors who said it is good stress relief and can improve one’s sexual relationship with one’s partner. Pretty much every couples therapist, sex therapist, or psychologist I could find who had published past 1950 says that it is a good thing.

I found that female mastrubation was recommended as a medical remedy on websites like web MD for the alleviation of menstrual cramps, PMS irritability, and insomnia.

The only thing I can find that claims it is objectively harmful (as opposed to just spiritually because it is against religious rules) is religious websites which post no backings for their claims except quotes from doctors from long ago, some even posted quotes from doctors in the 1700 and 1800s - talk about a dated reference!

I found that the following medical establishments state that mastrubation is not psychologically or physically harmful, and that it can even be helpful in aiding prostate health, stress relief, insomnia, pain relief, aid in healthy sexual development, and lead to improved sexual satisfaction and sexual relations with one’s partner:

The Mayo Clinic
John Hopkins Hospital
The American Medical Association
The American Academy of Physician Assistants
The New England Journal of Medicine
The Cleveland Clinic Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology
The Journal of Biological Psychology
The British Journal of Urology
The American Association of Clinical Urologists
The American Urological Association
The European Association of Urology
The American Psycological Association
The European Health Psychology Society

 

[meltzerboy]

Positing a link between masturbation and physical illness is similar to what some in the Jewish community say about the connection between non-kosher food and disease. The scientific evidence is simply not there!

If one is opposed to masturbation on moral and religious grounds, that’s fine. But don’t attempt to find a medical rationale. The preponderance of the evidence, as you point out, is in the OPPOSITE direction.

On a broader note, religion tends to use science any which way it can to support its own views. When science is contrary to religious teaching, religion decries science and scientists; however, when science is believed to support religious viewpoints, religion embraces it. Let’s leave science out of religion.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Medical reasonings don’t know the facts about everything. For instance, they can’t tell me why a two pack a day smoker since age 14 can live with good health until the age of 93 while one who is only a casual smoker since age 14 will die from heart disease at age 63. There are just too many variables. And when you take God out of the equation, I think you have a really lob-sided study. Its not that cut and dry and be careful of medical professionals who try and tell you ‘this is how it is always’… because history shows we don’t know much at all. Anyone for a round of blood letting? Or maybe a hole in the back of your skull to relieve headaches? What makes us think we ‘know it all’ now just because we have technological advances? So what? So did the Aztec before their civilization exploded.

My question is for those medical researchers… is physical health all there is? Is that their ‘ultimate’? Is that what they go to to explain everything?

So what if masturbation DOES relieve menstrual cramps?.. Does the act of murder relieve the murderer’s anger and annoyance (think “STRESS and high blood pressure” here.) with the one who was murdered? Probably. Was it good? no. Was it healthy? no. I’m sure lots of cavemen did so once and felt perfectly healthy afterwards even relieved.

I’m sure there are health benefits to many sins. Doesn’t make it right or ok. We don’t believe it because we want the benefits we believe it because God said so, not because science says this can be good for you!

What about the effects of masturbation on mental health?    If the sexual act's purpose is to form a bond with one's mate, then how Is it mentally or emotionally healthy to form a false bond with something that is a fantasy?   Seems to me if you are giving yourself to something that is very much so a figment of your specific personal desires, i.e. not real and very unobtainable if not impossible, then it would be detrimental to your mental health somehow. .... Depressed much?   Didn't get exactly want you wanted?  Frustrated you can't find that perfect someone or never feel very connected with your lover?  Angry all the time?

I think there is a whole lot that can be found as quite negative from masturbation that we as a society just haven’t realized the MAGNITUDE of its effects.

I wouldn’t give in to medical findings or expect medical findings to reveal an ultimate truth. Without God in the equation, they wander all over the place.

 

[meltzerboy]

Medical reasonings don’t know the facts about everything. For instance, they can’t tell me why a two pack a day smoker since age 14 can live with good health until the age of 93 while one who is only a casual smoker since age 14 will die from heart disease at age 63. There are just too many variables. And when you take God out of the equation, I think you have a really lob-sided study. Its not that cut and dry and be careful of medical professionals who try and tell you ‘this is how it is always’… because history shows we don’t know much at all. Anyone for a round of blood letting? Or maybe a hole in the back of your skull to relieve headaches? What makes us think we ‘know it all’ now just because we have technological advances? So what? So did the Aztec before their civilization exploded.

My question is for those medical researchers… is physical health all there is? Is that their ‘ultimate’? Is that what they go to to explain everything?

So what if masturbation DOES relieve menstrual cramps?.. Does the act of murder relieve the murderer’s anger and annoyance (think “STRESS and high blood pressure” here.) with the one who was murdered? Probably. Was it good? no. Was it healthy? no. I’m sure lots of cavemen did so once and felt perfectly healthy afterwards even relieved.

I’m sure there are health benefits to many sins. Doesn’t make it right or ok. We don’t believe it because we want the benefits we believe it because God said so, not because science says this can be good for you!

What about the effects of masturbation on mental health?    If the sexual act's purpose is to form a bond with one's mate, then how Is it mentally or emotionally healthy to form a false bond with something that is a fantasy?   Seems to me if you are giving yourself to something that is very much so a figment of your specific personal desires, i.e. not real and very unobtainable if not impossible, then it would be detrimental to your mental health somehow. .... Depressed much?   Didn't get exactly want you wanted?  Frustrated you can't find that perfect someone or never feel very connected with your lover?  Angry all the time?

I think there is a whole lot that can be found as quite negative from masturbation that we as a society just haven’t realized the MAGNITUDE of its effects.

I wouldn’t give in to medical findings or expect medical findings to reveal an ultimate truth. Without God in the equation, they wander all over the place.

I agree with you that medicine has a lot to learn. I think the best physicians admit this, at least to themselves if not to their patients or other physicians. I would only hope that if medical research reveals information that supports your own views some time in the future, you might be equally as skeptical of its validity.

 

[triumphguy]

Masturbation is simply wrong because of the effects it has on our soul, our relationships, the way we look at the world.

It is a disordered use of our sexuality.

I discounted the medical effects when hair **didn’t **grow on my palms as a teen.

 

[teachccd]

Your next research should be on how to spell “masturbation”…

 

[triumphguy]

Maybe bad spelling is a medical side effect?

 

[Sammm]

Medical reasonings don’t know the facts about everything. For instance, they can’t tell me why a two pack a day smoker since age 14 can live with good health until the age of 93 while one who is only a casual smoker since age 14 will die from heart disease at age 63. There are just too many variables. And when you take God out of the equation, I think you have a really lob-sided study. Its not that cut and dry and be careful of medical professionals who try and tell you ‘this is how it is always’… because history shows we don’t know much at all. Anyone for a round of blood letting? Or maybe a hole in the back of your skull to relieve headaches? What makes us think we ‘know it all’ now just because we have technological advances? So what? So did the Aztec before their civilization exploded.

My question is for those medical researchers… is physical health all there is? Is that their ‘ultimate’? Is that what they go to to explain everything?

So what if masturbation DOES relieve menstrual cramps?.. Does the act of murder relieve the murderer’s anger and annoyance (think “STRESS and high blood pressure” here.) with the one who was murdered? Probably. Was it good? no. Was it healthy? no. I’m sure lots of cavemen did so once and felt perfectly healthy afterwards even relieved.

I’m sure there are health benefits to many sins. Doesn’t make it right or ok. We don’t believe it because we want the benefits we believe it because God said so, not because science says this can be good for you!

What about the effects of masturbation on mental health?    If the sexual act's purpose is to form a bond with one's mate, then how Is it mentally or emotionally healthy to form a false bond with something that is a fantasy?   Seems to me if you are giving yourself to something that is very much so a figment of your specific personal desires, i.e. not real and very unobtainable if not impossible, then it would be detrimental to your mental health somehow. .... Depressed much?   Didn't get exactly want you wanted?  Frustrated you can't find that perfect someone or never feel very connected with your lover?  Angry all the time?

I think there is a whole lot that can be found as quite negative from masturbation that we as a society just haven’t realized the MAGNITUDE of its effects.

I wouldn’t give in to medical findings or expect medical findings to reveal an ultimate truth. Without God in the equation, they wander all over the place.

Please note that my thread was in direct response to the “health effects of masturbation” thread, in which many posters claimed that medical and scientific studies had proven masturbation to be bad for one’s pyschological and physical health, and that there is no medical or scientific studies that show it no be a neutral or healthy activity.

My thread was only written in response to these claims regarding medical and scientific studies, my thread is not dealing with it on a spiritual level.

Also if medical and scientific studies are so unreliable, then why did so many people bolster their arguments by saying that medical and scientific studies show that it is in fact harmful? As has already been noted in this thread, it seems like Catholics embrace science and medicine if it agrees with their ideology, but if it contradicts it, suddenly scientists and doctors aren’t to be respected.

Isn’t the solution for Catholics to just not try and justify spiritual or religious matters with science? Just to say “this is what we believe because it is part of our faith” and not selectively use science when it suits them?

As far as claims that it is mentally harmful; the only people I can find who say it is are religious groups, and they don’t post any studies backing up their position. They just say that it is harmful but don’t give any evidence. But I found lots of professional psychiatric organizations who have done many studies, and no actual scientific or medical peer reviewed studies have revealed any indication that it is mentally harmful.

Also hehehe I did spell it wrong! Sorry about that, I don’t talk about this subject a lot and I can’t remember when the last time I’ve had to write the word out. The reason I made this thread is that so many people in the other one said there were all these studies proving masturbation is harmful, so I decided to do some fact checking on these claims.
I doubt I’ll be making any more threads but if I do I will be more careful regarding spelling.

But is mispelling worse than giving out falsified medical information? Especially when there may be frightened teenagers reading this web page? Isn’t it wrong to tell people things that aren’t true? Also, many people in the other thread made fun of people who believe mastrubation is not physically harmful and made it seem like they were really stupid. It seems wrong to mock people without even first researching to see if their opinions have a basis in fact.

Is it considered okay for Catholics to lie to people or make fun of them without justification if it’s done to prevent people from committing a sin? I’m asking that question honestly, as I truly don’t know.

 

[itullian]

the affect it has on our relationships and how we look at the world?

doesn’t effect either, sorry.

unless of course its obsessive.

 

[triumphguy]

If I just look at women in order to fantasize about having sex with them then it changes my view of the world. Women are just there to please me, or they hold little interest for me. And if I can categorize half the human race like that what is the spillover from that point of view?

If I look at an attractive woman and in order to stop looking at her with lust in my heart I pray a Hail Mary for her then my view of women has just been affected.

By praying instead of lusting I think of them as children of God, and as real people rather than sexual objects.

 

[itullian]

i’m glad that works for you.

it has no affect on how i view woman or society.

i respect and treasure women and was very well adjusted socially.

i respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree.

all my friends have great families and friends and all partook.

 

[He_Man]

I didn’t even read the previous topic, but I’d be curious to see the study on its effects between the person and his or her relationship with God. Especially since that study will never occur, and is impossible to measure.

Not everything commanded by God is quantifiable in a secular study.

Might as well do a study on how many people who die go to Hell too. I’d love to publish some official results.

I don’t have to explain everything I command my children, because certain things they simply cannot grasp in their tiny minds.

Likewise, God does not have to explain everything, because for one, He is God, and two, we are not capably of grasping the infinite in the finite.

Searching for stats and secular answers on definitive Church pronouncements is simply being willful and defiant to God. Now if you don’t believe the Church is the Truth of God’s plan for humanity, then that is fine, but we should start there with that discussion, rather than arguing about specific rules.

If you do, believe it is the Truth, you need to swallow your ego or inability to grasp “everything” and simply follow what He says. You’re either in, or you are out.

 

[He_Man]

i’m glad that works for you.

it has no affect on how i view woman or society.

i respect and treasure women and was very well adjusted socially.

i respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree.

all my friends have great families and friends and all partook.

So that means God is incorrect? I can do a lot of evil with no seen consequences in my life. The lack of me “seeing” them does not mean they do not exist.

Tell us which “rules” lack consequence, that we may inform the Vatican for a rewrite.

 

[OraLabora]

Medical reasonings don’t know the facts about everything. For instance, they can’t tell me why a two pack a day smoker since age 14 can live with good health until the age of 93 while one who is only a casual smoker since age 14 will die from heart disease at age 63. There are just too many variables.

Actually medical reasoning recognizes very well that the relationship between cigarette smoking and health effects is a statistical relationship, not a deterministic one, and recognizes that many factors such as genetics, synergistic effects with other carcinogens, general health, etc, are all variables that contribute to that.

And when you take God out of the equation, I think you have a really lob-sided study.

Well, I was trained (and worked for many years) as a scientist but am also Catholic. I think that science and faith are complementary, but it’s more of a “one takes over where the other left off” sort of relationship. Science covers the how, and the prima facie evidence. God is about the why it; God is also about guiding our science to ethical ends. So either there’s a statistical relationship between smoking and cancer, or there isn’t, regardless of whether the scientist leading the study is a believer or not. However if (s)he is a believer, then what they do with that study may differ.

Its not that cut and dry and be careful of medical professionals who try and tell you ‘this is how it is always’… because history shows we don’t know much at all. Anyone for a round of blood letting?

I have hemochromatosis. The treatment for it is… blood letting

And given that this genetic disease affects about 1 in 300, it would appear that blood letting is still a fairly widespread medical treatment.

But I agree we know less that we don’t know. But that doesn’t discredit medical science either. It just means that science has a lot of work ahead, but at the same time scientists shouldn’t try to play God by making ethical decisions in an ethical vacuum.

My question is for those medical researchers… is physical health all there is? Is that their ‘ultimate’? Is that what they go to to explain everything?

An entire branch of medicine is dedicated to mental and emotional well-being, psychiatry. Not that psychiatry is perfect. But increasingly medicine is more and more concerned with overall well-being.

So what if masturbation DOES relieve menstrual cramps?.. Does the act of murder relieve the murderer’s anger and annoyance (think “STRESS and high blood pressure” here.) with the one who was murdered?

This is a disingenuous comparison. I have known women for whom menstrual cramps are debilitating, and basically makes them dysfunctional for a few days of the month. We do as Christians have a duty to relieve physical suffering.

We don’t believe it because we want the benefits we believe it because God said so, not because science says this can be good for you!

I think “because God says so” as a reason to avoid a behaviour like masturbation is an insult to intelligent, thinking humans with a conscience. Now if instead you built a case around masturbation creating or awakening an unhealthy appetite leading to compulsive behaviour, I would be willing to take the argument seriously… and admit that this indeed can happen. But then I would play devil’s advocate and ask you if we should ban wine because some people become alcoholics? I do think the issue of masturbation is one of well-formed conscience and if one’s conscience leads you to conclude that masturbation is wrong and to be avoided, then I think you made the right choice. In fact that is the position I myself lean towards.

However I will not be one to neglect taking medical evidence into account in forming my conscience, and I realize that there may be instances where I think that masturbation, while still intrinsically wrong and sinful, might have mitigating factors that significantly lessen one’s culpability. Something the Catechism apparently also allows for.

What about the effects of masturbation on mental health? If the sexual act’s purpose is to form a bond with one’s mate, then how Is it mentally or emotionally healthy to form a false bond with something that is a fantasy?

I don’t know. I guess it depends about the fantasy. A businessman or woman away from their spouse for an extended business trip and fantasizing about making love to his/her spouse is one thing, looking at porn, quite another.

I wouldn’t give in to medical findings or expect medical findings to reveal an ultimate truth. Without God in the equation, they wander all over the place.

Medical science cannot ever reveal an ultimate Truth. That’s asking something of it that it is completely incapable of doing. Those Truths are revealed through faith in God, as revealed to us in Scripture and Tradition. Medical science needs to take those elements into consideration for its moral and ethical guidance… and here we have plenty of evidence (abortion, etc.) to indicate a major fail.

But that’s not an inherent failing of the scientific method or “medicine”. It’s a failure of men and women to embrace the revealed Truths and lead a life of faith. And this is a general failure of society, not just of the men and women of medicine who are part of this society. They reflect the morals and ethics of their society. Unless there’s a profound and successful re-evangelization of society, I’m afraid that poor science, and good science applied to poor moral choices, are going to be with us for a while.

 

[thistle]

Actually medical reasoning recognizes very well that the relationship between cigarette smoking and health effects is a statistical relationship, not a deterministic one, and recognizes that many factors such as genetics, synergistic effects with other carcinogens, general health, etc, are all variables that contribute to that.

Well, I was trained (and worked for many years) as a scientist but am also Catholic. I think that science and faith are complementary, but it’s more of a “one takes over where the other left off” sort of relationship. Science covers the how, and the prima facie evidence. God is about the why it; God is also about guiding our science to ethical ends. So either there’s a statistical relationship between smoking and cancer, or there isn’t, regardless of whether the scientist leading the study is a believer or not. However if (s)he is a believer, then what they do with that study may differ.

I have hemochromatosis. The treatment for it is… blood letting

And given that this genetic disease affects about 1 in 300, it would appear that blood letting is still a fairly widespread medical treatment.

But I agree we know less that we don’t know. But that doesn’t discredit medical science either. It just means that science has a lot of work ahead, but at the same time scientists shouldn’t try to play God by making ethical decisions in an ethical vacuum.

An entire branch of medicine is dedicated to mental and emotional well-being, psychiatry. Not that psychiatry is perfect. But increasingly medicine is more and more concerned with overall well-being.

This is a disingenuous comparison. I have known women for whom menstrual cramps are debilitating, and basically makes them dysfunctional for a few days of the month. **We do as Christians have a duty to relieve physical suffering. **

I think “because God says so” as a reason to avoid a behaviour like masturbation is an insult to intelligent, thinking humans with a conscience. Now if instead you built a case around masturbation creating or awakening an unhealthy appetite leading to compulsive behaviour, I would be willing to take the argument seriously… and admit that this indeed can happen. But then I would play devil’s advocate and ask you if we should ban wine because some people become alcoholics? I do think the issue of masturbation is one of well-formed conscience and if one’s conscience leads you to conclude that masturbation is wrong and to be avoided, then I think you made the right choice. In fact that is the position I myself lean towards.

However I will not be one to neglect taking medical evidence into account in forming my conscience, and I realize that there may be instances where I think that masturbation, while still intrinsically wrong and sinful, might have mitigating factors that significantly lessen one’s culpability. Something the Catechism apparently also allows for.

I don’t know. I guess it depends about the fantasy. A businessman or woman away from their spouse for an extended business trip and fantasizing about making love to his/her spouse is one thing, looking at porn, quite another.

Medical science cannot ever reveal an ultimate Truth. That’s asking something of it that it is completely incapable of doing. Those Truths are revealed through faith in God, as revealed to us in Scripture and Tradition. Medical science needs to take those elements into consideration for its moral and ethical guidance… and here we have plenty of evidence (abortion, etc.) to indicate a major fail.

But that’s not an inherent failing of the scientific method or “medicine”. It’s a failure of men and women to embrace the revealed Truths and lead a life of faith. And this is a general failure of society, not just of the men and women of medicine who are part of this society. They reflect the morals and ethics of their society. Unless there’s a profound and successful re-evangelization of society, I’m afraid that poor science, and good science applied to poor moral choices, are going to be with us for a while.

Not if it means committing a grave sin to achieve that end.
The Church teaching is clear. The end does not justify the means.

 

[AdamP88]

Masturbation is basically morally wrong.

I don’t care about the medical side effects - I don’t do it cos it’s offensive to God.

In terms of science & the church - the Catholic Church has always embraced scientific findings (sometimes slowly) and been a patron of research.

Recently there was a meeting of astronomers in the Vatican to discuss the possibility of Extra-terrestrial life.

Stephen Hawking (even though he is an atheist) & many other renowned scientists are members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.