(seminal retention) for you guys, the true problem is PM or O ?

The true problem is P! All this porn induced problems are the root of all evil, occasional mastrubation without any P or P fantasies should be fine for most men

 

Porn is the problem in my opinion. There's a good quote - "avoid the buffets in life" and this makes sense from so many perspectives. From a neuroscience perspective, it makes sense because Internet porn can be such a "buffet" or superstimulus that it transforms "goal-driven" behaviors to "habitual" ones that people do repetitively. It's kind of like how a mice may push a lever when its hungry to receive food or some sort of reward. Many mice will eventually start pressing the lever even when they are not hungry. Why? Because they associate the lever with a pleasant experience (eating food can release dopamine in the nucleus accumbens) and it's available to them 24/7.

Goal-driven behavior -> Habitual behavior
^We want to limit this from happening

Analogously, many of humans don't have the self control to simply watch porn and jack off when we have an internal drive for sex. We end up watching it in much higher quantities because it is a pleasant experience and frankly "feels" a lot better than most things we do in everyday life.

I think the main issue with watching so much porn is that we tend to escalate in usage to porn that is "more pleasant." And by pleasant I don't necessarily mean content that makes us happy but content that makes us more aroused. And it has been established that shock can lead to increased levels of arousal (adrenaline -> increased sexual arousal). This doesn't have to be trans porn or some niche porn genre. Someone can naturally be attracted to large breasts. The availability of porn allows them to pick and choose content that has involves large-sized breasts.

Now, what if their partner has small breasts? Well, it's definitely a possibility that they will feel less physical attraction to their partner (and perhaps real-life people in general).

And that can lead to a whole host of problems.
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From an ethical perspective, many women tend to think of their guy watching porn as cheating. Interestingly, I saw a thread on Reddit about a women who's man was watching porn and couldn't get it up last year. The thread blew up with I think over a 100 comments by other women!

Now don't go on Reddit.
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From a religious perspective, many people have difficulty with engaging in porn in moderation. Personally, I think more than once or twice a week is over that "moderation" limit. During COVID, I was jacking off two or three times a day. So no dip - I was dealing with a lot of issues.

But masturbation (without porn) is something that can be done. The only argument I have against that is that if you have watched porn recently, you tend to use that stimulus for your masturbatory sessions, but once you've maintained a distance from porn of three months or longer I feel that it's safe to MO in moderation. It's kind of like a self-regulatory behavior if you get what I mean.

 

For me orgasm is the problem, not just porn.

Semen retention just means to not ejaculate. Technically somebody could masturbate and edge to porn all day and as long as they do not finish they would be retaining. This is obviously stupid, cos porn is bad in and of itself: it's draining for sexual energy, addictive and damaging for the brain! But having actual orgasm for me is way more draining than just watching porn without orgasming. So no, masturbation without porn is absolutely not ok for me. I lose all the benefits of retention. While porn drains your sexual energy somewhat, in my experience the 90% of the benefits comes from retaining, not just staying away from porn.

I am not sure what effect masturbation without porn involved has on the brain health (there is not enough scientific research on this), but what I do know is that it is just as addictive as porn. And because it is just as addictive there is a danger to overdo it; I think there is a thin line between "healthy" masturbation and it turning in an addictive compulsion, which then leads to excessive masturbation. And I personally think excessive masturbation is damaging to the hormonal and nervous system in some way; like I said, there is no scientific data behind this, but simply speaking from my own experience, as well as stories of others that I read on internet, I think this is the case! Also just using common sense—when we look around, everything in excess is unhealthy for the body, even good things, such as exercise or vitamins, so why this would be any different?

Honestly I think this is true for most people, with only minority of exceptions maybe. In our society we have been programmed to think that porn is healthy for you. And everybody on this forum knows it's a lie. But is it a lie for everyone? Probably not—there are plenty of people who binge on porn daily and still are the epitome of the "alpha male". Is it true for most? I don't think so (and even then, just because you feel fine does not mean it is not doing some hidden damage to your body in the background—I felt fine for years abusing porn and did not even notice the damage it did to me). The same way we also have been programmed to think masturbation and regular orgasm is healthy—why couldn't that be another lie? I'm sure it's not noticable for everyone, the same as porn; some people can masturbate to orgasm every day and feel great, maybe you guys are one of them (I would be careful though cos, like I said above, we don't know what damage it might be causing that we have no clue about). But most people haven't even tried retention, they just regurgitate that mindless conditioning of society: "masturbation is healthy". The same way others regurgitate it about porn: "porn is healthy for you, an article on Cosmopolitan said so"! Yea, ok.

 

Yes, I would argue sex is also draining. Ironically enough, many things that keep us alive is also slowly killing us. Look at food for example, we need it to function, yet it is also one of the main reasons why we age at such a pace and develop disease; extended water fasting lets us get rid of old and damaged cells and rebuild our organs through stem cells, as well as keep our mind sharp. But of course we can not fast forever. Or look at sunlight: we need it on our skin and in our eyes to be mentally and physically healthy, yet it also burns us and gives us skin cancer. Same happens with sex. Is there a benefit to sex? Sure, one benefit is that we need it to reproduce as a species, another benefit is that of bonding connection between partners, which is necessary for healthy relationship. But there is a cost to everything! And what is good for us as a collective is not always good for the individual.

Many things in life is about finding the right balance between these things. Do you have to never ejaculate? Probably not, some people practice semen retention by limiting ejaculation to once a month, or once every 90 days, or even once a week, etc. I am sure even only once a week will be better than twice a day, like many PMO addicts do. And of course some decide to go full monk mode and be celibate, which I guess is where I am at right now. And some decide to go tantric mode and have sex without orgasm. This type of sex is called Karezza, it's a type of tantric sex; there is a great book about it called Cupid's Poisoned Arrow, which I would strongly recommend, never tried it myself but the theory in it is definitely fascinating!

I guess so. But try to talk with an average normie about nofap and damaging effects of porn, they will think you are being silly and cringe, yet we all know it's real.

It makes me wonder, what if these people would have been retaining? How much more healthy and successful in their intellectual pursuits, artistic pursuits or financial pursuits they could have been? Some of our greats have practiced retention: Steve Jobs apparently was into non-ejaculatory tantric sex, Nicola Tesla is know to also practice celibacy and credited his intellectual achievements to it, Mike Tyson talked about this in his interview as well. Obviously these people we both mention are just anecdotal examples, so it's impossible to tell if anything would have changed—I am salivating for time when some scientists finally start doing research on this, but that will obviously take a while, cos like you said, most people find things like this silly.

I think there is a baseline of health—a balance, if you will. But I am interested of what comes after that baseline of health—the benefits of going beyond of just "good enough to be healthy"! Because you are talking about what is considering normal, and the way it is determined is by averaging what everyone else is doing. For example most people in the world do not exercise, the average lifespan is 75, so one could look at these data and argue that because of this exercise is not needed for long life, what is needed is to just not be obese and extremely sedentary. But what if everyone in the whole world would start jogging 10k every morning and lifting weights in a gym for 20 min a day every day? I would argue that average lifespan would probably go up from 75 to 95! You get my analogy here?

Yea, sure, you can be normally healthy by not retaining. But what if everyone would retain, would the average health and mental happiness go up? Unfortunately we do not have a scientific data on this, so we are kind of stuck here. So what we gonna do about it? We can agree or disagree, but nobody knows what's what. But what we have is thousands of years of data of experimentation, by ancient Taoist and Hindu sages, such as Brahmachari. These people did not just make stuff up but determined what works, and what effects this or that has on the body and mind, by experimenting on their bodies, for generations of linages! The eastern approach of mysticism is culturally very different to western one, which is not so much based on experimenting but more so on just hearsay and blind belief. So we can do the same—there is another way, which is testing this! And I have tested some of these claims myself and saw results in my life! And I am gonna keep testing. So rather then trying to convince people I just invite them to try it and see positive changes in their energy levels, motivation, discipline, will power, charisma, mental health, etc; document and compare how you feel while orgasming regularly without porn and retaining without porn. Most people will see the difference.

Is all good, that's what this forum is about! I enjoy discussions and healthy disagreements!

 

From my perspective about 85% of the toxicity is porn. And only 15% masturbation and orgasm. Of course if somebody is edging for hours, the equation changes a lot. But at the same time it is difficult to imagine somebody edging for hours without porn.

I wouldn't see much of a problem in some weekly MO activity that won't take more than a couple of minutes. But still I'm choosing for myself total abstinence. Because by MOing I would still be depleting my lifeforce for no good reason and engaging in an addictive behaviour.

 

Agree Kieran.

I think there is probably something to semen retention but if you're watching porn and/or edging in the mean time then I'm sorry, but you are not going to see any benefits from that whatsoever. Guys who think that having sex but without crossing the line of ejaculation is "semen retention" are also sorely mistaken. Just because the semen is technically still inside of you, your body has still gone through the whole taxing process of preparing to ejaculate. At that point you've already done 90% of the "damage" so to speak, you can't compare that to a guy who is actually fully celibate.

 

I edged unconsciously while sleeping last night. It also happened frequently in my longest streak (16mo). I think it set me back big time.