This is something I put together a while ago. I know it's long, but I'd like to see if any of you agree with what I have to say.
I begin this account by saying this is not official research. What you are about to read is all personal experience and conclusions drawn by myself over the last 6 months. I am writing this in the hopes that others may find what I have to say useful. My ultimate goal is to find others who have drawn similar experiences as I have. With that in mind, I ask that you read the following information with an open mind.
Mas.tur.ba.tion /noun: "erotic stimulation of one's own genital organs commonly resulting in orgasm and achieved by manual or other bodily contact exclusive of sexual intercourse, by instrumental manipulation, occasionally by sexual fantasies, or by various combinations of these agencies." That can be simplified as, "jacking off." Many people masturbate with the intention of relieving stress, some because they don't have a partner, some because it's just fun. Whatever the reasons, Near all of us men have masturbated at some point in our lives. I'm not writing this to discuss your reasons for masturbating, the purpose of this essay is to examine the effect of masturbation, not the cause.
When a male ejaculates, something known as the refractory period follows. Chemicals and hormones are released into the brain directly following an orgasm. The male usually gets a strong, relaxed feeling. It's common to feel very fatigued at this stage as well, and many men can fall asleep immediately after ejaculation. All us guys out there know how great this can feel. However, this is only the short term effect of masturbation. What happens when it is done excessively? What if it's done barely at all?
Over the next few weeks, I organized periods to test different masturabtion schedules (stimulated by pornography). This personal study was divided into five basic shedules. Once or more a day, once every 2 days, once a week, once a month, and once in 3 months. The results of my studies follow:
In my own experience, testing masturbating in excessive amounts (once or more a day in a 2 week period) left me in a pretty exhausting state. In a physical sense, I often felt fatigued and just wanted to sit around or sleep all day. I lost interest in working out, and dreaded going to football practice everyday. After week two, I felt like I was even falling out of shape, and didn't feel aggressive in football. In a social sense, I felt a surprising drop in my self confidence. It seemed like I always felt irritable and stressed out. I felt very socially awkward as well, like I wasn't myself. I had little urges to go out of my way to engage with real girls. I also felt a mysterious feeling of guilt following me everywhere.
After that, I practiced a level of moderation in masturbation. I masturbated every 2 days(Mon, Thurs, Sun type schedule) Almost immediately, I felt a significant improvement in my energy and "manliness". I seemed to gain a small spike in self confidence. I just felt better about myself. I also noticed I had a lot more energy to get me through the day. I felt more like myself, and a lot of the mysterious guilt seemed to disappear. I still avoided working out, but at least in football, I started feeling better about playing again. With this trend of increased self confidence and phyical well being, I decided to take it even further.
For one week, I decided to quit masturbating alltogether no matter how difficult in order to see the results. Days one, two, and three were hell for me. I had a burning desire to masturbate, and it bothered me all day long. I felt like a wild animal, with my only goal to release sexual tension. Again, I felt stressed out and socially awkward. All I wanted to do was go back to my old routine, but I pressed on. As days 4, 5, and 6 came along, I felt a HUGE spike of testosterone. My self confidence skyrocketed out of nowhere, and I felt strong happiness, whether it be from the actual absitince or pride of self mastery I'm not sure. Along with this, I felt wide awake and energized throughout the day, so much so, that I started working out again, which seemed to boost my self esteem as well. Instead of that burning passion to look on a porn site, a more natural feeling took over to pursue real girls. Instead of staying home and sitting around masturbating, I started talking to girls from my classes. In football, I started playing aggressive out of nowhere, and for the first time in a while, it was fun. Day 7 validated these good results for me. After a varsity football game, I went to our high school homecoming, and my previous lack of self confidence and social awkwardness had completely vanished. I had a great time, and danced with girls which had seemed to intimidate me just weeks before.
What struck me was the previous week, while on my previous masturbation schedules, I had decided I didn't want to go to the homecoming dance because I was so anxious about dancing, and approaching girls. However, as my week of abstinence followed, and my self confidence(and testosterone) built, my entire mentality changed about it. I wanted to approach these girls, and I felt no anxiety in getting denied. That night, I ended up confidently asking 9 different girls to dance that night, and was not rejected once. I was completely blown away with the results, and at that moment, I decided to try a new, much more strict masturbation shedule.
But first, I masturbated on day 8 of that week, as a means to "reset" my body before going into the month long abstinence. It was by far, the most glorious and fufilling orgasm I have ever felt in my entire life. It was just simply incredible. Semen volume had dramatically increased, and the orgasm lasted an entire minute! Simply something worth the wait. But how would it be after an entire month?
I had serious doubts at this point. The previous week was incredibly difficult, but an entire month? Despite my doubts, I decided to give it a shot. As before, the first few days were complete hell, and days 5, 6, and 7, I gained the same spike in testosterone. On week two of my abstinence, I had gotten another huge spike in testosterone, and my energy had blown through the roof. It was simply just an incredible feeling. My self confidence seemed to be at its peak now. I just felt so good about myself! In football, I was an agressive beast, and felt so great after laying a huge hit on somebody. I started hanging out with a lot of girls that week, and social awkwardness wasn't even a concern in my mind. As week 3 came along, I felt almost exactly the same, only I noticed myself talking a little ****ier. I went on a few dates, and I noticed a lot more girls were interested in me. The final week gave me some difficulty. With all of this energy and testosterone, I regained a huge urge to masturbate as a means to release some tension. I also had an acne breakout. But still, I pushed through the last week with the same self confidence and "****iness."
I came to the conclusion that I liked that feeling of self confidence, and didn't mind the additional ****iness. With my social awkwardness completely gone and all these real girls to talk to, I started to notice my entire life was changing for the better, just because I stopped masturbating. Knowing this only made me feel better about myself. Then I thought, "If I feel this great now, what if I pushed myself to the extreme?" I prepared myself to make my biggest and final length of abstinence, an entire 3 months! First, I masturbated to "reset" my body again. Again, the most lengthy and glorious feeling I have ever felt. Truly worth the wait.
I started to see that my body acted exactly the same to abstinence. The first month was literally EXACTLY the same as my previous recordings. But then month two rolled along...I had lost ALL my desire to masturbate out of nowhere. That's right, ALL! I never got random erections, and I had an incredible amount of control over myself. I went to a dance with grinding, a form of dancing where the guy basically rubs his genitals all over the girls behind. I've been to these dances before, and could always control myself to avoid erection mid dance, but it was always INCREDIBLY challenging, and took 110% concentration. But now, it was too easy to control myself. At one point, I even felt like I COULDN'T achieve erection...it was honestly a little frightening....but for the sake of the study, I kept going on. As the final month rolled along, I felt like I was losing my masculitiy. I just felt so passive. I still had good self confidence and no social awkwardness, but I just didn't feel right. I rarely got erections that last month, and never had one wet dream.
All of my previous abstinence times seemsed to suggets that the longer I went, the better off I'd be. But I believe it was made clear that 3 months was just TOO LONG. It's a terrible feeling when you have absolutely no sexual desires on your mind. I felt like I wasn't a man. I finished that harsh 3 months, and officially ended it on the 90th day by masturbating. It took me much longer to achieve orgasm, and I even got a little pain in my groin afterwards. I just went too far.