First, there is no evidence that "masturbation" is harmful to health. If we define masturbation as "the act of stimulating one's body in some way to achieve sexual pleasure or orgasm," then there is no scientific research that proves that the simple act of masturbation is harmful to health. A large number of research institutions and researchers, including the American Medical Association, have stated or proven that "masturbation is not harmful. Not only that, but masturbation has been proven by numerous studies to be a common human behavior. Some studies have even found that the act of "masturbation" is associated with positive health indicators, such as prostate health and sperm vitality after age 50. In addition, some schools of counseling may use masturbation as a means of treating orgasmic disorders or improving sexual health. So why is it that the seemingly accepted academic consensus is still being disseminated with much skepticism, and that there is still a large market for the harmful theory of masturbation?
"Masturbation" Is Not a Scientific Concept
If one were to look carefully at peer-reviewed journal papers, it is not as easy as one might think to find scientific studies that rigorously prove that "masturbation is not harmful" (and, of course, one cannot find scientific studies that rigorously prove that "masturbation is harmful"). One very important reason for this state of affairs is that "masturbation" is not a rigorous research concept. Generally speaking, as long as the act is done by oneself, does not involve others and can bring sexual pleasure, it can be called masturbation. People have different ways of getting sexual pleasure and masturbate in many different ways. While some people will read and fantasize about sex to obtain sexual pleasure, others will use tools to stimulate their bodies to obtain sexual pleasure. This wide range of behavioral definitions has led to difficulties in clarifying concepts in scientific studies. Indeed, masturbation by stimulating the body with a foreign object to obtain sexual pleasure is associated with greater health risks than sexual fantasy, and such a broad behavioral category is difficult to study as a scientific concept for experimentation. As a result, many studies with the goal of "exploring whether masturbation poses health risks" have actually used "ejaculation" or "orgasm" as the target behavior, exploring its relationship with physiological and psychological health. The study actually explored the relationship between "ejaculation" or "orgasm" as the target behavior and physiological and psychological health, and concluded that "ejaculation/orgasm" does not pose a health risk.
Comparing "Masturbation" To What
Some researchers have indeed explored the physiological and psychological effects of different sexual behaviors and have found some evidence that masturbation is not the sexual behavior with the most positive effects compared to other sexual behaviors. However, in all these studies, masturbation was compared with vaginal intercourse and anal sex. More specifically, the results of some studies suggest that vaginal intercourse leads to more positive effects on both physical and psychological levels compared to masturbation. However, in everyday contexts, the assertion that "masturbation is harmful" is a comparison between "masturbation" and "no masturbation" and a determination that "no masturbation is better than masturbation. ". This assertion is not supported by scientific research.
The Difficulty Of "Disinformation"
The work of "disproving" rumors that "masturbation is harmful" is challenging because of the sensitivity of the topic and the direction of the argument. First, many statements related to "masturbation is harmful" cannot be substantiated by rigorous scientific experiments because of the specificity of the topic. As ethics committees have become more stringent in their scientific studies, it is largely difficult to experimentally manipulate studies involving sexual behavior, especially in children, to explore causality. Second, studies arguing that "masturbation is harmless" are inherently underappreciated by professional journals and scientific colleagues because they do not yield significant results (frequency of masturbation is not related to physical/mental health). It is costly and difficult to refute false claims with scientific evidence as opposed to irresponsible spreading of "masturbation is harmful" claims.
Fourth, It Is Difficult To Ignore The Psychological Impact
Many people will use their own personal experience of positive changes in their physical and mental state after "quitting" masturbation to prove that "masturbation is harmful". Why do people's personal experiences contradict the results of numerous studies? This question may be partially answered by the "psychosocial re-creation of reality". Some social psychology researchers have found that when people have very strong subjective attitudes or inherent beliefs about something/behavior, their perceptions of those things/behaviors are reconstructed by the attitudes and beliefs, and even trigger a series of subsequent physiological responses. The famous "placebo effect" demonstrates that even drugs with no active ingredients at all can have significant therapeutic effects when the patient believes that the drug is effective. Conversely, when a person perceives something or a behavior as having a negative impact on the body, this psychological "re-construction" can cause the person to suffer a corresponding negative impact when confronting the thing or experiencing the behavior . Specifically on the topic of masturbation, if a person has extremely negative attitudes toward masturbation and believes that masturbation has multifaceted negative effects, he or she may indeed feel the same way after masturbation. However, this negative impact is not caused by the act of masturbation itself, but by the person's cognitive state.
