Masturbation Rehabilitation
Wow, masturbation is useful!
Kirill Stasevich, CompulentaEveryone knows what masturbation is, and everyone knows that it is "not very good".
In ancient times, nothing was against her, but then the attitude towards her changed dramatically, and we had to wait for the twentieth century with Freud, Havelock Ellis and Reich, who said that masturbation is, generally speaking, not so bad. Even now, in our more than relaxed time, people use a great many slang substitute words to refer to masturbation - which means that the idea of it as something abnormal is still very strong.
The ban on masturbation was justified by the harm that "it causes to the soul and body." Let's leave Christian denominations alone: with them, as they say, everything is clear, but after all, European medicine has made, as they say, a tangible contribution to the fact that masturbation is considered extremely dangerous. By the XVIII century, doctors had formed the belief that masturbation causes impotence and blindness, and in the century before last it was treated with electric shock and cauterization of the genitals with a red-hot iron. These atrocities are in the past, but the methods of deep psychological study are still with us: even in the XX century, many teenagers were sure that masturbation would make them feeble-minded and they would grow hair on their hands.
Of course, as far as the sexual sphere is concerned, mythical and religious ideas are unusually strong, and in former times even enlightened researchers could not defeat them in their own heads, let alone public opinion. Science, however, does not stand still (may readers forgive us this banality), and in the XX–XXI centuries masturbation began to be seriously rehabilitated. And the funny thing is that sexual self-satisfaction was not only not harmful, but in some cases even useful.
Stimulation of the genitals, whether during sexual intercourse or, so to speak, on its own, activates blood circulation in the reproductive system and at the same time makes all kinds of accompanying substances move more intensively, from intercellular fluid to mucous secretions. For example, masturbation protects women from infections of the uterus and urinary tract — it is believed that due to the fact that masturbation refreshes the mucous secretions filling the cervix.
In men, masturbation reduces the risk of prostate cancer — again, it is believed, due to the leaching of oncogenic substances from the tissues. (A paper on this topic was published in 2004 in the Journal of the American Medical Association; its authors established a link between the frequency of ejaculation and the likelihood of prostate cancer (Leitzmann et al., Ejaculation Frequency and Consequent Risk of Prostate Cancer)
Masturbation increases the level of the hormone cortisol, which (albeit in small doses) regulates the balance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory reactions of the immune system. That is, masturbation can have an immunomodulatory effect. Of course, we should not forget that self-satisfaction increases the level of endorphins in the blood, which, in turn, can weaken depression.
In addition, masturbation, by regulating hormone levels and blood pressure, relieves tension and helps fight insomnia. It is believed that it even reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, but here the effect is most likely very, very indirect. Finally, masturbation allows you to make orgasms more vivid, and a saturated orgasm again has a positive effect on health — both mental (relieves stress, etc.) and physical (improves the functioning of the heart and blood vessels).
It should probably be noted that all these benefits from masturbation can be realized in ordinary sex, however, ordinary sex requires, in official language, more conditions for implementation than masturbation. Simply put, it is faster and easier to get sexual advantages from masturbation than from "team play".
No one, however, undertakes to assert that masturbation is better than sex. Most likely, all the advantages of the first are revealed even more clearly in the second, and, besides, there are advantages in ordinary sex that are not realized in masturbation. However, the path to these benefits can be quite difficult for some, and sexologists in this case again recommend masturbation as a means to understand their own needs and a way to relieve general sexual and psychological tension and fears of real sex.
Of course, it happens that masturbation takes on an obsessive character, becomes an addiction, and then it may be able to lead to exhaustion and to blunting of thinking. However, in this case, it only stands in a number of numerous addictions and neuroses, and it is hardly worth highlighting it as something particularly dangerous.
Prepared based on the materials of The Conversation: Happy news! Masturbation actually has health benefitsPortal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru