No Fap - see mod warning below

I have not seen the point of it myself. I have a healthy sex life by any standards - and a healthy masturbation life - and abstinence from either has never crossed my mind.

A close friend has done it and recently celebrated his 1st year. Asking him about "benefits" - he has not really reported any except perhaps an increase in his free time related to other activities due to the time saved not masturbating or engaging in porn use.

I am somewhat sceptical of any other benefits listed - mainly because they are the same benefits many people list when engaging in some kind of crazy dietry fad or some such. The same reasons people believe those fads are benefiting them seem to map onto this subject too. Such as it being part of an over all life style change and not really an isolated one off change. Mental placebo. And a number of other factors such as genuinely feeling good about yourself for successfully engaging in an exercise of will power and self discipline.

I have seen very little however to support the notion of any _actual_ benefits other than these subjective ones. But that does not mean to write off any benefit at all. Subjective benefits are still benefits.

Unfortunately there is two ways to read that libido thinking.

If masturbation is CAUSING low libido then by all means stopping it will reverse the problem. The statistics people trot out to support the "no fap challange" are skewed by this. They are not straight statistics supporting the benefit of engaging in such abstinence. They also include people who genuinely have some problem caused by masturbation, or masturbation to excess, that clearly are going to see benefits to stopping.

For example if one wanted to do a study testing if abstaining from alcohol has benefits - one would not include alcoholics in that study - because that _they_ would see benefits is clear and you would skew your results. Alas the same care for statistics is not seemingly taken when discussing the No Fap Challange.

But if someone already has low libido issues I would question whether abstinence from masturbation would have much effect at all. Perhaps even quite the opposite. Keeping the sex drive stimulated probably _helps_ with libido problems, not exacerbates them. We would need an expert on sexual health to come in and tell us that one - I am simply not sure or convinced either way.

Certainly what we do know is that masturbation - like over eating - is often a "The more you do the more you want" category of thing. So I would not be surprised to see that engaging in it actually helps up libido and sexuality, rather than the vision of a limited pot that one is using up with themselves rather than with others. Certainly from my own perspective I know that no amount of masturbation I engage in - small or large - has even the remotest effect on my sexual libido - desires - or capabilities with my girlfriends any more than engaging in Fast Food at lunch time removes by desire for a lovely dinner when I get home.

newport2 wrote: »

Good analogy, but the issue that I've read about is that you're flooding your brain with feel-good chemicals from watching porn. And the more you get, the more you want, true enough.

As you noted however we have switched from a conversation about masturbation to one about porn now. The two are not synonymous. One can do either without the other. Many people often do. Though I see no reason yet to think masturbation with porn is any better or worse - in its effects - than without. Either way one is stimulating oneself with imagery. The question is just where the imagery comes from - internally or externally.

I understand why it is easy to shift between the two in this conversation - but we should be hyper alert to when we are doing it and why.

And anyway, flooding the brain with feel good chemicals is not a bad thing. In the same way as drinking alcohol is not a bad thing. It only becomes a bad thing when you become addicted - dependant - or you are over indulging.

newport2 wrote: »

There is a point you can reach where "ordinary" one-to-one sex with your partner doesn't do it as much for you any more

That can happen of course but I do not think it so common - or that one automatically follows from the other. Just like eating fast food will not put you off Really Good Food when you are offered it - masturbation is not going to put someone off the real thing that easily - or that often. But if you are eating LOTS and TOO MUCH fast food - you are simply going to be incapable of eating anything else.

So again if we are assuming excessive use or excessive dependence then of course such knock on affects are going to arise. But just like above - when I said we should be hyper alert to switching too easily between "porn" and "masturbation" - we should also be hyper alert when we switch from talking about porn and masturbation in and of themselves - and excessive and dependence behaviour.

"No FAP" is clearly going to be beneficial to people who are over indulging - dependant - or addicted. The same is true of alcohol. We would risk simply stating the obvious.

So when talking about this "challenge" in general - we should not be assuming over indulgence or addiction. We should be assuming we are talking about the average person - what affects this challenge will have on them - and whether it will be beneficial or not.