Catholic Sex Blog

There’s one thing about masturbation that I’ve been on the lookout for, but have never found, is something on masturbation addiction, and how it works. I know how pornography addiction works, but I’m interested in how the act of masturbation affects the human body. What does it do to the person?

I am aware of some emotional changes through the process, both before and after, so clearly there are some hormonal changes in the body. What are they? Are they really healthy, as many people seem to claim without any medical proof? Or could they actually be harmful? Because I have found no long-term benefit of masturbating regularly, but in fact a lot of negative effects, one of which would be an addiction to masturbation.

There are other substances that cause similar hormonal changes in a person’s body such as nicotine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana… and all of these are harmful. Could masturbation actually be harmful as well? Could masturbation be, perhaps, the nicotine of addiction to pornography?

I came across this website (www.newlifehabits.com) the other day. On one particular post “Masturbation Addiction Explained“. It speaks of the harmful mental and physical benefits of masturbation:

On mental effects, it says:

When a person masturbates, the ability to create and maintain relationships is hindered. Masturbation makes us more reserved and turns us inward to be concerned mostly with pleasing ourselves. Relationships are about caring for others and this is hard to do when we are being so selfish in private. Masturbation can cause us to be less outgoing and we may isolate ourselves from others in shame. We may feel uncomfortable in crowds because we lack the confidence to conduct ourselves in a healthy social way. It can effect our dating relationships and put too much weight on the physical part of the relationship and ignore the friendship that should be developing.

Sounds like the story of my life, if you ask me…

As for physical effects, it says, in a summarized form:

There are different chemical reactions happened when you masturbate as opposed to having healthy sex in a marriage. A lot of what is going on during and after these acts originates in the pituitary gland. Two main hormones are interacting and regulating each other. These are the dopamine and prolactin hormones.

Dopamine makes us feel excited and prolactin makes us feel relaxed. When a person reaches climax after arousal, the body knows how to release prolactin to suppress the dopamine so we will feel relaxed and satisfied. In marriage this is accompanied with many emotions of love and so the satisfied feeling is multiplied and you become bonded to your spouse physically and emotionally.

Over 400% more prolactin is released at climax when engaged in healthy sex with a loved one than when one masturbates. So what does that mean? It means that the person who masturbates is no where near as satisfied and definitely not bonded in love as they would be in a healthy normal marriage. In fact, the person who masturbates has no idea what they are missing out on but instead have sort of a pseudo miserable bond with fantasies that are ever changing and progressing in order to keep the person somewhat satisfied.

The person who masturbates will continue to be excited by the unregulated levels of dopamine. They may feel a little relaxed but the arousal returns quickly and they must masturbate again in order to feel relaxed again. So with a shorter period of relaxation the person must masturbate more frequently to try to reach the equivalent level of relaxation they would have in a healthy marriage. They will never reach this level of satisfaction.

In this uncontrolled and unhappy state the person is definitely not even ready to experience a marriage since they have no self-control and would bring their warped sense of love into the marriage. Remember, true love involves self-control.

In conclusion, no good comes from masturbation. Those who promote it either have never dealt with the problem or have just created an opinion with little knowledge of the negative effects.