I don't think there's been an explicit topic on this yet, which surprises me because I know that at least some of us here have experimented with this type of thing.

I've been going through another period of what could be called sexual conservation, the rule is simple; no ejaculation or orgasm (excepting nocturnal emissions). Other methods that are practiced have different rules, and the most abundant range of rules lies in taoist literature. What is common to them all is the requirement for at least some form of restraint. This ranges from complete abstinence, to having lots of sex without ejaculating (see Mantak Chia), and the more moderate schools of thought suggest that ejaculation should be regulated simply according to age.

Its been going quite well and has been easier than the first couple of times I've done it. It has been made simpler due to the lack of a regular partner.

Its been about my third or fourth week now, and whilst I've been doing other practices simultaneously (which account for a number of changes I'm experiencing), I've noticed several definate changes in mood, energy levels, sleep patterns, productivity, body functioning, creativity, etc.

I struggle to find a comprehensive analysis of mine and other people's range of experiences in this endeavour. I have read a number of books and websites, but all make a few too many leaps and bounds. One of the better ones which tries to link current scientific knowledge is http://www.reuniting.info/. But it can be a bit of a stretch at times.

Other places to look would be Mantak Chia (who has extensive writings and methods on this subject), karezza, Gnosticism (although reading the books I'm convinced that Samael was schizophrenic or had manic psychosis; religious, bizarre and grandiose delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations), the plethora of qi gong authors all usually have something to say about it, there's some Tibetan Buddhist stuff that I'm aware of more in line with their sorcery schools, and of course the Indian practices like the kama sutra.

A cup of tea Orbz?

Lol Enki, you are something else!
huh he he ha he Emissions he he huh he ha. Sorry couldn't resist.

What things have you been experiencing Orbz? I wonder if vitality is increased or something similar, since boxers and footballers are told not to have sex the night before a big game. It'd be nice to know what the rest of us wankers are missing out on

I would say that football player crap is probably a myth. If anything they should spank it before the game... I am having trouble finding an article related to testosterone levels and masturbation on PubMed right now, but I am willing to bet that spanking it in the morning increases testosterone levels giving a nice boost to start a good healthy productive day.

I believe the scientific community should spend more time justifying excessive sexual activity. I believe a study should be conducted on both male and female health, with regards to frequency of sexual activity.

The problem for masturbation or promiscuous activity is that its historically been taboo, which means people are less likely to dwell on it and so are unlikely to do research. Hopefully thats changed over the last fifty years and we can all be adults and do research about sex

Philosophy and Culture of Masturbation in Western Heritage.
Can Cultivation of Masturbation Among Arabs Contain Terrorism in the Middle East?

I copy paste this topic to Tea Club.

Well there is plenty of research on female genitalia mutilation...

If you want to be fascinated/scared for life, check out this page~

http://bmezine.com/hard.html

Yeah, I had to clarify that one when I started. The first time I did it, it started getting quite messy after the 2nd week.

I suppose the easiest way to describe it would be as though I'm on low dose amphetamines.
I usually struggle to wake up in the morning, being one of those types that needs to set their alarm an hour earlier than desired waking time and get 9-10 hrs sleep, but lately I've been waking at least 2 hours earlier than usual and only needing between 6-8 hrs sleep. This has been the biggest change that I've noticed.

Maybe, depends on how often they do it. I can see evolutionary reasons for why spanking it to completion would probably decrease basal testosterone levels. Not to mention that satisfaction and contentment breeds laziness and chemical changes arising after completion of sexual acts tends to turn men into zombies.

Perhaps they should look at porn before a game but not ejaculate?


There's been some stuff done, don't know about excess activity. The website I mentioned earlier has pooled together a lot of this type of research.

I've been considering the reduced sleeping hours that have been occuring which could probably be tied in to hormonal systems.

Hormone levels fluctuate during the day. The abstinence has perhaps modulated (strengthened?) my hormone system (cortisol/testosterone/adrenal hormones) to be more strongly/appropriately/timely activated. This could have occured, possibly, due to the conservation/reabsorption/sensitisation of the system which is not required to produce/release/activate mechanisms necessary for procreation.
Far too speculatory, anybody got any info to tighten this story?

At the other end of the spectrum there is the deprivation state stuff which I'm more familiar with. Deprivation of anything tends to activate systems necessary for acquiring the object of deprivation (dopamine, noradrenaline), which also makes anything predictive of the reward/incentive (or female in this case) become increasingly attractive and wanted, this also produces a nice buzz. The body, in the absence of female company, is changing itself to make it seek out female company for procreation; some people suggest this is a driving force of creativity. This effect seems to peak around weeks 1-3 (although it probably depends highly on previous patterns and habits), but can be reignited, although for a shorter period of time (days probably) if erotic contact with females is reintroduced. We can see the parallels with drug dependence research.

Interestingly, ejaculation or orgasm after a long period of time of abstinence (roughly 3 months in my experience but could definitely be shorter) makes one feel depressed, empty, flat, and dysphoric just minutes after the completion of the ejaculatory act. There's a certain clarity in sharp contrasts.

This is a lot of speculation and needs a lot of tightening.

I looked through the website surprisingly without much emotion except now i am very confused in terms of what the F**K is their problem? I am having second thoughts about being a psychologists LOL.

Dude you have to check out the BME zine pain olympics final round... For more psychologically damaging footage check out http://www.efukt.com/1604_Shot_At_Point_Blank.html This site has all sorts of F***ed up stuff

Very interesting stuff.

Does your sexual drive decrease or increase overtime? If its the former, does it fade away completely after a certain period of abstinence?

Do you know of any other studies done on the subject?

After reading this thread and considering the issue for a period of time (between my last post and this one) I decided to try abstinence. (Wohoo!)

As with most of my life-changing decisions, it was spontaneous and random.

My reasons? After my sexual drive peaked at the end of puberty when I was 15.5 years, it started decreasing to the point when now (almost 19) it's virtually non existent. I have practically no desire to have sex with people of either gender and I think the only thing that separates me from being psychologically asexual is that I masturbate every couple of days.

Anyway, I would be interested in seeing the psychological changes that would occur in me if I stop masturbation. Will my hormones and sex drive "normalize"? Or will they disappear completely?

Only Time will tell...

P.S. Damn, I want to wank already.

Hehe, he said wank...

Here in the United States, we have a slight variance; we tend to use the term "spank".

That's is enough cultural enlightenment for today

http://xkcd.com/194/

The sex drive increases quite rapidly over a week or so. Then you a) become used to the increase in sex drive B ) the sex drive gradually fades away, although this takes a long time, and depends on whether you have female contact or not c) you start to enjoy the potential more than the actual sex act itself, ie the potential builds to such a state that it is more enlivening and blowing would only cheapen the experience. That is the experience I'm going through right now. Any female company or such that comes into contact, I don't really want to have sex with I just kind of ride out the potential (and snuggle, but snuggle hard!!!). Its kind of like being like a big sexual battery in a way. Now that I've stored all this stuff, I don't want to lose it, especially when it could be put inot something useful. For example at the moment I'm trying to learn a language, I re-pulled out an instrument I used to play, started to learn to sing, have started training more frequently, going out more frequently, still experiencing a lesser need for sleep, not eating anywhere near as much as I used to...


I know of a few, let me get back to you, I'll have to dig them up from either my reference library, or will have to search for them.
If you can't wait, have a look on the web for a paper about worms, longevity, sex, orgasm or something like that.

Without any evidence as yet, I can speculate that maybe the sex drive will normalise, then hyperfunctionalise, then start to disappear. Although the lack of evidence is a problem.

Let us know how you go.

Anyone want to establish a Brainmeta survey research group? We can all agree on the criteria and report our findings. If we can get 20 or so of us in on this, it could provide some useful info. We could test all sorts of different things, not just sexual abstinence.

There's no rush. Tell me if you find anything


Interesting. I could probably join. Self experimentation is always fun.

I've thought about doing this. The problem is doing it in such a way as to be scientifically credible and ultimately publishable in a scientific journal.
I think it would have ot be an A B A within subject design. Where A is regular sexual activity and B is a state of abstinence. We may need to stick with all males. Questionaires given biweekly for roughly 3 months (1 month for each phase), which would consist mostly of mood scales.

20 subjects would be about the right number, should be enough power.
There would be problems with confirming abstinence from ejaluation.

I think it would be nice if we created a new forum thread for hypothesis tests. We could assign each participant an id (which in theory would be anonymous) and have all of our collected survey info available to anyone to access. We could also provide other background info so that we can conduct some sort of regression analysis for age, gender, that sort of stuff.

In this new section of BM anyone could propose and design an experiment for testing, and if enough people find the test of interest, conduct surveys. We could create a standardized form for the socioeconomic factors needed for regression analysis, and provide it to anyone who wishes to create a survey.

Having endured forced abstinence while I was in the military at various times, I say get it while you can. If the drive is there, you will have spontaneous nocturnal emissions from time to time anyway, at least for the men.

I'm all for getting it, just not blowing it.

I had problems with nocturnal emissions before, haven't had any this trip round. Its been about 4 weeks now. They don't seem to affect it so much anyway. I try and keep sexy thoughts down at night time, and if they do come up I try and exercise them away, seems to be working.


On a different note, I'm having mega kinesthetic experiences touching things and people. Its so cool.

This sounds like yet another argument in favor of free will.

How?

It seems more like reinforcement to me.

Sexy thoughts emerge from your unconscious and you consciously divert your attention from them. You choose to repetitively reinforce that behavior that you perceive as desirable. That sounds like free will in action to me.

Rick: do you believe in free will or not?

Just because a process seems to have more top-down than bottom-up control, doesn't necessarily imply that we have any more of a 'choice' in the matter.

I have been siding with the free willers in the on-going debate. I keep proving we have free will but the opposing side never admits defeat. It must be inevitable. I suppose if one of them switched sides, that would prove my case, but I doubt if the rest would ever admit it.

You always have a choice. Some just choose to acknowledge certain impulses as being greater than the possibility of something different, which they choose to believe is not available because of the current experience..

Judgment creates friction and suppression of natural energies. If one could intelligently rise above judgments then some things can't take a foothold and remain as the evil threat to goodness.
This takes a certain amount of intelligence to rise above current levels of perceptions that are plagued with self created evil so that the mind is free from subconscious clutter.
This is a choice, but some believe there is no other possibility other than the current experience of reality and self, and so they perpetuate the belief in self created evils and self created projections of future.
"I can't" is a choice that is made more often than "I can."

Proofs? Links?

I don't think either side has much definitive evidence.

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=8#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=21#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=46#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=84#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=91#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=103#

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15522&st=110#

There are 64 sexual positions in Kama Sutra... There are 64 hexagrams in I-Ching... Thereare 64 yoginis in Kaula Tantra... There are 64 squares on a chessboard...
Chess was the essential part of the Vedic culture... Radha and Krishna used to play chess... Chess was LILA...
The Troubadours associated chess with love -- they often used chess as an analogy of love.
Chess was also linked with the Grail -- with the quest for The Holy Grail ...
"One day at the court of King Arthur a mysterious chessboard comes floating in through the window and out again. King Arthur promises his kingdom to the one who brings him the flying chessboard..."

Thanks for these, I will look through them.

I'm interested in the reason for you posting this Atha.

Are you a grail seeker?
I actually believe a lot of the Da Vinci codes arguments for the grail being the blood of Christ (or whatever other saint/prophet you want). I've yet to see one piece of real magic anywhere on this planet, so I can't give any weight to a physical Grail. There is no physical description of it either, all thoughts of a cup or skull are simply tacked on later.

Do you think the number 64 has some hidden meaning?
In the east the number 8 is revered, which is why a hefty percentage of pagodas are octagonal. 8*8 is where the 64 comes from, but I wonder what you think about it?

I've also never heard of the flying chess board that visited Arthur. I'm pretty sure the tails of King Arthur and co. are not even originally from the UK as we have no real evidence for any of the locations or people. The best thing to come out of that legend was the film Excalibur

Here are some additional "proofs" of free will:

Argument from effort:

If there were no free will, life would be effortless because we would have no choice. Because the things we want require effort, the very fact of our choosing to exert effort is an expression of our free will.

Argument from chaos:

Our brains may be deterministic, but they are unpredictable. That is, they are chaotic, and as a consequence, there is no algorithm that will predict the action a human will take. Therefore, we are free because if our behavior were dictated by any algorithm, it would be predictable.

The argument from infinite regress:

A person can want something, such as the improved helth benefits of physical exercise. He can observe himself wanting the thing, and conclude that it is good that he want it, and further that he therefore wants to want it. He can observe himself wanting to want it, and conclude that it is good that he can want to want it, and further that he therefore wants to want to want it. And so on. We have established an infinite regress. Therefore, the charge that a person can't want what he wants can be escaped from without limit, and man is therefore free.