What are the drawbacks of masturbation?
By now even most Catholics have freed themselves from the nonsensical notion that masturbation is sinful. Thank heaven, when sex is made “sinful” it also becomes more potentially addictive at a brain chemical level. Risky behavior – and the belief that something will displease your vindictive creator makes it risky behavior – causes dopamine to rise sharply in your reward circuitry. In other words, “guilty” sex can have an effect on the brain like a drug – as can Internet porn, and early, intensely stimulating, sexual experiences in children. In any case, as the saying goes, “there is no free lunch.” Masturbation, like all fertilization-driven sexual behavior, has unsuspected costs. (Yes, in an odd way, even masturbation is “fertilization-driven” behavior. Scientists surmise that masturbation serves an evolutionary purpose by ensuring that “fresh,” i.e., more fertile, sperm are always at the ready. As sperm age, they break up. In other words, the longer a man waits between ejaculations
