QRD: Semen retention is critical for the sexually dimorphic traits of males to manifest. Without it you become an undifferentiated ungendered pawn. Sexual dimporphism is primarily expressed via differing levels of testosterone and estradiol (estrogen in its biologically active form). The final controller of ALL hormone expression is the brain, and specifically the hypothalamus. The only intervention that works to increase testosterone is changing your brain structure. Masturbation is proven to do this.
Before we can even get to semen retention, we have to understand how your body works, and the critically misunderstood roles that hormones play.
Why Testosterone? Most of you, I'm sure, are already convinced about the beneficial effects of testosterone in men, but I want to give a brief overview of things you probably don't know about it. Testosterone increases sociability. It increases connection to and participation in your milieu, this is true for both men and women. For women, this typically manifests as slutty behavior and ultimately ends up as cuckoldry, women with higher testosterone have sluttier faces (see left in pic). They also have greater sexual arousal levels: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10665617 For men however, testosterone decrease the incidence of lying and they are more cooperative with other men. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3468628 Men with high testosterone are fascistic ideal. They build, cooperate, and create civilization. Men with high testosterone are more driven to find not only mates, but to do all things. Testosterone receptors in the brain don't differentiate drive for sex from any other drive (that differentiation does occur, but requires other chemical receptors to be activated as well).
The Hypothalamus is King Androgen/Testosterone boosting supplements don't work unless you are supplementing androgens higher than 100% of your baseline test production. To understand why this is, you have to first understand the HP axes, and specifically the HPG axis. The hypothalamus acts as a prime regulator for almost all hormones related to growth, sex, and homeostasis. Hypothalamus notices an increased level of testosterone? It stops producing GnRH. GnRH is a signal to your pituitary gland to make FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone); these signal the gonads in men to create sperm and testosterone respectively (in women's gonads these signal menstruation and estrogen). So at all times your hypothalamus is listening to the levels of sex hormones, and is only releasing enough GnRH to keep them at what it believes to be the proper homeostasis. This is why only highly potent anabolic steroids are really the only things which appear to have a phenotypic response in humans. They overpower even the hypothalamus's ability to regulate testosterone. So when taking anabolic steroids your level of GnRH is basically zero. There is no activity on the HPG axis and it permanently changes your hypothalamus to produce less GnRH, and hence why you hear stories of anabolic steroids shrinking your balls and causing infertility. So to maximize your GnRH you need to maximize the hormones which stimulate its production and minimize the ones that inhibit it. There are many hormones which either stimulate or inhibit the production of GnRH, we will get into why fapping is one of the worst things you can do if you want to maximize GnRH next.
There are several other axes of the hypothalamus which should also be mentioned. The hypothalamic–pituitary–prolactin axis (HPP) is responsible for lactation and mammary growth in females, but it is also present in males. It is not directly self-inhibiting like the HPG axis, but instead is inhibited by dopamine (this will seem contradictory at first, but is extremely important to understanding the dangers of masturbation). The main thing for now you should know is that excess prolactin causes typically feminine traits in men. The primary stimulating factor of the HPP axis is estrogen. Remember this is the only axis which isn't a direct feedback loop! More estrogen will always mean more prolactin. Finally, the higher your prolactin is, the lower GnRH output will be, which means the lower testosterone will be in males. The HPS axis has the ultimate byproduct of IGF-1, which is the most critical signal for muscle growth. HPS axis is stimulated by testosterone (via blunting the inhibitory effects of GH in the feedback loop).
Anthony Cooper
Masturbation and Hormones Now to put it all together. Orgasm elevates prolactin massively. Prolactin causes a neurological effect of having little to no sexual desire, hence why you temporarily lose interest in the porn you watch after ejaculation. Now recall the previous section: Prolactin tells the hypothalamus to lower GnRH; GnRH stimulates production of sperm and testosterone; testosterone increases masculine traits and increases social cohesion in men; it also increases expression of muscles via the HPP axis. Dopamine which is high during the build-up of masturbation inhibits the HPP axis though, so how can masturbation be causing an increase of prolactin? Well, the hypothalamus can be very intelligent at what it does. It understands context. Not only that, but the massive acute hit of dopamine you are getting causes something called a hormetic effect. Hormesis is kind of like a biological blowback effect, the hypothalamus is massively inhibited on its HPP axis and then to compensate, it releases even more prolactin than it normally would in all that time as a huge burst after orgasm. Not only that, it appears to have "aftershocks" throughout the next few days and releases prolactin even more. But it gets worse. At least with a single mate in a monogamous sexual relationship your dopamine wouldn't be massively elevated, but with access to unlimited high speed pornography your dopamine will spike to never before seen levels due to the Coolidge effect (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolidge_effect). What does this mean? For days after masturbation you will have low testosterone. But there's even more. The hypothalamus is a neurological structure. It learns and adapts. What does chronic masturbation and dopamine spiking do to the HPP axis? It makes it less and less sensitive to regular dopamine levels. Throughout the day its perfectly normal and healthy to have a moderate level of dopamine, and especially so for men. If HPP is no longer inhibited by this normal level of dopamine, then prolactin will be chronically elevated. Finally we get to the crux. Chronically elevated prolactin means a chronically inhibited HPG axis. A chronically inhibited HPG axis means chronically low levels of homeostatic testosterone. This is why the men of today have lower testosterone than the average 80 year old just 50 years ago. This is why we have trannies developing feminine traits due to increased prolactin.
Now there's even more danger to all of this. We have huge amounts of xenoestrogens from overcompensation of plant based foods and hygiene products (you really should only be consuming meat). Estrogen stimulates the HPP axis even more, and we have blown our dopamine circuits to defend against them with acute chronic spiking. But the brain can heal and adapt. Stop looking at porn. Stop masturbating. Stop consuming xenoestrogens. Stay monogamous, and only have sex for the purpose of procreation.
Ethan Myers
Extra Credit: Dangers of SSRIs and Weed SSRIs increase the re-uptake of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin has an antagonist relationship with dopamine, which means if dopamine is high serotonin is low and vice-versa. SSRIs will chronically lower dopamine, not only taking away your enjoyment of novelty, but also once again activating the HPP axis.
Weed is made of cannibinoids. The body produces its own endocannibinoids which have receptors all throughout the nervous system. The hypothalamus is filled with CB1 receptors which have 2-AG (an natural endocannibinoid) as an agonist. 2-AG is released upon orgasm and is used in the adaptation process mentioned earlier to train the hypothalamus to be less responsive to dopamine. What else is an agonist of the CB1 receptor? THC. In fact THC is far more potent than 2-AG could ever be, meaning that every time you smoke weed, you adapt your hypothalamus to be even less responsive to dopamine than if you were masturbating to porn the entire time you were high. THC is bad news if you value testosterone.
James Nguyen
I jerked off 6 times today and I'm going to make it 7 to spite you and have a laugh at the fact you need to do all of this to not be a gigantic blubbering vagina of a soy boy. You just weren't cut out to live as a man, user.
Brandon Kelly
After my fourth child I had a vasectomy. How fucked am I? My semen never actually gets released. I look freakishly young for my age but not feminine.
Christian Harris
Enjoy your guaranteed brain damage.
David Rivera
I could lose half the thing and it would still outperform yours, bitchboi.
Jacob Cooper
Just because you got banned from /v/ doesn't mean you can come here.
