One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot | Hacker News Reader

One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

scientificamerican.com

146 pointsca98am7968 comments

> Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies [because of Internet porn] that their creativity in other domains is also affected?

Wow. I know each generation ends up spreading FUD about the habits of the younger ones, but I never expected to be criticized for not masturbating creatively enough. Puritanism sure ain't what it used to be.

I think it's quite an astute point. Easy access to porn desensitizes us sexually, and we no longer have to depend on our imaginations. It's not necessarily about FUD or a generational issue, it's something worth thinking about.

I think these are important questions to consider:

    How does easy access to pornography affect the development of children?
    What are the effects of pornography and masturbation in my life?
    How does porn affect my marriage?
    How does masturbation affect my marriage?

The latter 3 are not too interesting IMO, because porn and masturbation have been around for centuries, and whatever effects they've had have become part of society.

The first one might be an interesting one to consider. Of course this is assuming children get hold of the pornography at an earlier age than they should and continuously have easy access to it. And in my opinion, the only thing that occurs is that children will get desensitized to the typical types of sex early on, and when they reach the age where they will be participating, they will need or want more interesting, atypical, types of sex to fully enjoy themselves.

...whatever effects they've had have become part of society

Your comment seems to imply that the effects are complete. I'd disagree with that.

I'd say access to pornography has changed dramatically in recent years. Anyone with an internet connection can find porn in relative anonymity and I don't think we've seen the full effects of it yet.

children will get desensitized to the typical types of sex early on

As children become more sexually aware, they'll probably turn to the 'net to learn more. I suspect their expectations of what is 'normal' will be set by what they find there. I don't think it's just desensitisation that will take place.

It's gotten to the point where the porn will find you. Try surfing intensively across a range of sites for a couple of hours without running in to porn. All it takes is one link to an expired domain.

An ad filter is a good idea.

Masturbation is as at least as old as Onan[1], but I doubt porn is a few centuries old. Maybe erotica.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan

The sin of Onan wasn't masturbation, but rather "pulling out".

You're right. My bad.

"Depictions of a sexual nature are as old as civilization (and possibly older, in the form of venus figurines and rock art),[2] but the concept of pornography as understood today did not exist until the Victorian era(1900s)" [1]

But my idea of "pornography" was simply depictions of sexual nature (which is centuries old as stated in Wikipedia)

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography

Please define children. The fact that my grandma had her first son at the age of 16, makes me realize this whole thing about children (minors) and pornography is a bit exaggerated.

It's not exactly marriage, but I do know some girls who watched porn with their boyfriends.

Note that the author doesn't claim that humans are the only species who masturbates, but rather that humans masturbate the most often. The author goes on to speculate that this is because humans have the ability to fantasize, though I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious.

If you found this article interesting (or amusing, as it very well may be), you may want to check out the Wikipedia page on the Bonobo ape, one of the few species that have been observed to participate in oral sex. Primatologist Frans de Waal described the Bonobo as "the erotic champions of the world."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo]

Another fun fact: homosexual behavior has been well documented in both the Bonobo and koalas, an interesting counterpoint to fundamentalists claims that homosexuality isn't natural. :) [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/strewth-...]

Further reading: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour]

And a graphic video of a monkey masturbating with a frog (because, after all, this is the internet): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwegzhXAqaQ]

> "I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious"

In addition to skepticism due other masturbating animals, there's the question of human child masturbation. Anyone who's had children can vouch that they're rubbing the parts that feel good well before they're expressing complex ideas, let alone thinking sexually.

And, FWIW, I believe homosexuality has been well documented in every sexual species that's been well documented.

> Another fun fact: homosexual behavior has been well documented in both the Bonobo and koalas, an interesting counterpoint to fundamentalists claims that homosexuality isn't natural. :)

You didn't mention some things from your link like, The furry, eucalyptus-eating creatures appear to develop this tendency for same-sex liaisons when they are in captivity. In the wild, they remain heterosexual.

What's natural about captivity?

Perhaps it's not wildly unnatural factors but rather plain old boredom?

I hasten to point out that humans, in captivity, tend to engage in more homosexual behavior as well.

That isn't actually what the author claims. Lots of other animals masturbate, and the author admits that monkeys are certainly prone to it. What he claims makes humans unusual is the we masturbate to orgasm.

Incidentally you chose fairly poor examples for animal homosexuality. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals for a list of other examples you could use. For instance I prefer to cite giraffes (9 out of 10 sexual encounters are homosexual) and black swans (1/4 preferentially homosexual).

I wonder what fraction of human sexual encounters are homosexual? There's the old studies the fundamentalist Christians like to trot out where 28% of the gay interviewees reported more than a thousand lifetime sexual partners, while I suspect the median number of lifetime sexual partners across the adult US population is somewhere around 10. So it wouldn't be terribly surprising if the majority of human sexual encounters were between members of the same (male) sex.

In the modern West, major studies indicate a prevalence of homosexuality of 2% to 13% of the population[1]. On any given day 4% of the population has sex[2]. That means that in order for same-gender sex to outnumber straight sex, every day between a third and all of the homosexual population would need to have sex[3]. Somehow I doubt this is the case.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

[2] http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/geographyo...

[3] I know I'm completely ignoring people who aren't reportedly homosexual having same-gender sex, but I assume the studies Wikipedia cites account for people who are in-between to some extent, and that the one-off same-gender experiences are negligible compared to the overall population. It's not perfect math!

The thing is, these distributions are very skewed. A non-gender-or-orientation-specific given person can go for two weeks without having sex and then have sex ten or twenty times in a weekend-long speed-fueled orgy (or so the stories go), and that still averages out to 0.7 to 1.4 times a day.

So it's kind of a sticky subject. It can be really hard to get your arms around all the issues. What's the relative frequency of Viagra and amphetamine usage among gay and straight people? Of group sex? How about among the most sexually active 20% of each group? Nobody has a fucking clue.

However, I have a strong suspicion that getting laid a couple of times a day isn't that hard if you're a gay man in a major world city, especially in the age if Grindr and iTrick.

I don't get it ... what makes gay men be so successful in finding sex partners?

Men generally are more open to casual sex than women.

When both sides are easily convinced, it happens a lot more.

Young women have an easy time finding sex partners too. The vast majority of young men will say yes if a young female stranger asks them to have sex, unless there's something visibly wrong with her, or they're in a monogamous relationship, or they're gay.

The situation for young gay men is similar to the situation for young het women, except that they're more inclined to take advantage of the opportunity to have sex with strangers.

1000 sounds like a reasonable number here you have George Michael going to a park and hooking up with random people. http://www.celebitchy.com/1243/george_michael_has_sex_with_r... the guys go to the park to have sex with random guys hence how the other fellow was there too. I believe some some software offered by one of the YC companies is most used for same-sex hooking up. But I am speaking from a point of jelousy as it would be nice to have such a hetrosexual culture without a monetary exchange.

But I am speaking from a point of jelousy as it would be nice to have such a hetrosexual culture without a monetary exchange.

So, uh, we do. It's called dogging[1].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogging_(sexual_slang)

Most of us don't have any particular interest in pushing up the numbers. Further, the GLBT population and the straight population call different things sex. Depending on the definition, I've either had sex with hundreds of people (including mutual masturbation and making out, or strictly oral sex) or fewer than 10. (penetration)

I know, TMI. However, think about what it would be like if a society found it socially acceptable for heterosexual couples to make out and mutually masturbate casually. The barrier would likely be lower.

I believe the normal idea that sex is penetration. 1000 of course is probably not usual but might be possible with some effort.

It seems like these examples are given to "excuse" human homosexual behavior ("See! It's perfectly natural. Look at the Giraffes!"). I don't have a strong opinion about human homosexual behavior but I do think these examples are meaningless for this intention. Giraffes are probably too dumb, too horny and too indifferent to care about gender or anything. They see a sexual opportunity and they take it. I speculate that if they did know the difference and had the opportunity with members of both genders that they would choose the opposite sex. (Actually it looks like males are doing all of the choosing). I am not saying that this is the point you were going to make, but it does seem to be what most people think about after this topic.

Some may do that, but I personally have no desire to excuse human homosexual behavior. If you can't accept that people have the right to do whatever they want that hurts nobody else, then I'm not going to change you.

However I take great delight in correcting bigots who make the mistake of claiming that homosexuality is a perversion that is only found in humans. And somehow I never seem to find a shortage of those.

About giraffes, you may be right. My impression is that they spend a lot of time not high enough in the hierarchy to get females, so when their sex drive leads them to fight giraffes they can beat, the only outlet for their sex drive is the fellow they just beat.

However black swans show an example of animal homosexuality where the animal has a choice, and actively chooses homosexual behavior.

I would not say it is a "perversion" and I wouldn't try to use "natural" in the animal kingdom way. I would say that the male body is not made/constructed/evolved (however you want to say that) for that kind of sexual contact. In that sense it is not a "natural" act.

You've never discovered the magic of the prostate.

</reddit>

Seriously, though, what purpose does the prostate have to have such nerve bundles? Sometimes, evolutionary pressures don't explain everything. Some things are just chance.

If you think animals are that dumb you are mistaken. We have a cock (= adult male chicken) who is very aggressive, but only against human males. So if chickens can recognize the gender of other species, then I'm pretty sure that a giraffe can recognize the gender of one of its own species.

Not dumb...some animals are rather smart. I am willing to bet that humans have the most emotionally complex system though.

If you could come up with a definition, that claim may have some content.

E.g. should the (sexual or otherwise) behaviour of ants or ant hills be classified as emotional?

I don't mean to imply that ignorance is the cause of their homosexuality! Only that Giraffes are mostly indifferent to gender relative to their "horny-ness" (is there a better word I could use?) which is far different than human homosexuality.

/"horny-ness" (is there a better word I could use?)/

-> level of sexual arousal

Leave it up to me to transform a perfectly understandable and conversational word into something abstract and clinical ;)

In the video, that's an ape with a frog. Not a monkey. Show some respect :)

one of the few species that have been observed to participate in oral sex.

There's also the notorious example of bats.

My hypothesis: humans who visit Hacker News masturbate even more often.

This is interesting; but I can't help feeling that limiting comparison mostly to primates has potential to mislead his conclusion.

I started from Wikipedia [1] and worked outward with the reference material and the implication is that masturbation to completion is actually quite common.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour#Autoero...

I took his challenge, and succeeded, so I don't buy the theory that we're special because of our capacity for fantasy.

(I did it for SCIENCE!)

>>>male university students were found to masturbate to ejaculation about every 72 hours

If that stat alone had been widespread a few decades ago, it would have prevented so much angst for so many.

This number seems very high to me. Perhaps we could do a poll?

From personal experience, I'd agree that lust requires the ability to string together thoughts. Having meditated for many years -- remaining in the present moment free of thought, ignoring any thought that comes, letting thoughts fall off as they arise -- lust / arousal are impossible (unless perhaps if one is married and does not need the mind for arousal).

Are animals able to carry on a thought process, not sure? Dogs certainly seem to be more in the present than humans.

That article links to another interesting one on asexuals.

Funny title, interesting article. Is this really HN material though?

I know this is a somewhat controversial topic (HN notability) but I think this particular article falls easily within intellectually stimulating (no pun intended :)). Also it is high brow enough not to count as gutter reading (in my mind anyway).

Life hacking.

Speaking of life, hacking together with someone of the opposite sex would be more productive than by yourself.

You can't always have filet mignon. Sometime you just gonna make do with a hamburger. :-)

If you want to re-produce, that is.

Why? Is evolutionary psychology not HN material? If it had been an almost identical article but about a topic other than masturbation (grooming, social rituals, etc), would that have made it more HN worthy? Why or why not?

Maybe this is dumb, but I opened this at work and it was a little more graphic and NSFW than I expected.

"Oh, hey, do you have a second to take a look at this over here?"

"I'll be there in, uh, a minute."

Ditto. The link title should have indicated that this was marginally NSFW. I guess this comes up too rarely on HN for there to be any policy or convention about it.

you clicked on a link to a story about masturbation and were surprised to find it NSFW?!

Maybe I'm missing something. I'm seeing a dude without a shirt. Is this NSFW? The average pop music clip is 100x more sexual.

> a veritable online smorgasbord of real people doing things our grandparents couldn’t have dreamt up even in their wettest of dreams

Maybe our grandparents didn't even dream about it, but the ancient Greeks and Romans sure did a lot of those things.

What can we say- we have fingers, and more importantly thumbs, and that makes it a hellofalot easier. Thus we are head (and shoulders) ahead of most of the animal kingdom.

One reason why not to read HN over lunch.

> Males report having sexual fantasies earlier in development (average age of onset 11.5 years)

I find that figure to be surprisingly high. My first dream that was definitely sexual was when I was 7 going on 8, in the second grade.

> today’s Internet pornography scene, where zero is left to the imagination.

I disagree. The primary psychological goal of porno seems to be for the viewer to imagine one of the actors as themselves, and/or the other actor(s) as those the viewer knows or sees. The amount of clothing, the level of visual detail, and the nature of the sexual acts performed are merely to cater to the viewer's tastes.

A bit off-topic, but do you have clear recolection of other dreams at that age (or younger) or does this one just stand out because of its nature? I have a terrible long term memory and I can hardly recall everyday things from that long ago, much less one specific dream.

I recall all of my more eventful dreams from that age (and younger, but only back to 5 or 6), and that particular dream was definitely a welcomed shock to my young mind at the time.

May I ask; how old are you now? (your past recall seems pretty damn good if you can remember back so far)

As it stands I'd say 7/8 seems young; well, for men (it might be reasonable for women).

My work is in computer forensics and we often have children's computers to examine. In my limited observation sexual interest develops around 10/11 in boys and 8/9 in girls (this is based on searches for porn or sexy pics so in no way conclusive).

> The primary psychological goal of porno seems to be for the viewer to imagine one of the actors as themselves, and/or the other actor(s) as those the viewer knows or sees.

As you can imagine (given the above job) we also see a lot of porn. And I would say you are right. POV pornography is extremely popular - probably the most common type of porn people watch.

I'm 22 now. The girl was very cute at the time.

OT, but how far back in your youth can you remember? I ask this because I described my earliest memory to my mother and she confirmed that at that time I must have been no more than 18 months old. It was an apartment we lived in during a brief period of separation from my father, when she went AWOL with me, and she swore she never told anyone where we have been for those few weeks.

I also remember a day when my brother took me on his motorcycle because I was sitting on the gas tank and it burned my thighs. Turns out my brother left for the U.S. when I was 2 years old.

My aunt has letters I wrote to her when I was 4, and those I remember like it was yesterday. The first letter has punctures in it because it was the day I found out that you couldn't write a letter on the carpet, and needed a hard surface behind it to keep the pencil from puncturing it.

Yea, I think it's all relative. I know people who remember little from before the age of 6, and I find that to be almost disturbing...I remember most everything from 4 onward, and my earliest memory involves me wanting a particular sort of diaper (the pig ones!), so I imagine I was pretty young at the time.

FWIW, I remember almost nothing from before 6. I can remember a few extended memories aged 6, then quite a lot from about 8 onwards. The absolute earliest memory I can dredge up is age 5 but we're talking a mere snatch of an image. I have bizarre time and memory dilation issues in any case so my brain isn't quite representative of the norm!

My father, on the other hand, goes to the other extreme and claims to remember being in his pram in the garden at about 18 months old and not being able to understand the noises being made by other people around him.

Just a guess, but I think maybe girl's search that young to explore why society is so obsessed with beautiful/sexy women and to learn more about society's expectations of themselves.. I, perhaps naively, think that they are not searching for stimulating experiences like boys likely are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com