Samizdata has been getting very political lately. I blame all these Conservatives who have wormed their way on to the Samizdata writers list.
So, to more serious matters. Here is an item to warm the cockles, drawn to my attention by this guy. He made this Portillo bon mot his quote of the day, and I think that this gem that he linked to last Friday deserves a chance to sparkle more universally than I have noticed it sparkling so far.
Masturbating more than five times a week between the ages of 20 and 50 could protect men against prostate cancer, Australian researchers claim today.
Excellent. The Anglosphere continues to pull its weight, scientifically speaking.
Inevitably, the Mother Country, in the shape of a charity worker, disapproves.
Dr Chris Niley of the UK’s Prostate Cancer Charity said: “It’s plausible – which isn’t the same as being true. One of the unanswered questions is whether the young men who were questioned may have exaggerated how many ejaculations they had had.
Speak for yourself you boring killjoy.
What we now need is another study about the correlation between being a rabid believer in expanding the power of the state, and getting prostate cancer, along the lines of this. That’s prostate as in pro-state.
I’m afraid that – in a rather Darwinian way – it’s always been obvious to me that it was healthy.
How could anything environment-independent you can do to yourself that’s pleasurable possibly evolve if it causes harm? Our evolved appetites for sugary sweetness are wreaking havoc, but that’s because it was based on an external factor – we evolved for millions of years in an environment were sweet-tasting foods were very rare and usually full of vital energy. Masturbation is not like that – it’s environment-independent, so obviously must be good for the individual if it feels good for the individual (contrast with the more complex case of sex with someone else where the calculation of good and bad is much more involved – an outside factor again).
Boring of me to put it like that, I know.
Did you see the recent related story – a blind study of women who have partners who use condoms and partners who don’t use condoms – which concluded that women become depressed if they don’t receive sperm? The researchers guess there might be antidepressant enzymes in human sperm evolved to cheer up human women (by absorption through the vagina wall) since time elapsed since sex without condoms predicted accurately how progressively gloomier the women in the study got, whereas time elapsed since sex with condoms had no correlation with depression in the women. It could be a sense of what might cause pregnancy being good, of course – but an enzyme sounds neat. A French lawyer in her 30s once told me she’d noticed she could no longer reach orgasm any more unless there was a chance of getting pregnant, which could fit either explanation.
Get a grip, Brian. Don’t you see where this has led in Labour circles. Their proposal to nationalise the palm comb industry is a direct result of studies such as this. I fear that we will see a National Health mandate on this issue as soon as they determine an effective means of taxation.
Lessee, 20-50, that’s 30 years. 52.18 weeks a year (365.25/7). 6 times a week, at least.
30×52.18×6 = 9392
!!
It’s time you had some articles kicking the Tories up in the air. The Tories may be better than their rivals but only if you accept their rules of the game.
I thought Samizdata was supposed to have transcended politics due to meta-contextual rationalism. State vs. individual is the byline, not Tories vs Labour. If I want this, I’ll read the newspapers.
Philip, please pardon my initial post. I was shooting for a little irony in response to a libertarian setting debate limits but I seem to have missed (in one instance at any rate). Personally, I see very little difference between Labour and Tories with regard to libertarian issues (nor between Democrats and Republicans).
Again, my apologies.
Mark writes,
Semen contains high levels of oestrogen, this may be absorbed and have the psycoactive effect of making women feel better, also sex without condoms is simply more enjoyable.
Absolutely Della – it may be as simple as the oestregen in sperm. I guess the researchers were being cautious, as they have to be.
Or it may be the effect my one-time French lawyer noted – _knowing_ there’s no condom cheers the woman up, because the chance of pregnancy is part of what makes it more fun?
A carefully-designed double-blind experiment where all pairs of partners think they are using condoms, but some (unknown to participants) are designed to leak and others are effective condoms (obviously they would all have to be on the pill or wish to get pregnant but agree to a month of strictly using condoms anyway – imagine the litigation otherwise….) should sort out whether it is a chemical effect or not.
Guess that Wankers rejoice! must be better than Wankers unite!
“Masturbating more than five times a week…”
If it’s more than five times a day does the law of diminishing returns kick in do you think?
Just curious.
Thank you, Science!
I now have a reason for having all that Japanese bondage porn, it’s a part of my anti-cancer efforts.