| Health and psychological effects It is held in many mental health circles that masturbation can relieve depression and lead to a higher sense of self-worth. Masturbation can also be particularly useful in relationships where one partner wants more sex than the other—in which case masturbation provides a balancing effect and thus a more harmonious relationship. Both from the standpoint of avoiding unwanted pregnancy and that of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation is the safest of sexual practices. There is no credible scientific or medical evidence that manual masturbation is damaging to either one's mental or physical health. Men whose penis has suffered "an invasive procedure, blunt trauma or injury during intercourse"[2] may suffer later in life from Peyronie's disease. Phimosis is "a contracted foreskin (that) may cause trouble by hurting when an attempt is made to pull the foreskin back"[3]. In either of these cases, any overly aggressive manipulation of the penis can be problematic. Contrary to popular myth, masturbation does not cause blindness. There is some basis, however, to the myth: zinc is required both to transport vitamin A from the liver to the retina and is excreted in relatively high amount in semen. Thus, it is not inconceivable that in zinc-deficient or vitamin A-deficient environments excessive male masturbation could have caused night blindness (in which case sexual intercourse has an equal probability of causing blindness). Given a normal contemporary diet, however, this is extremely unlikely to happen. There is also the more modern issue of staring at a computer screen while watching pornography for extended periods of time as the pupils tend to dilate during arousal. The only side-effects recorded are that repeated masturbation may result in tiredness or soreness, which tend to make repeated masturbation self-limiting in any case. For men, the volume of ejaculate is temporarily reduced after multiple ejaculations until normal seminal volume is regained in a day or so. Nevertheless, people from a socially conservative or religious background and other sensitive persons may experience feelings of guilt during or after masturbation. Solitary masturbation carries no risk of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. Masturbation involving both a man and a woman can result in pregnancy only if semen contacts the vulva. Any masturbation with a partner can theoretically result in transmission of sexually transmitted disease by contact with bodily fluids, and such contact should be avoided with any partner whose disease status is uncertain. Objects inserted into the vagina or anus should be clean and of a kind that will not scratch or break. Care should be taken not to fully insert anything into the anus—any object used should have a flared or flanged base; otherwise retrieval can require a visit to the emergency room. Most modern dildos and anal plugs are designed with this feature. In 1994, when the first woman appointed US Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, mentioned as an aside that perhaps it ought to be mentioned in school curricula that masturbation was safe and healthy, she was forced to resign, with opponents asserting that she was promoting the teaching of how to masturbate. Many believe this was the result of her long history of promoting controversial viewpoints and not due solely to her public mention of masturbation. Her case led to the coining of a new and humorous slang term for masturbation: Firing the surgeon general. On July 16, 2003, an Australian research team led by Graham Giles of
The Cancer Council published a medical study [4] which concluded that
frequent masturbation by males may help prevent the development of prostate
cancer. The study also indicated that this would be more helpful than
ejaculation through sexual intercourse because intercourse can transmit
diseases that may increase the risk of cancer instead. Another study
came to similar conclusions in April 2004
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