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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   4190 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Has anyone seen anything on the topic of historical correlation between pornography consumption and obesity?

A related question is whether onanism has actually increased since the advent of online pornography.

Almost certainly. Even if instances of actual sex are only replaced by a single instance of masturbation(seems probably a lower bound to me), actual sex has declined as the percentage who use internet pornography has increased. This is not caused by young men taking vows at a monastery instead.

Furthermore, I’m given to understand that masturbation-caused health problems used to be a punchline to a ‘it’s got to be bad for you somehow’ joke, whereas now they’re a thing that actually happen even if perhaps somewhat less commonly than nofap would have you believe. I suppose it’s possible that alien space bats caused this, but it’s more plausible that there’s simply a lot more onanism than there used to be.

Furthermore, as noted downthread, it’s difficult for me to imagine(I have not watched porn since I was a teenager) watching pornography and not masturbating. Higher pornography consumption- as nearly every piece of data indicates is the long term trend- probably drives more masturbation rather than less.

Intuitively I can't imagine a universe where that didn't happen. This is from personal experience being a young male and knowing and talking to many other young males...

Beating thy meat has a low but non 0 level of activation energy required, having an especially good video certainly provides some (actually A LOT) of that energy.

No, but I'm sure it doesn't help.

It saps/hijacks the motivation to exercise. Affects your neurological and endocrinological systems. Makes you lethargic. But obviously there're other factors at play: the sedentary lifestyles due to technological advances (automobile, internet, personal computer), the ubiquitousness of sugar and processed foods, the lack of quality sleep due to disrupted circadian rhythms (artificial light, eating/drinking too close to bedtime, working third shift), etc.

Exercise has much less effect on obesity than diet. Watching porn probably decreases consumption of food and decreases digestion efficiency. I read that diets high in fat decrease libido.

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