Shortly after the Nigerian singer Naira Marley was released from jail he dropped a track titled “Soapy”, allowing for a less offensive way of talking about and, of one way or the other, popularizing the act of masturbation. Masturbation is a common activity in our today world, especially with the ease that comes with the unrestricted access of consuming pornographic items from the internet. This act is peculiar to no gender in particular; as all humans can self stimulate their private body parts for sexual gratification.

To the average mind, masturbation is a natural and safe way to explore one’s body and because there are about no physical harmful side effect to it thus, becoming a norm in the life of an average youth. This is noticeable with the attainment of puberty , when the young person begins to experience sexual drives and the urges to satisfy himself , since this appears as an easy way to satisfying the urge, and perhaps the young person is too scared or does not have the means of satisfying this urge through penetrative sex, masturbation most likely becomes the best shot.

Irrespective of all the beauties and positives masturbation might claim to possess especially with the scientific claim that it is a healthy thing to do, or what reason might proffer as it helps prevent social menaces such as rape, it helps in saving the cost of hiring a sex worker, it does not lead to the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases and of cause, it cannot lead to pregnancy among others, all these claims do not take away the truth from the fact that, masturbation has adverse effects which are eating up the youths of this generation.

Basic to the act of masturbation is addiction, as about 80% percent of those who masturbate are likely to turn out as addicts and like every other thing in being; excess of it is not virtue, so says the good man Aristotle. This is why this piece attempts at stating granite facts that is connected with the adverse effects of masturbation.
To begin with is to state clearly that among many things, masturbation especially in the male gender is not risk-free. Sure, it comes with very low risks; but like our everyday activities that come with low-risk – say chewing or walking; one cannot completely disassociate risk from it. Frequent masturbation comes with skin irritations, and the forceful bending of an erect penis can rupture the chambers that fill with blood, this is a gruesome health condition known as penile fracture.

It would interest you to know that masturbation does not have any health benefit that penetrative sex has; study after study has shown that penetrative sex is beneficial, as it aids blood pressure, heart and prostate health, pain and more. None of these benefits are gained when orgasm is attained through masturbation. More so, frequent masturbation has a way of messing with the psyche of an individual as this stirs anxiety in a person. Anxiety in masturbation may come up as a result of guilt. These feeling of guilt may come from spiritual, cultural or religious points of view, which see masturbation as an immoral act, or something “dirty” this anxiety, when not well managed can lead to several issues such as sexual dysfunction.

In Catholicism and Islam, God is also said to frown at those who engage in sexual acts that do not add up as perfect intercourse, Genesis chapter 38 records the death Onan, who was struck dead for spilling his semen, the act of masturbation shares the same end act as Onan which God had frowned at, i.e the spilling of semen. In Islam, the traditions of the prophet of Islam compels the conclusion that abstinence from masturbation is better than an indulgence in it, this comes from the exegeses of scholars who see surat Al-Mu’mun: 5-7 as the foundation for this. What this implies is that religiously, masturbation is seen as sin, and sin must be consciously avoided for love of God.

In the end, a whole lot of logic that might be employed in trying to show how harmless and safe masturbation might be, but this cannot bury the facts that masturbation consumes quality time and resources that would have been employed in creating sound relationships with other people. A whole lot of youths must have fallen into masturbation one way or the other and can lay claims to the anxiety it comes with, the first step of coming out of this is the resolve to leave it, and then seeking professional help would come off better than trying to come out of this all by you. And for the mind that is not involved in this, it is a call not to fall into it and a higher call to discourage this in others.

By; Ogunobo Marvelous-Mary

Published by McCool