Ejaculating isn’t bad. Engaging in regular self-pleasure isn’t bad. At all.
Anyone who has read my writing long enough will know that I’m a shout-from-the-mountaintops kind of champion for engaging in a regular self-pleasure practice.
But.
Particularly for men, there are healthy and unhealthy limits. And the consequences to constantly draining your sperm bank are greater than you might expect.
If you’re regularly ejaculating beyond what your body is actually calling for, and capable of keeping up with, it’s not only unnecessary, but has some serious consequences:
It dulls your edge, wastes your creative energy, and ultimately limits your potential in life.
For most men with average sex drives, ejaculating daily (and often multiple times) is the equivalent of smoking weed daily. Yes, it relaxes you… but too much.
And there’s usually a reason we chronically ejaculate, beyond it being a simple habit.
So, I’m about to make the case for an argument that you don’t hear very often:
Ejaculating too frequently could be a sign that you are afraid of life.
Let’s cover the more scientific argument first.
The “Brain Juice” Argument
When you see something arousing, your brain gives you a little hit of dopamine, which is one of its neurohormones (I prefer “juices”, for simplicity’s sake) that acts like a reward mechanism.
Dopamine is a built-in motivational tool. Releasing it is the way your body incentivizes you to keep moving toward something you’re seeing, or doing (like eating food, having sex, accomplishing something, getting positive social affirmation, etc.) by making you feel good every step of the way.
When you have an orgasm, you get an even bigger dump of that feel-good juice, but it also comes with (ha!) a bigger cocktail of others, like norepinephrine, serotonin, nitric oxide, oxytocin, vasopressin and prolactin (the last three of which are strongly linked to sleep and may promote drowsiness.)
Most of these neurochemicals are responsible for feelings of happiness, bondedness, calming, and reduction in feelings of stress and pain.
With such effects, you can see a very clear reason why you might get addicted to ejaculating, and not just because it’s a nice distraction to break up the day.
If you’re experiencing any degree of background anxiety, or emotional pain, bringing yourself to ejaculation is an easily accessible opiate that helps you dissociate from that daily discomfort.
The next problem is that your dopamine levels quickly decline after orgasm. And having chronic ejaculations will then put you at a running deficit, which ends up creating a pervasive sense of lethargy and dullness throughout your days.
This will also cause you to be less responsive to the organic ways these chemicals are usually triggered to release, which would be from achieving goals, social interactions, prevailing against challenges, and taking on the challenge of trying new things.
Life can start to feel like it lacks colour and vibrance, and you don’t have much motivation.
Now, it’s not only that you might simply stop responding to things in life on a stimulus/chemical level (like goals, adversity, or socializing) it’s that you might actually be wanting to avoid them on some level. Here’s where the argument becomes more intuitive.
Sexual Energy = Creativity
There’s a reason that esoteric traditions across cultures have been linking sexual and creative energy for thousands of years. It as seen as a vital, divine life force. When worked with, it creates the most optimal and fully expressed human.
As anyone who has taken on a NOP/NOM (no porn, no masturbation) challenge will quickly realize, cultivating and stockpiling your sexual energy through abstaining from ejaculations and porn will sharpen your senses and build an overwhelming internal sense of vigor and drive.
The thing is, if you’re building this energy that means it will have to go somewhere. It will need to find an outlet in creative expression, building something, seeking out mates, working out, etc.
If you have issues with self-esteem, and a bunch of limiting beliefs surrounding success, responsibility, self-expression, mating, and hard work in general, you will automatically tend to avoid moving toward these types of outlets, and automatically channel that energy down the path of least resistance.
Unconsciously Draining Your Energy & Dulling Your Edge
To move forward in life and tap into deeper potential involves constantly pushing your comfort zone. It means taking risks, stepping into the unknown, and risking failure and being judged by others.
These are things people will unconsciously avoid their entire lives like the plague.
They let their growth and happiness be stunted by issues with self-worth, and fears around losing a comfortable/easy schedule, doubting their ability to handle pressure, and being rejected or falling short of their dreams.
So, the subliminal belief is: “why keep my creative energy if feeling it will naturally lead to spending it, and spending it will mean stepping out in life and confronting the anxiety of my underlying fears?”
There are many ways this belief leads us to distracting ourselves and wasting energy.
For men, ejaculation is a massive one. It’s like a “quick release” dump valve you can hit (almost) any time on your creative energy system, so you can feel sedated enough to not risk experiencing any of those fears and anxieties.
It’s a way many men keep their edge dulled and avoid the battlefield of life.
The mind is sneaky. Before we’re even aware of why we’re doing something, a deeper part of us has set in motion a set of behaviours to avoid or move toward something.
So, if you’re unconsciously looking to play small in life, hide out, and avoid pushing your comfort zone, then frequently ejaculating can be an ideal way to not only alleviate anxiety in the moment, but ensure you also don’t have the energy tomorrow to put yourself at risk either.
But this adaptive strategy will only get you so far. Soon enough, this repression of your life force turns to depression, self-loathing, frustration, irrational outbursts of anger, general unhappiness, and many other twisted conditions.
The cost and collateral damage of using ejaculations in this way are your mental health and happiness.
What Could Be
Your sexual energy is creative. You can either squander this fuel source, or let it supercharge your life and unlock your higher potential.
If you make the conscious choice to dial back the amount of ejaculations you’re having, or get a handle on new masturbation techniques, you will start to experience some powerful shifts in your experience of life.
You’ll feel more presence and energy. Because of the positive behaviour shifts and reignited sensitivity to life, you’ll have better relationships and be more fulfilled by them. You’ll be more inclined to exercise and experience greater gains when you do.
You’ll likely be making more money in short time as well, because you’ll have access to greater states of focus and productivity, as well as being motivated to put in the work, ascend in hierarchies, and find more creative solutions in all areas of life.
One of the core genetic drives in men is to mate and spread their seed. It has also been argued by some evolutionary scientists that this same drive fuels our productivity and success, as it feeds back into mating opportunities.
Regardless of whether or not that’s true, when you jerk off too much, you’re tricking your body into thinking the basic job is done. The drive to mate and create is sedated and your edge is dulled.
Imagine the difference in energy between a hunter, hungry with spear in-hand, and a chimp with a belly full of bananas laying in a hammock. One is compelled to get after it, the other is not.
The difference is the same in a man who is disciplined with his ejaculations and sexual energy, and one who is not.
How to Sharpen Your Edge
So, after reading you might want to experiment with some tools and see about making an improvement in your energy and drive.
On the whole, for prostate health, there’s a general recommendation to clean your pipes and ejaculate once a week, but this also depends on your age.
There is a saying from Taoism that goes,
“A man at twenty can ejaculate once every four days.
A man at thirty can ejaculate once every eight days.
A man at forty can ejaculate once every ten days.
A man at fifty can ejaculate once every twenty days.
A man at sixty should no longer ejaculate.”
And while there is no hard and fast rule about how often any one individual needs to ejaculate, it’s a good general guideline to follow (to decrease ejaculatory frequency with age).
For now, it’s safe to swing the pendulum and hold off for a while so you can really see the difference, before jumping back into it.
Here are my top recommendations if you currently find yourself over-ejaculating:
1. Abstinence
If you’ve never taken a break from masturbating willy-nilly, you might want to take on the NOP/NOM challenge. Before you can develop a healthier relationship with self-pleasure, it helps to get clarity on your relationship with it by taking some space. You’ll be surprised by just how much of a hold it seems to have on you, or rather how dependent you’ve become on the habit as a coping mechanism.
Yes, you can still have sex with your partner. But be mindful not to waste a bunch of loads there as well. Even though you’re with another person, the underlying motivation and effect can end up being the same.
In the past, I’ve challenged people to start by committing to 90 days. Start by doing three weeks (21 days) and see what you notice after a few weeks pass. When those three weeks are up, take stock again and calibrate from there.
(Side note: The first time I did a proper NOP/NOM challenge (it was just over 60 days, and I was 25 years old) I ended up having so much creative energy coursing through my veins that I wrote, published, and marketed three books within those two months. There were times where it quite literally felt like I was fucking my keyboard with my creative energy. And it’s important to note that, even as a young, healthy 25 year old, I didn’t feel uncomfortably horny during this time period because I was giving my sexual energy a creative outlet.)
2. Practice non-ejaculatory orgasms
If you don’t know, now you know. Yes, men can have orgasms without ejaculating. It just takes a little practice. If this path is for you, you can check out my deep dive article on it here.
Note that this practice is either done with a partner or while mindfully self-pleasuring. It’s not something to throw in to a chronic masturbation habit, or while watching porn. If you take this on, follow all the instructions.
3. Practice edging
This one is for the warriors out there. Edging is a core practice in non-ejaculatory orgasms, but it’s a step back because you don’t actually let yourself hit a full orgasm. It is far from easy, but the results are insane.
To practice edging, work your way up to a 9/10 on the “I’m going to cum” scale and back off to a 4/5 before working your way up again… and eventually getting to a place where you are experiencing the 8 to 9 range for extended periods of time, riding the ‘edge’ of your ejaculatory point of no return.
It can be utterly confusing for your brain, and goes against all your trained impulses. But I promise you, if you practice this with your partner, your hunger for life (and for them) will skyrocket across the board.
You’ll want to exercise more, work more, make love more. Your headspace will become sharper and more confident. And your partner will respond very, very well to this.
4. Create and invest in healthy outlets
As your sexual and creative energy begins rebuilding, the urge to ejaculate will also rise. When those moments come, harness and express that energy in another way – going for a run, dropping and doing push-ups, picking up a musical instrument, calling a friend, or anything else productive.
You have to swap an unhelpful way to get your fix of the brain juice you crave for a better one.
When swells of that energy begin to be used and applied to things in your life, rather than being wasted in ejaculation, you’ll start to see your life and mindset change.
Remember that along the way you might come up against some resistance and slip up. It’s a lot harder to curb an ejaculation habit than people think. Sometimes it feels like your hand takes over with a will of its own, as if it’s possessed by a sex demon who’s hell-bent on milking mortal men.
As I explained, this goes deeper than routine. It’s often connected to much more. Maybe not spirits, but definitely to your self-image and relationship to life.
If you have compassion for yourself, and prioritize a passionate commitment to unlocking your best self, you will succeed in changing this habit and transforming your life.
Dedicated to your success,
Jordan
Ps. If you enjoyed this article, you’ll also love checking out:
– Supercharge Your Sex Life (videos)
– No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Book Review
– Boost Your Testosterone Naturally with Ben Greenfield (video)
– How To Develop Your Masculine Edge: 9 Steps To Becoming A Beast
