Human 5067890284

Thanks for posing the question Proteus, I also was interested in this topic. Firstly, after fairly thorough searching, I have found no scientific papers that offer a comprehensive and objective conclusion to all the effects of abstinence. So I can only say from personal experience of extended periods of sexual abstinence (including abstaining from self-masturbation) that I have noticed the following changes from the sexually active times in my life: Positive - 1) Increased strength - I noticed that I had much more stamina and retained more muscle bulk when doing roughly the same amount of exercise relative to sexually active periods. I reckon this loosely supports the hypothesis of increased testosterone during abstinence. 2) Increased energy - Felt much less tired in general. 3) Less emotional - I seemed to naturally adopt a more stoic attitude to life when not involved in sexual activity. Most likely due to lack of interaction with a romantic/sexual partner. 4) Increased creativity - I generally experienced more outside the box ideas WRT work, more elaborate jokes in social situations, heightened imagination, increased musical improvisation ability etc... Neutral - 1) Libido change - After a few days and weeks of abstinence I found my libido to be ever increasing. However after a scale of months and even years of this, my libido reduced significantly. Negative - 1) Increased energy coupled with increasing libido and no sexual partner initially led me to have aggressive thoughts and occasionally behave in a more aggressive or argumentative manner. After a few months, this subsided. A fading of sexual frustration in tandem with a fading libido if you will. After years of no sex, my state of mind was even calmer than during sexually active periods. 2) Lack of sexual pleasure. Seems obvious, but when not distracted with other pleasurable activities this could sometimes reduce morale. I'm not a medical or biology expert so cannot say if any of the more 'mental' changes were driven directly by hormone changes associated with abstinence or if more subtle psychological factors were at play. Indeed other variables may have been responsible for the above differences with or without abstinence having a role. If you know more about this though, it would be great to hear from you. Presumably changes in the above factors (and others mentioned in this thread) will vary from person to person and probably between genders. It seems there is still a gap in research here, though it would appear unlikely that there are any seriously negative consequences to chastity, especially physically speaking. Perhaps the repercussions are more subtle and psychological, thus making an isolated study all the more difficult. Thanks for reading.