30-Day Abstinence

I'm going to do this as an experiment to see if it's possible that sexual "energy" can be transmuted into other endeavors. It seems kind of a Freudian outdated notion to me, and any search on people who advocate doing this are doing so for religious reasons. My roommate has done this and says he noticed a palpable difference in the way his desires manifested themselves and in his drive to satisfy them.

Has anyone tried this?

yes, didn't do anything

really? not even thoughts of "holy shit I need to fuck something right now"?

You mean like not jerking off for 30 days?

Doesn't really seem like that big a deal to me but maybe it's diff for girls.

Yeah — my roommate is also a trusted friend who is heavily into "applied philosophy" (i.e. non-hokey self-help) and he hasn't given me bad advice yet.

I probably fap like once or twice a day (tmi, but this is the board) so I suspect channeling my horniness in other ways will have a pretty large impact.

lol I have a pretty small libido to begin with - once I was over the week mark it wasn't really a big deal. ymmv obv

I'd be pretty worried about getting prostate cancer or something though

I feel like the biggest modern non-religious advocate of this is George Costanza.

lol yes

how did it work out for rivers cuomo

I for one have done this several times before and have found that palpable difference in the way his desires manifested themselves and in his drive to satisfy them is the case. For me, what happens is that after the initial period of sharp tension, tension sort of recedes into a comfortable state where you feel more in control of desire, as opposed to being controlled by it. I guess.

And I have found that I am often more productive and even happier during such periods, but I'm pretty sure that's actually just me being more in control of my sex drive when I'm happier and more productive.

think i would end up murdering someone tbh

You'll never know until you try!

30-day abstinence from the internet would probably be harder tbh

I already did that :)

channeling my horniness

do you mean fucking or doing arts & crafts

i feel like if you did 30 days w/o internet you could prob do 30 days w/o jerking it

using the energy that would've gone into sex for more productive purposes — for e.g. I'm trying to find a job atm, that's pretty much my highest priority

yeah I dunno, this seems like it could be more difficult, but I'm pretty good at making rules for myself

I support your choice to do this experiment, but I also support your choice to change your mind if you go guano loco and just want to take the edge off the old fashioned way.

what did your roommate accomplish in his 30 days that he wasn't able to previously

nothing as easily explainable as something like "he wrote a 600 page novel" but he swears that the heightened state he reached basically helped him get a new job and quadruple his income.

I think it's less an adderall-like gain of focus than a shift in the internal mechanisms that cause you to respond to stimuli in situations, like priming a rifle and pulling the trigger when the moment's right.

There's no way I could ever make it 30 days (not in this decade at least, though I did actually go 5 weeks about 5 years ago) but you definitely notice a change, feel more firmly grounded, and feel like less of a slave to your loins.

The only thing I'll mention is that I don't think it really works like flipping on a lightswitch: I doubt going cold turkey overnight will just sublimate your energy to productive ends like that, I think you there's probably going to have to work to a different state of mind if this would work/not be agonizing (though please prove me wrong! my goal is to harness asexual-workaholism is drive me through grad school).

Also, prepare for, shall we say... nocturnal emissions.

Ha, I've never had one in my life, so that might be fun.

Geez I can go months without rubbin' one out but as E said, maybe it's diff for girls?

...I feel weird for having admitted this.

I don't have to DECIDE to do this.

...you can't wank?

I'm going to do this as an experiment to see if it's possible that sexual "energy" can be transmuted into other endeavors. It seems kind of a Freudian outdated notion to me,

That's because it is. Sexual energy can only be ignored or repressed, it can't be rechanneled.

and any search on people who advocate doing this are doing so for religious reasons.

"Women sap men's energy." This is the unconcious reasoning behind the less sex=more energy myth. Unless you're fucking or jacking off 50 times a day, cutting out sex won't add much to your energy stores.

Unless you really mean "dating." In that case, cutting that out temporarily might save enough time and energy to matter.

My roommate has done this and says he noticed a palpable difference in the way his desires manifested themselves and in his drive to satisfy them.

This is the only thing you'll get out of your sexual fast. It won't change your life like your roommate said it did his.

How do you know?

btw EDB already said this was helpful for him

also I'm gay so your feminist reading is wrong

this idea seems to bother you quite a bit. I wonder why.

Christine can answer for herself, corey, but some of the imagery in the whole "sex saps creative/competitive drive" idea is holding over from Victorian mores about women and how their sexual allure would cloud men's minds and sap their energy and will, and turn men away from pure intellectualism which was supposed to be their true strength. Obv a person could have reasons for abstinence that didn't involve those ideas at all, but there are deep anti-feminist roots here.

other endeavours can suck it imo

if a desire to fap is really that much of a energy sapper you got other problems

this is an experiment, whether it fails or not is irrelevant

experimentation is a beautiful thing

zilch-curious

xp It goes back much, much farther than the 19th century, actually. And I have a strong dislike for science used long past its sell-by date, particularly psychiatric science. (Pop Freudism, esp.) But this is my problem to deal with, so ignore me if you wish.

Victorian mores? What about Chinese chi energy concepts? Surely this goes back to that more than anything.

dont know about the linkage btwn victorian mores/feminism, but I can maybe see where successfully imposing some self-discipline over compulsive urges might have positive side-effects for someone feeling in a rut or w/e without it necessarily emanating from 'sex/women are stealing my natural POWER'

Not rly convinced by 'rechannelling of energies' but yknow go for it

Whatever your take on the mechanics of it (I, as a good Freudian, feel like that energy has gotta go somewhere; whether you have any control of where it goes and how it manifests itself, though, is another issue), I think you do notice some kind of qualitative change that, if nothing else, is interesting to play out in order to get some sort of articulation of how you relate to your sexual desire in certain circumstances. And it seems like that's the reason you're doing this, rather than to summon the energy to write the great American novel, or whatever.

Your spell will be broken when I make my marathon erotic spectacular* titled 30-Day Asstinence.

*porn

if I have to go more than three hours without very emotionally intense sex I become irritable & grouchy

damn you gotta have sex every two hours and fifty five minutes owned

owned meaning you got owned not owned as in me directing my post at your username

wait no does that post I owned you with even make sense

for some reason that is making me lol really hard

xpost more lol

underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have o-faced

honestly thinking about it you got owned anyway but yeah my post doesnt make sense

http://www.energyfiend.com/wp-content/steven-tyler-210x300.jpg

uh-owned I'm having a fantasy

but hey, the upside is I don't think I've ever gone four days without jacking it

Since admitting to being a good Freudian, I heard an anecdote where Freud, in a lecture, admitted that sublimation doesn't really work. Heh.

Also, the other thing that's been sort of gotten at is that, after holding it in for like 8 or so days, jerking off is a completely different experience. Way more intense.

there is no question in my mind that shagging is wayyyy better when there is no intersample fapping

x2. Not only will it be way better, but i'll be way more in the mood in the first place

i do this all the time!

my meds are supposed to squash my libido, but they don't. although it takes me forever to bust a nut.

Yeah that happened to me when I tried Paxil years ago. Switched that shit up asap iirc.

Literally like 45 minutes. My back can't take that, my wife usually leaves and manually whack it until I'm done

Her first orgasm, about a week after changing meds, was a thing of beauty.

i did this in high school once

was dying after two weeks tbh

I did this in high school, too, over and over again. In fact, you could say that my high school years was one long involuntary abstinence ordeal.

An ex was on an anti-depressant that didn't diminish her libido at all, but she could not reach orgasm. Oral, penetration, vibrators without me present, nada.
I think that side effect made her depression worse.

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Thursday, March 10, 2011 7:12 PM (5 days ago)

has opposite effect on me

You have orgasms all the time but don't want to?

Or gets depressed by every orgasm she has?

only orgasms while depressed

anytime ive sworn off jerking off i've gotten so much play

funny, yeah, i've found that true, too.

admittedly, though, given my line of work a lot of times, i tend not to go too many days without having an orgasm. (i actually signed a contract stating that i don't get paid if i don't come).

anytime ive sworn off jerking off i've gotten so much play

― plax (ico), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 8:15 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

ha, ditto

never really understood that comic trope of "jerk off before you go out on a date" a la something about mary---feel like doing that would actually diminish the chances of gettin laid just because you'd be all "welp i came two hours ago so w/e"

I thought that was so you wouldn't come too quickly if you did get laid.

for me "not too quickly" usu becomes "not at all" if there was intermediate manual handling

My husband does best if we get him off quickly in the beginning before the slow, loving foreplay starts. He's the type that can't come after long periods of stimulation.

you'd be all "welp i came two hours ago so w/e"

― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

right i mean the tension is gone so you miss obvious signals and wind up going without anyway

not that i know anything abt this

of course not neither do i

I have failed massively at this challenge btw

ahahaha.

I thought that was so you wouldn't come too quickly if you did get laid.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Friday, 18 March 2011 00:40 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's the theory, but:

1) as said, the will is reduced
2) if you do 'score', it's way easier to explain "ah, you are too awesome, that's why I came so quickly" as opposed to "It's not you" for the under-action...

(i actually signed a contract stating that i don't get paid if i don't come).

― scorpions on my nips and smear peanut butter on my ass (the table is the table), Thursday, 17 March 2011 23:34 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

strangest library job ever...

can't think of any job where you get paid if you don't come

i was setting myself up for that, i guess. well, you all know what i meant.

-feel like doing that would actually diminish the chances of gettin laid just because you'd be all "welp i came two hours ago so w/e"

A rather-kinky girl told a story once about ma making her partner go a week with no orgasms because she wanted to see how large of a load she could swallow.

she must have felt really close to her to open up like that

oh I misread that, they were even closer than I thought

that girl sounds fun.

I think a reference to the urban legend about the cheerleader/random gay celebrity/whatever who had to get his/her stomach pumped after swallowing a massive amount of semen is needed here.

i havent read this whole thread but this sort of experiment seems like it could put you on the fast track to testicular cancer.

Even if you're a woman?

I dunno maybe swallowing cum gives you cancer who knows.

Oh wait.

I don't think that it works that way SS.

why risk it imo

Would like to see how the Daily Mail handles this: "Abstinence Causes Cancer! So have lots of sex. Er, no wait... That doesn't fit in with out right wing agenda... FREE pr0n DVD for every reader!!!"

I meant prostate cancer and yeah that is kind of how it works

isn't that only if you're older?

Prostate problems mostly show up in older men, but he's right: The common American sex pattern of not touching your dick or letting anyone else touch your dick until you find True Love, having hot monkey sex lots and lots of times for several years, breaking up, and then letting your dick rot for a few more years until you find True Love again is not good for the prostate at all. Your body is set up for regular ejaculations, and yes, masturbation counts. (No, I don't have a recommended ejaculation frequency.)

The common American sex pattern of not touching your dick or letting anyone else touch your dick until you find True Love, having hot monkey sex lots and lots of times for several years, breaking up, and then letting your dick rot for a few more years until you find True Love

I don't know if this is accurate...

I should have said "traditional", not "common." That's really what I meant.

ah, that makes sense

I'm really glad that the stigma against masturbation is much, much less than it once was.

well, once the priests started offering it instead of penance instead of three hail mary's.......

...offering to give all the little boys personal private lessons in how to do it?