Do please try to understand that for many men, lack of sex is sort of like missing your heroin dosage—at least that’s the metaphor Spider Robinson used. Anyone in this condition is probably going to go on about it, and if you’re not starving at the moment you should try to have a little sympathy.
Of course it is well known that men on average have a higher sex drive than women on average, but I think the analogy to drug addiction or starving is ridiculous hyperbole. For just one thing, starving people and heroin addicts do not have the option of simply learning to masturbate.
To use the food analogy, masturbation is like subsisting on flavorless but nutritionally adequate food, the proverbial “bread and water.” Sex with someone who finds you desirable is more like that rich, delicious dessert that advertisers hope you’ve been fantasizing about recently. (Note the with someone who finds you desirable. It’s important.)
If we have to use the drug metaphor, masturbation is more like giving a heroin addict all the methadone he wants.
To someone who deeply disdains human society, it probably is equivalent. Suppose that it were possible to soothe your hunger by just rubbing your stomach—how many people would do it and forgo food completely?
Pornography may reduce rape though I haven’t investigated the methodology too thoroughly. If true, it is certainly another sign that lack of sexual satisfaction is a big problem.
The heroin metaphor certainly entails exaggeration, but I’m undecided as to whether that makes it inappropriate. Do you have a proposed substitute?
Of course it is well known that men on average have a higher sex drive than women on average, but I think the analogy to drug addiction or starving is ridiculous hyperbole. For just one thing, starving people and heroin addicts do not have the option of simply learning to masturbate.
Masturbation is not sex. If the only good thing about sex is having an orgasm, you’re doing it wrong!
(That’s not to say the analogy to heroin addiction is a reasonable one.)
No, but it should be similar enough to break the analogy to starvation or heroin deprivation.
Well, that seems right, but allow me to clarify.
To use the food analogy, masturbation is like subsisting on flavorless but nutritionally adequate food, the proverbial “bread and water.” Sex with someone who finds you desirable is more like that rich, delicious dessert that advertisers hope you’ve been fantasizing about recently. (Note the with someone who finds you desirable. It’s important.)
If we have to use the drug metaphor, masturbation is more like giving a heroin addict all the methadone he wants.
I’m just questioning the idea that masturbation is to sex-starved people as food is to actually starving people.
(Course, that’s not exactly what you said either.)
To someone who deeply disdains human society, it probably is equivalent. Suppose that it were possible to soothe your hunger by just rubbing your stomach—how many people would do it and forgo food completely?
Actually, if I didn’t have to eat, I probably wouldn’t.
Pornography may reduce rape though I haven’t investigated the methodology too thoroughly. If true, it is certainly another sign that lack of sexual satisfaction is a big problem.
The heroin metaphor certainly entails exaggeration, but I’m undecided as to whether that makes it inappropriate. Do you have a proposed substitute?