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post by Martin Bernstorff (martin-bernstorff) · 2018-03-28T10:22:44.553Z · LW · GW · 21 comments

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21 comments

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21 comments

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comment by sapphire (deluks917) · 2018-03-28T17:45:56.392Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Why is this on lesswrong?

Replies from: norswap
↑ comment by norswap · 2018-03-28T20:25:44.051Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Seems like it falls under applied rationality to me. Using what scientific knowledge we have to try to improve relationships. Not too sure the hypothesis is seaworthy, but the goal certainly seems laudable.

I am not too sure why the post has been downvoted so much, the comments give no indications of what's *so* wrong about it.

Replies from: ChristianKl
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2018-03-29T06:08:25.604Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

To the extend that it uses scientific knowledge it doesn't refer to any studies about pair bonding. And even the scientific knowledge that was in the first draft was questionable with getting testosterone wrong.

There are also good reason to have higher standards for this subject domain.

comment by Elizabeth (pktechgirl) · 2018-03-28T20:30:35.248Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Most research shows sex to be positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. How does this fit in with your theory?

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
comment by ChristianKl · 2018-03-28T12:16:35.164Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm not sure how you get from citing Jiang et al which abstract is about how ejactulation changes testosterone levels to " testosterone remain unaltered". Could you elaborate?

The other study is about the effects of orgasm in woman which doesn't seem to be what your post is about.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
comment by CronoDAS · 2018-03-28T11:34:13.933Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What is the source of the evolutionary pressure? I don't see the connection.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
↑ comment by Martin Bernstorff (martin-bernstorff) · 2018-03-28T11:50:06.923Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

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Replies from: ozymandias, vanessa-kosoy
↑ comment by ozymandias · 2018-03-28T15:43:08.864Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Human babies require at least two and preferably more adults to take care of them. While we can expect some males to have a sexual strategy in which they don't provide caregiving and instead rely on e.g. the baby's grandparents, the mother's friends, or the mother's husband who has been deceived into thinking the baby is his, it is probably going to be way more common for human males to provide the caregiving themselves.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
↑ comment by Vanessa Kosoy (vanessa-kosoy) · 2018-03-28T11:57:27.539Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

So, your hypothesis is only about men? Are you proposing that only women should have orgasms?

Replies from: martin-bernstorff, totallybogus
↑ comment by totallybogus · 2018-03-28T14:41:38.266Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Since short-term satiation after orgasm (the 'refractory period') is much less of an issue in women, it's at least reasonable to expect that they might have far less long-term orgasm satiation as well. Which is not to say that loss of relationship energy is not a problem more broadly (the stereotype of "lesbian bed death" indicates as much!), just that we shouldn't necessarily expect orgasms to be the causal link in that case.

comment by totallybogus · 2018-03-28T14:32:25.082Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Therefore, we should relieve sexual pressure without orgasm and engage in more pair-bonding behavior

Note that this is not exactly a novel claim - many highly-developed sexual practices promote mate-bonding behavior in a broad sense, while discouraging mere ejaculation. Often this is accompanied by a claim that too frequent ejaculation 'drains' sexual and relationship energy, which would mesh quite well with it being a causal factor in satiety!

comment by ChristianKl · 2018-03-28T12:12:45.456Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Orgasm with ejaculation and orgasm without ejaculation doesn't have the same hormonal effect. If you want to decently reason about this space, you shouldn't treat orgasm and ejaculation as the same phenomena.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
↑ comment by Martin Bernstorff (martin-bernstorff) · 2018-03-28T15:15:50.750Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

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Replies from: ChristianKl
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2018-03-28T20:35:35.112Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Most of the relevant knowledge I have comes from conversations with Tantra practitioners. Having orgasms without ejaculating is a key feature of red Tantra. It's a general view in Tantra that ejaculation, both for males and females is to be avoided.

The testosterone drop comes after ejaculating and doesn't happen for orgasms without ejaculation.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff
↑ comment by Martin Bernstorff (martin-bernstorff) · 2018-03-29T09:51:14.215Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

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Replies from: ChristianKl
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2018-03-30T15:44:58.863Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Rereading the papers suggest that you are right here and the testosterone effect is mainly a dip at day 7 with a few days in preparation. It seems like the nofap people are wrong on that regard and that might be where I got that myth.

Most of the people who experiment with Tantra or more secular with sexual bodywork don't measure hormones directly but report their subjective experience. Maybe prolactin is what produces the noticed effect.

I don't think that much is to be learned from reading papers who's authors have little understanding of the subject matter and therefore don't distinguish orgasm from ejaculation.

When it comes to measuring orgasm, using heat camera can be used to locate where in the body an orgasm is happening, so it would be possible to run good studies that distinguish orgasm and ejaculation.

There it's worth pointing out that the strength of orgasms can vary very widely. Is not uncommon for guys to ejaculate while not having much of an orgasm. This might lead to those guys not getting the mate bonding effects that orgasms do have. It also means that the general release bodily tension doesn't happen.

Replies from: martin-bernstorff