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One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

scientificamerican.com

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Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#31

Post by amirmc »

sev wrote: post #30
zefhous wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's quite an astute point. Easy access to porn desensitizes us sexually, and we no longer have to depend on our imaginations. It's not necessarily about FUD or a generational issue, it's something worth thinking about. I think these are important questions to consider: How does easy access to pornography affect the development of children? What are the effects of pornography and masturbation in my life? How…

The latter 3 are not too interesting IMO, because porn and masturbation have been around for centuries, and whatever effects they've had have become part of society. The first one might be an interesting one to consider. Of course this is assuming children get hold of the pornography at an earlier age than they should and continuously have easy access to it. And in my opinion, the only thing that occurs is that child…

...whatever effects they've had have become part of society

Your comment seems to imply that the effects are complete. I'd disagree with that.

I'd say access to pornography has changed dramatically in recent years. Anyone with an internet connection can find porn in relative anonymity and I don't think we've seen the full effects of it yet.

children will get desensitized to the typical types of sex early on

As children become more sexually aware, they'll probably turn to the 'net to learn more. I suspect their expectations of what is 'normal' will be set by what they find there. I don't think it's just desensitisation that will take place.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#32

Post by drlisp »

adbge wrote: post #3

Note that the author doesn't claim that humans are the only species who masturbates, but rather that humans masturbate the most often. The author goes on to speculate that this is because humans have the ability to fantasize, though I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious. If you found this article interesting (or amusing, as it very well ma…

My hypothesis: humans who visit Hacker News masturbate even more often.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#33

Post by dkarl »

msg wrote: post #21

Maybe this is dumb, but I opened this at work and it was a little more graphic and NSFW than I expected.

Ditto. The link title should have indicated that this was marginally NSFW. I guess this comes up too rarely on HN for there to be any policy or convention about it.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#34

Post by philwelch »

username3 wrote: post #10
adbge wrote: post #3

Note that the author doesn't claim that humans are the only species who masturbates, but rather that humans masturbate the most often. The author goes on to speculate that this is because humans have the ability to fantasize, though I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious. If you found this article interesting (or amusing, as it very well ma…

> Another fun fact: homosexual behavior has been well documented in both the Bonobo and koalas, an interesting counterpoint to fundamentalists claims that homosexuality isn't natural. :) You didn't mention some things from your link like, The furry, eucalyptus-eating creatures appear to develop this tendency for same-sex liaisons when they are in captivity. In the wild, they remain heterosexual. What's natural about…

I hasten to point out that humans, in captivity, tend to engage in more homosexual behavior as well.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#35

Post by kragen »

btilly wrote: post #18
adbge wrote: post #3

Note that the author doesn't claim that humans are the only species who masturbates, but rather that humans masturbate the most often. The author goes on to speculate that this is because humans have the ability to fantasize, though I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious. If you found this article interesting (or amusing, as it very well ma…

That isn't actually what the author claims. Lots of other animals masturbate, and the author admits that monkeys are certainly prone to it. What he claims makes humans unusual is the we masturbate to orgasm . Incidentally you chose fairly poor examples for animal homosexuality. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals for a list of other examples you could use. For instance I prefer to cite gir…

I wonder what fraction of human sexual encounters are homosexual? There's the old studies the fundamentalist Christians like to trot out where 28% of the gay interviewees reported more than a thousand lifetime sexual partners, while I suspect the median number of lifetime sexual partners across the adult US population is somewhere around 10. So it wouldn't be terribly surprising if the majority of human sexual encounters were between members of the same (male) sex.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#37

Post by bkrausz »

kragen wrote: post #35
btilly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't actually what the author claims. Lots of other animals masturbate, and the author admits that monkeys are certainly prone to it. What he claims makes humans unusual is the we masturbate to orgasm . Incidentally you chose fairly poor examples for animal homosexuality. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals for a list of other examples you could use. For instance I prefer to cite gir…

I wonder what fraction of human sexual encounters are homosexual? There's the old studies the fundamentalist Christians like to trot out where 28% of the gay interviewees reported more than a thousand lifetime sexual partners, while I suspect the median number of lifetime sexual partners across the adult US population is somewhere around 10. So it wouldn't be terribly surprising if the majority of human sexual encoun…

In the modern West, major studies indicate a prevalence of homosexuality of 2% to 13% of the population[1]. On any given day 4% of the population has sex[2]. That means that in order for same-gender sex to outnumber straight sex, every day between a third and all of the homosexual population would need to have sex[3]. Somehow I doubt this is the case.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

[2] http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/geographyo...

[3] I know I'm completely ignoring people who aren't reportedly homosexual having same-gender sex, but I assume the studies Wikipedia cites account for people who are in-between to some extent, and that the one-off same-gender experiences are negligible compared to the overall population. It's not perfect math!

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#38

Post by ciupicri »

zefhous wrote: post #29
gdl wrote: post #7

> Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies [because of Internet porn] that their creativity in other domains is also affected? Wow. I know each generation ends up spreading FUD about the habits of the younger ones, but I never expected to be criticized for not masturbating creatively enough . Puritanism sure ain't what it used to be.

I think it's quite an astute point. Easy access to porn desensitizes us sexually, and we no longer have to depend on our imaginations. It's not necessarily about FUD or a generational issue, it's something worth thinking about. I think these are important questions to consider: How does easy access to pornography affect the development of children? What are the effects of pornography and masturbation in my life? How…

Please define children. The fact that my grandma had her first son at the age of 16, makes me realize this whole thing about children (minors) and pornography is a bit exaggerated.

It's not exactly marriage, but I do know some girls who watched porn with their boyfriends.

Re: One reason why humans are special and unique: We masturbate. A lot

#40

Post by thebigshane »

btilly wrote: post #18
adbge wrote: post #3

Note that the author doesn't claim that humans are the only species who masturbates, but rather that humans masturbate the most often. The author goes on to speculate that this is because humans have the ability to fantasize, though I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious. If you found this article interesting (or amusing, as it very well ma…

That isn't actually what the author claims. Lots of other animals masturbate, and the author admits that monkeys are certainly prone to it. What he claims makes humans unusual is the we masturbate to orgasm . Incidentally you chose fairly poor examples for animal homosexuality. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals for a list of other examples you could use. For instance I prefer to cite gir…

It seems like these examples are given to "excuse" human homosexual behavior ("See! It's perfectly natural. Look at the Giraffes!"). I don't have a strong opinion about human homosexual behavior but I do think these examples are meaningless for this intention. Giraffes are probably too dumb, too horny and too indifferent to care about gender or anything. They see a sexual opportunity and they take it. I speculate that if they did know the difference and had the opportunity with members of both genders that they would choose the opposite sex. (Actually it looks like males are doing all of the choosing). I am not saying that this is the point you were going to make, but it does seem to be what most people think about after this topic.
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