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MASTURBATION HAS BEEN blamed for a lot of things—a decrease in testosterone being one of them. As with so many myths about masturbation, this one’s not true, either. There isn’t evidence that masturbation or ejaculation causes a drop in testosterone.
Masturbation probably doesn’t increase testosterone, either. Neither does having sex. True, testosterone does have to do with libido: “It’s pretty clear that increased testosterone levels improve sex drive, and that likely leads to more sex,” says James M. Hotaling, MD, MS, FECSM, associate professor of urology surgery and director of men’s health at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. However, whether sex decreases or increases testosterone levels isn’t know, he adds. “Testosterone levels vary from minute to minute, so this would be hard to study.”
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Some studies have been done on masturbation and testosterone, but they’ve been pretty inconclusive. A 2021 study in the journal Basic and Clinical Andrology measured hormonal responses to masturbation and found that it may prevent a drop in free testosterone, but not total testosterone, over the course of a day—but it was a temporary effect and not really significant in terms of changing your testosterone levels, based on what free testosterone is and does.
A refresher: Most of the testosterone in your body attaches itself to two specific kinds of proteins, albumin and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). Albumin carries testosterone through your system, while SHBG controls the amount of testosterone your body uses. The rest of your testosterone, free testosterone, is not attached to those proteins, but can instead flow to attach to any cell in your body. Since you have a smaller amount of free testosterone, masturbation preventing a drop in its levels really isn’t very significant to your body.
Other studies have looked at whether just getting turned on changes testosterone levels. Research from the University of Michigan found that while having sexual thoughts can obviously lead to sexual arousal, it didn’t cause any increase in testosterone levels in men. “Bottom line: masturbation is really not the way to increase your levels,” says Justin Dubin, MD, a urologist/men’s health specialist at Memorial Healthcare System in Aventura, Florida. Nor is it likely to decrease your levels.
Basically, masturbation isn’t going to help or hurt testosterone levels. So keep doing what you’re doing for whatever other reasons you’re doing it.
Lisa is an internationally established health writer whose credits include Good Housekeeping, Prevention, Oprah Daily, Woman’s Day, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Parade, Health, Self, Family Circle and Seventeen. She is the author of eight best-selling books, including The Essentials of Theater.
