Today’s entry deals not so much with porn as with porn’s red-handed stepchild, masturbation. Doonesbury readers will recall, no doubt, the furor that erupted six years ago when its creator penned a strip referencing a study that claimed a link between masturbation and the prevention of prostate cancer. (The hubbub was, of course, about the mention of “self-dating” in the funny papers, not about the the study itself.)
BUT NOW, the Manhattan Lawyer points us to a recent entry from Gawker, referencing a study that claims pretty much exactly the opposite:
“Men who are very sexually active in their twenties and thirties are more likely to develop prostate cancer, especially if they masturbate frequently, according to a study of more than 800 men. However the UK research team also found that frequent sexual activity in a man’s forties appears to have little effect and even small levels of activity in a man’s fifties could offer protection from the disease. Most of the differences were attributed to masturbation rather than sexual intercourse.”
Well, science, which is it? And yes, we here at Godsbody are tickled at the thought of federal legislation demanding that all pornography feature a label warning that masturbation increases your risk of prostate cancer.
Matthew,
OK. I’ll be the first to grab the bull by the horn, as it were, and commence with the ribaldry…
Ahem.
“Well, gee, Matthew, sounds like, when it comes to science, you got to hand it to them….”
or
“Hey, Matthew, was that a hands-on study?”
or perhaps,
“Science! Sheesh, Matthew, sometimes they got you so you don’t know whether you’re coming or going…”
and even:
“Golly, Matthew, it sounds like they’ve got themselves in a bit of a mess – their own ultimate contradiction – while they’re frustrated about sex they’re not necessarily sexually frustrated…”
JOB
All I can think of is that SNL skit with Telly Savalas advertising the “Players With Yourselves Club.”
— Anon!
JOB,
Once again, you stole all the good ones.
Mine other one was, “Did they come to this on their own?”
I just picture 800 guys in those “little Orphan Annie sunglasses” walking into the lab.
I feel like I need Purrell, now.
I just looked up this study in the NIH sponsored database, PubMed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016689?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
(This is just the abstract. I can e-mail you a PDF of the entire article if you really want it.)
interestingly, the authors claim intercourse was not associated with increased risk: “These findings could imply different mechanisms by which sexual activity is involved in the aetiology of prostate cancer at different ages.” So apparently your prostate prefers one sort of action to another.
“Look, but do not touch”