Talk:Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

For a September 2004 deletion debate over this pagee see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome

I'm afraid to ask if this is real. - Tεxτurε 19:47, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A quick check of google hits shows mostly that one page and sites that link to it. I'm tending to suspect a prank. -- Infrogmation 19:57, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Although The University of Pennsylvania Health System website does indeed list a Dr Swank in Bethesda - of course this does not necessarily prove validity of the syndrome, or attribution to this doctor... Might check this one out next time I am in the hospital library! Danfreak 13th June
Why are you singing as a user when you made this entry as an anonymous IP? - Tεxτurε 20:12, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Lawrence I. Sank seems to be real... see http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?userid=ms5NYHg9Ag&ath=Lawrence+I%2E+Sank
  • So presumably we could ask him whether this was for real? -- The Anome 20:05, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • This [1] also suggests that the journal and article exist. -- The Anome 20:07, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Yes, the U Penn page ststes that he treats (amongst other things) sexual disorders. -- The Anome 20:15, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • another reference to Sank [2] and gives his e-mail address as Lawrencesank@yahoo.com also [3] and a quotation from him on [4]

Also "umm... the TMS theory is supported mainly by Lawrence Sank.. and has little support among sex therapists." from a message board see [5]


  • 30 minutes of orgasm?? Thats what I really want. Where can I meat some of these TMS men??-- Anonymous 15 Jul 2004

From the text, it looks very like a hoax. Moving it here until some outside evidence is offered. We take this from a 1-edit anon and believe it? Tannin 20:23, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome (TMS) is the habit of masturbating in the prone (face-down) position. It causes severe sexual dysfunction in most males who practice it. A link between face-down masturbation and sexual dysfunction in females is suspected but not currently established.

TMS was first described by Dr. Lawrence I. Sank of the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Bethesda, Maryland in a 1998 article in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

Males who practice TMS masturbate by rubbing their penises against their bedding, mattress, pillow, their hand, or even the floor. They do it this way because that's how they learned to masturbate as adolescents, or younger. A survey for an Internet site about TMS found that 61 percent of males who masturbate prone have severe sexual dysfunction, with the most common being anorgasmia (also called inorgasmia), which can be a complete inability to reach orgasm in intercourse, or the ability to do so after only a very long time (half hour or more). Half of TMS males have this problem almost every time they have intercourse, and another nine percent have anorgasmia most of the time. Among males who masturbate normally, only four percent have anorgasmia or delayed orgasm even most of the time.

Many TMS males also have erectile dysfunction. A third of them have erection problems at least half the time they have (or attempt) intercourse, while only five percent of males who masturbate normally do. Two-thirds of males who masturbate prone report having erectile dysfunction at least sometimes, while 86 percent of males who masturbate supine claim they rarely or never do. Most males with TMS can only have intercourse in the missionary position (if they can have intercourse at all).

It is believed that TMS does not cause physical damage, since most TMS males are able to be cured of their sexual dysfunction merely by quitting prone masturbation and learning to masturbate on their backs (supine) with their hand, which is the only way more than 90 percent of males masturbate.

A survey done for the same Internet site among women found that those who masturbate prone tend to have orgasm in intercourse less frequently than women who masturbate supine or sitting, but the tendency is not as strong as among males who masturbate prone. More study is needed among both men and women.

References:

Lawrence I. Sank, Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 24(1): 37-42 (1998).


External links:

http://www.healthystrokes.com

  • I added the article back but with an accuracy boilerplate tag. It's not the correct thing to do, to just blank an article like that. Mike H 20:25, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

Yes, a real syndrome. You can find the article online.

TMS is a real syndrome, and in addition to the JSMT article referenced, it has been mentioned in Playboy twice and in Mens' Health and also by Dr. Drew on MTV. I am the creator of the HealthyStrokes website. Although I do not have permission to post Dr. Sank's article online, it is in the files area of the Yahoo group tmssupport. I will be happy to e-mail it to anyone who requests it of me at doug22123@yahoo.com.

(William M. Connolley 08:59, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)) Hmmm, I suggested this article be listed on VFD, though I haven't done so yet. Mail it to me please: wmc@bas.ac.uk.
(William M. Connolley 15:59, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)) Heeeeelllllllllllllllllllloooooooo......... I'm waiting................
(William M. Connolley 10:08, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I was a bit impatient: sorry. I have received the pdf. It looks real.

Most of the information in the Wikipedia article is from my site and I stand by its accuracy. Detailed summaries of the surveys of both males and females are on the site at http://www.healthystrokes.com. Doug

this website looks rather dubious to me, I think this completely false statement proves that healthystrokes is not a legitimate website:

Is it necessary to masturbate at all?

Yes, it's necessary for males to masturbate.

Let's take a step back from masturbation and talk about ejaculation. It's necessary for males past puberty to ejaculate. The male sexual organs produce a number of fluids that have to be eliminated periodically. While there is no regular schedule that has to be followed, just like there's no schedule for how often one must urinate, it is generally agreed that a male must ejaculate at least once every two weeks to avoid damage to his sexual functioning.

and this:

I'd rather not bring the subject up unnecessarily. Is there any way to tell if someone is practicing TMS? Other than catching him in the act? Yes, there is a physical sign that might be present. The hair on the front of the leg between the crotch and the knee might be unusually short or not present. It also might be true on one leg and not the other. If the hair is like this on only one leg, that's a definite sign of TMS. TMS might also be indicated if the hair on the front of the leg isn't consistent with that on the sides of the leg. This is caused by the friction against the fronts of the upper legs from thrusting in TMS.

do we need any more proof that this is a spoof? Sounds like the sank article is real but it sounds like it is a view not supported by anyone else.

Cap

I do not know whether this is true but arcane or a spoof, but but your proof that it is a spoof is wrong:
I hate to have to tell you this but men do have to drain off excess fluids and spermazoa either manually or coitally, and abrasion does wear away hair.
If this is a spoof it is a good one. It certainly is hard to falsify.
Ŭalabio 18:21, 2004 Sep 12 (UTC)

I agree it is not a spoof, but I do not like the tone of the website. It seems to have a fanatical obsession with TMS. The very name "Traumatic" seems over the top. It repeatedly tells people that prone masturbation is "wrong" and that people who do this are not "normal". Surely if it is really concerned with people's wellbeing it should take a slightly more sympathetic approach? Surely this website is more "traumatizing" to people who practice TMS than the condition itself - being made to look as if they are abnormal. --Cap 01:00, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is also rather worrying that the author of this website has set himself up as a kind of masturbation agony Uncle, while it is unclear how qualified he is to be able to answer peoples questions properly. --Cap 01:12, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If it had been left to guys who practice prone masturbation, it would not have been called Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome. That was Dr. Sank's name for it. I think we who suffer(ed) from it would have called it Prone Masturbation Syndrome, although I don't like those initials. As I say many times on the web site, I am not a health professional, only a fellow TMS sufferer trying to help others. I originally had only questions about TMS, but soon I was getting lots of questions about regular masturbation, and now I get all kinds of questions about circumcision, relationships, and even questions from girls about their periods. I do my best to answer them and refer some questions to others. Doug22123 15:53, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

FROM Doug at HealthyStrokes.com - OK, you win. I'm taking the paragraph about leg hair off my site. It's not an important enough point to risk ppl thinking the whole site is a joke. --206.149.208.40 05:57, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone really want the truth?

It's been 10 days since I posted my offer to share Dr. Sank's article with the discontents over my article. No one has requested it. Can I assume from this that no one who challenged the article is interested in a serious discussion of its veracity? If so, can the article be removed from the "disputed" section. Doug


I have access to the National Library of Wales and have just looked on their online catalogue and they have this journal so I may have a look at it. [6]

¿Has anyone thought to ask why these men masturbate this way?

A sexually mutilated boy in an household without petroleum jelly might find himself with a newly active prostate ready to burst and no præpuce for masturbation do to circumcision. He would experience a pain like a hot knife twisting in his groin. This is horniness. Many women believe that sexual desire is horniness, but they are wrong. In desperation, this boy tries frotage against a soft pillow.

An intact man would use one of his hands and a præpuce. ¿Has anyone ever heard about an intact man masturbating by frotage. NoHarmm.Org explains how the intact penis should work. The page after much dry explanation has in intact man demonstrate how an intact man can masturbate using only an hand and præpuce 'without petroleum jelly or other lubricants.

¿Has anyone thought to ask whether Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome is not truly Circumcisiogenic Sexual Disfunction with one of the symptoms being necessity to masturbate via frotage or lubricants?

Ŭalabio 07:19, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

I'm circumcised and I've never used lubricants for masturbation. Am I just broken? Mike H 07:20, Sep 5, 2004 (UTC)
¿Like in the article, are you dependent on frotage or are you sufficiently lucky to have a loose sexual mutilation? If you can move your præputial remnant over the corona (ridge) of your glans you are very fortunate. The quack John Harvey Kellogg started circumcision in the United States of America because he believed that masturbation causes blindness and insanity. He would circumcise masturbators without anæsthetic as punishment. The victims would have tight painful erections. Most sexually mutilated men have no mobility of the skin/mucosa-system on the penis, often tightness too. If the circumcision is both tight and asymmetric, the man will have tight painful bent erections.
If you masturbate using loose tissue instead of frotage, you are lucky you did not receive a second circumcision:
Doctors believe that any tissue covering the glans is bad (unfortunately, they forget that the reason that they believe this is because the quack John Harvey Kellogg believed that masturbation causes blindness and insanity). If your pædiatrician would have noticed any glans-coverage during a medical appointment, you could have been recircumcised. I guarantee that you would have very tight painful erections then -- the circumcisers do not want it said that they failed twice so they make certain that recircumcisions are high and tight with the frænulum removed for good measure.
Ŭalabio 08:46, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)
I also am circumcised and have never had any difficulty masturbating without the use of lubricants. I would not describe my "sexual mutilation" as either "loose" or "tight". I'm not sure what else to say about this. -- SS 03:29, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 19:42, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)) Looks like a hoax to me. VFD?

The so-called survey was extremely baised and unscientific, and the website (unknowing?) points out this very fact by describing the respondents who participated: [7]. There is no medical validity (as yet?) to this syndrome. func(talk) 07:55, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

internet surveys are very unreliable as the only people participating in them would have been people who were looking at a site dedicated to promoting the idea of TMS ie. not a very representative sample, people who have a sexual dysfunction and believe it to be from TMS are probably more likely to be posting responses to such a survey.

The good Dr. Sank appears to have published one article [8] positing the syndrome based on four case histories. A search on PubMed for "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome" retrieves only this one article. It's silly for us to suggest this is any more deserving of encyclopedic treatment than is water skier's enema, which was "reported" in a more reputable journal... - Nunh-huh 08:10, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

agreed. On a search of the internet there seems to be only the article and the healthystrokes references to the term, and that TMS is the theory of one person (Sank) who doesn't seem to have any support from any other academic or medical organization. If the article is to be kept it needs to be clear that this is the view of Dr Sank and not portrayed as if it was a well established medical condition.

But it is not just Sank. Dr. Sank doesn't even know about the existence of the Wikipedia article. Since Sank wrote that journal article, hundreds of people have participated in an online support group. Their testimony far outweighs Dr. Sank's brief article. There are 16 full case studies on the HealthyStrokes site and hundreds of brief case comments. The Yahoo support group contains many hundred more pieces of testimony that this is a real condition, readily cured in the manner Dr. Sank and the Healthy Strokes author suggest. The bias in the HealthyStrokes survey data is the same as that for any medical condition: The only way to study a medical condition is to study people who already have it. You cannot study breast cancer or polio by stopping every 7th person on the street and having them fill out a survey. You have to start with people who already have the diagnosis. The anti-intellectualism of the discontents over this article is informed by their belief, "if it feels good, do it." They refuse to believe that any sexual practice can be unhealthy, no matter how patently unsensible it is. The claim that the existing knowledge on the subject is inadequate is reminiscent of the tobacco industry. Doug, HealthyStrokes.com

As far as medical literature is concerned, it is just Sank (and just that once). One article and a support group do not define a medical syndrome: that's done (or in this case not done) in peer-reviewed journals. The claim that this "condition" exists, that it produces the effects alleged, and the profoundly bizarre claims that there's "good masturbation" and "bad masturbation" are simply unsupported by the medical literature. Wikipedia shouldn't become a repository of nutso theories pretending to be more than they are. - Nunh-huh 06:07, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reality of TMS

(William M. Connolley 11:37, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I received a (pdf) copy of the article by Sank. I would say that it is now established beyond reasonable doubt that this is genuine and not a hoax (unreasonable doubt would be that the pdf sent to me was faked: possible its true I suppose but unlikely).

So I have toned down the initial warning.

This still leaves the question of the "notability" of the syndrome, for those who want to question it. - (signed-at-the-front, as I always do: wmc)

Again (since the response was non-responsive): One article and a support group do not define a medical syndrome: that's done (or in this case not done) in peer-reviewed journals. The claim that this "condition" exists, that it produces the effects alleged, and the profoundly bizarre claims that there's "good masturbation" and "bad masturbation" are simply unsupported by the medical literature. Wikipedia shouldn't become a repository of nutso theories pretending to be more than they are. - Nunh-huh 19:09, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 19:15, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)) I think you are making a mistake calling it "nutso". Being published in peer-reviewed literature (which I think the article was; not sure how high the journal status is) even once is a reasonable start. It puts it ahead of many other wikipedia articles. OTOH if you want to call it non-notable, you would be on firmer ground.

The latest edit by user Nunh-huh is over the top. This exceeds the bounds of friendly editing. The references to water skier's enema, jogger's nipple, etc. is unnecessary and useless. He has transformed what had been carefully refined by several editors into a NPOV into a POV that is no longer neutral, in fact hostile to Dr. Sank's and my findings. It is worth noting that Dr. Sank's original article was peer-reviewed by others in his field, and not every line quoted from his article needs to be coated with warnings. Doug

The only hostility I have is to misleading articles. I think water skier's enema and Hogswart's headache exactly put this "syndrome" into perspective: something mentioned once in the medical literature, and not taken up as useful by the medical community. The only alternative to adequate caveats - lest the reader take this as an established syndrome - would be deletion. - Nunh-huh 02:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

citation

Attributions like "According to TMS proponents..." are hopelessly vague. This is obviously a controversial article. Are there numerous "proponents"? Or is that a misleading way of saying "according to the one guy who wrote this paper. I've voted a weak keep on VfD, but this needs extensive citation. If it all cites to the same paper, make that clear: "According to Sank...", not "According to TMS proponents..." -- Jmabel 23:12, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Not only Sank I wrote the original Wikipedia article, and most of it is derived, not from Sank's article, but from my web site, http://www.healthystrokes.com. It was later editors who added "according to..." Doug22123 23:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In that case, most of the content is original research. See Wikipedia:No original research. If this article survives VFD, it needs to be severely edited. --Robert Merkel 01:37, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have overhauled the article in order to ground it more firmly in the literature (not only Sank's article but other, earlier, uncontroversial research) and eliminate most content from my web site. (The main thing left from the web site is some percentages from the online survey.) I dare say even the discontents will believe the article better this way (though I doubt they will change their votes).Doug22123 05:50, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It seems like the article should stay the way it is during the VFD period. The header on VFD articles says, "Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to edit this article and improve it." This suggests only the proponents of the article should be allowed to edit it during the VFD period; otherwise, the proponents of deletion could fill the article with all kinds of absurd things in an effort to sway the vote. The header says if the vote is to be swayed by editing the article, it should be by improving it in order to obtain a larger keep vote. Doug22123 17:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Making the spuriousness of this "syndrome" clear is an improvement. - Nunh-huh 23:31, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
How do you get to be the one to decide what is spurious? -(unsigned)
I don't. I leave that up to the cited medical literature. - Nunh-huh 03:19, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK since the page is going to be kept let's whip it into shape! "Two-thirds of males who masturbate prone report having erectile dysfunction at least sometimes, while 86 percent of males in the age cohort who masturbate supine claim they rarely or never do" Where do these figures come from? How were they obtained? Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 10:12, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's from online surveys conducted by the web site HealthyStrokes.com. The surveys claim to be merely a purposive sample of TMS males and a reference sample of males in the same age cohort who do not have TMS. No correspondence to any population is claimed by these surveys. Doug22123 15:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So what you are saying then is that two thirds of males who are interested in TMS enough to visit that website and answer the survey,who masterbate prone report having erectile problems? Can you see what I am getting at? Consider a fictional senario where only 1% of males who masterbate prone have erectile problems. 99% have no problems whatsoever. Now since they don't have any problems they ar hardly going to go looking for websites on erection problems are they? If they happen to come across a site like healthy strokes they are likely to think to themselves "What a load of nonsense" and just move on. So they will never participate in the survey. OTOH the 1% who do have erictile problems may well go looking for answes on the web. If they come across a TMS site they may think to themselves "Hey this is the answer to my prayers" and stick around. Therefore they are far more likely to fill in the survey. You have to be very very careful with self selected samples like this. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 15:56, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)