Talk:Traumatic masturbatory syndrome

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For older talk see Talk:Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome/archive1

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)

Here is a good article on surveys and how they need to be carefully implemented: [1] func(talk) 16:27, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Purposive Surveys

Theresa, thank you for your constructive feedback. The problem with any health problem research is that you necessarily have to study people with the problem. (i.e., epilepsy research is based on studying people with epilepsy, pneumonia research is based on studying people with pneumonia.) These are known as purposive samples. We already know the prevalence of erectile and orgasmic disorders in the general population, so the only reason to study the general population is to determine the specific percentage of TMS in the general population. While this would be nice, it would be very expensive research due to the small percentage of men who masturbate prone. If only five percent do, then to get a sample of 45, one would need to survey 900 men. And that's a lot.

The surveys on HealthyStrokes.com, while polling a self-selected group, at least polled a large enough sample of men in the same age cohort of both TMS and non-TMS men that the survey results are worth something, even if they aren't as objectively valid as a non-self-selected sample (e.g., a survey of hundreds of college sophomores). The HealthyStrokes.com surveys always treat the TMS and non-TMS samples as separate and make no discussion of them as a single population. So the problem you discuss is really not a problem. Doug22123 17:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But the trouble is you are identifying TMS with materbating prone. I'm not saying that the survey has no value whatsoever, I am saying that you cannot extrapolate. To say that two thirds of men who masterbate prone have erectile problems is misleading because there is no way you can tell that from a self selected survey. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 17:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A problem?

Being able to have sex for more than half an hour is a problem? Surely it's only anorgasmia if you want to have an orgasm and can't, rather than, as the wording here suggests, that "normal" people are unable to have sex for > 1/2 hr whether they like it or not. -- The Anome 17:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's what anorgasmia is. To the uninitiated, having sex for half an hour to an hour sounds like a lot of fun, but most men don't have the energy to go that long, at least not every time they have sex. What happens is they run out of steam and then lose their erection and don't get satisfied. If you want to dispute that anorgasmia is really a sexual dysfunction, you should do it on the anorgasmia page and not here. Doug22123 17:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes a problem, a real one. I just went through the old talk and see there were many questions as to if this could be a prank. It ain't. They could have written this description by watching my sex life. (Using black helicopters looking in the windows perhaps.) I have all these symptoms and trust me, it is not a lot of fun. I would urge the community to keep this page up and running. I only happened on the bravepages site by accident. It has been a great help. Publishing this information will help more men and couples.
Interesting isn't it? In this day and age there are still medical conditions that are unstudied and unrecognized. Go figure. [[PaulinSaudi 17:52, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)]]
Don't worry - the page is being kept. We are just trying to word it fairly. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 17:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

According to Google's summary of Hayward et al. Human middle cerebral artery blood velocity during sexual intercourse J Ultrasound Med. 2000; 19: 871-876. [2],

All values are given as means ± SD. RESULTS The total duration of sexual intercourse ranged from 16 min to 55 min (mean, 29 ± 12 min).

half an hour of sex is pretty normal. This is backed up by the 1998 Durex World Sex Survey, from which some results are reported at http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/1998/September/24/News5.htm. If the average is also the median, and half an hour represents anorgasmia, by your logic half of the U.S. population suffer from anorgasmia. This seems unlikely. -- The Anome 18:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If we regard what a majority of the population do as "usual", and assume a Gaussian distribution and choose a ± 1 SD (68%) intervaL, we might make the statement "usually, sexual intercourse in the U.S. lasts between 17 and 41 minutes". -- The Anome 18:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Where do those studies begin the timer? At arousal? Or when actual thrusting begins. I'm talking about 30 min of thrusting with no orgasm being anorgasmia. Most people spend a lot less than 30 minutes in the actual thrusting stage. Doug22123 13:28, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the Hayward study is best for evaluating duration of intercourse. Anyway, that Hayward study is a mean, not a median, meaning high values will tend to bring it up. The SD is also a very high 12. This page http://health.yahoo.com/health/centers/sexual_health/001954 says that most men ejaculate 2-4 minutes after thrusting begins and calls 30-45 minutes "prolonged intercourse." Also, the Yahoo page discusses as a cause of delayed ejaculation "conditioning caused by unique or atypical masturbation patterns." I think it's looking better and better that this article didn't get deleted. - unsigned (by 18.171.0.232)

[edit] Removed self-selected survey data to talk

I've moved the self-selected survey data here:

According to a self-selected web site survey about TMS, half of the males who state they have TMS have this problem almost every time they have intercourse, and another nine percent have anorgasmia most of the time. Among males who state that they do not masturbate prone, only four percent state that they have anorgasmia or delayed orgasm even most of the time. A third state that they have erection problems at least half the time they have (or attempt) intercourse, while only five percent of males in the corresponding age group who state that they do not masturbate prone do. Most males with TMS can only have intercourse in the missionary position (if they can have intercourse at all), the survey claims.

-- The Anome 18:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't actually think that's necessary. Like i said above i don't think the survey is totally valueless and i already removed the sentance we were discussing. I think the above text is pretty neutral, it says the survey is self selected for example. It cxould probably do with tweaking to make it easier to read but on the whole I'm happy for it to be in the article. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 17:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, self-selected polls are generally so badly sampled and controlled as to be meaningless. I added a lot of the NPOV wording to this paragraph, and found that doing so rendered it almost unreadable; in my belief, this is a reflection of the survey methodology, which is entirely based on self-selection and self-reporting. On the other hand, I would be more than willing to include here information from a double-blind placebo-controlled survey. -- The Anome 18:13, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As an attempt at compromise, I have summarised the results of the survey, and criticism thereof. -- The Anome 18:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Without having followed the edits in detail, the current paragraph looks fine to me. The only question I have is whether there should be a link to that "self-selected web site survey." Well, it's a rhetorical question, as I think there should be. Presumably the site is healthystrokes, but I don't see why there shouldn't be an actual link to the survey. I don't think two links will Googlebomb the site any more than the existing link does... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What makes a non-notable website poll worth reporting in Wikipedia? Certainly it falls into the realm of original research. - Nunh-huh 04:25, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Because it's the only hard numbers (albeit flawed ones) we have about TMS. Dr. Sank used no hard numbers; he only had four case studies. HealthyStrokes.com has dozens of case studies and two full-scale surveys (although the participants were indeed self-selected). When more adequate studies are available, they should be referenced and the HealthyStrokes.com surveys not. For now, the online survey is the best hard data. Doug22123 13:31, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I know there are no valid statistical data supporting this "diagnosis". That doesn't mean we should report website surveys as if they were valid data. Even if the data were valid, it would remain "original research" until it was reported somewhere reputable. The question remains: why is this original research allowed to remain in Wikipedia? - Nunh-huh 03:54, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The quick answer to your question is, "because it survived VfD." It's borderline for sure. I've actually forgotten which way I voted in VfD, I think it was "delete." (Why wasn't the VfD debate merged here?) The final vote was IIRC a clear majority for deletion but by no means a clear consensus. Based on the debate, the sysop was right to keep it. -[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:00, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's not the answer to my question, which is about content, not the (inappropriately kept) article. I am asking why the article is reporting unpublished, original research: that is, why an unscientific internet survey is reported here: indeed, why anything but the original paper is. - Nunh-huh 17:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would say that the journal publication was certainly original research. But what we have in the article is not a first publication of original research, but an article about a piece of research that was published elsewhere, has been cited by one other paper, and, according to the author, has not been widely accepted but has led some urologists to include questions about idiosyncratic masturbation when taking histories. The controversial thing is that the appearance that Doug22123 submitted the article in order to promote his TMS-related website. The site looks to me like, dare I say a labor of love, not an attempt to make money, but the article is still promotional for the website. But the article is not like a lot of other "original research" we get in that the first publication was in a journal—I don't know anything about the journal but I'm guessing it's legit and peer-reviewed. I'm as close to neutral on this as one can be. I think that provided the article is properly written and NPOV it does no harm. Most Wikipedia policy is not a bright line and we have many articles that fall right on the line or just barely within it or a tad outside it. To me, this one is too close to call. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:00, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I suppose if this were an article about questions urologists ask, and what little scientific rationale they have for asking them, that might be pertinent. The "properly written" and "NPOV" provisos are unfortunately impossible to meet. - Nunh-huh 17:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. Sank's reply

Dr. Sank (or, someone at a likely email address for, claiming to be, and whom I believe to be Dr. Sank) has replied to my query about whether TMS is accepted in the medical community and whether there has been significant follow-up work or citations. This is his reply, dated September 23, 2004

Re: Acceptance of "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome" in medical and psychological community?
Mr. Smith, I do not know of any follow-up articles on TMS. However many colleagues in the urology community are following a protocol inquiring about idiosyncratic masturbation when assessing sexual dysfunction. I have received multiple requests from practitioners for reprints, but cannot report any journal articles on the topic. L I Sank

Based on this reply, I am inclined to add something like this in the article:

As of 2004 the suggestion that specific practice of prone masturbation can cause male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community, nor has there been follow-up research that would elucidate it. However, Dr. Sank says that as a result of his work many colleagues in the urology community now include questions about idiosyncratic masturbation when taking patient histories in cases of sexual dysfunction.

Thoughts? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:01, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 18:09, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)) Seems a good idea (nb I removed double -ve).

So who's doing original research now? ;) Your paragraph should reflect the Lipsith, McCann & Goldmeier article, which obviously is published follow-up research, even if Dr. Sank doesn't seem to know about it. You did inform him of that, right? Doug22123 20:07, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, I messed up, and I apologize. You're right that my paragraph should reflect the Lipsith article.
I'd have to go back and reconstruct the chronology. I think by the time I wrote the email someone had mentioned the Lipsith & al article, but I carelessly missed the mention. I based my email on statements of person who had found only one citation in Science Citation Index, in a later paper by Sank.
I'm not clear on the actual content of the Lipsith & al paper, though. Robert Merkel seems to be mistaken in saying that the paper "is freely available online here" Only the abstract is available to people without accounts.
I see the Lipsith paper in the references section, but on reviewing the history it doesn't seem as if anyone has mentioned it in the body of the article itself, including your last edits.
Based on the abstract, I don't think the Lipsith paper is actually a followup on TMS or confirms TMS specifically. Here's the abstract:
The role of masturbation in male psychogenic sexual dysfunction (MPSD) has been neglected by researchers and practitioners; this qualitative study explores that link through individual interviews with a clinic population by using grounded theory as a methodological approach and analytical style. Although a preference for functional sex with a partner was expressed by participants, our data suggest that masturbation dependence develops as a result of their sexual response having become conditional on a discrete set of behaviours, and is reinforced by cognitive components displaying different characteristics during masturbation and partner sex. The interrelation of both cognitive and behavioural components of sexual response is explored, and a theoretical model presented. Proposals for further study are suggested, and recommendations made for expansion of the formulation and treatment planning for MPSD.


I'll try an edit to that paragraph. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I was wrong about the content being available freely online - it's freely available online when you're in the IP range of a university that subscribes to those journals...Youre correct in that it doesn't specifically support the TMS hypothesis. Do you want me to send you a copy? (note: that goes for anyone interested in working on this article, just let me know you'd like it)--Robert Merkel 22:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And, of course "many" (defined as?) urologists asking questions about "idiosyncratic masturbation" also adds no support to the original paper's central thesis, which seems to have been accepted by a masturbation website rather than the medical community. - Nunh-huh 17:21, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] links

Doug, please stop putting links to Traumatic masturbatory syndrome in anorgasmia, masturbation, and impotence, especially those that describe it as an established syndrome: there's no scientific evidence this "syndrome" is linked with impotence, anorgasmia, or caused by masturbation. The links serve only to simultaneously promote your site and misinform. - Nunh-huh 21:11, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:10, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)) TMS survived VFD and can therefore be linked too. But I don't think it justifies the prominence of where Doug placed it (I only looked at anorgasmia). I'd suggest a link unser see-also at the end of the article would be appropriate.
Perhaps you should take a closer look at the links, which asserted that traumatic masturbatory syndrome causes impotence and anorgasmia, an assertion that is an opinion of (perhaps) one sex therapist (if he still holds it) and some guys promoting a website. - Nunh-huh 22:29, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Mr. Connelly, the link in anorgasmia necessarily has to be near the top since only one para at the top is about male anorgasmia and the rest is about female. It has to be this way or readers would think the article is only about female anorgasmia, which is much more common anyway. Doug22123 03:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] I'm pissed

We had a fragile and virtuously-achieved consensus on the balance of this page.

I am very annoyed that Doug22123 has seen fit to slice out most of the article, leaving only a short paragraph that reflects only the point of view that he is pushing. This seems to me to represent bad faith.

I am extremely annoyed that, whether by accident or design, the edit comment for the big change was blank and the edit comment for the second was simply "remove link," giving the impression on my watchlist that this was a trivial change rather than a total rewrite of the article from Doug22123's POV.

And I am outright pissed that this was done without any preliminary discussion here on this talk page, which is on my watchlist and, I am sure, the watchlist of others interested in the article.

I am going to revert the article to the 05:21, 23 Oct 2004 Boredzo version. I don't think anyone should make other than small changes until we've hashed it out here. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:40, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of future changes

Start here... do not make actual changes until there has been reasonable time for discussion.

As a starting point for a proposed new version, let's consider

Nuhn-huh's 30 Oct version. Take a look at it and say whether it is adequate. My comment is:

  • The text in Nuhn-huh's 30 Oct version is OK, but all of the references, and the link to healthystrokes.org, should be restored. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 13:50, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me that unused references should be removed and only those referenced left in. As far as I am concerned, the reference to the promotional site can stay in or out: on this I followed the wishes of Doug, promoter of the TMS concept, believing from his actions that he no longer wished to use Wikipedia as part of his promotional programme. I think this is a good thing. I do not think the loss of that particular link will detract from the value of Wikipedia, and in fact may help prevent dissemination of misinformation. - Nunh-huh 00:55, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK. Fine with me. Maybe I'm out of the loop on this. Have you had any communication with User:Doug22123 that would indicate that he's OK with your last edit and willing to leave it in that form? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:40, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No, I'm inferring that from his removal of both links (to his site and his yahoo group), truncation of the article, various other behaviours, and my intuition that he perhaps thought the present article was not too helpful for "spreading the gospel" of TMS. My intuition may be completely off, of course, in which case he'd make the changes he thought necessary. - Nunh-huh 02:51, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, your last edit is fine with me. (I would have left that other stuff in but defer to your judgement; the article is shorter and cleaner your way). Having announced that people should discuss things here I guess I feel we should wait a few more days and see if anyone else has any comments. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:12, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It makes little difference to me anymore what the article says or if it links to HealthyStrokes.com. The article was not intended to "spread the gospel" and I don't believe that's what it does. I think at most one person I know of has contacted me after finding out about TMS on Wikipedia. The link to the Yahoo group is probably not appropriate. There is no information available there except for members. Anyone who's interested enough to join will visit HealthyStrokes.com first, which has links to the Yahoo group.

The purpose of an article is supposed to be to describe the subject, not to provide a panoply of opinions about it. The discontents have not provided one word of science that contradicts the article as it was originally written, only their discontented opinions and calls for more research. I don't believe there would be calls for more research if the finding had been something that fit better with their sexual agendas. --Doug22123 19:51, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Doug22123, you can submit articles to Wikipedia, you can contribute to them, you can collaborate on them, but you cannot control them once they are submitted. We had reached what I thought was a stable state with this article, one that you were not fully happy with, but grudgingly accepted. So, where are we now?
Are you willing to accept an article that does not solely represent your own point of view? If so, which do you find least objectionable:
Or, are you declaring an intention to continue removing any material from the article that does not agree with your point of view? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:02, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The article in its present form is acceptable. The only change I would make is deleting the link to the Yahoo group. What do you plan to do about user Nunh-huh's continual subversion of the article? Doug22123 21:58, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What I plan to do is discuss it here and see if we can reach consensus.
I have a two very specific question about the article. I would like a response from both Nunh-huh and Doug22123. I would like your responses to address only the content of the article, and, for now, do not comment on the behavior or remarks of others.
Apart from a punctuation change, the article in its present form is in the same state it was in a month ago. I reverted two edits made by Doug22123's changes and one made by Nunh-huh.
Doug22123 says "The article in its present form is acceptable. The only change I would make is deleting the link to the Yahoo group."
Here comes the question.
If I take the article in its present form, and delete the link to the Yahoo group (but not the link to healthystrokes.org), do you both agree that the article is acceptable, and that you will not make large changes to it without discussing them here first? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:28, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Space for answers from Doug22123 and Nunh-huh if they want to answer

Yes, that is acceptable. Doug22123 04:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have made changes for the purpose of improving the article, not for "subversion". This is not an "acceptable" article, it's a tolerable compromise that is somewhat less embarassing to Wikipedia than some versions that have preceeded it. I have not and will not initiate "large changes" in it without discussion, but have and will continue to restore damage from massive edits which seek to remove the (very nearly universally) held position that TMS is not, in fact, a medical syndrome, or indeed any kind of recognized syndrome whatsoever.- Nunh-huh 01:35, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Continuation of discussion

The article is in its present form because it was written by Doug first and then forcefully NPOVed. It will remain an eyesore, as there is very little to suggest that this scientific theory has made a difference (e.g. epidemiological data, therapeutic interventions).

As I've stated previously, there are hundreds of scientific theories proposed every year that are subsequently rejected due to lack of proof. The fact that some people masturbate prone and that some suffer from ED is not proof of existence (this could be coincidental). I remain in doubt why this theory should be singled out for Wikipedia treatment (and a nice Googlebomb) while all those other theories (with or without a faithful community) remain unmentioned. JFW | T@lk 23:31, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, yeah, IMHO there was a fragile consensus and a stable article. Unfortunately an edit made on 23:25, 29 Oct 2004 rocked the boat. What do you want to do?
The article survived VfD in September, and relisting articles that have survived VfD is a touchy subject even though there aren't any rules against it.
It seems to me that one other possibility would be for Doug22123 to blank the article and request here that it be deleted.
With so many contributors that wouldn't necessarily go uncontested, and I think it would need to go to VfD again, but given the history of this article, I believe that if Doug were to do that there would be no objection to VfD relisting and a probable consensus to delete. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:53, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I believe this represents a good, though not necessarily an achievable, solution. - Nunh-huh 01:35, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
No, that is not a solution. Has everyone forgotten I voted for deletion in September? Motion for reconsideration has to be made by a member of the prevailing side. Anyway, consensus will not be reached because if a vote is taken, other Wikipedians will come out of the woodwork and enough will vote on each side that 2/3 will not be reached. I seriously question the ability of Wikipedians to resolve a scientific question when user Dpbsmith himself refused to state unequivocally that he was relaying information from Dr. Sank even though he was personally corresponding with the Dr. Doug22123 04:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Conclusion of discussion

See "Space for Answers" above. Given that Doug22123 and Nunh-huh appear to have agreed that the current article, with the link to Yahoo Groups removed, is acceptable to both of them, I'm going to move forward and make that edit. My understanding is that these users agree not to make major changes to the article without discussing them here first on this talk page. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 14:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I object to the equivalency given here between "these users". I am not the problem here. - Nunh-huh 22:33, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Noted. I did not intend for the statement above to imply any sort of evaluation regarding the conduct of the two users named. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 23:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Cool beans<g>. - Nunh-huh 00:05, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] External links

[user:Dpbsmith] - yes, your version of a website label is better. Thanks -Willmcw 07:55, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New citation...

Doug, could you please provide the full citation for your new information please, so the context in which it is made can be checked. --Robert Merkel 05:30, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The new citation is the final version which will published later this year of this earlier interim report: Janssen, D. F. (Oct., 2002). Growing Up Sexually. Volume II: The Sexual Curriculum: The Manufacture and Performance of Pre-Adult Sexualities. Interim Report. Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Doug22123 16:39, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Revision necessary

I suggest that as a result of the new citation which I have added to the article that parts of it should be altered, particularly the line that says "we can not [sic] identify one person" in the medical community who holds the view that prone masturbation leads to sexual dysfunction. Of course, I make this suggestion here rather than doing it myself to avoid an edit war and to follow dpbsmith's edict that there be discussion here before major changes are made.Doug22123 17:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Since no one has responded to my call for revision, I propose the following changes to these two paragraphs, which would be combined with the one before them:

The term appears only once in medical publications indexed by PubMed, in Sank's 1998 article based on four case studies. As far as the medical literature is concerned, it exists only as his hypothesis, unsupported by confirmatory studies, although a 2003 paper in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy cites Sank's article extensively and a 2005 sexology compendium cites the article. In a 2001 article, two physicians, while not referring to the practice as traumatic masturbatory syndrome, note that because patients with delayed ejaculation "often have atypical masturbatory styles, such as the face-down position, treatment may also involve masturbatory retraining." (emphasis added)

As of 2004 the specific suggestion that prone masturbation causes male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community, (we can not identify one person within that community who holds that point of view) nor has there been follow-up research that would elucidate it. Lipsith et al (2003), in an article citing Sank, suggest that masturbation may indeed play a role in male psychogenic sexual dysfunction (MPSD); it did not however support (or indeed examine) the idea that prone masturbation specifically was harmful. Dr. Sank says that as a result of his work many colleagues in the urology community now include questions about idiosyncratic masturbation when taking patient histories in cases of sexual dysfunction.

Capiche? Doug22123 04:02, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Neither change is appropriate, as the subject of the article is "traumatic masturbatory syndrome". Unless you have found an article that uses the term "traumatic masturbatory syndrome", the first paragraph remains true in its original form. Similarly the second paragraph remains true in its original form; the Lipsith article did not even consider the question of the existence of "traumatic masturbatory syndrome". The only emendation that "As of 2004 the specific suggestion that prone masturbation causes male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community, (we can not identify one person within that community who holds that point of view) nor has there been follow-up research that would elucidate it" needs is to change "2004" to "2005". - Nunh-huh 16:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)


As usual, user Nunh-huh misses the entire point. I do not know why he/she wants to be the vanguard of what is clearly the losing side of this debate. The revision is proposed not in response to the Lipsith article but to the Bartlik & Goldstein article, which falsifies the contention that no one besides Sank holds the view that prone masturbation is a cause of sexual dysfunction. Doug22123 20:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah, an ad hominem attack. How nice. The Bartlik & Goldstein column simply states that "masturbatory retraining" may be useful in those with "atypical masturbatory practices" including prone masturbation. They do not state that "atypical masturbatory practices" cause problems, nor do they even state that there is a correlation between "atypical masturbatory practices" and sexual dysfunction. - Nunh-huh 20:39, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

This is an unnecessarily literalistic demand. Nunh-huh is essentially saying that a scholarly article has to specifically state something in exact words to be cited in Wikipedia, even something its authors undeniably believe. Applying this approach would have scholarly journals filled with unnecessary verbiage containing nothing but enthymemes. Why would Bartlik & Goldstein recommend masturbatory retraining if they did not believe the atypical masturbatory practices were a cause of their clients' sexual dysfunctions? This is not the first time Nunh-huh has made such a demand. I believe the article refers to Eva Margolies condemning "masturbating by rubbing against a pillow or mattress" because she did not specifically use the words prone masturbation in her book, and Nunh-huh objected to that. Furthermore, the lack of a citation of Sank in the Bartlik & Goldstein article strengthens the contention of both Sank and the Wikipedia article, since it means that scholars working independently of another have reached the same conclusion. Doug22123 06:58, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

No, that's not at all what I said. You want to use their column as evidence that they see a causal relationship between prone masturbation and sexual dysfunction. But that is not a conclusion that they draw in that column. The imputation of causality is yours, not theirs. Perhaps a parallel example of how treatment and causality are not necessarily related will help you see this. A respiratory therapy technique, postural drainage, is useful in the treatment of pneumonia (this is, by the way, supported by actual empirical evidence and not merely by two doctors opining in a column). This does not mean that pneumonia is caused by a lack of postural drainage. - Nunh-huh 21:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
That's not a parallel. A || would be to doctors encouraging their patients to quit smoking. Doug22123 16:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that that is your position, and one which is predicated on the position you wish to use it to support (that prone masturbation causes sexual dysfunction. However, the article itself contains nothing that supports your position, and says nothing about causation. - Nunh-huh 17:00, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Doug, that's interesting, and some minor revision is appropriate. Nunh-unh is quite right in that a couple of researchers making related observation does not an identified syndrome make. Until they start adopting Sank's terminology and identification of a syndrome, we shouldn't either. Wikipedia is not the place to build a case for the existence of a disease. --Robert Merkel 07:21, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
(William M. Connolley 19:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)) The newly-added bit seems OK to me. I agree that it would be "better" if the name TMS were being used, which would be an indication of its general spread. OTOH other people reaching similar concclusions independently is also evidence, as Doug says.

User nunh-huh's latest edits are once again damaging to the NPOV of the article and not in the spirit of the discussion held in talk. What is the purpose of such a discussion if it serves not one iota to moderate the users? This article has survived VFD and the tone of the article should not be hostile to its subject. Doug22123 00:40, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I've made appropriate edits and you've reverted them in your zeal to make TMS appear non-imaginary. I'm replacing them. If you want to discuss your feelings about NPOV, do it here, not by reverting. - Nunh-huh 00:53, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Doug, Please discuss in particular why you feel the sentence "As of 2005 the specific suggestion that prone masturbation causes male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community, nor has there been follow-up research that would elucidate it or validate claims that it in fact plays any role in sexual dysfunction. As far as the medical literature is concerned, traumatic masturbatory syndrome exists only as Sank's hypothesis, unsupported by confirmatory studies." doesn't belong in the article. And stop removing it while falsely claiming to have a consensus for its removal. - Nunh-huh 01:16, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
It's an unnecessary qualification. There is no requirement that a consensus exist in the medical community or any other community before an article can be created on Wikipedia. Once again you continue to miss the distinction between medical literature and psychological literature and the umbrella term health literature. I also suspect that it is a widely-held view, because Bartlik & Goldstein mention it casually in their article, as if it's something everyone in their audience knows. Anyway, it doesn't exist only in Sank's hypothesis because other people have cited it and some urologists (according to Sank, via user Dpbsmith's research) refer to it by name. Those lines do nothing to enhance readers' appreciation of the state of research into the pathologies of prone masturbation and only muddy the article.Doug22123 20:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
It's a necessary piece of information, lest Wikipedia appear to endorse the "existence" of this "syndrome". - Nunh-huh 20:42, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Doug, you shouldn't keep reverting to your "preferred" version without discussion here. In addition to the unanswered question above, I'd ask why you are changing the specific number of case studies in Sank's article (four) to "a small group". - Nunh-huh 19:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
The number is unimportant. I would much prefer to refer to the number of cases in Sank's article as 2^2 or better yet sqrt((2^3)*2). But I suppose either four or "a small group" is preferable to those.Doug22123 20:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Obviously the small number "4" is very important, which is probably the reason you are trying so hard to cover it up. Four it is then. - Nunh-huh 20:42, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you just give up now? As more and more journals and old books become available digitally and indexed online, more articles consistent with Sank's thesis will be found, and you are going to find none that contradict it.Doug22123 21:16, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I see no reason to give up trying to keep your distortions out of this article. Should your Kreskin-like prediction come true, and TMS actually be established as a syndrome, then it will no longer be a distortion. Until that time, Wikipedia shouldn't kow-tow to your relentlessness in pushing your point of view. - Nunh-huh 21:38, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No reply from Barrtlik...

I queried Dr. Goldstein, mzg@buffalo.edu, who forwarded my query to Dr. Barrtlik, barrtlik@aol.com. My query basically asked whether they knew of Sank's work, whether their own work was correctly described, and whether their work basically supported Sank. That was April 26th so I guess Dr. Barrtlik has decided not to reply. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

You doing original research again? I thought Wiki was for summarizing work that had already been published. Doug22123 00:25, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] prone?

I'm pretty sure prone is face up; prostrate is face down.

I was pretty sure you're wrong, but before saying anything I checked a dictionary first, and now I know you're wrong:
You were probably confused by the fact that "prostrate" does mean face down:
People are prone to make mistakes about these words... Dpbsmith (talk) 00:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome per se

I cannot imagine that an article "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome" could appear in the encyclopedia.

1) There is not such an entry in any other encyclopedia. 2) The entry is based on the article which its author (L.Sank) does not support anymore. He has never vrepeated this term again, and even does not want to mention it.

3) The article of L. Sank was negatively criticized by sex therapists and researchers community. It is a reson why the author is ashamed now.

3) This term has not appeared at any significant publications on Sexual Health, Sexology, Public Health or Men Health.

4) The encyclopedia entry indicated Eva Margolis and her book. Again, it was the book which received only negative reviews. Does Wikipedia consider E. Margolis an expert on sexual health? Review her professional background and paractice in New York, and the encyclopedia would be ashamed its association.

5) As a result of these flaws, the Encyclopedia spreads the wrong information and nonsence that can have terribly negative consequences for integrity of sex information as well as public knowledge.

We have to respect the readers, but don't mislead them. I hope that this entry will be removed from Wikipedia. Thanks, Bob Gelf

All of that is quite true, but Wikipedia has no effective mechanism to rid itself of this sort of misinformative nonsense. It's been tried with this article, and it's failed. - Nunh-huh 00:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Bob, if you can give us some citations that back up what you're saying, about Sank not supporting the article and about it's receiving negative criticism in the community, that could certainly go into the article.
If you look above, you'll see that I did contact Dr. Sank directly in September of 2004. I did not get the impression from his reply that he disowns his study.
I don't much like the article but it does state clearly that "As of 2005 the specific suggestion that prone masturbation causes male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community, nor has there been follow-up research that would elucidate it or validate claims that it in fact plays any role in sexual dysfunction. As far as the medical literature is concerned, traumatic masturbatory syndrome exists only as Sank's hypothesis, unsupported by confirmatory studies."
Wikipedia's neutrality policy means that Wikipedia does not act as an authority or judge the truth of what it reports. It is a secondary reference. It reports what others report. It is factually true that Sank did write a paper and that it says what the article says it says.
Because of the efforts of one editor who runs a website based on Sank's theory, the balance of the article is tilted toward giving the theory more credibility than it deserves.
We can't just remove the article. What we can do is make sure that conflicting opinions are fairly presented. By all means, give us a verifiable source citation showing that Sank's work was poorly received and that can go in the article, and there's a very good chance it will stay in. But we need the citation. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Why are we going through this again? What evidence is there that L. Sank, er, I mean Dr. Lawrence Sank, or anyone else, is ashamed of his original article or the Wikipedia article? What negative reviews did Sank's article, or Margolies's book receive? Why is anyone ashamed of them? Margolies's book sold a lot of copies. The anonymous entry (signed "Bob Gelf") is a lot of nonsense.Doug22123 21:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
                     **************

Doug, why did you call me "nonsense"? You don't know me! As I understood, you have created a mess with this nonsense and made Dr. Sank as a hero giving space in Wikipedia. Is he an expert in sexology? Is he Kinsey, Masters, Bancroft, Coleman? Who knows him in sex therapy's field? I spoke with Dr.Sank, he repeated for several times that this was his suggestion and his FOUR patients got, perhaps, urological problems with tissues and blood flow. I asked Doctor if he had the training in Urology, he answered:"None". When Psychologist enganges in Urology witthout any backgrond, it is dangerous. Yes, this doctor did not know, but there is a rare and complex disease - Peyronie's disease that, as assumed, in some cases it can be caused by injuries, trauma to the penis. In majority cases it occurs during intercourse when penis misses vagina and is injuried by another part of body. Nobody calls this situation: "Traumatic Intercourse Syndrome". Penis may be injured during the plays, sports events and etc., but nobody calls it like "Traumatic Basketball Syndrome". You mistakenly consider Dr. Sank' s article as a research, but it was not, it was 4 patients with the complicated histories, and Dr. Sank's naive descriptions of these 4 cases did not deserve any discussions, moreover,an entry in encyclopedia. Where can you find this term? Only in nonprofessional, nonscientific Internet sites which have copied the material from Wikipedia. I want Wikipedia to be scientific in the scientific articles. The encyclopedia must provide true information that is normal: proofed, excepted by majority of experts. It is especially true for sex research. For example, Kinsey's research. There are few people who indicate that his research was the flaw. However, 100% of experts and leading professionals, while can critisize some pages in his publications, respect and honor his contribution. This is an entry for encyclopedia! By the way, you can write to Kinsey Institute or another leading expert of organization in the field to ask about Dr. Sank's article (only one in his professional life!). He is not Kinsey! This entry in encyclopedia spreads misinformation and nonsense. Bob Gelf

I don't make Dr. Sank a hero. The Wikipedia article and my site cite his article, along with those by other scholars. Most sexology articles are not written by urologists. Few sexologists are urologists. The vast majority are not even MDs. Sank qualifies his article by deferring to the medical field on medical questions and stating that all of his patients were cleared by their doctors of any physical cause of their sexual dysfunctions before he treated them. This would include Peyronie's disease. I think Sank has claim to expertise on sexology. He is an ABS Board Certified Sex Therapist (ABS Certification No. 1884) and a Clinical Fellow of AACS and a member of AASECT and ABPP. (source: Sexologist.org)
The parallels you draw to other potential syndromes are not good ones. There is a difference between having a single traumatic incidence of intercourse (or basketball or masturbation) that injures the penis and using a maladaptive or dysfunctional method of intercourse (or basketball or masturbation) daily for many years. That is where the existence of a syndrome comes into play, as opposed to a single injury.
If Sank was wrong about his four cases, why do thousands of people read my web site every day, why are hundreds of people in my online support group, and why do I hear from men every week saying they quit TMS and now they are sexually functional for the first time?
I'm pretty sure Kinsey's books got lots of worse reviews than Sank's. People are still demonizing Kinsey today. And if you want Wikipedia to be scientific and accurate, why are you violating Wikipedia's own convention by posting anon and signing with a name?Doug22123 03:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mentioned in The Guide to Getting it On

The current edition of this big-selling sex manual briefly mentions this hypothesis (though not mentioning Sank or TMS by name), though the author is highly skeptical of its correctness. --Robert Merkel 05:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, the fact is that something merely alluded to, but not mentioned by name, and caveated as dubious. in a popular sex manual, has its importance woefully and misleadlingly overemphasized by being treated as a separate article in Wikipedia. This properly ought to be reduced to about one sentence noting its dubiety in "masturbation", and this article converted to a redirect. The fact that it isn't is an accident of one man's obsession, and the fact that Wikipedia has no effective way of dealing with its systemic bias toward whacked-out nutso fringe theories.- Nunh-huh 05:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, do you want to have another crack at getting this article through VfD? --Robert Merkel 06:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
VfD (or AFD or whatever it's called these days) wouldn't have to be involved (and probably isn't equal to the task). You don't need a VfD/AfD for a redirect or a merge, only sufficient consensus. Do you think it's there? - Nunh-huh 06:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Merge & redirect, waiter. With extra tabasco. JFW | T@lk 15:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The only reason I mentioned "The Guide to Getting It On" (which I certainly didn't want to lend any publicity to) is to counter the whine from certain Wikipedians that no one in the larger world has taken notice of TMS. I don't think there could be consensus for a merge of the TMS article since it would only lead to a constant edit war in the main article rather than the one that has been at a truce in this article for many months. Doug22123 21:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that's the tabasco I ordered. JFW | T@lk 13:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As always, a VfD/AfD discussion is basically a discussion about whether the topic entry should exist. What VfD/AfD decided is that there should be an entry for this topic. VfD/AfD does not decide whether the entry should be a standalone article or a redirect; any comments made in a VfD/AfD discussion carry only the ordinary weight of any sensible remark made in any discussion.

I favor a merge-and-redirect. I think this deserves about a paragraph at most. A couple of sentences for the statement of the theory, a couple of sentences noting that has been published, a couple of sentences noting that it is not widely accepted. Being influenced by the purported treatment's apparently to be a) safe, and b) not require the purchase of anything—no nutritional supplements, no therapy sessions, no books to buy—I'd think a link to Doug22123's site would be appropriate and, in particular, would be a good substitute for unnecessarily detailed coverage within the article itself. I don't believe Doug22123 would conduct an edit war in the face of consensus and I don't know of any other editors who'd object. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, dear Doug, you did not grasp the damage that you have brought by including Dr. Sank's nonsense as an Entry in encyclopedia. You asked me why thousands people have browsed you site. Because of a subject "masturbation" - 100% people do it and involve in it with joy, anxiety, sin, etc and they DO NOT know that you included nonscientific information. You may browse the professional sites or the prestigious universities sites and see how many people ask the questions about masturbation. It is the question#1 in all sites that devote to sex.

I don't see much reason to assume a causal link between masturbating prone and sexual problems, of whichever nature. Many men and women engage in sexual practices which, if stereotypes and religion were right, would lead to everything from blindness to impotence. Actually, the causality needs to be reversed. Until explored in a careful manner, the suggestion that the behavior is the cause of sexual dysfunction is nonscientific. Unfortunately, it is a common error to mistake correlation for causation.

I don't state that Dr. Sank is not Ph.D. and a member of the organizations that you mentioned.Yes, he is Psychologist, but he is not Sexologist or Sex Researcher. His education and background are in Psychology, and it is not difficult to become the members of the listed organizations. According to Dr.Sank's article, he has not treat many patients with sexual problems,and his only one article in life was based on 4 patients.

Ask Marty Klein, Eli Coleman, Jack Morin, Lonnie Barbach, Bernard Apfelbaum, Chris Kraft, Stanley Althof and and many other Professional Sexologist: how many patients with sexual problem they see every day - they will be more than 4 per day! Their profession is sex therapy and sexology!!! They write many articles and books in sex therapy field and associate with many other scientits.

I believe that you don't have any background in sexology, but you also write, create website and attempt to teach other people about sex, while reading the very bad publications, articles and books. Why? What is you motivation? Is it healthy?You don't make distinguish between scientific literature and abracadabra. You wanted to become famous? Perhaps, Dr. Sank wanted the same! It is very dangerous for all of us, beacuse misinformation spreads very easy in Internet time. Unfortunately for the encyclopedia and for all people,you created a mess and made Dr.Sank as a reliable, leading sex researcher with the encyclopedia's entry based on his only one article that other specialists laughed on. It is bad contibution.


Why are you posting these criticisms as anon? In reviewing your edit history, the only edits you have ever made (as anon from that IP address) are to this article. I am led to believe this is some kind of troll and not legitimate Wikicriticism. What is your beef with Dr. Sank? It is not true that he has only in his career treated four patients with sex problems. The article he wrote about TMS was a case study of four patients. It was not about any of his thousands of other patients. He is, in fact, a sexologist, something that is difficult to become. If it is so easy to become a sexologist, why are there only 568 of them in the USA? I am not interested in lionizing Dr. Sank. Many men in my support group have complained about Dr. Sank omitting the cure regimen which he claimed to have used successfully on his four cases from the article, leaving them in the dark to seek their own cures, and for his efforts to point to deeper psychological afflictions that may have caused the sexual dysfunctions of the four cases. Sank has never made any effort to contact me or my site, and some men in my group who have tried to hire him decided not to after talking with him on the phone. I have no information to share about these contacts, but let it suffice to say that Dr. Sank is not working with me or anyone involved with the online support group in any way to influence what is said either on my web site or on Wikipedia.
Yes, it is true that the heavy traffic to my web site is a result of the site being about masturbation, but that doesn't explain why the Yahoo support group for TMS has 800 members. There are many Yahoo groups started for the kind of health conditions that are readily accepted by the likes of you that never get off the ground and even get five members. If what is on my web site and summarized on this page is misinformation, why hasn't any contradicting information been found?
Arguing correlation vs. causation is hairsplitting that puts you in the same company with lawyers for tobacco companies. The fact stands naked that 61 percent of those who masturbate prone (per my surveys) already have a major sexual dysfunction. Many of these men are of ages in which these sexual dysfunctions (retarded orgasm and erectile dysfunction) are exceedingly rare. This is a much higher percentage than the one-third of smokers who will eventually die from smoking. It is irrelevant that 39 percent do not currently have a dysfunction. Objecting on those grounds would be the same as arguing that breast exams are irrational because 87 percent of women will never have breast cancer. Although all Internet surveys suffer from self-selection bias, the surveys I cite have made efforts to avoid the problem of selecting on the dependent variable by surveying not only males known to be seeking help for TMS but also many more males for whom TMS and sexual dysfunctions are not issues. Thus, the TMS males exist as a purposive sample within a larger group of males drawn from the general population. The surveys do not attempt to assert the prevalence of TMS or sexual dysfunction within the population. They only compare men who masturbate prone (regardless of what share of the male population they comprise) with men who do not.
These facts are pertinent to articles on Wikipedia. Arguing that people who read Wikipedia don't have the right to even know that some scientific criticism has been raised about masturbating prone (even though some others dispute those criticisms) is just plain irresponsible. Doug22123 07:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Four anecdotes in a single publication (now apparently disavowed even by its author!) do not constitute "scientific criticism". - Nunh-huh 07:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
The case study method is an accepted tool in scholarship. Cases do not constitute "anecdotes," and there is no evidence that Sank disavows the article. AIDS was established as a disease (then called GRID) on the basis of three cases. The elephant man's disease was established on the basis of a single case. (There is an article about Proteus Syndrome in Wikipedia, which admits there are barely 100 cases known.) Another rare disease established on the basis of a few cases is Progeria. The Wikipedia article on Progeria says there are only 35 known cases in the world and only 100 at all since it was identified. The talk pages for these articles do not reveal any effort by User Nunh-huh to disappear them. Doug22123 07:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
We weren't discussing "scholarship", we were discussing science. From your description of AIDS, you misunderstand exactly what "establishing a disease" means. And the cause of so-called "Elephant Man's Disease" still has not been firmly established. And the discussions of AIDS, progeria, and Elephant Man's Disease in Wikipedia reflect, accurately, scientific study of those diseases. - Nunh-huh 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I would certainly support the inclusion of the sentence "some scientific criticism has been raised about masturbating prone (even though some others dispute those criticisms)." But I am not at all convinced that anything more needs to be said in Wikipedia. That sentence could go in the Masturbation article, in the section on Health and psychological effects, and should have footnotes citing the same references presently cited in the current article with brief characterizations stating what each article says about prone masturbation. Collecting those references is of some value. And, yes, I think a link to Doug's website would be appropriate although given that that website comes up as the first hit on a Google search on Google search on "traumatic masturbatory syndrome" I don't think readers need Wikipedia's help to find it. And I think Traumatic masturbatory syndrome should be a redirect to Masturbation. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree. For one thing, the masturbation article is a disaster. It is perhaps the model for what a Wikipedia article shouldn't be. It is filled with garbage, including irreverant, distracting, and humorous material that not only isn't essential to an encyclopedia article but probably isn't appropriate for one. A person making a quick glance at that article is apt to miss the important information and instead be drawn to the song parodies and illustrations of 19th century anti-masturbation devices. The TMS article is sober and much more professionally written and maintains a NPOV. Doug22123 07:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
TMS information is roughly equivalent in importance to other anti-masturbation efforts. This belongs in that article. - Nunh-huh 16:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Doug, if you haven't done so already, I strongly suggest that you take a copy of the article in its present state and put it up somewhere on your own website, acknowledging Wikipedia as the source of course. Then it will be there at the level of detail you want regardless of what editorial decisions get made here. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I would never plagiarize Wikipedia for my own site. Doug22123 06:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Doug, it's not plagiarism, nor would it be copyright violation. Read Wikipedia:Copyright. Wikipedia content is *intended* to be available for others to download, redisplay, and even modify as they wish, provided Wikipedia is credited as the source. So you're perfectly within your rights if you want to take a copy for any purpose if you acknowledge the source as indicated. --Robert Merkel 11:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I propose that the anonymous additions to this talk page and the VFD page (some signed "Bob Gelf") by anon IP address 71.192.177.249 be deleted because this anon user provides no evidence to back up any of his claims. This IP address has made no other contributions to Wikipedia. Doug22123 07:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Doug, this is a discussion page. The rules for the main namespace (articles) don't apply. Pretty much anything goes, other than personal attacks. There's even a fairly strong feeling that for the most part the content of discussion pages should be preserved, as historical background for editing made to the article it is attached to. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed draft of material to be merged into Masturbation

My attempt to boil things down to essentials:

[edit] Possible issues with prone masturbation ("Traumatic masturbatory syndrome")

Lawrence I. Sank (1998) speculated that their habit of masturbating prone (i.e. lying face downward) was responsible for serious sexual problems, including anorgasmia and erectile dysfunction, suffered by four men he examined. He coined the termtraumatic masturbatory syndrome to describe the effect. Sank reported that his patients were cured of their sexual dysfunction merely by abandoning prone masturbation and learning to masturbate in a supine position, using their hands.

As of 2006 there has been no follow-up research and the idea that prone masturbation causes male sexual dysfunction is not familiar or widely-held within the medical community.

Some sources, however, do give credence to the idea. One sex therapist (Margolies, 1994) has condemned masturbation by rubbing against a pillow or mattress. Lipsith et al (2003) suggest that masturbation could play in male psychogenic sexual dysfunction (MPSD), citing Sank as their authority. A sex guide (Joannides, 2004) quotes an unidentified urologist as saying, "It seems possible that some men who always masturbate face down have erection problems when trying to have sex with a woman."

[edit] References

  • Joanides, Paul (2004) Guide to Getting It On, p. 396
  • Josie Lipsith, Damian McCann, and David Goldmeier. Male Psychogenic Sexual Dysfunction: The Role of Masturbation. Sexual and Relationship Therapy 18: 448-471 (2003).
  • Eva Margolies. Undressing the American Male: Men with Sexual Problems and What Women Can Do to Help Them. New York: Penguin, 1994.
  • Lawrence I. Sank. "Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome." Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 24(1): 37-42 (1998).

[edit] External links

[edit] Comments on draft

...are welcome.

[edit] Merged into and redirected to Masturbation

See Masturbation#Possible issues with prone masturbation ("Traumatic masturbatory syndrome") and Talk:Masturbation. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice

I see that the first comment that has been made at Talk:Masturbation is a suggestion that the material be deleted.

I suggest that anyone who has a strong opinion as to whether this material should be deleted or kept should comment at Masturbation#Possible issues with prone masturbation ("Traumatic masturbatory syndrome"). Dpbsmith (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)