Talk:Masturbation

Premature ejaculation

"The origin of PE lies in teen age masturbation which causes over sensitization of Penile nerves(which takes the sexual nervous reflexes from penis to brain and vice versa)" Dr Anil Kumar MBBS DPM http://www.laksuwa.com/laksuwa/content/use-screw-technique-complete-control-premature-ejaculation-without-medicines

Could we add this to the article?

Another thing that ought to be added, is the dangers of TMS (Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome). It afflicts an estimated 5% of the male population, and isn't even mentioned on the article. TMS is essentially the result of masturbating while prone. Here is a reference: http://www.healthystrokes.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ogre44444 (talk • contribs) 06:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I came here specifically to find out whether TMS is "real" or not. It certainly seems so. It's crazy that there absolutely no mention of it here. 218.251.42.248 (talk) 03:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

A disclaimer and custodial records

Last time I checked any form of sexual content (especially explicit photos) had to have a disclaimer that says only 18 year old can view this page and also that custodial records must be kept showing that everyone photographed is 18. So the pictures may come into question by current US laws. So how is Wikipedia's policy towards current laws. One other note I am questioning if the photos are original research.--118.91.39.193 (talk) 03:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you not think that if there was a problem then it would have been addressed by now. You probably should look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality/WIP-image-guidelines#Applicable Law. Wikipedia is produced by the members and according to that section it would be up to the person uploading the picture to make sure they have the necessary documentation. As for viewing would the law not differentiate between images intended to titillate and those used for educational purposes? something lame from CBW 05:11, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

No it is just noone has reported it yet. Furthermore, many websites that allow user submitted content still have to keep custodial records and have been shut down for not doing so. In addition, a disclaimer is needed because of the explicit photos. Even nude art sites have disclaimers to show that the sites are specifically for adults. I hope this page is specifically marketed towards adults because if it is not then Wikipedia would be marketing adult material towards children, which would violate the Protect Act. In addition, you have not addressed the possibility that the photos themselves are original research.--118.91.39.193 (talk) 06:24, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Given the online/offline fuss about one particular image, File:Virgin Killer.jpg which was not removed, I find the idea that nobody has reported Wikipedia for all the other images hard to believe. I'm also a bit surprised that Wikipedia's general counsel, User:MGodwin, hasn't bothered to bring it up. I take it you are a lawyer, and are much more versed in this than User:MGodwin? Perhaps you should read Wikipedia:Volunteer response team and direct your concerns there. Anyway, why do you feel that any of the images are OR? I think that it's kind of sad that the US laws can't tell the difference between pornography and File:Michelangelos David.jpg. When I was a kid, 11 or 12, in the late 1960s in the UK I had a Ladybird Books. The book was aimed at young people, was about the human body and included four drawings of naked people, male and female adults and children. The book was on sale openly and could be purchased by anyone. Of course at that age I would not have been able to purchase what were then called "skin" or "nature" magazines. something lame from CBW 14:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

It is a general policy of the Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons where images are held, that these are not censored for minors. The Commons does adhere to the law as it applies in Florida. I believe the law mentioned in the sexology image guidelines was considered a problem for a while until it got thrown out by the US courts. These guidelines have never been accepted and are just a discussion document, unfortunately one that has grown out of date since they were last seriously edited. Some people who come across these pages are upset that they are accessible by the young: they should not be; educational material is not adult; people need access to safe sex information before they start to experiment. --Simon Speed (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

First, the claim that this is for educational purposes. The use of sexually explicit photos (not drawings) can not be claimed as educational purposes unless it is teaching or training something. Even then since Wikipedia is not an authority figure like a doctor or another expert, then the claim of educational purposes can be shot down. If I was to have a blog that was complete with sexually explicit photos and have knowledge minors will access it, my site can violate the Protection Act. See since this is an encyclopedia then one can be pretty sure that minors will go on for research. To play it safe it may be an option to stick to drawings, with these at least it has been verified by the court that this is protected speech plus many science books use only drawings. Furthermore, I can make the claim the photos are original research.--118.41.30.102 (talk) 09:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't this discussion be more fruitful at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not where policy such as WP:NOTCENSORED can be discussed with people who have the legal background? Here, we just follow policy - if you want the policy changed, this is not the place. --Nigelj (talk) 10:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

You are discussing your legal theory about Wikipedia, and this is not the ideal place for that as Nigelj said. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is, indeed considered to be a valid educational tool as well as a reference. It does not claim to be authoritative, nor to be "expert" in nature, and does not need to in order to succeed at being encyclopedic. Also, "sexually explicit" is not a legally meaningful term. What you may mean to say is that you feel that it fits the legal definition of "obscene". I assure you that it does not meet the Florida definition of obscene, nor the Federal statue definition of obscene. Both are dominated by the Miller test. There are in fact many images on Wikipedia that are sexually explicit though, and the ones that I am aware of also are legally acceptable, and are not obscene. There are no federal or Florida laws that prohibit minors from seeing either nude images or sexually explicit material.

The now defunct and unconstitutional Child Online Protection Act[1] which would not have prohibited these images for minors. It was based on the also defunct and unconstitutional Communications Decency Act, which also would not have prohibited these images. In COPA, IMO, the key element is that it prohibited "...makes any communication for commercial purposes that is available to any minor and that includes any material that is harmful to minors shall be fined not more than...". Their definition of harmful: " The term “material that is harmful to minors” means any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that—

(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest;

(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and

(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

That section C part is the Miller test I referred to earlier.

The reason that this law is unconstitutional is largely because the definition of "community standards" is too broad and undefinable.

Articles on Wikipedia, including this article, have literary, artistic, political and scientific value. To fail the Miller test, someone would need to demonstrate that Wikipedia as a whole (or possibly the article as a whole) failed to demonstrate having any literary, artistic, political or scientific value. With more than three million articles in English, with nearly every article demonstrating one or more of those traits, that would seem unlikely.

Also, I will point out that Wikipedia is not a Communications provider, as listed in that bill. Also, the problem that it would be extremely difficult to show that Wikipedia was "harmful to minors". On top of that, Wikipedia does not make its information available "for commercial purposes."

Honestly, do you think that, taken as a whole, that Wikipedia "is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest"? Or taken as a whole, "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors"?

Even from the limited perspective of this one article, do you think those things apply?

Atom (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This is simple. Sexually explicit photos have been defined for the purpose to apeal to or pander to the sexual gratification of another. This can be scientifically and legally proven. The use of sexually explicit photos does not have literary, artistic, politicial, or scientific value for minors. If that was true pornography, which is considered by a lot of people as an art, would be an artistic value for minors. Still the government says no one shall market that material towards children. That is why pornography sites have a disclaimer saying "this is intended for adults, if you are not please close immediately." Sure it is still accessible by a minor but at least there is a disclaimer that states it is intended for adults. This disclaimer gives legal protection against prosecution. As Wikipedia does not put disclaimers, then they can be subject to prosecution. As for the custodial records, all sites with sexually explicit photos have to have custodial records, which Wikipedia does not also. You are welcome to look this up for yourself.--118.41.30.102 (talk) 07:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

This can be scientifically and legally proven. is simply false. I think this is just a case of Wikipedia:I just don't like it. That said, I do disagree with using photographs to illustrate sexual acts if other good illustrations are available: such photographs are associated with disreputable parts of the web and the associations can carry over in the mind of the viewer. --Simon Speed (talk) 20:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

You state your legal theory of what "Sexually Explicit" photos are, and yet that does not agree with Florida state, or Federal law. It does not agree with Wikipedia policies. The point of the Miller test is that if the photo has literary, artistic, political or scientific value, it is inherently *not* obscene. You try and turn it around to say that if a photo "appeals or panders to the sexual gratification of another" that this makes it inherently obscene, and therefor lacking in literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The reason that we have the first amendment is to protect us from people like you.

The reason that pornography sites have a disclaimer warning is that they are marketing pornography. Their custodial records are required by 18 USC 2256 and 2257, the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act is to protect against child pornography. It specifies record-keeping requirements for those wishing to produce sexually explicit media, and imposes criminal penalties for failure to comply. This is intended to ensure that no person under the legal age is involved in such undertakings. None of these rules apply to Wikipedia at this time, as Wikipedia does not produce sexually explicit material for commercial purposes, and does not allow sexually explicit photographs of minors, even though Wikipedia is not censored.

You say that Wikipedia does not have disclaimers, although there is a disclaimer link on the bottom of every single page of Wikipedia. (See Disclaimers) On that General Disclaimer page is a link to the Risk Disclaimer, the Medical Disclaimer, the Legal Disclaimer and the Content Disclaimer. The content disclaimer, among other things, warns "Wikipedia contains many different images, some of which are considered objectionable or offensive by some readers. For example, some articles contain graphical depictions of violence, or depictions of human anatomy." The images in this article are scientific in nature, educational, and include pictures of human anatomy. Atom (talk) 01:18, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Atom you don't believe actual photos of masturbation is sexually explicit photos. I am sorry to say they are sexually explicit and so you said yourself that the disclaimer is used for that purpose. Also, Wikipedia itself is targeted for minors. In addition, you say that Wikipedia does not have child pornography photos. I do believe there is a photo of a real prepubescent child nude (not an illustration) that is in bondage with the title "Virgin Killer". Which recently Wikipedia archived so no more comments could be made. --211.220.23.15 (talk) 09:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Defining masturbation

I can totally imagine, and sympathize with, the probable reasons for locking the article. But before an article is locked, it ought to be at least triple-checked for painfully obvious clumsiness of style or ideas, like that shown in the definition offered in the article's very first sentence: "Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's genitals, often to the point of orgasm." In fact, of course, masturbation refers to something notably--and this is the point of the word--more narrow than that: among the many, many varieties of "sexual stimulation of a person's genitals, often to the point of orgasm", there is that stimulation we call "sexual intercourse." However that's defined (ordinariy, I'd guess, as something like "stimulation of the genitals through male insertion of the penis into the female reproductive tract"), "sexual intercourse" is precisely what masturbation is most essentially defined against. As the definition in the first sentence stands, "masturbation" is asserted to include sexual intercourse, along with all the other, valid (actually "masturbatory") manners of "stimulation of a person's genitals..."

Will somebody please, please fix the problem? And, before precluding edits to a page--make very, very sure that this kind of awkwardness doesn't occur? Thanks. (Sorry to sound like a jerk--but it is, after all the opening sentence, which is customarily where you want to make super-sure that you make a good impression, as by get things right... it may require a little intellectual exertion, but hardly mental acrobatics, to actually phrase a correct (narrower) definition.)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.161.14.221 (talk • contribs)

I added non-penetrative.--Patrick (talk) 08:58, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

And I removed it. Female techniques mentions insertion of both fingers and vibrators/dildoes.IdreamofJeanie (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Image removed

For several reasons, I have removed this image for the second time:

File:Masturbation art.jpg

Image of a man, masturbating.

This article is a target for people adding their own personal masturbation images, and I think this is another case of the same thing.

In general we pick images for this article from the Mediawiki Commons. Editors adding their own creative works is highly discouraged, and is seen as wp:OR. In general, editors should add material from reliable sources, and not contribute their own original ideas or artwork.

The second problem with the image is that the article already has too many images IMO, and another image of a male masturbating is not needed. The image offered, a work of art, a pixelized photo it would seem, lacks clarity and so it is very hard to see what is going on. The purpose of a good image in the article is for the reader to quickly have an idea of the topic at a glance. I don' feel that this applies to the image offered in this case. The image, not pointilism, but possible a photo reworked with Photoshop is more abstract. Abstract art lacking clarity of detail may have artistic value for some, but doesn't add clarity to the topic of the article.

I believe the person adding the image to the article is the author/creator of the image, a new editor userMaximus Artisticus, who also has contributed another of his own images File:Anal masturbation with dildo.jpg to the anal masturbation article. He may be the subject in both images as far as I can tell.

I mean no personal offense to the contributor, but we could easily gather a gallery of hundreds of self created masturbation photos in this article if we were not selective.

If we were do feel that yet another male masturbation photo was needed (and personally, I don't), then we could choose any of the images below that would show the topic with better clarity Atom (talk) 04:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• File:Taric Alani Cum shot.jpg
• File:Jerk-off.jpg
• File:MaleMasturbation.jpg
• File:Masturbation Techniques - the Forefinger-Banging (animated).gif
• 
• File:Sexuality men.jpg
• File:Flesh0.jpg
• File:HNI 0065.JPG

NHS Sheffield pamphlet

Does anyone have a link to the actual pamphlet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tisane (talk • contribs)

This was originally added with a normal signature but it did not appear due to a glitch caused by an unclosed "gallery" tag. —Soap— 10:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Tisane, although the media coverage it generated is noted in this report of theirs, http://www.sheffield.nhs.uk doesn't seem to have a downloadable copy on it that I can find. --Nigelj (talk) 22:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)