#1 - Masturbation
Have you considered the outcomes of masturbation in your personality? Do you have strong enough motives and strategies to choose not to as a way to improve your sexual integrity?
Join Andrew Love and Sammy Uyama as they discuss the “touchy” topic of mast-urba-tion from varying perspectives. They discuss influences, triggers and motivations behind the act as well as alternative ways of thinking as a means to focus one’s energy and attention on living better lives without it.
What is the focus of High Noon and Love, Life & Legacy’s podcast?
What are the two main things holding you back from putting more power into your choice in dealing with masturbation?
What makes masturbation more difficult to talk about?
What triggers you to masturbate?
How does dealing with this affect my autonomy as a person?
What does High Noon help you with?
And much much more!
For more episodes subscribe to our podcast #LoveLife&LegacyTo start the path of mastering your sexual integrity check out High Noon’s programs. Sign up for our Newsletter for great resources, projects and upcoming events.
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love: Welcome back to love life and legacy, a podcast all about creating sexual integrity in this hyper-sexualized world. And today we're talking about - that's right - masturbation. Welcome back, everybody. If this is your first time listening.
Sammy Uyama: Welcome, welcome, welcome!
Andrew Love: It's gonna be an amazing episode. If you've been here before, it's gonna be better than the last thing you heard. I hope you join us coming down the rabbit hole of sex. That sounds really weird... Where we explore here on High Noon, we always, we want to understand as much as possible how we can navigate through this hyper-sexualized culture and come out on the other side. Really amazing, powerful people with sexual integrity who make the choices based on our heart not based on our lower urges. So, welcome. My name is Andrew Love and this is.
Sammy Uyama: Sammy Uyama. The one and only.
Andrew Love: And today we're going for it. We're talking about the topic that shall not be talked about, that shall not be discussed.
Sammy Uyama: No, you don't mean... No, you're not going there.
Andrew Love: Are you gonna say the word?
Sammy Uyama: Oh, no, I don't know. Do we do it? There we go there. We're gonna talk about... today we're talking about masturbation.
Andrew Love: And chances are you probably read it in the title anyway.
Sammy Uyama: No suprises. I'm excited. This will be a good talk. And pornography is one thing. It's you know, there's a small camp, but a camp nonetheless, that gets that pornography probably has some undesirable consequences. But then you know, even deeper than that is this topic of masturbation that is even more personal than pornography. Because I think pornography, it's something it's still outside of yourself, you know, something you engage with. But masturbation is such a personal thing. And really to talk about that. And it can be revealing. It can be confronting. And there's a lot of opinions regarding this topic in particular. So I really don't think we actually can get cover all of the bases in one episode. And I'm sure it's something we'll come back to. So please do not eat us alive if we missed some point. And, you know, let us know your thoughts and questions like you know, what about this angle about that angle? We want to talk about all of it. But let us know nicely and we can cover it later. Don't burn us alive.
Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah. So we don't have time to cover all the bases. So we're just gonna cover home base. We're just gonna go right on base. Right. And that is, you know, because honestly speaking, I'm sure even the mention of this topic... If you read the title, or just as I was bringing up, you know, what we're about to talk about, you already have some sort of a feeling. You already have some sort of a trigger. Either it's triggering you and you will want to masturbate, right, which is a lot of people are just easily triggered. And because that's their happy place, right? The masturbation is where they're like totally where the world disappears and they just make this fantasy land. Or it makes you like, "who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?" Or you know, there's a plethora. There's a kaleidoscope of feelings that arise with this topic because it's so personal and because we feel that we're entitled to do whatever we want as though we are autonomous beings. As though we were not connected through this intricate network of air, you know, thoughts, culture, society. So we just don't want this to be preachy. We're coming from a place where we've spoken to thousands of people, and in return, thousands of people have spoken to us. And we've helped many people go from, you know, heavily habituated to porn and masturbation or addicted in the realm of addiction. And we've helped them navigate their way out based on their desire to have a lifestyle. Like, we're not here to tell you, you shouldn't do this and we will help you do the thing that you shouldn't do. We're here to help you figure out what do you believe, right? Because most people are very unconscious when it comes to topics of sexuality. They just go with their impulses. They don't think about it, right? So we don't want this to be preachy. It might feel preachy because we're really passionate about this. But again, if you have your own thoughts, that's fantastic. We don't want to quell your thoughts and overpower your thoughts with our genius. We want to plant seeds in your mind so that you can give this an earnest consideration to really think, "what do I think?" Not what music or movies or whatever tells me or what my my groin tells me at any given instant. But what does my heart say? What doess my spirit say? What does my rational mind say? What are these these important aspects that we so seldom consult actually view about the topic of masturbation?
Sammy Uyama: Well put. If I were to put in a word: perspective. That's what we want to offer. And just provide perspective and give people a chance to look at, well, what makes sense given all this information and what I've experienced. What other people experience. What makes sense. That's just what we want to offer.
Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's make it make sense, together.
Sammy Uyama: So yeah, let's get into it, Andrew. Let me ask you then: Andrew Love, what's your opinion on the topic of masturbation?
Andrew Love: It's wrong and you're gonna go to hell.
Sammy Uyama: Well, that's a wrap. See you guys next episode, everybody.
Andrew Love: Have a very uncomfortable sleep, everybody. Good night. Well, so, so we've had er, like, I grew up in a world where, you know, totally boundaryless and no discussion about sex. And so it was really a matter of, well, what do my friends say? So growing up is totally just, you know, we all knew we did it, and nobody talked about it because it was, we were also kind of awkward about it. Because porn, you know, back when I was, you know, in high school when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, you know, we didn't have cell phones with with porn on them. You know, if the one person had a cell phone, it was like, it was analog, you know? It was like a rotary cell phone. And, you know, porn was a totally different beast. So it was still kind of awkward, right? We didn't have the bravado attitude that a lot of people have adopted now. But we all still obviously, you know, dabbled in masturbation and kind of joked about how hot that girl. You know, this kind of stuff. And only later in life that I kind of really stopped and considered, whoa, how am I being impacted by this? Right? And if you ever tried to talk about it, it's just so awkward, you know. So awkward. And who's going to give you their opinion? Like, your parents? That's awkward. Yeah, some magazine Psychology Today? Where do you go for like an unbiased, just healthy conversation? I never had it until, you know, I started rolling with High Noon and started hanging out with Uncle Dave and you and we started really getting into this.
Sammy Uyama: That's interesting. It's like actually the opposite of the way I grew up. You mentioned boundaryless and you know, there was no conscientious or there's no guilt associated. It was awkward. There was no guilt associated with the topic of masturbation. Whereas I grew up religious and so there was so much guilt associated with the topic of sex and with masturbation, and you know, some I experimented with and dabbled in. We talked about it quietly with a few friends. And it was exciting because like the taboo thing that you had to really close buddies you talk about with and experimented with and something I've dealt with and I always felt so tremendously guilty every time I engaged in this behavior afterward. And which you know that guilt is the opposite of the spectrum where you know, so we want to come from two angles where that's not very productive and healthy. And then also, even when you're not feeling any of that there are the effects and impact of masturbation, so that's what we want to get into.
Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah. That's an exposed nerve to me, because I've experienced both in such huge amounts, right, like a tidal wave of justification. I came from the justification culture, which is where most people do well, especially young, younger people, which is like, hey, I get to do whatever I want, like leave me alone. Who are you to say anything. There is no right or wrong. Whatever I feel right - that's the mentality. That's the average mentality, especially now, you know. But even when I was younger. But then you kind of go off into the more and that's like the secular worldview where like, you can just make up anything, anything, whatever you want. Then you swing in the opposite direction and then it's like, you know, largely shame-based like you're saying. Like, oh, you made a mistake and therefore you must pay. And it oftentimes seems heartless and judgmental and that's why a lot of people honestly end up leaving religion. I know, at the time of this recording, my family and I we wake up every morning and dance to Kanye West's new album. And one of his songs is about like how you know, when he started wanting to become a Christian, the first people that judged him were Christian. So there's that. Especially in sex because we all are kind of complicit in the, you know, in the crimes known to man about that, in regards to sex. So, like, shame versus justification, like, okay, can I ask you, when you when you grew up and and there is a problem that arose. Like, let's say you wanted to talk about masturbation or your parents caught you or something like that. And then the religious card was played; did that resolve things for a time? Or did it just kind of make things worse? How did that play out? I can't imagine growing up like that.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah. So it makes real conversation, honest, transparent conversation very difficult because everything starts from there's something wrong. This is wrong. There's a right thing and that's not this.
Andrew Love: I see.
Sammy Uyama: So it's really difficult to just express, like this is what I'm thinking. And you know, I'm like, because of course I, you know, I got that from one part of my life. But other parts of my life are like at school and online and things. Masturbation is a given. It's like not even questionable, whether there's anything wrong with this. And so, you know, starting to sort of formulate these, you know, other opinions is, you know, I was wondering what's really wrong with masturbation? Is that such a problem? And there is no space to talk about these things openly with the people that really cared about me the most; that's one thing. And then the other thing would be yeah, there's always this this burden of the shame and the guilt. What it does for us, it makes you feel always like you've messed up. There's no redemption and you're a failure. You're not good enough. And then it has its own slew of consequences.
Andrew Love: So would you say because, you know, I've talked to other people who grew up religious and it sounds like you know, the shame culture in the religious sphere is like tradition. And that usually means parents. So kind of like parents represent shame. Religion represents shame. And then you go to your friends and they're like, oh, yeah, they don't know what they're talking about. And then they represent justification. So it's kind of like on an axis, the vertical axis of parents and tradition and all those things that they back is like, making you feel bad. And then everything horizontal, like your friends and culture and all that, that's in the same place as you it's just about, you know, just do whatever you want. Would you agree with that?
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, it's... vertical, horizontal - it's really a very descriptive way of putting it or you know, one kind of connects to the past up and the other is kind of more spread out amongst your peers.
Andrew Love: And that's the other thing too, that you know, parents have, maybe comparatively like 5% of the vote of what their kids do because they're spending you know, 5% of the time with their kids compared to the celebrities are in their ears singing to them. And whoever the YouTubers that they're watching during the day and their friends at school that they're with 15 hours a day compared to the 30 minutes to two hours that they're with their parents today, right? And again, it's more kind of like, it feels like homework talking to parents, whereas it's like you have more fun talking to friends, right? One thing is with shame versus justification, I mean, that's honestly the two modalities usually that you have to choose from. Especially when you're when you're going about this in a kind of a passive "woe is me" or life is difficult. From that perspective, it's really hard to get any answers, because it's either just do what everybody else does, regardless of how it really feels or listen to your parents, which is no fun. Or listen to tradition or listen to religion or whatever, right? And so then, you know, that's where this conversation got so exciting for me personally. Because there is a third option that is, you know, focusing on what is the purpose of sexuality? And what is your vision for sexuality and how does masturbation fit into that? Right? Because it's incredible how much sex affects us. And throughout our day, like, you know, after this podcast, I hope that you can be a little bit more conscious about you throughout your day and how much sex is impacting you. Think about, you know, like posters on the subway or on the bus or wherever you're walking. The songs that you're listening to. Anything, everything, is hyper sexualized. So, imagine what that's doing to your psyche, right? It's, it's something.
Sammy Uyama: I have no idea where it came from. I heard this quote from somewhere. It goes like, "everything is about sex, except for sex. Sex is about power." I have no idea what that second part means, actually, but just the first part, to iterate that sex is connected to a lot of stuff. And you touched on something I'm curious about. You said that understanding and looking at the purpose of sex and what do you mean by that? Because I mean, on one angle, you could say, well, the purpose of sex biologically is procreation. So like, you know, what does that have to do with it?
Andrew Love: I don't think any young person would say that.
Sammy Uyama: I mean, if you're to ask the question, "what's the purpose of sex?", that might be a response. Or it could be "What do you mean purpose? It's just fun. I like to do it.? So can you expound on that a little bit?
Andrew Love: Yeah. So I mean, one thing is to think about all the different areas in your life that sex touches, right? So if you were to have sex, then who's it impacting? You. The other person. Your mind, their mind, because you've connected in that way. Your heart, their heart. If you're spiritual at all, definitely your spirit, their spirit. Something. There's a transaction that took place you know, even in a biological sense, there's like there's fluids that were, you know, exposed to one another. There's a chemical reaction; you are a part of an experience, right? So you will forever kind of... that's like a mark, it's etched in your psyche, in your heart, in your history in your spirit. So we think about well, if that's true, then I do I have a positive experience with sex? Is it based off of feeling more like myself? Or is it feeling less like myself? Am I doing it because I'm giving away myself or I'm empowering myself? Am I doing it out of love and giving or out of need and taking? Right? So the purpose is like, well, how's it contributing to all the other areas of my life, right? Especially important areas of feeling connected. And one thing is like the purpose of everything, of humanity, is connection. That's the sort I've come to really, really subscribe to 100% is that and I was talking to a psychologist the other day that was talking about basically like every problem from addiction to you know anything, it stems back to trauma or a lack of experiencing the fullness of love. And so we're always seeking after that, right? So sexuality is really the ish in my estimation should be a net positive, right? Which means that everybody involved should be a better person because of it, right? The purpose of sex should be the betterment of humanity, not the detriment of humanity in my feeling, right? I mean, what's your take on it? I feel like I'm ranting here, but.
Sammy Uyama: It's a very broad view. At one point, I think it's very amazing, what you said is, the idea of people being left off, being better off after sex and it's a net positive rather than something's taken away from someone. And I think that happens a lot in sex is that one party feels used or for you know, whatever it is, and it's not a net positive for everybody. And then the idea of, I guess, starting with something really foundational, like sex, the sexual relationship and wanting to be a giver in that sense; that has an impact on the world level, even. That's like, the standard that people live by, that's pretty mind blowing right there. We just said that your sexual exchanges with your wife actually has an impact and makes the world a better place.
Andrew Love: So I actually do have a wife, that is not hypothetical. But okay, we're kind of going into the realm of sex. But to bring it back to masturbation then it's like, well, if sexuality and sex between, you know, people; between... one, it's an exchange between people. That should be a net positive. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. Anybody in their right mind would disagree that oh no, it's fine when somebody loses. It's like it's a competition, like it's Grant Cardone, you know, like, it should be a net positive. So therefore, your personal experience should also be.
Sammy Uyama: Who's Grant Cardone? I don't get that reference.
Andrew Love: Oh, he's this shark of a real estate agent that's all about winning and making as much money as possible but he's like, don't be a loser when you wanna make a trillion dollars. So like, okay, a lot of people have that view of sex. So it's more about dominating, a winner.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah like, what's the word? You know? Like yeah, someone wins, someone loses kind of thing.
Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, nothing like that. But then but then, too, you know, like with masturbation then it should also, like our sexuality on a personal level is like, well, what's the purpose of your penis or your vagina - if you're a girl - right? So what is it? Is it really just to use whenever you want? Is that the purpose? That you use it to comfort yourself when you're feeling lonely? Does it fulfill that even if you do do that? because I know a lot of people that when they're feeling small, and they're feeling alone or scared or whatever, masturbation is their go-to as a source of comfort, especially before bed or something when they just want the voices in their head to shut up. Because it just kind of calms them down. And it's like a release of a lot of tension, right? But is that really what sex is designed for? And is there not a better way to do that? And what, you know, is that the purpose? I mean, that's the thing is that I think really needs to look at. And a lot of people don't because they just feel that the purpose of sex is enjoyment, period. Right. And they're looking at it from a very surface level. What would you say about that?
Sammy Uyama: Nothing to add to that. I mean, I think we're giving people a lot of new things to think about. And I'd like to hear the people listening, well what do you guys think? If this resonates with you, it just clicks or makes sense? Or is it going over your head or, you know, you disagree. You know, I'd like to know all these things and that's why I'm curious about. And the other thing I'm wondering is then, you know, this sounds, for me, that sounds really fantastic. But then how does this contrast to the way people hear about sex in reality? And like the kind of attitude and the flavor of what sex is?
Andrew Love: Yeah, absolutely. So if you just scale it back and be like, well, okay, on a very base level, do you as an individual, you listening: do you want to be a part of a relationship, of a love, that only increases in power, potency, connection, you know, in dividends over time? Or do you want to be a part of a love that withers, that, you know, dries up, prunes up, and just dies and rots a terrible, horrible death? Right? And I think every, again, everybody in the right mind, anybody of a sober mind and a sober heart, would of course, if they had any ounce of belief that love is is real and available to them would say, yes, yes! I just want, I want love. I want to love. I want to invest in loving somebody that will love me back and it just gets better every day. But we don't live like that. We actually, a lot of times live in in opposition to that. Because if you take that back to sex, then it's like, well, then, really, if you're in a loving relationship, it's about giving. It's about learning about that person and that person alone that they become your world in terms of that that one special relationship of being married. I'm married, you're married. That our wives know that out of all the world, there's nobody that loves them as much as us. That we really represent, like God's love to them in terms of like a husband. And when you take that back to sex, then all of a sudden it's like, well, then my sex is not about me at all. Really. It's really not. It's about her. It's about my wife, and vice versa. And that when we do live that out, when we do play that out, then things become very meaningful and powerful. And when it's about me wanting something and taking from her when she's not ready, when it's not right, but it's about me, then it's a net negative and she feels worse after the exchange. Right. And what masturbation does is it trains you on such a deep level psychologically, I believe spiritually, you know, emotionally, to be needy and to fulfill your needs when they're when they're really like when you have this itch that it just needs to be scratched. And you've trained yourself to only feel relieved if something takes place, then what you're doing is you're setting yourself up to be a very selfish lover. And it's a very one-sided approach to sexuality that is, to me, the cause of many dead-end relationships. And you're feeding this wedge in between you that's like a wall because you're not reaching over to see how they're doing, you know? And so I think masturbation is ultimately just really bad training psychologically. Because you're viewing, like, CS Lewis talked about how masturbation is really just like this weird dynamic of having a harem of women that just love you and serve you if you're a man, or a woman, that you have somebody that just undyingly, unceasingly loves you and it's all about you, you, you, and having your needs met in this fantasy. Then when it's all over, you're like, oh, crap, that was all fake. I was just tricking my mind and my body. But spiritually and deep in my heart, nothing was fulfilled. The transaction wasn't complete. It's an incomplete transaction. Cause it's like eating junk food because you never, you like, there's so many overweight people who are malnourished, which is the craziest thing. They're consuming so many calories but none of them have any content or like vitality. It's all dead weight you're consuming. And it's the same with pornography. It's the same with masturbation to me, is that you're consuming all these spiritual calories or the psychological calories, but it's just weighing you down. It's not giving you the vitality that your spirit, your heart wants. Does that make sense? 'Coz it does over here.
Sammy Uyama: Yeah, it's just helped me out. Right. So I get that it's so difficult to be an unselfish lover. I did recently my life looking even without, I mean, so you're talking about how masturbation trains you to focus on you know, my own experience and of getting my own, right. And so that doesn't help at all. But even without that, like, this past week, I've recognized how I've been going into that mode of wanting sex to be about, you know, me feeling good and how it is for me. And so years, it's been years and years and years since I've masturbated. And so, you know, without that, I just want to highlight the challenge of being unselfish in a sexual relationship, and to really emphasize, You know, so for me, it's like an opportunity to step back this weekend. Like wait, wait, wait. You know, I'm thinking about like, you know, how often are we having sex and how good is it for me? And then need to look at how is my wife doing? Is she enjoying our sexual relationship? Is there anything she's missing emotionally? How is she doing? And what can I do to take care of her?
Andrew Love: Do you feel like you are able to do that as a husband because of your self awareness from, you know, training yourself prior to marriage? Coz you're kind of, to use common nomenclature like you know that quite a while before you got married, right? So do you think that training gives you the authority to have that self awareness?
Sammy Uyama: I don't know the direct relationship between them but I do know that once I become aware of it, you know, this is not conscious. This is just... because I think the natural human starting places kind of "me" focus, right. So like, that's where you go, sure. So to get anywhere off of that takes some intentionality, some investment. So once I recognized it, then I was able to step back and go back to where I want to be, which is to be a giver and to be caring towards my wife and unselfish. And it did help tremendously to have that kind of training to be patient and to kind of control my sexual urges my own desires, and invest in my wife. And so I don't know specifically if that training gave me that self awareness. But at least becoming aware of it allowed me to kind of snap out of it immediately and to focus on what is it that I want to be. And I think practicing helps me actually put that into practice rather than it being something I want and wish for.
Andrew Love: Well, there you go. And I mean, I would love to touch on that as well because like, you know, when I was in my late 20s, I started to kind of get exposed to a whole new world, right, in terms of like, I started to meet more religious people who are living in a certain way and it's really confusing to me as I've always that, you know. But the more I hung around them, the more I just naturally was like I want to be more like that because it just seemed kind of more pure hearted the way that they had the exchanges with each other, you know? Like they treat each other like brother and sister. They didn't want anything from them. There are no games. There's no drama. Well, I was so like a fish out of water. Because I've never been in that type of dynamic before. But then naturally, I ended up asking one of the older guys out there like hey, like, what's up with the masturbation? I guess it's probably not productive and he just kind of shook his head he was like, and eh. And from that moment on, I just stopped. I just stopped masturbating for however many years I had been, right? Since early teens up until late 20s. And then I just kind of like turned off the faucet. And I was told my whole life - this is one thing I'd love to clear out. Because we're told by so many different people from, you know, many different areas of life, especially psychology, especially, you know, multimedia, whatever, like movies, that men are nothing more than animals. We're just horny animals and we can't rise above that, right? It's really deep, Like it goes, it runs deep. Because we really believe that we feel justified because like I'm oh guy, come on! I got these urges. It's like okay, so if you had the urge to murder people, would you also do that, right? So at a certain point I just decided, Okay, I'm gonna stop and I stopped. And there's a clear enough reason why and it really wasn't an issue for me. And I'm not saying because I'm special, I feel like I think I was just at an age where as I was open to hearing new information, but I then realized how much of a lie it was that that we have to masturbate. That we have to. And there's this rumor that goes around that if you don't masturbate, your head will explode or your penis will fall off or whatever. I mean, it goes for men and women, too. We're speaking about
Sammy Uyama: And not necessarily those things. But that it's unhealthy not to masturbate. That's true. I like...
Andrew Love: Yeah, you'll go crazy if you don't masturbate, and that's nonsense. That's a load of nonsense, because, you know, between that time and when I when I got married, and the first time I started, you know, sealing the deal with my wife and you know, getting intimate with her...
Sammy Uyama: It took a while...
Andrew Love: It's been like three or four years. And it was like, when you're clear about why you're doing something... Like same with fasting. Like I had been, I'd fasted before because I heard so much about it. I fasted one time for no reason just because I wanted to and I struggled every hour. It was the worst hour of my life and every cookie needed to be nibbled into. But I had also... and that was like one time for like, a day, and I was dying, I was rotting. I was a horrible person. But another time I did it for seven days with a very clear purpose and it was nothing, right. And I find it's the exact same thing with masturbation where like, I'm sure a lot of people have tried to stop before but then, you know, they forgot why they were doing it. But if you're really clear, it's honestly not nearly as hard as you might presume when you're clear about it. When you catch yourself, you know, and that's not everyone. Some people struggle more than others because everybody has a different history and family stuff, whatever. But the point is that it's absolutely possible. And it's not subhuman or like out of the realm. It's not weird either. It's like actually pretty healthy to be able to control yourself just like controlling the urge to eat. You're not always eating desserts. You control what you eat. You can actually control your sexual urges. You can control that energy.
Sammy Uyama: I just want to highlight two huge points that were just made that, just like you said with the fasting. After growing up your whole life that masturbation was never even can like questionable whether it was anything unnatural about it, through one conversation and you started to see a different perspective that maybe wasn't so beneficial for your life. But that also you suddenly had something very clear that you were striving for that was like a higher ideal. You saw these the way these people related with each other. And that's something you wanted, and then you saw masturbation as getting in the way of that. So having that higher purpose really was such a contributing factor to you, a break away from that. And the other. Likewise, me too. I mean, I would try to quit porn and masturbating for years and fail, fail and fail. And once I got like really clear on what I'm doing this for, and I was still single at the time, and I just like I really want to be a well prepared husband. I wanted, you know, wanted to be a good husband for my wife. And I didn't just want to show up at the door or like on our wedding day, show up down the aisle, and then worry about being good husband, I wanted to be prepared and equipped prior to all that and be able to give something really amazing to my wife, and sexuality was such a huge aspect of that. And so I, you know, made this huge plan, not just a determination... I made a plan. And I worked with that. And, you know, I went three and a half years between being single and quitting masturbating and having intercourse with my wife. And so absolutely, if you can be a healthy, strong... I don't know about strong... healthy male. You know, this is the prime of my life. Early 20s and yeah totally was not an issue for me that I wasn't masturbating.
Andrew Love: Well that's the thing is I really believe that if you look at the deep down roots source of justification, whenever there's somebody promoting alcohol in a certain situation, it's usually the person who's most inclined to alcohol. They are like, you know, borderline alcoholic or straight up alcoholic. And I find that society is really trying to lower our expectations of what to get out of sexuality, because it's it's like any student in the back who's who sucks at class, which I was, who just distracts everybody else so that everybody else sucks just as much as them instead of trying harder to be a better student, which I did later, right. I feel that from all the stuff that I've read from all the conversations that I've had that really it's an issue of value of like, do you really value sex as this thing that's far greater than yourself? Because the way that most of us treat sex is it's very casual. It's very lackluster. It's very circumstantial. It's very temporary. And it's not connected to anything outside of that situation right there. And that's bananas. Because it is so very much connected to like the title of our show love, which can be absolutely eternal, whether you believe in in a spiritual realm outside of us, or just the fact that your love can exist in the seeds that you plant of love everywhere you go, especially when you have children, which is life creating life, right? Lineage - that's your DNA and all that is through sex. And it becomes this massive cosmic level experience when you let it be, when you strive for that. And it really takes a lot of transitioning of your psychology because we are trained from the get go to view sex as this cheap throwaway thing like the rest of our - what is it - disposable culture. Now sex has been in instead of us rising up, we're lowering sex to the realm of our consumerism. We consume porn. And we consume people in our mind, just like we consume the next iPhone. Just like we consume the next pair of shoes. We just go to the next woman on our phone. We just go to the next fantasy in our head. And it's causing us to shrink our expectations, whether we know it or not. And so when you add value into the equation, when you add value into like a factor of your sexuality, then it starts to raise your level of awareness and your expectations of wait a sex... wait a sex! Oh, Freud would have a field day with that! Wait a second here. Sex could be so much more. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you it can be. It's like living in black and white and then you go into three dimension and then hyperspace and hypercolor. And then whatever. You're just in a totally different stratosphere when you start to add value into the equation of sex. And it also changes how you look at people and how you treat people, right? Especially in the area of sex. And pertaining to masturbation, it starts to get a lot less enjoyable because your standards are raised and you're like, why was I eating dog food for the first 27 years of my life? When steak was waiting on the table for me?
Sammy Uyama: I think that was probably the most... that's it... that's the the core point of this whole topic of masturbation. I think the most important thing we've covered is the effect masturbation has more than, you know... we can go in all the... there's lots of peripheral, like psychological or biological things to talk about. But the core of it is it lessens people's expectation for sex and what sex can be like. And speaking from my own personal experience, my whole life growing up, masturbating... up until the point you know, there's all this anticipation and there's like, oh, it' good? It's good. It's good. It's good. And then immediately after I climax, I ejaculate, then, you know, there's little voice in my head that just goes like "is that it? Is that what all the hype is about?" It's never fully satisfying. As always, I was always left with a feeling of emptiness. And I can contrast that with, you know, having a really fulfilling and amazing sexual relationship with your wife, after, you know, having been intimate, after intercourse. And that same moment immediately after ejaculating, I'm just... I just... the thoughts going through my head is "This is it. This is..." You know, like, I feel so connected with this person. And there's nothing else that matters and I'm just full of fulfillment. And being in this relationship with this person and masturbation can never give you that.
Andrew Love: I would love for you to think about personally. Is masturbation helping me be a better person in the future? Is it helping me better be a better person now? Is there a better way to connect with my meaning my purpose and what can I do with my sexual energy? And we'll get into all these things. in later episodes. That's a teaser.
Sammy Uyama: Yes, thank you. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you, Andrew, for your thoughts. We're wrapping up on time. And thank all of you guys for listening. We're gonna have show notes for this episode. You can refer back to those for reference. And you can find those show notes on our website, highnoon.org. where, you know, we'll keep our podcasts stuff - you can find it all there. And let us know what you think. That's what we want to know. You know, we're starting this podcast to talk about something interesting to us. So if there's anything you want to hear about, let us know. Go to iTunes, leave us a rating or review. Let us know if we're doing a good job or not. So thank you all very much. We'll see you guys next time.