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Masturbation and ejaculation are useless nowadays

שו”תCategory: HalachaMasturbation and ejaculation are useless nowadays
asked 3 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
I’ve heard of studies that claim that ejaculating protects against prostate cancer. I also saw that it says in the Rambam:

And when he ejaculates, he does not ejaculate except to warm his body and to sustain the semen; therefore, he does not ejaculate whenever he desires, but whenever he knows that he needs to ejaculate a layer of semen , such as through the healing process , or to sustain the semen.

The wise physicians said, one in a thousand dies of other diseases; and the thousand, from excessive use. Therefore, a person must be careful about this matter, if he wants to be in good health. And he will not have a boil except when he finds his body very healthy and strong, and he is having a lot of difficulty without knowing it, and he distracts himself with something else, and the swelling is as it was; and he finds a heaviness from his waist and down and as if the strings of his eggs are being pulled, and his flesh is hot. This is necessary for a boil, and the cure for it is to have a boil .

If so, it seems that according to Maimonides, there is a need to ejaculate. If so, why shouldn’t a single man be permitted to ejaculate from time to time (since it’s not ejaculating for nothing, but for some purpose)? Similar to what you wrote in this responsa. Especially in our day and age, when there is a phenomenon of late singlehood, and a man can find himself in a situation where ejaculating is prohibited for many years. Furthermore, it is possible that not ejaculating causes more sexual thoughts.
Best regards,


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 3 years ago
Regardless of the question of what the medical determinations of the Maimonides are worth, on a principled level there is a prohibition on ejaculating for no reason, which according to most opinions is from the Torah. To permit a prohibition requires a clear and direct consideration of fiqun, and this is not the case here. If there is an action that can benefit or harm health, this does not create a situation of fiqun, otherwise it would be a Torah prohibition to eat something unhealthy, go out on the road, or not sleep six hours every night. The consideration of difficulty is indeed considerable and not simple, but I have no way of using it to permit. At most, it can be said that if someone does this, they are close to rape. The consideration of preventing thoughts also does not justify violating a prohibition. At most, there is an argument for rape here.

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אורן replied 3 years ago

But in the response I linked to, which talks about masturbation for the purpose of sexual therapy, it's not about a condition called Pico, and yet you said that it's allowed there.

מיכי Staff replied 3 years ago

Well? That's exactly what I argued here as well. When you extract sperm for the purpose of having a child, that's the purpose of the sperm, and therefore it's permissible even if it's not rape. It's permitted. When you extract sperm for another purpose, rape is required to permit it, and even there it's not permitted in the first place, but rather exempt from punishment.

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