Is sex a "want" or a "need"?
Jonas I think scientific fashion changes over time. Currently, positive aspects of masturbation are stressed, but the negatives (like compulsion, soreness/oedema, loss of time and social life etc) are still there.
A doctor will say there is nothing wrong with masturbation ...up to the point where it starts to interfere with yours or someone else's life.
Only happens if it is excessive.
Jonas We've discussed this before, so all I'll say for sure is that my own health and happiness were increased greatly when I quit masturbation (or, more accurately, when I allowed myself to be prevented from it)
Psychologically/emotionally,I can understand it;but physically,it is not what the scientists tell.
Jonas Masturbation, however, is by definition, a solitary activity. It's not needed at all and can go against getting out there, forming relationships, and living life!!
If done in a reasonable amount,it can help when single and help to know our body better.And it is often considered good,even if in relationship,nowadays.
Jonas Is this healthy?
Depends of the mood of your wife.
Jonas Currently I am testing this theory...
Why not have some with your girlfriend?
Angelina if health is the first priority i agree with you
Health is rarely used as a reason for doing it,but it is a good side-effect.
Vanessa Psychologically/emotionally,I can understand it;but physically,it is not what the scientists tell.
But psychology is also a science 
Jonas We have very different opinions and this is probably the result of our very different experiences with chastity. For you it's an unwelcome limit, for me a personal choice that freed me from masturbation.
i think at the psychological point the differences between volunteers and involuntaries are very big
Jonas We have very different opinions and this is probably the result of our very different experiences with chastity.
I think so,yes.
Angelina But psychology is also a science
But I don't know well if there is studies about psychological impact of a chastity belt for a willingly man(for a serious user,not a fetishist)...
Angelina i think at the psychological point the differences between volunteers and involuntaries are very big
Probably,and logical.
I agree,but it's not the case for many of us...
I randomly find this topic.
Sex is at the base of Maslow pyramid. While this as been criticised, in the author intention is definitively there. It’s a basic need. Sometime you will not see in the diagram, but it’s basically there
Also interesting to see that while sex is among physiological needs (with food and sleep), love, intimacy, are on the third level, so higher, where needs there are needs for belong.
Here is a good description
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Milord
While that pyramid theory is well established, it is by far not universally accepted.
And your claim that sex is the foundation is not correct. It is actually procreation that is underlying everything. Sex is just the most common concept. But if you read for examply 'Brave new world', you will realise that other models or society structures are by far not as unthinkable as might consider today.
Milord Sex is at the base of Maslow pyramid. While this as been criticised, in the author intention is definitively there. It’s a basic need. Sometime you will not see in the diagram, but it’s basically there
Also interesting to see that while sex is among physiological needs (with food and sleep), love, intimacy, are on the third level, so higher, where needs there are needs for belong.
From that same article:
Regarding the structure of his hierarchy, Maslow (1987) proposed that the order in the hierarchy “is not nearly as rigid” (p. 68) as he may have implied in his earlier description.
Maslow noted that the order of needs might be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences. For example, he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.
I would say sex in particular is one of those needs that is rather physiological in nature, but not important for the survival of the individual the way food, drink or shelter are. For the species, sure, sex matters as the vehicle of reproduction, which is why most humans experience a certain urge to engage in sexuality when they are equipped to meet the basic needs for potential offspring. But also, sexuality often serves as a supplement to love and intimacy for many, and a lot of people had a very good experience living fulfilled lives with minimal physiological sex.
Brave new world describe a dystopy, as, for example, 1984 does. And its fiction, not for real. Also a strong criticism against Huxley current society.
I'm talking about maslow theory, not an universal claim. But i will not consider any fictional product as a model for an alternative society
youdontknowme But also, sexuality often serves as a supplement to love and intimacy for many, and a lot of people had a very good experience living fulfilled lives with minimal physiological sex.
I have to say that I don't share your experiences about being "a lot of people", but I know that they exist, and of course they rightful can have wonderful life without sex.
But Maslow refer to normal (statistically speaking) human, and for him sex is a phisiological need.
Marlow sustain this. I'm just explaining his theory. I also explained that this particolar idea has been critized by his future peers
Milord Terms like "a lot" are of course open to interpretation. I should have been more specific - I did not want to claim that it was a majority, or even a significant fraction of people - just that there are more people like that than just a few that are easily dismissed as freak accidents. Of course the majority of people who live fulfilled lives have their physiological need for sex met in some way. Even among asexuals who do not seek out sexual partners, many, but not all, enjoy the occasional relief through masturbation or whatever other mechanism. Many people in the kink community who engage in very long chastity lockups (several months up to multiple years of denying all genital stimulation) still take pleasure from other erogenous zones. And I do not believe that all monks completely cease masturbation when they make their vows. Many might, but others probably just feel more guilty about it than the average person.
Still, there are people who suffer from anorgasmia or genital damage or whatever and thus do not enjoy sex on a physiological level, or who genuinely live without sexual stimulation for extended periods of time and feel happy with that. Maslow acknowledges that when he says the hierarchy is not as rigid as it is sometimes perceived to be.
The categorization of needs and wants is objective-dependent. For example, if your goal is to biologically procreate, some version of sex "needs" to happen.
So the answer can be very different for different people, depending on their respective goals.
What are we doing here?
Surving?
Living a fulfilling life?
Maintaining a partnership?
Conforming to social expectations?
Fulfilling an obligation?
Gaining manipulative advantage over others?
Killing a boring afternoon?
Once you answer the question of why you are having sex, the secondary question of assigning its dispensability becomes self-evident.
Milord But i will not
The only point is that procreation is theoretically possible completely without sex.
That procreation is the fundamental driver of everything is probably accepted by almost everyone. How else would our species continue to exist.
But that does not make sex the foundation of the pyramid. The foundation is the need to procreeate - in whatever way that may happen. Sex is just the most obvious / common form but by no means the foundation itself.
The only point is that procreation is theoretically possible completely without sex.
That's why I used "some version" to describe procreative sex.
Even if it is artificial or in vitro, still takes two to tango.
Unless a woman donates an egg, transfers a somatic cell nucleus, and implants it in her own uterus. How narcissistic would you have to be for all that? A bottle of Wild Turkey is way cheaper.
Again, I would not count reproduction as a physiological need of the individual. It is a need of the species that is to blame for a physiological drive towards sexual stimulation, though. Maslow's works also appear to treat the physiological need for sex as one for sexual stimulation and not reproduction, though he also makes clear that satisfying that need usually involves satisfying higher needs for love and intimacy as well.
He has some interesting points that kinda relate to chastity though:
Certainly, if we may speak of the needs for rest and sleep, we may therefore also speak of their frustration and its effects (sleepiness, fatigue, lack of energy, loginess, perhaps even laziness, lethargy, etc.), and gratification (alertness, vigor, zest, etc.). Here are immediate consequences of simple need gratification which, if they be not accepted character traits, are at least of definite interest to the student of personality. And while we are not accustomed yet to thinking so, the same can be said for the sex need, e.g., the category sex-obsessed and the contrasting one of sex-gratification for which we have as yet no respectable vocabulary.
An ever-recurring question is: Does sexual deprivation inevitably give rise to all or any of the many effects of frustration, e.g., aggression, sublimation, etc.? It is now well known that many cases are found in which celibacy has no psychopathological effects. In many other cases, however, it has inaiìy bad effects. What factor determines which shall be the result? Clinical work with nonneurotic people gives the clear answer that sexual deprivation becomes pathogenic in a severe sense only when it is felt by the individual to represent rejection by the opposite sex, inferiority, lack of worth, lack of respect, isolation, or other thwarting of basic needs. Sexual deprivation can be borne with relative ease by individuals for whom it has no such implications (of course, there will probably be what Rosenzweig (408) calls need-persistive reactions, but these, though irritating, are not necessarily pathological).
The unavoidable deprivations in childhood are also ordinarily thoughtof as frustrating. Weaning, elimination control, learning to walk, in fact every new level of adjustment, is conceived to be achieved by forcible pushing of the child. Here, too, the differentiation between mere deprivation and threat to the personality enjoins caution upon us. Observations of children, who are completely assured of the love and respect of their parents have shown that deprivations, disciplines, and punishments can sometimes be borne with astonishing ease. There are few frustration effects if these deprivations are not conceived by the child to be threatening to his fundamental personality, to his main life goals, or needs.
From this point of view, it follows that the phenomenon of threatening frustration is much more closely allied to other threat situations than it is to mere deprivation. The classic effects of frustration are also found frequently to be a consequence of other types of threat-traumatization, conflict, cortical damage, severe illness, actual physical threat, imminence of death, humiliation, or great pain.
This leads us to our final hypothesis that perhaps frustration as a single concept is less useful than the two concepts that crosscut it: (I) deprivation of nonbasic needs and (2) threat to the personality, i.e., to the basic needs or to the various coping systems associated with them. Deprivation implies much less than is ordinarily implied by the concept of frustration; threat implies much more. Deprivation is not psychopathogenic; threat is.
And yet there are several meanings of self-control, or of inhibition, and some of them are quite desirable and healthy, even apart from what is necessary for dealing with the outside world. Control need not mean frustration or renunciation of basic need gratifications. What I would call the "Apollonizing controls" do not call the gratification of needs into question at all; they make them more rather than less enjoyable by, e.g., suitable delay (as in sex), by gracefulness (as in dancing or swimming) by estheticizing (as with food and drink), by stylizing (as in sonnets), by ceremonializing, sacralizing, dignifying, by doing something well rather than just doing it.
For one thing it can be reported that sex and love can be and most often are more perfectly fused with each other in healthy people. Although it is perfectly true that these are separable concepts, and although no purpose would be served in confusing them with each other unnecessarily, still it must be reported that in the life of healthy people, they tend to become joined and merged with each other. As a matter of fact we may also say that they become less separable and less separate from each other in the lives of the people we have studied. We cannot go so far as some who say that any person who is capable of having sexual pleasure where there is no love must be a sick man. But we can certainly go in this direction. It is certainly fair to say that self-actualizing men and women tend on the whole not to seek sex for its own sake, or to be satisfied with it alone when it comes. I am not sure that my data permit me to say that they would rather not have sex at all if it came without affection, but I am quite sure that I have a fair number of instances in which for the time being at least sex was given up or rejected because it came without love or affection.
Sex is customarily discussed as if it were a problem of avoiding the plague. The preoccupation with the dangers of sex has obscured the obvious that it can be or should be a very enjoyable pastime and possibly also a very profoundly therapeutic and educational one.