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Traumatic masturbatory syndrome (TMS) is a proposed sexual dysfunction suggested by Lawrence I. Sank, Ph.D., of the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Bethesda, Maryland in a 1998 article in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy. In that article he describes the masturbatory habits of a small group of men who suffer sexual problems and speculates that their habit of masturbating prone (i.e. lying face downward) is responsible for those problems. Eva Margolies, a sex therapist in New York, has condemned masturbation by rubbing against a pillow or mattress in a best-selling book on male sexual dysfunction.
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.
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.
According to proponents of the existence of TMS, TMS in males is characterized as sexual dysfunction caused by masturbating by rubbing the penis against bedding, mattress, pillow, the hand, or even the floor. Sufferers masturbate this way because that's how they learned to masturbate as adolescents, or younger. Both circumcised and uncircumcised males have developed TMS.
Sank describes men who masturbate prone suffering from severe sexual dysfunctions, notably anorgasmia and erectile dysfunction. Anorgasmia (also called inorgasmia), can be a complete inability to reach orgasm in intercourse, or the ability to do so after only a very long time (half hour or more).
The question of whether TMS causes physical damage was not addressed by Sank, although Sank's patients were cured of their sexual dysfunction merely by quitting prone masturbation and learning to masturbate on their backs (supine) with their hands, which has also been the experience of males in an online support group. According to published sex research by Wardell B. Pomeroy and others, this is the primary way approximately 90 percent of males masturbate.
A survey among readers of a website promoting the TMS hypothesis suggests a strong correlation between prone masturbation and anorgasmia. However, this survey can be criticised on the grounds that it is drawn from a self-selected audience of readers of a website that promotes the hypothesis, and that the data is entirely self-reported.
Another survey on the same Internet site among women who are interested in TMS found that those who masturbate prone tend to have orgasm in intercourse less frequently than women who masturbate supine or sitting, but that the tendency is not as strong as among males who have TMS.
Sank proposed, in 1998, preventing TMS by instructing what he regards as correct masturbatory technique in the home, school, or pediatric clinical setting. There are no known consequences of this proposal.
References
- 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.
- Wardell B. Pomeroy. Boys and Sex, 3rd revised ed., New York: Random House, 1991.
- Lawrence I. Sank. Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 24(1): 37-42 (1998).
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