18 Strange and Interesting Facts about Masturbation that no one wants to talk about

Masturbation has always been a controversial topic. Over the centuries, the subject has provoked a number of unfounded (and often ridiculous) myths and old wives’ tales, from causing insanity and blindness to the loss of genitals. Thankfully, the times have changed and we now live in an age where an entire month is dedicated to appreciating and spreading awareness about masturbation! We bring you 18 surprising and less-known facts about masturbation. By the time you’re done with this list, you’ll be armed with an assortment of facts that you can use to weird out (and educate) your loved ones.

1. By age 17, about 80% of males have masturbated, as opposed to 58% females. According to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour, those who engage in regular masturbation are more likely to have sex and use condoms.

Both male and female adolescents were surveyed by the NSSHB (with parental permission) on the frequency of their masturbation over the prior three months, over the past year and over the course of their lifetime. Masturbation with a sexual partner and condom use was also noted. In addition to the general statistics, the more an adolescent engaged in masturbation, the greater the odds were of getting into sexual relations with a partner, compared to those adolescents who did not masturbate. In boys, it pointed to a higher likelihood of engaging in oral sex and normal intercourse, while for girls it was linked to higher odds for all forms of intercourse, along with partnered masturbation.(source)

2. Every year, up to 1000 people die while trying to strangle themselves during masturbation – an act known as Autoerotic Asphyxiation.

When the brain’s supply of oxygen is cut off temporarily (asphyxia), you experience a euphoric high in the seconds before consciousness is lost. Autoerotic asphyxiation chase this high in order to take their sexual experience to the next level of thrill, often strangling themselves with cords, ropes, scarves, and ties. Sometimes, they may even resort to sealing their heads in plastic bags. Due to the taboo nature of this sexual variance, medical professionals, and psychologists refrain from addressing the issue to avoid giving young and potentially clueless people dangerous ideas. Sexual asphyxiation comes with many dangers like cardiac arrest and coma, and doctors opine that as such, it should only be left to fantasy play.(source)

3. Some countries, like the U.K., encourage their teenage population to masturbate.

In 2009, along with other European nations, the United Kingdom made a pro-masturbation move to detract teenagers from engaging in risky sexual behaviour that could end in STDs or unwanted pregnancies. Pamphlets containing pertinent information about masturbation were distributed to parents, teenagers and youth workers.(source)

4. Animals like deer, monkeys, walruses and squirrels have been documented masturbating. Scientists have also observed that female apes used sticks for added pleasure.

The evolutionary benefits of masturbation in animals have been long debated by scientists over the decades. Studies show that many animals engage in masturbatory activities like rubbing their genitals against objects or performing self-fellatio. Studies show that porcupines prefer sex toys, and moose get off by rubbing their antlers on trees. A 2010 paper published in the journal PLoS ONE, Jane M. Waterman of the University of Central Florida found that male squirrels masturbated to ejaculation and consumed the ejaculate.(source)

5. If you masturbate too hard, you can fracture your own *ahem* ding-dong.

Yep. Before you tug at it too hard, keep this one in mind. Although there are no bones in there, the cracking sounds, excruciating pain, and swelling/bruising are identical to the fractures that occur in bones. Striking a partner’s pubic bone during sexual intercourse, rolling over at night with an erection and unusual (or extreme) forms of masturbation can lead to fractures. Unless treated immediately, the likelihood of gaining an erection after enduring a fracture is very low.(source)

6. The inventor of cornflakes, Dr. John Kellogg, published books on anti-masturbation, believed that red meat increased sexual desire and advocated the consumption of Kellogg’s cornflakes to prevent masturbation.

What’s worse? This anti-masturbation campaigner prescribed ridiculous and sadistic methods to help keep his patients away from masturbation, namely: 1) By eating Kellogg’s corn flakes. 2) By sewing the foreskins of young boys with silver wire. 3) By proposing to burn women’s clitorises with carbolic acid. Did we mention that he also pumped several of his patients’ anuses with yogurt using his enema machine?(source)

7. Graham Crackers were originally invented to treat and prevent masturbation.

Because good ol’ Kellogg wasn’t batshit enough. Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham invented Graham crackers in 1829, originally conceived as a health food to prevent “self-abuse”, a.k.a. masturbation, as it was called at the time. Graham’s theory was that one could curb unhealthy sexual desires by eating bland foods.(source)

8. In 1994, the Surgeon General of United States Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign after saying that masturbation is natural and should be taught.

During the United Nations conference on AIDS, Elders was questioned about the appropriateness of masturbation awareness among young people to prevent them from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity. She replied,

“I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.”

The remark (among others) was greatly controversial and ultimately contributed to the loss of the White House’s support. Chief of staff Leon Panetta of the White House said,

“There have been too many areas where the President does not agree with her views. This is just one too many.”

She was subsequently fired by President Clinton in December of that year. Elders refused to quit, however, and has appeared on several TV shows and news channels to talk about taboo and controversial topics like child abuse, contraceptives, teenage sex education and drug legalization.(source)

9. If you were in 17th-century Connecticut, you could incur the death penalty for masturbating.

Prior to Swiss physician Samuel-Auguste Tissot’s claims that masturbation caused: “a perceptible reduction of strength, of memory and even of reason; blurred vision, all the nervous disorders, all types of gout and rheumatism, weakening of the organs of generation, blood in the urine, disturbance of the appetite, headaches and a great number of other disorders,” law books in the 17th-century Puritan colony of New Haven, Connecticut made masturbation punishable by death. Also on that list were blasphemers and homosexuals.(source)

10. The Japanese word for male masturbation is “senzuri”, which translates to “a thousand rubs” while the word for female masturbation is “shiko shiko manzuri” which means “ten thousand rubs”.

The Japanese sure know how to be efficient with their language.(source)

11. Doctors during the Victorian era believed that masturbation was a disease. They even went so far as to wearing a Pollutions Ring (a steel clip with serrated teeth) to prevent themselves from engaging in the act.

There are lots of things that are wrong with the 21st century, but at least our doctors don’t wear torture devices on their genitals. The Pollutions Ring, also called a Jugum Penis, was an anti-masturbatory device that could be clipped onto the member to prevent unwanted erections. It was one of the many (sweet mother of god) Victorian era devices that were designed to treat masturbation, or spermatorrhoea as it was called then.(source)

12. In 1879, Mark Twain gave a lecture in Paris on masturbation in which he openly criticized those who shunned masturbation in a comedic way.

Twain was the real MVP. When he was 44 years old, he delivered a lecture titled “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism,” at a men’s club in Paris. Onanism is masturbation, termed after the Bible’s Onan, who spilled his semen on the ground and was killed by God for the sinful act. In true Twain fashion, he doled out these satirical statements in response to the severe anti-masturbation culture that existed at the time.

“Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement it is too fleeting; as an occupation it is too wearing; as a public exhibition there is no money in it. It is unsuited to the drawing room, and in the most cultured society it has long since been banished from the social board…

So, in concluding, I say: If you must gamble away your life sexually, don’t play a Lone Hand too much.

When you feel a revolutionary uprising in your system, get your Vendome Column down some other way— don’t jerk it down.”

(source)

13. More than 7 million units of Fleshlight (male sex toy) have been sold worldwide.

Meaning 1 in every 1000 people have one. Founded in 1995 by Steve Shubin, the brand has gained a penchant for being adventurous with its products. For example, they have a whole range of Fleshlights molded from the vajayjays of popular adult movie stars. There’s something for everybody; the Freaks collection consists of Alien, Cyborg, Blade and Frankenstein-themed Fleshlights.(source)

14. Statistics reveal that 53% of American women use toys while masturbating.

Funded by Church and Dwight Co. Inc. (makers of Trojan) the studies surveyed more than 2,000 women and 1,000 men (ages 18 to 60) on the use of vibrators. The results were published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2009, and conclude that more than 50% of women and 45% of men used vibrators during masturbation and sexual intercourse.(source)

15. 70% of married people admit to masturbating, and only 46% of women report having an orgasm within three minutes of masturbation.

Contrary to popular stereotypes, however, masturbation does not always happen because of the failure to obtain a sexual partner. According to Dennis Coon and John O. Mitterer Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior, masturbation has no effect on a marriage or reflect in any way on the nature of the marriage. In fact, mutual masturbation with a married partner benefits the couple psychologically in many ways.(source)

16. Masturbation prevents cervical infections in women, reduces depressions and can even strengthen your immune system.

University of Sydney’s Anthony Santella and Spring Chenoa Cooper explain that masturbation can keep several illnesses from cystitis, diabetes to prostate cancer at bay. In an article for The Conversation, they write:

“For women, masturbation can help prevent cervical infections and urinary tract infections through the process of “tenting,” or the opening of the cervix that occurs as part of the arousal process.

Tenting stretches the cervix, and thus the cervical mucous. This enables fluid circulation, allowing cervical fluids full of bacteria to be flushed out.”

The Australian scientists also claim that it can help prevent depression, due to the production of ‘happy’ endorphins and the hormone cortisol, which may give the immune system a healthy boost.(source)

17. Masturbation is a natural way to ease menstrual cramps and lowers the risk of type-2 diabetes.

Due to the release of natural chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin into the bloodstream during the orgasm, masturbation can induce pleasure-enhancing and pain-relieving sensations. Among the list of things it can cure, hiccups, headaches and pre-menstrual cramps in women. Engaging in self-pleasure can even reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes (apart from maintaining overall good health), according to a study conducted by the University of Sydney.(1,2)

18. Masturbating more than 21 times a month can actually decrease your chance for prostate cancer. This was discovered after testing to see if increased masturbation was linked to an increase in prostate cancer.

The average number of ejaculations (included sexual intercourse, nocturnal emissions, and masturbation) per month of 29,342 men between the ages of 46 and 81 in young adulthood (ages 20–29), in mid-life (ages 40–49), and in the most recent year were recorded in this study. From 1992-2000, the subjects also provided an encompassing health and lifestyle data report to the researchers. The scientists found that men who ejaculated more than 21 times a month had a 33% lower risk of prostate cancer when compared to men who only had 4 to 5 per month. According to the researchers, there is no scientific evidence showing that masturbation has dangerous side effects, in both men and women.(source)

So now you know what to do (*wink*), but before you get busy, don’t forget to share these facts!

23 Facts I bet you didn't know about GOOGLE!!

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, and was formally incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. You know there's more to something than meets the eye when such a massively successful company has such a simple layout though, and I mean that in the best way possible. Google has always done things a little bit differently, and that works to keep things fresh, immersive and consistently progressive.

Here are some Google facts you may not know!

1. Every day, 16% of the searches that occur are ones that google has never seen before.

2. Google was originally called "Backrub".

3. In 1999, the founders of Google actually tried to sell it to Excite for just US$1 million Excite turned them down.

4. The first Google Doodle was dedicated to the Burning Man festival attended by Google founders in 1998.

5. Google intends to scan all known existing 129 million unique books before 2020.

6. Google hired a camel to create the Street View of a desert.

7. Microsoft pays you to use Bing instead of Google.

8. Google earns US$20 billion a year from advertising, more than the primetime revenues of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX combined.

9. Every minute, 2 million searches are performed on Google.

10. Google's first tweet ever was "I'm feeling lucky" written in binary code.

11. Google is developing a computer so smart it can program itself.

12. Google got its name by accident. The founders misspelled "googol", which refers to the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes.

13. On August 16, 2013, Google went down for 5 minutes and in that time, the global Internet traffic dropped by 40%.

14. The domain Googlesucks.com is owned by Google.

15. Google Maps calculates traffic by tracking how fast Android devices are moving on the road.

16. https://www.google.com/mars/ offers visible imagery view, infrared and elevation views of the planet Mars.

17. The total size of Google Earth's database is over 20 Petabytes.

18. When Gmail was introduced by Google with an unbelievable 1GB free storage in 2004, Hotmail only offered 2MB.

19. Google takes over 200 factors into account to deliver the best results for any query in a fraction of a second.

20. Facebook's first annual Hacker Cup Coding challenge was won by a programmer at Google.

21. Google owns many domains to cover mistypes
such as: Gooogle, Gogle, Googel etc.

22. Google offers employees free condoms that come in blue, red, green, and yellow and have the phrase "I'm Feeling Lucky!" printed on them. 

23. In 2015, Google dropped their old motto "Don't Be Evil."

Google has turned into so much more than just a search engine, bringing out innovative ideas and trying out new things on almost a daily basis. It's hard to imagine where they'll venture next, though I'm more curious to know what the next Google Doodle is going to be!

4 inspiring short stories of starting up world famous companies. Hats off to them!!

What does it take to start up? A brilliant idea? A great team? Money? Yes. All of those things. But more than anything what it takes, is belief. A belief that there is significance to the problem being addressed, and that the solution is something which the consumer wants. It is really amazing how most large companies have such humble stories of starting up. All of them started with nothing but just plain conviction.

 Here we have compiled for you four short stories of starting up of (now) famous companies:

1. Fred Smith | Federal Express

Fred Smith was an undergraduate at Yale University in 1965. As part of the coursework, he wrote an economics paper exploring the process of transportation of goods in the United States. He found that the shippers relied on transporting large packages across the United States by means of truck or passenger airplanes. Smith thought of a more efficient transportation idea. He wrote a last minute paper on how a company carrying small, essential items by plane could be a much better business. He, however, did not go into details about how to actually run such a company. His paper was graded "C". But Smith did not give up on the idea and launched the company in 1971.

But within three years of the founding of the company, Federal Express was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was losing over $1 million a month, due to the rising fuel costs. At its zenith, the company had just $5000 to its name. Smith made a final pitch to General Dynamics for more funding. The request was turned down.

Most ordinary people would have quit at this point and shut down the company. Not Fred Smith. What he did next is easily the boldest move by the founder of a company. Smith flew to Las Vegas and played Black Jack that weekend with the remaining company funds. Yes, all of the $5000. On Monday, the management of the company had a pleasant surprise lined up. FedEx had $32,000 in its bank account, which was just enough to cover the fuel for their planes and to continue operating a few days more.

Soon after, the company was able to raise significant amounts in funding. Today FedEx is a global giant with operations in more than 220 countries and territories and an annual revenue of US $45 billion.

2. Ferruccio Lamborghini | Lamborghini

Ferruccio was originally a farmer who made tractors. His business was very successful and he was among the most wealthy in Italy. He owned Ferrari among other super cars. The Ferrari used to give him constant trouble. Being a mechanic, he tried to fix the problem and found out that his Ferrari had the same clutch as used in one of his tractors.

"All my Ferraris had clutch problems. When you drove normally, everything was fine. But when you were going hard, the clutch would slip under acceleration; it just wasn't up to the job."

Ferruccio went to the service guys regularly to have a clutch rebuilt or renewed, and every time, the car was taken away for several hours and he was not allowed to watch it being repaired. The problem with the clutch was never cured, so Ferruccio decided to talk to Enzo Ferrari. He had to wait for him a very long time.

'Ferrari, your cars are rubbish!' Ferruccio complained. Il Commendatore was furious. "Lamborghini, you may be able to drive a tractor but you will never be able to handle a Ferrari Properly.'  This was the point when he finally decided to make a perfect car. Yes, Lamborghini.

3. Colonel Sanders | Kentucky Fried Chicken

At 65 years of age, Colonel Sanders received his first social security cheque of $99. He was broke, owned a small house and a beat up car.He made a decision that things had to change. His friends used to like his chicken recipe very much. The fact that this was the only novel idea he had, he decided to act upon it.

He left Kentucky and started his travels to different US states to sell his idea. He would tell restaurant owners that he had a chicken recipe which people liked and he was ready to give it to them for free, in return for a small percentage on the items sold. He got rejections after rejections, but did not give up. In fact, he got over 1000 rejections.

He got 1009 NO’s before he got his first Yes. With that one success Colonel Harland Sanders changed the eating habits of the whole world with Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC.

4. Soichiro Honda | Honda Motor Co.

Soichiro Honda was a mechanic at a garage. His job was to tune cars to prepare them for races. Honda founded Tōkai Seiki, a piston rings manufacturing company in 1937.

This company won a contract to supply piston rings to an established automobile company - Toyota. But soon after, he lost the contract due to the poor quality of the products. He took time out to better understand Toyota's quality control processes, and by 1941, Honda was able to mass produce piston rings acceptable to Toyota.

Toyota took a 40% stake in his company, but Honda was demoted from president to senior managing director. Tōkai Seiki's manufacturing plants were destroyed in US bomb attacks in 1944. Honda sold the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute in October 1946.

He worked with a staff of 12 men in a 172-square-foot shack. They built and sold improvised motorized bicycles by building their own copy of Tohatsu engines, and supplying these to customers to attach to their bicycles. Honda Motor Company grew in a short time to become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964.

Honda thereafter entered into mini pick-up trucks & finally into the car segment and today is a serious competitor to Toyota.

Further reading: #8 Successful People Who Did Not Let Failure Define Them.

It’s easy to look at these companies and think, “I could never do something like this.” Of course, all of these companies took decades to get where they are today. But they had an idea and they believed in it and most importantly, they started.

5 Killer Tactics to Increase Your Blog Traffic

We’ve all been there. We’ve hit publish on our latest blog post and expected the comments and shares to start rolling in. But instead we get… nothing. It seems that no one has even seen our beautiful article, let alone read it. A piece of tumbleweed seems to blow across the screen and it feels so lonely out there on the World Wide Web…

I see this phenomenon happening all the time with company blogs, and it’s not hard to see why. In most niches you’ll be competing with hundreds of other blogs for the attention of the same few readers, and to stand out you’ll often need to produce something truly exceptional. Making great content can require serious time and money, but as Rand Fishkin shows in  this Whiteboard Friday there are many tactics out there that anyone can use to improve their blog readership.

Today I want to follow on from that post by sharing five more of the smartest tactics I’ve read recently around the web. None are hard to implement and all could have a significant effect on your traffic, links and shares. So let’s get started!

1. Share More Than Once

This first tip comes from Garrett Moon, who suggests in a post on KISSmetrics that companies aren’t sharing their blog content nearly as much as they ought to. Many of us have the mentality of “share once and forget”. We publish something on our blog and distribute it across all our social media channels once. But what about all those people who missed that initial communication?

A much better solution is to share each blog post multiple times, depending on the platform, in a timely fashion. For example, you might tweet, Facebook share and Google+ you article as soon as you hit publish. Then a day later you might want to tweet it again. Perhaps the following week it’s time for another Google+ share, and so on.

In his post Garrett shows how you can easily double your traffic from social media in this way. Check out the handy visual they put together:

Some marketers would call this spamming your audience, but I would say it’s more like giving them the value you’ve promised them. Even Rand in his Whiteboard Friday mentions how he will tweet a post he wrote months if not years ago, just to remind people that “this still matters”. No one notices every little thing you do online, and by sharing more than once you’re just making sure no one misses anything.

However, you should definitely make sure not to publish the same message on social media more than once, as this does comes across as spammy. Instead, deploy a range of different tactics to catch your reader’s attention. 

2. Get Influencers to Write for You

This is an excellent tactic from Matthew Barby. If you really want to grow your audience, the key is to get influencers to write for you. This means reaching out to the bloggers in your niche with the largest social followings and the ability to write consistently excellent stuff, asking them to become contributors.

By getting these guys and girls involved, you’ll not only be getting exceptional content for your blog (content that will hopefully earn you links and shares); you’ll also be getting access to a powerful distribution channel in the form of the influencer’s social network.

Of course, unless your blog is super prestigious you will probably need to pay these bloggers to write for you, and you should definitely specify as part of the arrangement that they share the posts on social media. That being said, I think this option makes so much more sense than hiring a “general purpose” content creator.

As well as payment, you could also offer bloggers the following perks:

• Offer to share content on their own site (but only if you have a large social following)
• A link back to their website from every post they write for you
• Give them free use of your products or services

Working with influencers is a fantastic way to improve blog readership. A nice bonus is that often these guys write for other big media sites as well, so they may be able to link to something they have written for your blog from a third party site in the future.

3. Feed the Hummingbird

Out to Razvan Gavrilas of cognitiveSEO for this one. In the Hummingbird era, there are opportunities to optimise your content for synonyms that many bloggers are missing. For years now Google has been ranking synonyms in its search results. So, for example, if I search for “SEO agency” I will also see results for “SEO company” and “SEO services” highlighted in bold:

What is interesting is that since the Hummingbird update, a page optimised for “SEO company” can rank for “SEO agency” even if the keyword “SEO agency” doesn’t appear anywhere on that page (i.e. in the source code) or off the page (i.e. in anchor text, co-citation or co-occurrence). 

However, the page optimised for “SEO company” would rank a whole lot better for “SEO agency” if it also actually contained the keyword “SEO agency” somewhere. What this means for marketers is that we can get some quick and dirty wins by making sure our content is optimised for important synonyms as well as for the main keyword.

For example, if I were to write about “New York coffee shops”, I might also make sure to include the synonym “NYC cafes” in the text. I’m sure I would rank for “NYC cafes” anyway thanks to Hummingbird, but by explicitly including this keyword I could give myself a cheeky ranking boost.

It’s about helping people find our content who are searching using similar but not quite exactly the same keywords.

4. Get Your Tweet Text Right

Hat tip to Ross Hudgens for this one. It’s really important to make sure you have your default tweet text optimised to encourage users to click on the link and follow you on Twitter. A survey by Siege Media found that a massive 73% of company blogs weren’t taking advantage of this technique.

So what does optimised tweet text look like? A simple best practice solution would be to include the post title, URL and your Twitter handle like this:

Using a generic message like “Currently reading on the @engineeringkarle blog”, which doesn’t give the reader any information as to what the post is about and doesn’t encourage them to click:

So optimise your default tweet text so it includes the post title, URL and your Twitter handle, and watch your Twitter referrals roll in!

5. Repurpose Your Content

In the Hummingbird era, I’m a firm believer in writing fewer longer posts rather than frequent shorter ones. I definitely think this is a better use of one’s time (in terms of getting links, traffic and shares) than blogging daily and simply regurgitating in 600 words what’s already out there. 

In the SEO industry, for example, stand out content tends to involve case studies, new experiments, research and opinion pieces (take a look at what I’ve been linking to in this article). But how do you generate traffic while you’re researching your next big piece?  

The answer is to repurpose your existing content by transforming blog posts into other content formats. Each of these new pieces could then be uploaded to its own separate channel, where it would be seen by a new audience and help to generate more traffic. For example, you could turn a blog post into:

• a podcast: record yourself reading your post aloud and upload to iTunes 
• a screencast: record yourself doing something on-screen, add a voiceover and upload to YouTube
• a slide presentation: create a slide show out of your post and upload to SlideShare
• a ebook: turn a series of posts into an ebook, which is available to download as a PDF for a tweet
  

This is just scratching the surface. There are many other ways to re-skin your content and you will also find a host of niche-specific content formats.

It makes perfect sense to want to repurpose your content after all the effort you’ve put into creating it in the first place. Just remember to always add value by making each piece more digestible and easier to understand than its predecessor.

Further reading: How to get 150,000 people to read your blog

Summary

Obviously there’s no substitute for producing great content (yawn) but I hope this post has shown that there are many other ways to increase blog traffic independent of the content itself.

Most of these tactics are simply about squeezing the most out of what you have already. So in terms of sharing, you can make sure you post more than once and optimise your tweet text. In terms of SEO, you can ensure that you’re Hummingbird-friendly (in a natural and non-spammy way, of course). And in terms of strategy you can make sure that influencers write for you and that you come up with smart ways to repurpose this material.

I hope you never have to see the tumbleweed or feel that lonely again.