Does masturbation reduce sperm count or make you infertile?

Last updated on August 13, 2020

Question:

Does male masturbation reduce sperm count, and does it affect whether someone would be not able to make a woman pregnant? In other words, does male masturbation cause infertility in males? If not what does? And what causes a varicocele?

Answer:

Masturbation does not affect a man’s sperm count, nor does it cause him to be infertile. All masturbation does is physically reduce the amount of semen stored in the seminal vesicles. It would be similar to saying that urinating caused kidney infections. It doesn’t and neither does masturbating cause damage to the ability to produce sperm.

Once a man ejaculates he cannot ejaculate again immediately. His body has to go through a recovery period. For young men, the recovery period is short and can happen within a few hours. As you get older, the recovery period needed gets longer. Thus a man who masturbates isn’t able to get a woman pregnant immediately thereafter; but then, he isn’t able to have an erection or sexual intercourse either.

Infertility is caused by damage to the testicles. This can happen by

  • a physical blow
  • a testicle twisting on its chord, cutting off its blood supply for too long
  • a disease

Infertility can also happen temporarily if the scrotum gets too warm. Sperm is produced with the scrotum is at about one to four degrees less than your body temperature. Men who work in hot environments become temporarily infertile because the heat causes the testicles to stop producing viable sperm.

Varicocele is when the veins in the scrotum enlarge. It is equivalent to the varicose veins old people get in their legs, but in the case of varicoceles, it can happen to young men.

Your veins have small valves to make sure the blood flows in one direction, regardless of the position your body is in at the moment. Varicocele means the valves in the veins in the scrotum have failed, allowing blood to pool in the veins, and stretching them. It can also be caused by the vein being pinched in a nearby region, which again causes the blood to back up.

Untreated, varicocele will cause damage to the testicle because the testicle isn’t getting a proper amount of blood to survive.