Age isn’t anything but a number when it comes to pleasuring yourself. While you might remember your early teen years as some of the more, um, frantic in terms of masturbation, the real action generally comes slightly later. The frequency of the time-honored hobby declines from age 30 onward, but why does this slow-down happen? Does our testosterone gradually deplete as we age, slowing our sex drive? Or is it that, as 30-somethings with jobs, children, and responsibilities, we simply don’t have the time and freedom to crank one out every time we have a spare five minutes?
According to experts in the fields of human sexuality, it’s not the years that slow you down it’s the mileage. Two main factors drive men’s need to masturbate. Those factors, physiology, or the rise and fall of testosterone and hormones in your body; and psychology, or how your brain uses fantasies and stress relief to influence how often you masturbate.
It all starts, of course, during puberty. That’s when the hormones really kick in this is the first factor in causing men to masturbate when they’re young, turning thoughts into fantasies. Suddenly, things feel good that didn’t before. Once you couple raging hormones with other typical teen behaviors, you’ve got a recipe for masturbatory frenzy.
However, hormones begin to decrease in your 20s, then more in your 30s, and more significantly in your 40s and 50s and onward. Hormone levels and how they change and decline are highly influenced by both genetics and health. It’s a common misconception that age alone causes men to feel fewer regular urges: The truth is that it’s far more tied to physical well-being. So if Gramps is still looking sprightly, chances are he’s still feeling frisky, too.