Sexual Energy and Semen Retention

In my book on sexual energy, I’ve written extensively on the topic of how ejaculation affects your sexual energy (for men, naturally). Because this tends to be a common question, I’m now sharing the chapter that answers that question. Here it is:

For men, the avoidance of ejaculation is a hot topic now, with many public discussions about its virtues and benefits. Yet, is this as important as those discussions make it seem?

What you need to understand is that there is an energy drop with all ejaculation in men. That’s a fact, and that’s the reason why both Taoism and Tantra recommend non-ejaculatory orgasms to keep your vitality.

But do you remember our discussion in Chapter 2 about the goals of these traditions? Their development of sexual energy is for high-level spiritual pursuits. And for that purpose, ejaculation may be hindering your progress since it requires every drop of energy you can gather.

However, there are four important factors at play here:

First, none of the naturally sexually magnetic men practice any kind of celibacy or non-ejaculatory orgasms, and they still possess rock-solid sexual magnetism. Those who practice these types of techniques are a minority in the sexually magnetic male population. You just need to think about your friends that are (and always been) sexually magnetic and ask them whether they give any importance to the frequency of ejaculation.

For our goal of sexual magnetism and improving attractiveness, the energetic effects of ejaculation are not significant. There are other bigger drains of energy in most men’s minds than ejaculation.

Let’s say that you have your “sexual energy tank” filled up at 100% capacity. Each ejaculation will remove 10% of it. For the purposes of sexual magnetism, having the tank filled to the brim or having it at 90% (or 80%) is not a big difference. While for spiritual purposes, those 10% can have a large impact.

This rationale considers you use your common sense in ejaculation frequency. As you might expect, if you’re ejaculating several times per day every day, then yes, you may have a magnetic impact when you move to a non-ejaculatory way of life or when you reduce the frequency. With this type of intense ejaculation, you are keeping your sexual energy tank at a constant low level, which can have an impact on your sexual magnetism.

The exception is during the actual sexual energy training. You want to avoid masturbation and limit your ejaculation so that you can easily feel sexual energy. It’s mostly a question of your own awareness rather than the energy effects. After the training, you can go back to the usual lifestyle, if you prefer.

You also need to reflect on your age. It’s perfectly normal for a 60-year-old man to have a larger energetic drain from ejaculation than an 18-year-old teenager. Overall, the 60-year-old has less energy and takes longer to energetically recuperate. That’s why the awareness of your own sexual energy is an important factor to consider. It will allow you to know with precision what is happening inside your body.

The second factor to consider is if this ejaculation is done through masturbation or through sexual activity with a partner. The same number of ejaculations generates a completely different magnetism and affects your sexual energy, depending on how it’s done.

This may be an obvious factor for all those who have ever had an enjoyable sexual encounter. You just feel great. Sexual energy flows smoothly in you. The feelings of pleasantness, abundance, expansiveness, warmth, and watery are naturally running in you. Even though you may have ejaculated more than once, your sexual energy didn’t drop. It helped the energy to flow smoother than before.

What kind of magic is this? If the physiological reaction is the same – ejaculation – why do you feel different? Why are the resulting energy and magnetism different?

The magic is not in the physical presence of another person. The magic is in your interaction with your partner. If your sexual activity is nothing more than a quick ejaculation with no energetic connection with your partner, then its effects will feel quite like masturbation (the same drop in energy). But when there’s an energetic connection, the effects on your sexual energy are profound.

The reason is the free-flowing exchange of energies in this connection. You are giving your energy, but you’re also receiving powerful energy in return, leaving both of you feeling better than before.

Keep in mind that an energetic connection may be different from an emotional connection. You may have a profound energetic connection without any emotional connection. It can happen with any random person you meet at a bar. Although, for most people, it’s easier to achieve with a pre-existing emotional connection.

The third factor to consider is that ejaculation is one of the main energy transformations men use to keep their sexual energy “tank” at a comfortable baseline level (which might be too little for sexual magnetism).
When you stop ejaculation without any awareness of what you are doing energetically, you force your body and energy system to find a different energy transformation to handle that extra influx of sexual energy. You are not expanding your comfort with sexual energy to increase your baseline level, you are merely forcing it to find a different energy transformation.

Hence, if you don’t increase your baseline level, direct it or consciously transform the energy into what you want, then it will again, unconsciously, simply learn a different energy transformation. Whether it will be beneficial for you or not is a blind luck game. You can very easily start repressing it, making it an even worse outcome than ejaculation. An important skill to develop is to increase your tolerance and baseline level of comfort with sexual energy. In other words, you want to be comfortable with its presence without having to release it or repress it in some way, just a free flow of sexual energy in the body. The so-called “sexually desperate man” arises precisely when you don’t allow the energy to flow. If you observe your own body and energy when you feel desperation, you can notice an energetic block on the pelvic area and/or somewhere in the body. If you accept it, allow it to flow, and become comfortable with this energy in your body, there’s an immediate transformation of your mental and energetic state. If, to this comfort, we add some easy techniques to transform the sexual energy, then “sexual despair” can very easily be turned into sexual magnetism. You’ll just need to increase your baseline level of comfort with sexual energy and allow it to flow freely in your body instead of blocking it.

The final factor to consider is the guilt associated with it, particularly with ejaculation from masturbation. I’ve seen with many students that ejaculation is associated with an enormous amount of guilt. It’s like just because you ejaculated, you are committing a mortal sin that will send you to hell for all eternity. But now, for most modern men, it’s not about going to hell, instead, it’s about screwing up their dopamine receptors or lessening their cognitive power. It even seems we are returning to the associated guilt with masturbation that was popular in the middle ages, but instead of having religion as the scarecrow, we have science. Either way, the negativity of guilt is present.
This guilt you feel is worse than all the natural energetic effects combined. Instead of your energy having a small drop which is barely noticeable in a normal individual, the associated guilt makes it drop considerably more and has a significant negative body, mental and energetic effects. This type of situation needs psychological work to remove the guilt associated with sex, masturbation, and ejaculation.

Overall, ejaculation is not the root of all evil as many individuals make it out to be. Restriction of the frequency of ejaculation might be beneficial for you, depending on your current baseline and how you do it (what energy transformation are you doing with the extra sexual energy? Are you increasing your baseline comfort level?).
Your best alternative is to experientially understand its effects and learn to control your own sexual energy, then you can be comfortable and manage your ejaculation the best way possible for your situation.”

To develop and become aware of your sexual energy you can start with the course Sexual Energy Mastery.