Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 Has anyone ever seen yang xu spermatorrhea, where semen leaks out without sexual stimulation or thoughts? Kapchuk says this is a euphemism for masturbation, not a real medical condition. We may have talked about this before, but the issue remains unsettled in my mind. I did a web search and all references to spermatorrhea (except from TCM pages) mention masturbation as the cause. Tabor's defines it as frequent loss of semen without orgasm. Merck does not list it at all. Is it possible that it is really some type of prostatic or other GU discharge that has nothing to do with semen? Chinese Herbs voice: fax: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 I've asked my Chinese mentors about this, and they all agree that spermatorrhea is not a euphemism for masturbation. I had a patient who was being stalked. At one point, this female stalker broke through a window and threatened him with a butcher knife. He was able to call the police and they took her away. He went to sleep that night still upset over the whole thing and reported to me that whenever he heard a noise outside his window he'd jump up, thinking it was her. That night, he had a nocturnal emission without a dream. He just woke up with a little mess. In my mind, this is spermatorrhea, induced no doubt by the intense fear he'd known earlier that evening. Fear descends the Qi, the Kidneys weren't strong enough to secure the lower gates and so he has to change his underwear in the middle of the night. Nocturnal emission with dream = heart fire (with or without other organ complications) Nocturnal emission without dream = Kidney deficiency/Spermatorrhea wrote: > > Has anyone ever seen yang xu spermatorrhea, where semen leaks out without sexual stimulation or thoughts? Kapchuk says this is a euphemism for masturbation, not a real medical condition. We may have talked about this before, but the issue remains unsettled in my mind. I did a web search and all references to spermatorrhea (except from TCM pages) mention masturbation as the cause. Tabor's defines it as frequent loss of semen without orgasm. Merck does not list it at all. Is it possible that it is really some type of prostatic or other GU discharge that has nothing to do with semen? -- Al Stone L.Ac. <AlStone http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 , Al Stone <alstone@b...> wrote: > I've asked my Chinese mentors about this, and they all agree that > spermatorrhea is not a euphemism for masturbation. mine said this, too. however, they may be blind to their own euphemisms. sometimes it takes an outside researcher to identify these things. I wonder what chinese sociologists have to say about this, as opposed to TCM docs. > > That night, he had a nocturnal emission without a dream. He just woke > up with a little mess. > > In my mind, this is spermatorrhea, induced no doubt by the intense fear > he'd known earlier that evening. good story. first case I have heard. is it possible he just did not remember his dream? did it ever happen again? Perhaps the english word has connotations of masturbation that are not contained in the chinese expression himself. Perhaps Kapchuk erred inmaking this association. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 1 wrote: > good story. first case I have heard. is it possible he just did not > remember his dream? did it ever happen again? Never happened again, to my knowledge. Kind of doubt that it was a non remembered dream. -- Al Stone L.Ac. <AlStone http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 1 wrote: > Perhaps the english word has connotations of masturbation that > are not contained in the chinese expression himself. Perhaps > Kapchuk erred inmaking this association. You know, years ago we asked Jianfu Jiang this question and, in her words " spermatorrhea " was, and I quote: " man goes drip, drip, drip at the sight of a woman " . We all had a good nervous laugh, but it brings up a different way of looking at this. Given adequate stimulation, a little fluid is going to seep out of the urethra in anticipation of intercourse. This cleans out the urethra and provides some lubrication. Perhaps an excessive amount of this fluid escaping is an expression of pathological spermatorrhea. -- Al Stone L.Ac. <AlStone http://www.BeyondWellBeing.com Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 > Has anyone ever seen yang xu spermatorrhea, where semen leaks out > without sexual stimulation or thoughts? I remember a case from 1995 or 96 at the hospital at CDUTCM. The patient was a 26 year old male who had come from a poor rural community to the city when he was about 12. He described himself as having been working round the clock ever since. His labor had evidently yielded some results, as he was already a wealthy man and at the time he came to the clinic he described a " jet-set " lifestyle that involved flying around the country and making deals of various kinds. He very much enjoyed the perogatives of money including the traditional custom of maintaining concubines. His trouble began with his inability to perform sexually with any of these women and what had prompted him to seek the help of Dr. Wang was the fact that he was now leaking. It wasn't just semen. It was urine, and no doubt other substances that were being manufactured inside his body as it attempted to cope with the abuse he'd been giving it. Kapchuk says this is a > euphemism for masturbation, not a real medical condition. Perhaps it can be both. You mention a couple of negative qualifications above, i.e. the absence of stimulation or thoughts. Whereas it would be relatively easy to determine the former, I'm not sure what the latter actually means. In the case I mention above, the patient had sexual thoughts, mainly frustration and confusion. He was distraught over his condition and expressed the ironic self awareness that he may well have wasted the most precious thing he had while working so hard to accumulate stuff that was far less valuable to him as a result of that loss. It was actually this case that prompted my interest in gathering up the materials on sexual cultivation and sexual health that form the matrix of our third book. I have no doubt that the depletion of sexual essence and the reproductive capacity both of the body and the spirit is a valid pathomechanism in traditional Chinese medicine. The textbook descriptions may be skewed by a number of factors including political, ideological, and others. They probably don't generally stand up to much in the way of rigorous comparison with clinical actualities, as cases seldom match the books, in any category. We may have > talked about this before, but the issue remains unsettled in my mind. I > did a web search and all references to spermatorrhea (except from TCM > pages) mention masturbation as the cause. Tabor's defines it as > frequent loss of semen without orgasm. Merck does not list it at all. > Is it possible that it is really some type of prostatic or other GU > discharge that has nothing to do with semen? > Certainly the emission of fluid from the penis at unexpected times and for unknown reasons is generally experienced as a problem by men. Those who seek medical help no doubt turn out to suffer from a variety of ailments. So I don't see it as a yes or no kind of situation. I've never doubted the validity of the theoretical suppositions that underlie the description of spermatorrhea as an actual ailment and link it with kidney-related issues. In fact, I see the underlying pattern, in varying degrees of severity as a fairly widespread affliction. As one would expect from theory, the concentration of cases observed tends to be among older patients. But, as in the case of the unfortunate young man in Chengdu, younger people are not immune and can fall into such a pattern through decisions and actions taken. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 , " dragon90405 " <yulong@m...> wrote: > > Perhaps it can be both. You mention a > couple of negative qualifications > above, i.e. the absence of stimulation > or thoughts. Whereas it would be > relatively easy to determine the former, > I'm not sure what the latter actually > means. my understanding is that it involves fantasies or dreams of sex > I have no doubt that the depletion of > sexual essence and the reproductive > capacity both of the body and the spirit > is a valid pathomechanism in traditional > Chinese medicine. absolutely. no argument here. but what comes first, the yang xu or semen loss? In spermatorrhea, the consensus seems to be that yang xu leads to involuntary semen loss, as opposed semen loss (thru masturbation perhaps) leads to yang xu > > > Certainly the emission of fluid from > the penis at unexpected times and for > unknown reasons is generally experienced > as a problem by men. incontinence, dribbling, infectious discharge, for sure, but just sperm leaking out? I'd really like to know if urologists see this condition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 I, also, have always wondered about this and am very curious to hear the answers. When I checked with my teachers in school they were very vague and only assurred me that it did happen, at least in China. That always makes me wonder about cultural taboos and masturbation. Despite a practice filled with wild, wooly and off the wall complaints I have never heard any mention of this one. Mark - cha Wednesday, April 10, 2002 11:34 AM spermatorrhea Has anyone ever seen yang xu spermatorrhea, where semen leaks out without sexual stimulation or thoughts? Kapchuk says this is a euphemism for masturbation, not a real medical condition. We may have talked about this before, but the issue remains unsettled in my mind. I did a web search and all references to spermatorrhea (except from TCM pages) mention masturbation as the cause. Tabor's defines it as frequent loss of semen without orgasm. Merck does not list it at all. Is it possible that it is really some type of prostatic or other GU discharge that has nothing to do with semen?Chinese Herbshttp://www..orgvoice: fax: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 incontinence, dribbling, infectious discharge, for sure, but just sperm leaking out? I'd really like to know if urologists see this condition.--Todd I have heard about this from two patients. It was not due to wet dreaming or an infection in either case. One was 30 y.o. and the other 40. The latter was very yang deficient from a long history of drug addiction (cocaine and heroin) and all that goes with that lifestyle. He had little or no interest in sex and experienced leakage almost nightly, except following acupuncture/moxa treatment. The younger male was in a new relationship and may have been depleting himself with frequent (at least once or twice nightly) ejaculatory sex and lack of sleep. However, he said that the semen 'just leaked out in his sleep' It resolved after I gave him the patent, chin so ku ching wan or maybe it would have anyway. I, also, have always wondered about this and am very curious to hear the answers. When I checked with my teachers in school they were very vague and only assurred me that it did happen, at least in China. That always makes me wonder about cultural taboos and masturbation. Despite a practice filled with wild, wooly and off the wall complaints I have never heard any mention of this one. Mark As Ted K. was my herb teacher, I heard about 'spermatorrhea being a euphemism for masturbation.' Probably is some element of cultural taboo. As mentioned above, I have heard about this type of leakage, and I also wonder what a urologist does with this complaint. Frances Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 Todd: In his essay, " The Puzzle of Spermatorrhea " (positions: east asia cultures critique, Volume 6, number 3, 1998), Hugh Shapiro writes: " Yijing [spermatorrhea] occuring in the absence of dreams (yijing wumeng) calls for the fortification (bu) of the depleted renal system. Yijing occurring with dreams (yijing youmeng), on the other hand, requires the dispersal of this fire (qinghuo), which is first stirred up by a disturbed soul. " Earlier in the essay, he mentions that Hua Tuo had associated a number of weakening experiences to spermatorhea; they include anxiety, rushing about, confusion, drunkenly exhausting oneself in sexual abandon, and irregular diet. Shapiro comments: " What these activities share in common is this: they provoke a loss of self- possession. And among the most harmful sources of this lapse is si, longing. It is to si that the origin of yijing can be traced. " Jim Ramholz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 Frances: Since there are many causes for spermatorrhea [see my previous posting] and masturbation is only one among them, perhaps it is a colloquial or slang usage. Jim Ramholz , Frances Gander <fgander@c...> wrote: > As Ted K. was my herb teacher, I heard about 'spermatorrhea being a > euphemism for masturbation.' Probably is some element of cultural > taboo. As mentioned above, I have heard about this type of leakage, and I also wonder what a urologist does with this complaint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 Jim, > > Earlier in the essay, he mentions that Hua Tuo had associated a > number of weakening experiences to spermatorhea; ... Is there a citation given for the Hua Tuo attribution? If Hugh says that Hua Tuo made some sort of associations, this must come from some written source, as Hua Tuo lived some 2,000 years ago. Yet as far as I know, Hua Tuo's book was lost 2,000 years ago. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 10, 2002 Report Share Posted April 10, 2002 Hey all, I have wondered about spermatorrhea whenever, I've seen it listed in the Cam book. I've asked my professors about it and they gave me vague definitions of this conditions as well. When I asked them to clarify or tried to describe what I thought it was to them, I felt like there was more than just a language barrier prohibiting an open discussion of the topic. To my understanding, and please help me out if I'm incorrect in my thinking, spermatorrhea is the pre-ejaculatory fluid or precum. If that's correct, I suspect that a number of men experience this condition and think it to be normal. Any thoughts? Wade from TCTCM, Austin, TX --- dragon90405 <yulong wrote: > Jim, > > > > > > Earlier in the essay, he mentions that Hua Tuo had associated a > > number of weakening experiences to spermatorhea; ... > > > Is there a citation given for the Hua Tuo > attribution? If Hugh says that Hua Tuo > made some sort of associations, this > must come from some written source, > as Hua Tuo lived some 2,000 years > ago. Yet as far as I know, Hua Tuo's > book was lost 2,000 years ago. > > Ken > > Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes./ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2002 Report Share Posted April 11, 2002 Ken: As with most anything connected to Hua Tuo, it's generally understood to be an attribution to give any concept the aura of unimpeachable authority. For example, I have 3 different editions of the collected herbal formulas of Hua Tuo. They are probably attribtued to him because they are highly efficacious. Jim Ramholz , " dragon90405 " <yulong@m...> wrote: > Jim, > > > > > > Earlier in the essay, he mentions that Hua Tuo had associated a > > number of weakening experiences to spermatorhea; ... > > > Is there a citation given for the Hua Tuo > attribution? If Hugh says that Hua Tuo > made some sort of associations, this > must come from some written source, > as Hua Tuo lived some 2,000 years > ago. Yet as far as I know, Hua Tuo's > book was lost 2,000 years ago. > > Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2002 Report Share Posted April 11, 2002 When James Lake and I were researching our Chinese Medical Psychiatry book, I came across a number of articles on what the authors (cultural anthropologists and psychiatrists) took to be culturally idiosyncratic Chinese sexual neuroses. (I'm using this last word in it colloquial meaning, not as a psychiatric term. Sorry.) If you're interested in doing some reading in this field, you might start with Richard J. Castillo's Culture & Mental Illness. Part II of this book is on Culture & DSM-IV Diagnoses. Chapter seven of that section is on " Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, " Under premature ejaculation, there is this (it is the quickest thing I can put my hands on at the moment): " Premature ejaculation is characterized by persistent ejaculation after minimal sexual stimulation... It is clear that this and all of the other sexual disorders are highly sensitive to cultural factors. In many cases, the previaling set of cultural schemas determines whether a certain sexual disorder will be present or not. " (p. 144-145) Other important sources on culturally oriented psychiatry are Castillo's Meanings of Madness and Kleinman & Good's Culture and Depression. I found these books very eye-opening. They challenged many of my long held assumptions. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2002 Report Share Posted April 11, 2002 > > Perhaps it can be both. You mention a > > couple of negative qualifications > > above, i.e. the absence of stimulation > > or thoughts. Whereas it would be > > relatively easy to determine the former, > > I'm not sure what the latter actually > > means. > > my understanding is that it involves fantasies or dreams of sex I think the factors that make it hard to understand what " without thought " or dreams or mental activity of any kind actually means is that once you include the realm of the psyche and its complex interrelationships with its cultural environment, which as pointed out in other posts on this thread is all the time, it gets a little bit less clear cut as to what actually constitutes fantasies or dreams of sex. In certain periods of Chinese cultural history, for example, a man dreaming of a woman's tiny, tortured foot might bring him to the heights of sexual passion. A man having such a dream in contemporary America might construe it to be a nightmare. If there's a point to be made here it's that clinically, it is probably not all that easy or straightforward to determine what is going on in a patient's thoughts that relate to sexual function and particularly sexual dysfunction. So having thoughts on a diagnostic checklist, although it may appear to cover an important point, is probably moot. I don't mean to suggest that one should not inquire and certainly receive any information a patient offers on this aspect of their condition. I'd just caution against using the presence or absence of thoughts, dreams, etc. as a reliable diagnostic indicator in and of itself. > > > I have no doubt that the depletion of > > sexual essence and the reproductive > > capacity both of the body and the spirit > > is a valid pathomechanism in traditional > > Chinese medicine. > > absolutely. no argument here. but what comes first, the yang xu > or semen loss? In spermatorrhea, the consensus seems to be > that yang xu leads to involuntary semen loss, as opposed > semen loss (thru masturbation perhaps) leads to yang xu I'm not sure I understand the rationale for posing the which comes first question. What we're describing is a pattern, and the various elements that constitute the pattern inter-relate in dynamic ways that can be interpreted as either cause or effect depending on a variety of factors. Isn't this multi-variate and multi-valent understanding of bodily dynamics at the heart of Chinese medical theory? > > Certainly the emission of fluid from > > the penis at unexpected times and for > > unknown reasons is generally experienced > > as a problem by men. > > incontinence, dribbling, infectious discharge, for sure, but just > sperm leaking out? I'd really like to know if urologists see this > condition. Again, I'm not sure I follow your train of thought concerning the importance of isolating sperm. The passageway we're talking about is filled with other things routinely. So it seems highly unlikely that any urologist performing detailed examinations would ever detect a stream of just sperm, since it generally composes a very small percentage of semen ejaculated during orgasm. Since the content of ejaculate is not limited to sperm, I don't see why one would expect to find just sperm leaking out of a patient whose capacity to consolidate fluids in the lower jiao1 had deteriorated to the point where they are leaking out at all. As I recall the point of this thread was to try and figure out if the condition has any actuality or validity or if it's all just some sort of encoding of communist sexual repression or some such thing. You asked originally if anyone had ever seen such a case. And the answer seems to be yes, there are plenty of such cases. If you look at the underlying disease mechanisms you find that the preconditions that can result in abnormal emission of fluids from the penis, which are always going to vary in terms of their constituent ingredients, are relatively widespread. It's one of the reasons why I think it's important that practitioners study the material on sexual culture and Daoist alchemy where the theory and practice of protecting the sexual essence and capacity of reproduction and regeneration was probably most highly developed. Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 11, 2002 Report Share Posted April 11, 2002 --- 1 < wrote: > incontinence, dribbling, infectious discharge, for sure, but just > sperm leaking out? I'd really like to know if urologists see this > condition. Just sperm leaking out????? It is my understanding that it simply seminal fluid(s), perhaps mixed with a few sperm. That is - the sperm are not released until later on during the ejaculatory process? Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes./ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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