Decoupling the acne-sex links

A patient of mine made the following comments, “Recently, I woke up to find my
face covered with acne. I’m 18 years old and I get a zit now and then, but I can’t
ever remember having a breakout this bad (at least 20 pimples) appearing overnight!
I tried to recall anything that might have caused this, and my only guess is that I
also have been having sex lately. Is there some weird kind of hormone thing that’s
doing this to me? I thought sex was supposed to cure your pimples!”
This gentleman was misguided on a number of accounts. Not so long ago, it was
believed that the absence of sexual activity caused acne. Having “normal” sexual
relations during marriage was held to be a “natural treatment” for acne. Though
this form of therapy may sound appealing, there is no evidence that it works. This
idea probably stems from the fact people traditionally got married in their early 20s,
about the same time that acne usually burns itself out.
And although the androgenic “sex” hormones are a primary cause of acne, you
don’t necessarily develop acne because you have too much of this hormone or from
sex. Likewise, some folks still think that masturbation causes acne. This idea, orig-
inating as early as the 17th century to dissuade young people from having premar-
ital sex, is just plain silly. The only connection between masturbation and acne is
that both are associated with adolescence. Moralists blamed many diseases,
including blindness, deafness, and terrible skin eruptions, on such “wicked” prac-
tices. Don’t believe it! The guilt that surrounds masturbation in the minds of many
teenagers is probably responsible for this timeworn myth.