Alright guys, you’re headed out to the bars, clubs, animal rescue centers, wherever you prefer to meet women (or other guys).

You’re well dressed, you’ve showered, you have one of those Listerine mouth-spray things to fix the garlic breath from dinner.

But, did you strategically time your ejaculations earlier in the week to optimize your testosterone level for the evening?

I’m going to assume not.

Why Optimize Testosterone for Attraction

Aside from the physical elements you typically think of (height, weight, muscle mass, cleanliness, outfit, etc.) there are a number of subconscious factors at play in how attractive you are as a man, or at least how successful you are in the mating game.

While there isn’t a direct causal link between attractiveness and testosterone levels, there is a link between mating success and testosterone level.

The relationship isn’t necessarily causal: we can’t prove that high testosterone results in higher mating success, but there are a few things that come with that elevated testosterone that suggest it might be affecting your attractiveness.

In other species, testosterone levels positively affect body odor and can directly increase the attractiveness of “musk” smells as testosterone rises. Scent is a major factor in attractiveness (thus the popularity of cologne / perfume), and we can judge someone else’s sexual potential based on the smell they’re giving off.

Higher testosterone -> better “he could make awesome babies” smell.

There are also facial and behavioral cues that project your testosterone level, and women find men more attractive when they give off those signals, with the attractiveness ratings from other cues increasing along with guys’ testosterone levels.

These tend to be secondary things such as standing in more confident poses, smiling more, dominating the social dynamic among other guys, and other “manly” behaviors, but they’re consequences of elevated testosterone nonetheless.

And while you could just do some of these behaviors without the boost, why not strategically spike your testosterone so it happens naturally?

Ejaculation Timing and Testosterone Spiking

There’s a myth that if you masturbate more, you’ll lower your testosterone. It’s not true.

Abstaining from masturbating won’t increase your testosterone and attractiveness, and masturbating regularly won’t make you less attractive or lower your testosterone.

The only case where the decrease is true is when you dampen your interest in sex by over-relying on masturbating. Disinterest in being physical with women gets communicated by your behavior, and a habit of too-frequent masturbation can lead to that.

On the flipside, having sex does increase your testosterone for some time afterwards, and simply anticipating sex can lead to a boost in testosterone (as you’ve probably felt before). So if you’re just trying to increase your testosterone in general, then keep on having sex and keep looking forward to it.

But back to the situation where you’re going out and trying to optimize your attractiveness… there’s a caveat to what I said about “masturbation not affecting testosterone.”

It turns out that ejaculating doesn’t affect your testosterone that much normally, but if you go without ejaculating for a week, then on the 6th and 7th days you’ll see a peak in your testosterone, with it going up by as much as 45%.

If your goal is to increase your testosterone to be more attractive on dates, or at the bars, then holding off on ejaculating from Sunday to Friday and only masturbating if your weekend is unsuccessful is your best bet.

That way your testosterone is peaking right as you hit the weekend, upping your pheromones and providing all of those other benefits making you more attractive.

Productive Abstinence

You’ll also find that during the couple days of peak testosterone, your productive output will shoot through the roof.

It sounds funny, but when your testosterone is that much higher you get into “I’m going to dominate the world” mode, and plow through work (especially creative work) with a new intensity that you’re not used to.

This isn’t a new idea, Napoleon Hill talked about it in Think and Grow Rich before we had the research to back it up:

“The desire for sexual expression is by far the strongest and most impelling of all the human emotions, and for this very reason this desire, when harnessed and transmuted into action, other than that of physical expression, may raise one to the status of a genius.”

So not only can tactical abstinence make you more attractive, it can also help you do some of your best work.

The key, it seems, lies in a balance between indulgence and abstinence. If you want to harness the productivity benefits, but find that after a week or two you’re overly distracted by thoughts of sex, then you can use a “barbell” approach where you have sex marathon weekends until you’re exhausted, followed by a week or two of abstinence to let the energy build up again.

Assuming, of course, that you can find a partner cool with this approach. Otherwise, you’ll need to balance getting off regularly and having non-ejaculatory orgasms.

What if You Don’t Feel Anything?

If you go for 6 or 7 days without ejaculating and don’t feel anything, or if you’re reading this and thinking “I go for that long without ejaculating all the time,” then that’s a sign that your testosterone levels are too low.

By day 7 you should be starting to see red and battling with spontaneous erections if you’re a healthy male (if you’re thinking “well I’m too old,” there’s evidence that’s not true).

Get a test done to be sure (I like WellnessFX), but if that intense ramp up in desire isn’t happening, then you need to increase your testosterone in general.

The (super) short list of how to do that:

Eat better (cut out grains, sugars, processed foods, add more red meat, fat, and cholesterol)Exercise more intensely (heavy weights, all out sprints, fighting sports)Sleep better (8+ hours, total darkness, cold room)

Most of the “raise your testosterone” advice is as simple as having a healthy lifestyle. If you do that, you’ll get back to normal in no time, and be able to take advantage of the productivity and attractiveness benefits.

Have fun!