- NBA players who want to participate in the 2020 season must stay is an isolation "bubble" in Orlando, Florida.
- The bubble doesn't allow players' families though, and sports reporters and doctors said the lack of physical sexual contact could be detrimental to players' mental and physical health.
- Research on whether sex affects athletic performance has been inconclusive.
Over the past couple of weeks, NBA players have made their way to the isolation "bubble" in Orlando, Florida, where they're required to live, train, and play if they want to partake in the 2020 season.
The bubble was created as a way to prevent COVID-19 cases among NBA players while allowing the season, which starts on July 30, to happen amidst the pandemic. One bubble rule is that players' families and partners can't join them unless they make it to the second round of playoffs, which is seven weeks from now, the Guardian reported.
For some players, that could mean they can't have sex as frequently as they'd like.
Some experts said so long without sex will be a 'stress test' for players' bodies
The realization that players would go without sex for nearly two months made waves among commentators (and medics), some of whom suggested a sex-drought could be detrimental to the players' performance.
"You really think people are going to be without their wives or their woman," for three months, ESPN reporter Stephen A. Smith asked during a recent broadcast. "Forget three months, they're going to struggle with three weeks … I'm telling you, they're going to violate the bubble."
Lack of human contact in the bubble could be "one of the biggest stress tests" NBA players will face in the 2020 season, Dr. Mike Young, the director of performance at the Athletic Lab in North Carolina, told the Guardian in a recent interview about the unprecedented situation. The Guardian also spoke to sex therapist Dr. Jennifer Valli who agreed that sex keeps the body in good condition.
Indeed, research has shown sex and orgasms, whether through partnered sex or masturbation, can help reduce stress and boost the immune system.
And going without sex for a long time can trigger "touch starvation," which can cause feelings of isolation and low self-esteem. However, experts say it's unlikely in just a few weeks.
Crucially, there's little evidence athletes' skills dull if they go a few weeks without intimate touch.
Orgasms can reduce stress and relieve pain
When a person orgasms, their brain releases hormones called endorphins, which offer health benefits including stress and pain relief, Insider previously reported.
As Dr. Felice Gersh, an OBGYN and the founder of the Integrative Medical Group in Irvine, California, previously told Insider, those endorphins can decrease the amount of physical pain someone feels because they lower inflammation and boost the immune system.
These benefits could come in handy for basketball stars who are constantly pushing their bodies.
There's little evidence that lack of sex hampers performance, especially when masturbation is an option
But a lack of sex doesn't mean a player's game will definitely suffer, as existing research on the topic has proved inconclusive.
A small September 2020 study had 15 male elite athletes between the ages of 20 and 40 abstain for sex for 24 hours. Then, they did a physical stress test and a mental concentration test and had their testosterone levels taken. The researchers also had the athletes complete these same tests after they had sex with their partners.
They found that sex had "no detrimental influence" on the athletes' physical performance or ability to concentrate, unless they had sex two hours or sooner before their sporting event.
A June 2016 review in the journal Frontiers of Physiology looked at nine previous studies on the topic, and also found that sex didn't have a significant effect on athletic performance.
Of course, these studies had caveats. They were relatively small and therefore may not have offered the most conclusive and widely applicable results. The first study also didn't take into account long-term sexual deprivation, which is what some NBA players could experience.
But if NBA stars are concerned, there's always masturbation, which has the same health benefits as partnered sex.
