Honestly the male orgasm–lifespan correlation would still be shocking to me even if it was purely correlational, assuming there's control for sex vs masturbation. Sex, sure, lots of non-causal reasons that correlates with lifespan (not least of all mate choice!!), but I certainly would not have imagined that masturbating every other day or even more frequently than that is correlated with good health outcomes. (I finish typing this and I wonder if maybe the science is so bad they didn't even do this extremely rudimentary control.)
Honestly the male orgasm–lifespan correlation would still be shocking to me even if it was purely correlational, assuming there's control for sex vs masturbation. Sex, sure, lots of non-causal reasons that correlates with lifespan (not least of all mate choice!!), but I certainly would not have imagined that masturbating every other day or even more frequently than that is correlated with good health outcomes. (I finish typing this and I wonder if maybe the science is so bad they didn't even do this extremely rudimentary control.)
Research seems to lump them together, not sure why. From a quick search splitting sex/masturbation out doesn't seem to show a consistent difference