The guilt Indian men feel after masturbating has a clinical name. Most don't know that.
It's called Dhat syndrome, a culture-bound psychological condition documented specifically on the Indian subcontinent, linked to the belief that semen loss causes physical weakness and moral failure.
The World Health Organisation classifies masturbation as a normal part of human sexual development at every life stage. The guilt around it, not the act itself, is what the research links to depression and anxiety.
The Brahmacharya framework that produced this guilt was originally about celibacy for spiritual advancement, not masturbation specifically. Over generations it became something crueller: that any semen loss outside procreation is damage.
The same civilisation also produced the Kamasutra, which treated Kama (pleasure and desire) as one of the four proper goals of a complete human life, equal to virtue and livelihood.
We wrote about where this guilt actually comes from and what the research says:
https://pillowta.com/blogs/unfiltered/masturbation-guilt-india