Waste of hope, not of time. You usually reach the desired outcome, unlike with lotteries.
If you play a slot machine and immediately know if you've won, you can go and invest hope in something else. It's just fun and I occasionally do it. If you spend a week (every week) waiting for lottery numbers, you've lost a week of hope. Being unable to use your hand for a week would be quite problematic as well.
That said, I'm totally going to take Kevin's suggestion.
Waste of hope, not of time. You usually reach the desired outcome, unlike with lotteries.
The point is that the desired outcome of masturbation is not to have sexual intercourse with an actual human being, or to actually make babies. The desired outcome of masturbation is not to have an orgasm either, it is merely part of a more complex desire and the result of the process. You masturbate to satisfy your fantasies in a certain way. Maybe because you can't get a partner for some reason, your girlfriend isn't in the mood or doesn't share certain fantasies....
Today's post, Lotteries: A Waste of Hope was originally published on April 13, 2007. A summary (from the LW wiki):
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