On semen retention;
I recommend the book "Muelos" by Weston Labarre, which is perhaps the
seminal (a pun!) anthropological work on the subject.
I don't necessarily agree with everything he writes, but he does make an uncontrived comparison between various "spiritual-physiological" (my term) beliefs worldwide, the upshot being that a common root can be found for semen retention beliefs and, interestingly, headhunting, and weirdly, the knees, in this basic observation;
If you crack open a man's skull, or his spine, or his bones, what you find inside will be a whitish creamy goo.
What comes out of a man's penis when he ejaculates is also a whitish creamy goo.
In the primitive mind, this creamy white goo has a singular origin, which is the skull/brain. LaBarre postulates that this misunderstanding resulted in the various beliefs concerning the retention/loss of semen, the power of the skull, the collection and retention of ancestral bones as well as animal bones and skulls, etc. etc.
Even Leonardo Da Vinci, the great inquiring mind and scientist and inventor, who appears to have an excellent knowledge of anatomy, apparently laboured under the belief that semen must descend from the skull via the spinal column, and in his anatomical drawings drew conduits that are not there in reality.
http://rsnr.royalsociety...ing.org/content/68/4/391(edit; having taken the trouble to read the article rather than look at the pretty pictures, it appears Da Vinci did correct his ideas as his knowledge of anatomy progressed.)
Interestingly the Eastern spiritual traditions believed that this goo was finite, hence semen retention.
The Western traditions understood the goo as being created at a steady rate within the male organism, and concluded that semen retention was unhealthy, but that excessive expenditure would be physically sapping.
My personal conclusion aligns more with the Western view, but rather with the psychological rather than physiological view that semen retention is unhealthy because it is obsessive. It's also not really in accordance with nature, as is borne out by the fact that one will spontaneously ejaculate during sleep.
The counterweight to that is that sexual obsession, or its relative, sexual compulsion, needs to be guarded against.
This is especially true in the case of obsession with pornography and compulsive masturbation, which is kind of the ideal procratinatory behaviour, but also can induce feelings of shame.
As to your feelings about women, I don't think we need to put anyone on a pedestal, but rather treat everyone equally with courtesy and respect, and you can't go too far wrong.
And, concerning women as sex objects, in my experience women enjoy a man being assertive in the bedroom. Misunderstandings come about because of his behaviour outside of the realm of sex. Sex is a kind of separate thing, separate world, where we do things that do not reflect our daily social behaviour. That's why we keep it private! As long as you behave with courtesy, respect and honesty, and in this day and age a good dose of prudence, you can't go too far wrong.