I realize the idea that masturbation can help keep your sexual purity seems like an oxymoron. In fact at most churches Christians are taught just the opposite, that masturbation causes them to have impure thoughts and the act itself is a sin. But masturbation is not a sin, and it can help keep you sexually pure.
I am a born again Christian, a Bible believing Christian. I am married, and I have a wife to have sex with. I wrongly thought when I was a young Christian teen that all this sexual temptation would go away as soon as I was married. Let me tell you Christian friends, it does not. In fact after you have had the real thing (sex with a woman), it can get worse.
I agree with other Christians that we do face a battle against sexual temptation. Where we disagree is where that battle is and what tools God has given us to wage that battle.
I agree with anti-masturbation Christians that we must war against thoughts of having premarital sex or adulterous sex. That means if I even think of how I could get a single woman into bed, or a married woman into bed (that I am not married to) that is what Jesus Christ called “lusting after a woman” in Matthew chapter 5. From this point forward I will refer to anti-masturbation Christians as AMCs.
Where the disagreement comes in is about sexual arousal, sexual fantasy and masturbation. AMCs believe all three of these things are the enemy, and we must war against them. I believe these are a tool, to keep us from truly sinning.
If we understand God’s boundaries that we cannot think of luring someone into premarital or adulterous sex then we need a tool to get rid of the sexual tension that most people face. The only people who do not face sexual tension are those whom God has given the gift of celibacy, they are basically asexual and do not have a sex drive, but this is a very small percentage of the population.
Your body needs a physical sexual release
Your body needs a natural sexual release, especially if you are a male (but many women do as well). Approximately every 72 your sperm ducts fill up and hormones are sent through your body tell you need a release. Anti-masturbation advocates will tell you God’s tool for release is nocturnal emissions, otherwise known as wet dreams. So somehow it is ok for your mind to subconsciously think about having sex with a woman, which causes you to ejaculate in your sleep, but if you consciously had the same thoughts about her that would be sin? I don’t think that AMCs have clearly thought this out.
While women do not have sperm ducts that fill up like men, they do have hormones that release once a month around the time they ovulate. These hormones in essence make them horny, so that if they were married they would want to have sex with their husband when they are fertile. This is the only reason the human race has survived. So while a woman may not need to masturbate every other day like a man, she may only need to masturbate one week a month around the time of her ovulation.
You mind needs sexual release too
I have seen some well-meaning Christian web sites that recognize the fact that human beings need regular sexual release, whether they are married or single. But because they cannot let go of church tradition, and actually see that lust is more than being sexually aroused or having sexual fantasy, they must still condemn that. So basically they tell people that they have to masturbate with no sexual thoughts whatsoever.
Let me tell you, I tried this a few times when I used to believe the way they did, and man is it brutal to try and masturbate without any sexual images in your head, or in front of you. You seriously feel like you are only partially relieved when you are done.
The reason is that our sexual release is supposed to be both a physical AND mental release for it truly give us relief. I am not sure what a woman needs to think about(since I am not a woman), but I know for sure that a man needs to think of a hot naked woman while he masturbates to truly relieve both his mind and his body of the sexual tension that has built up.
How AMCs brutalize young single men with their teachings
I remember what it was like to be a young single Christian person (20 years ago) and I understand the great sexual stress these people face. In fact I think the doctrines of AMCs are the most brutal when it comes to Christian singles.
You are told as Christian single to just concentrate on other things, put your sexual frustrations out of your mind. As young men, you are told to “bounce your eyes” anytime an attractive woman walks by. Basically if Christian men truly followed these teachings they would have to walk around everywhere looking at the ground. This is utterly ridiculous.
Other times Christian men are taught that they need to train their minds not look at women as sexual objects. Then they can look at women with no sexual arousal because they see them as a “person” and not as a “sex object”. Again if any single Christian man is reading this, if he is being honest with himself, he knows this a bunch of bologna.
I teach my teenage sons not to look at woman as ONLY objects of sexual pleasure. What that means is, there is nothing wrong with my sons accepting the fact that God wired their brains to receive sexual pleasure from just the site of a beautiful woman. She does not have to touch them, talk to them or even know they exist. Just the sight of a beautiful woman sends off pleasurable signals in a man’s mind.
It just so happens that for men, the same part of the brain that gives them pleasure from smelling their favorite foods or makes them hungry from seeing a food commercial on TV is the part that gives them pleasure from seeing a beautiful woman, whether on TV, in a magazine, or in real life.
If you are a woman – you don’t have that wiring so it will be hard for you to understand, you sexual wiring is completely different than a man’s. But if you want to roughly understand how many get pleasure just from the sight or scent of a woman, then imagine how you receive pleasure from smelling your favorite foods, or seeing a commercial for your favorite food and you partially understand how men work in this area.
But what I teach my son’s is that women are both people and objects of sexual pleasure for a man. I realize that may be very hard for many Christians, especially women to understand. Women don’t understand that many times men are objects for them as well, but men are a different kind of object for women.
For women, men are objects of physical and financial security. Women want a man who will be able to protect them and provide for them, it is built into their nature. A man’s intelligence, his ambition, his strength and assertiveness is what attracts a woman to him.
The only difference with a woman objectifying a man is that usually she has to get to know him a bit to discover if he has the qualities she desires. This is why women typically are not attracted to weak willed, unintelligent and unsuccessful men. It is true that there are many more things to a man’s personality, but these things are minimum things most women look for.
So with my daughter, I would teach her there is nothing wrong with her seeing men as objects of physical and financial security, but that she also needs to see them as people too.
So in summary – I don’t want my son’s to be whoremongers who ONLY see women as objects of sexual pleasure and I don’t want my daughter to be a gold digger who only sees men as a paycheck. But there is nothing wrong with my son’s seeing women BOTH as objects of sexual pleasure and as people, and there is nothing wrong with my daughter seeing men as BOTH objects of physical and financial security and as people as well.
Your sexual nature has no off switch
But what AMCs do, is ask you to reprogram your mind from how God designed you as a young man to be. They treat your sexual nature as one and the same with your sin nature and that is not Biblically true. God gave you a sexual nature, and he did not design you with an off switch until you get married, it only has an on switch and it turns on during puberty and never turns off for the rest of your life.
There are only two ways to relieve sexual tension
The only two ways to truly relieve sexual tension both physically and mentally is masturbation or sex with another person. Married sex (between a man and woman) is the only kind of sex between persons that God honors.
How a Single Christian person can keep themselves sexually pure by masturbating
At the end of this post I will supply a link to an article I wrote with refuting all the arguments that people try and use (even with Bible verses) against masturbation. I highly encourage you to read it. But once you read the Bible and understand there is not guilt, or shame in masturbating this is how masturbation can keep you sexually pure.
Feel free to appreciate the women around you. God made your mind able to get pleasure from women’s beauty in the same way he made your nose able to get pleasure from smelling your favorite foods. The boundary that God has set for you is that you do not start fantasying in your head about how you could approach this woman to have sex with you outside of marriage.
When you need to, masturbate to images of beautiful women whether only in your mind or pictures you have found. I wrote an entire article on Christians and nudity as well. Please see that at the end of this post. The boundary God has placed on you viewing nudity is that you cannot derive pleasure by looking at “bad porn”.
Bad porn is any photo, or film of people engaged in homosexual sex, group sex, rape sex or bestiality as all these things violate God’s design of heterosexual sex.
But there is absolutely no sin in you as a man enjoying paintings or pictures of nude women or even couples engaged in normal heterosexual sex as God designed it. You were wired by God to think about and appreciate the female form, and to think about and appreciate the thought of heterosexual sex. This is why photos of heterosexual sex bring you so much pleasure – they are a thought put to paper – its like an instant lifelike painting.
As a man, when you look at images of beautiful women, or imagine that beautiful woman walking down the street, you relieve BOTH you mind and body of the sexual tension that has naturally built up. You will then be able to go about your normal life’s business (school, college or work) and not have to deal with this sexual stress.
Another way masturbation can keep you sexually pure as a single Christian is in your dating life. You may be finding yourself tempted to have premarital sex with your girlfriend or fiancé, and the best way to avoid this temptation is through masturbation. You can even masturbate with images of your girlfriend or fiancé in your head, or maybe you have a picture of her in a swim suit.
How a married Christian person can keep themselves sexually pure by masturbating
Single people might ask – why would you ever have to masturbate when you have an actual person that you can legally have sex with?
Well there are many reasons. Sometimes because of health reasons a couple may go long periods of time without being have to have sex. This is common for women with high risk pregnancies where the doctor may forbid sexual intercourse for a time (of course there are alternatives to intercourse). Other times a husband may be in the military and away from his wife for many months at a time.
Then there are sex drive differences between men and women. Sometimes masturbation can be a great equalizing tool to take the edge off.
Masturbation can keep married people sexually pure by allowing them to release that sexual tension before they would go and do something truly sinful. Perhaps a woman rarely has orgasms through intercourse with her husband and they have tried everything else, masturbation can keep her in check and keep her from be tempted to stray.
The same goes for a man. Maybe his wife routinely sexually denies him (which she should not do) and he is being tempted to seek out a woman at work or a prostitute for sexual relief. Masturbation can keep him in check when these thoughts and feelings arise.
Conclusion
Contrary to the teachings of AMCs, masturbation is not the enemy of Christians. It is an ally to keep them from truly sinning. It can help Christians to remain sexually pure.
Related Posts
http://thegiftofsex.com/2014/04/25/is-masturbation-wrong-for-a-christian/
http://thegiftofsex.com/2014/04/18/what-does-the-bible-say-about-lust/
http://thegiftofsex.com/2014/05/03/what-is-the-biblical-view-of-nudity/
http://thegiftofsex.com/2014/05/12/the-false-teachings-of-every-mans-battle/
Why Porn is not bad for Christians or anybody else
