Masturbation

[conradpjones]

Do any of you struggle with masturbation because of religious reasons?

[xXCaptainteemoXx]

I used to, but my opinion about religion has been constantly changing to the point where I don't stress myself out about it anymore because I'm never really too sure if it's ok or not. There are plenty of articles out there that explain why masturbation isn't a sin, and many that say it is a sin. Usually you tend to believe more of what your parents tell you, so when you identify that bias it really just comes down to what you WANT to believe.

[TWDjacob]

I do not

[INACTIVEchaosphere]

Do any of you struggle with masturbation because of religious reasons?
I definitely used to. I think some amount of struggle over self-pleasure is natural for a lot of guys. I think masturbation is our right and a natural way that's been incorporated into our instincts to relieve pent-up stress and emotion.

[Jericho14]

I believe i still do. A part of me is saying it’s a sin and especially that my parents ever said that to me before as they thought i was masturbating in bed (Which is acually they don’t know i do). Another part is saying masturbation is natural and healthy

[Fourth]

At first yes. Over the years the act of masturbation has become a norm for me. The only thing that makes me feel guilty sometimes is the act of lust towards other people while masturbating.

[BasketballD]

I used to but not really anymore. I was told it as wrong but then realize all boys do it, it's part of growing up.

[Hermes]

I don't, but I am certainly aware that some religious teachings could have that effect. I think there are two strands to this:

Onan, Leverate Law and Spilling Seed

In the stort of Onan from the old testement, God ordered Onan to provide his dead brother's wife with a child, i.e. make her pregnant but he didn't do that. He had sex with her but instead of finishing inside her he pulled out and "spilled his seed on the ground" (the withdrawal method of contracpetion). God was displeased by that and killed him.

Some religious teachers have generalised that story into "all spilling of seed is a sin" and have preached against masturbation and using contraception as a result. On the other hand this makes little sense given what we now know of how the body works. Sperm are a bit like butterflys in that they spend the bulk of their life slowly maturing and, once mature, live for only a few days and then die. If you're still at school you can be certain those of your sperm that have finished maturing and are ready to go today will not still be alive by the time your other circumstances are right for you to become a dad and that applies whether you choose to squirt them out voluntarily by masturbating, have them squirt out involuntarily in a wet dream or just die inside you and be reabsorbed. What has sealed their fate is the bad luck to have finished maturing at a time you're not planning to be a dad, not whether or not you masturbate.

Even if you were to immediately find a girlfriend, never use a contraception and immediately start a family it only makes a small difference. You may have, perhaps, 12 children that way so that's 12 sperm that "made it" compared to the 1,000 or so you make every second. Even if you counted all the sperm in the same ejaculation as the one that did make it on the basis that they were at least "in the race", we're told an average couple does it three times a week so over, for example, a 60 year marriage that's over 9,000 ejaculations of which about 0.1% of them resulted in a child. Most of the time, either she was already pregnant, was in the three out four weeks of her cycle when she isn't fertile, or was past the menopause.

So, when you look at it this way it is hard to believe God is worried about this. After all, if he was, why would he not have just made our reproductive systems less wasteful?

It seems to me the only reasonable interpretation of the story of Onan is that after having been told by God to do something, deliberately not doing it is a sin. Nothing more than. The rest is a mis-interpretation, an over-generalisation.

Lust and Adultery

There is a really strong anti-adultery message in the bible. It is one of the ten commandments and other teachings refer to it. You also need to bear in mind that in biblical times puberty was later and marriage, possibly arranged, was earlier so there wasn't the same big gap between puberty and marriage. Also bear in mind that Christianity started with Jesus - prior to that the biblical characters were Jews and Jesus himself was born a Jew. Jews have a Bar Mitzvar which is, I think, at 13 when a boy becomes a man, at least in the eyes of the Jewish religion. So a man, in the biblical context, is someone old enough to marry. That means when Jesus advises men not to "lust after a woman who his not his wife" it is taken as read that both the man doing the lusting, and the woman being lusted after, will both already be married and that he would therefore be tempting himself to commit adultery, i.e. be unfaithful to his wife. The bible isn't addressing the case of a boy, or a single man, lusting after a girl or a single woman because that situation is a modern thing that would not have existed when the bible was written.

If that explanation about lusting doesn't convince you then it is posible to masturbate just savouring the sensations rather than watching porn or fantasising.

[jamie_n5]

No I don't worry about it. I agree with Hermes that some have taken the context of the old testament and said it was a sin but I don't think that was about masturbation.

[Luke02]

Nope

[Zachary G]

I used to, but then I learned that its all a matter of interpretation.

[Harrier]

I used to but not really anymore. And it never really was much. i will try not to do it on Easter or Christmas though. But I still do sometimes. I can't tell you what to think/do, nor should others tell me. Find what works for you. However you should know you aren't alone if you have some guilt. And you definitely aren't alone by masturbating ... 99% do it.

[pageninetynine]

Nope, not at all

[breaux]

I'm christian I guess, but I don't feel guilty about masturbation

[Brandon618]

No guilt and no religious concerns at all.