would someone kindly remind me why this is wrong? I know myself, and then someone asked me about it and I'm having trouble telling them why its is wrong. and I need an answer other than "it makes you lust" please.
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masturbation
- Thread starter singonly4him
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I will try to help.
I do not know if you are asking for yourself, or someone else - but, just as this is common outside of Christianity, it is also a struggle within Christianity - even more so as a Christian because we are aware of the harm it can cause.
There are debtes between Christians as to whether or not touching yourself wrong . My view is that it is not healthy. I don't believe the Bible is explicit on it one way or another..it may not condemn it, but neither does it condone it.
When faced with this question, one has to consider what touching yourself entails...besides the obvious. In most cases, especially within the male circuit (so I have heard), touching yourself involves fantasy. Fantasy involves lust and lust, at times, leads to fornication - which the Bible does condemn. Moslty, I do not feel it is healthy as it can lead to an addiction.
Within the marraige scope, touching yourself can be harming, especially if their is fantasy involved and that fantasy involves those other than your spouse. Remember that adultry begins in the mind. This also leads to poor marital relations as satisfaction is being gained outside the marraige bed. Therefore, the blessings one can experience with their spouse are lacking, or even absent. Many couples, even Christian will testify to this.
Now to get a little more 'daring' in my thoughts...I feel touching yourself within the marraige bed is ok. Now, I know I will get slack for that - but I do not feel manual stimulation in itself is evil, if it involves your partner and is welcomed by both husband and wife.
HTH...
I do not know if you are asking for yourself, or someone else - but, just as this is common outside of Christianity, it is also a struggle within Christianity - even more so as a Christian because we are aware of the harm it can cause.
There are debtes between Christians as to whether or not touching yourself wrong . My view is that it is not healthy. I don't believe the Bible is explicit on it one way or another..it may not condemn it, but neither does it condone it.
When faced with this question, one has to consider what touching yourself entails...besides the obvious. In most cases, especially within the male circuit (so I have heard), touching yourself involves fantasy. Fantasy involves lust and lust, at times, leads to fornication - which the Bible does condemn. Moslty, I do not feel it is healthy as it can lead to an addiction.
Within the marraige scope, touching yourself can be harming, especially if their is fantasy involved and that fantasy involves those other than your spouse. Remember that adultry begins in the mind. This also leads to poor marital relations as satisfaction is being gained outside the marraige bed. Therefore, the blessings one can experience with their spouse are lacking, or even absent. Many couples, even Christian will testify to this.
Now to get a little more 'daring' in my thoughts...I feel touching yourself within the marraige bed is ok. Now, I know I will get slack for that - but I do not feel manual stimulation in itself is evil, if it involves your partner and is welcomed by both husband and wife.
HTH...
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Shamash Of Yeshua
Servant
In my humble opinion masturbation isn't good if your single. About when one is married I can't really say unless they are fantasizing about someone else.singonly4him said:
In my past experience with the subject which I will not lie and say I never practiced it, I would have to say that in majority of cases and most likely all cases masturbation needs a picture in your mind to do this. Now Yeshua says if a man looks upon a woman and lusts after her in his thoughts it is as if he has had sex with her, which is fornication and is a Sin. That I would say is the same for a woman as well.
If you notice I searched for fornication in the Strong's as well and you can see we get the word PORNOGRAPHY from the word 4205. If we aren't selling our body then is this a SIN to have affection for the opposite sex?
You know what. I now want advice that is PROVEN scriptually that a single person can't have affection for someone of the opposite sex. I will provide it now, but not scriptually(someone else can provide what I say). If I am a single male and have affection for a female then is that a SIN? I think not, yet if I am to respect her then I won't be thinking sexual thoughts of her because she is not mine and I am not hers in marriage yet. After doing a search on this I am now having doubts myself if it is wrong to WANT a WOMAN to be WITH, which OF COURSE involves sex as well. But remembering that again, if I am to be respectful, WOW!!!, respectful, I think again is it disrespectful to have thoughts as a SINGLE male of a SINGLE woman?
Let me come to this in another way. If I am a single male and I have thoughts of a woman and then I have thoughts of another woman maybe because the first one didn't click with me, but then I think of another woman, etc. What have I done if I had Sexual thoughts of the first woman and then another one and on and on, WHAT does this look like now? It sure looks like I would be a womanizer wouldn't, but that doesn't mean anyone would know I was having these private thoughts which would most likely turn into masturbation now does it? Yet YHWH our FATHER in HEAVEN would KNOW and therefore I have to say it is WRONG!
WOW!!! I was having trouble when I was searching for an answer in scripture using the above from Matthew 5:27-28 which to ME is talking about a MARRIED person. Because according to the definition of commiting adultery is for Married people. But then you have to really think about this. Even if I were just thinking about ONE WOMAN and masturbating to thoughts of her and she is the only one I would think of, is that a sin? Well I would have to know her personally and of course to me I would have to be Married to her. You know a virgin is one who is sought out by single people and therefore if you touch I would think you aren't a virgin anymore since just having thoughts in the above scripture would be like having commited Adultery, so I would say I was like having sex with her in my thoughts which of course at times comes out as masturbation.
Have I totally confused you yet? This issue has to center on if it is right in YHWH's EYES, NOT OURS. So I would say in my humble opinion "STAY AWAY FROM MASTURBATION" especially since it should be shared in Marriage.
May the peace that transcends all understanding be with you,
Tag
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thank ya'll so much-I do have a question thought. What if in the crazy case (yes a girl has actually told me this) you aren't lusting when your doing it? I mean if someone does it for the sheer temporary pleasure you get? Is it still wrong? I mean I would think it would be sexually immoral, but sexually immoral constitutes adultery, and sex out of wedlock. Masterbating without lust is neither one of those, so how on earth do I tell her its wrong?
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it isn't "wrong", The Christian religion does more to confuse evryone than to help it seems.
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ok - well..I will be straight to the point. I wont lie and say "Ive never done it." I have, and yes, females CAN and DO do it without imagery....but, because it is self gratifying, and pleasing only to yourself...I would say that, yes, that is unhealthy also, this can turn into addiction.
Think of it this way...you may have to focus on lusting for a man while doing it - but could you do it while praying or thinking of God? I don't think we can. Not with pleasure anyway.
But once again...I am not cut dry on the whole issue. That is just my take on it. Doesnt mean I am not guilty... :o
Think of it this way...you may have to focus on lusting for a man while doing it - but could you do it while praying or thinking of God? I don't think we can. Not with pleasure anyway.
But once again...I am not cut dry on the whole issue. That is just my take on it. Doesnt mean I am not guilty... :o
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HopeTheyDance said:
But people do plenty of things for self-gratification and self-pleasure, and not just things that are sexual. I watch movies, play video games, listen to music... all of those things are self-gratifying. I'm not doing them for someone else's benefit.
So the argument that masturbation is self-gratifying and therefore wrong is not a good one, imo.
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panterapat said:
I dont know if it abuses the gift of procreation as I am sure God inteded sexual pleasure, regardless of whether or not one conceives. However...it is a poor replacement for sexual relations in a marraige.
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Pete Harcoff said:
Yes, but you waved over my comment about addiction...even though you quoted it. Sexual gratification (self), may not, in itself, be unhealthy...BUT Sexual addiction is. Show me a Christian, who has a sexual addiction, yet feels right in the eyes of God. None.
Check out the other forums, the men's forum for example, and see all the hurt that happens because of this form of addiction. (BTW, Kudos to the men brave enough to confront this issue and talk about it in an open forum.) Some may say, "I wont be addicted to touching yourself...it is just for fun, I enjoy it."...Yes, it is enjoyable, but to some people,actually, most people, it can be so enjoyable that it is addicting.
All I am saying is that it is not healthy. I am not saying one is a wretched person because they enjoy it. Everyone enjoys it...but it is easy to get carried away...and if that is the case - then it is unhealthy
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Shamash Of Yeshua
Servant
I have to say "AMEN" When we seek to gratify our own selfs and don't walk with YHWH every moment of the way in our thoughts and our ways we live then we are in fact serving ourselves. Those are hard words for many to believe, yet they are true. As the Tanakh says when we wake up, when we go to bed, when we etc., we should do as for the LORD.HopeTheyDance said:
Pete Harcoff said:
I do have to agree here as well that it just isn't sexual gratification that people seek self-satisfaction in. So I would say in everything we do shouldn't we do it for the ONE who created US?
May the peace that transcends all understanding be with you,
Tag
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HopeTheyDance said:
I ignored the comments about addiction, simply because you didn't provide a baseline for what qualifies as an "addiction" regarding masturbation.
Well, what constitutes "unhealthy" masturbation? At what levels does a person have to touch for it to become "unhealthy"?
Until you qualify these terms, they don't carry any weight.
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ok i started this thread and now am sooo confused its not even funny. ok lemme say it this way:
IF you can do it without lusting after another, and
IF you can do it without it becoming addictive, and
IF it does not consume your mind and get in the way of God, IS IT WRONG?
Thanks!
IF you can do it without lusting after another, and
IF you can do it without it becoming addictive, and
IF it does not consume your mind and get in the way of God, IS IT WRONG?
Thanks!
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Magisterium
Praying and Thinking
singonly4him said:
The magisterium has this to say of masturbation:
"The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved"
Essentially, the church teaches that the marital act is inherently sacred. The physical euphoria experienced in the marital act is the direct result of the total mutual giving of self between spouses. When they give themselves completely in this manner, they are inviting God to (at his discretion) bless their union with life. Namely the life of another human being. This is why humans are said to "procreate" as opposed to "reproduce" as animals to. The prefix "pro" in this case actually means "with" (to create with). The "with" in this case is with God. In my religious ed class with teenagers, I use this analogy I borrow from Scott Hahn:
Imagine a man who is hungry and walks into the church sanctuary after mass while you are still there praying... now imagine he walks up to the alter, opens the tabernacle, and begins chomping down on the eucharist... Well, this is similar to what improper use of the marital act is like. Just like the man's hunger, sexual drive is completely natural and in no way sinful. However, like the Eucharist, the marital act is indeed sacred. It is not simply something we use to blow off some tention or steam. Heavy bags (for boxing), weight machines, and bicycles are some appropriate releases of this energy.
In closing, the sacred nature of the marital act and the absolute need to keep it open to God's life giving power is demonstrated for us in Gn 38:9-10.
9 Onan, however, knew that the descendants would not be counted as his; so whenever he had relations with his brother's widow, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid contributing offspring for his brother.
10 What he did greatly offended the LORD, and the LORD took his life too.
This understanding by the way is why the church alone, to this day still opposes chemical birth control and contraception which by their nature close the marital act to God's life giving love just as Onan's action in Genesis.
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Whoa whoa! smiting people for practicing contraception? I hardly see that as a capital offense. What if he kept the seed in a dish or in a special jar for safe keeping? Would God have smitten him then? See people in the olden days didn't think of these things.
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A_B_liever said:
What Onan was punished for is vague, though. Was he punished simply for "wasting his seed"? Or was he punished because he refused to produce offspring for his brother? It's not specific on what actually offended the Lord.
And on the subject of "wasting one's seed", that happens all the time. Wet dreams, for example.
From what I've seen of this topic of masturbation, the Bible is unclear. A lot of the time I see people speaking out against masturbation (from a Christian perspective) they seem to be injecting their own moral bias.
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