Just Curious: if you are a christian and masturbate

Christian, and masturbate every day, I love it

 

I was raised in a religiously conservative home.......not Catholic. I discovered masturbation at age 12 and have never looked back. Yeah in the early days I felt some guilt but got over it.
Years ago one of the popes said you should not lust after your wife.......WTH?!? You marry one woman for life and only have sex with her FOREVER! Wife loses interest or ability over the years but I haven't. So now what? Cheat? "Thou shalt not commit adultery." I can't cheat because I do love my wife, and the guilt would kill me. I have physical needs so it's either masturbation or I go insane!
I think I missed the 11th commandment "Thou shalt not masturbate"! I question why God made us the way he did, and yet lusting after someone in your mind is committing adultery?

 

Not religious and masturbate frequently I don’t think there is anything g wrong with it at all

 

And Onan didn´t masturbate, he practiced coitus interruptus.

 

Nobody has shown me the scripture either where there is written: "You are allowed to have it, but not to touch it - ecxept on the toilet and unter the shower!

 

First post here. I am a 42 year old married Christian man, and fantasise / masturbate frequently. I often think, there is no way I am the only person in church who has had a good look around to see who they’d like to shag if they could. Perhaps because it’s kind of a taboo thing, there must be a whole lot of unexpressed lust going on in church settings.

Used to feel guilty but I’ve grown to accept that fantasy is better than reality, and as I hardly get any action in my marriage, if I didn’t take matters into my own hands, I would go insane!

 

Oh, please, 99% of us think that way. Some day my inside words just might come out of my mouth...."well, I'd sure like to fuck her".... men, we're just no damn good.....

 

Not sure why I'm wading into this because the predominant worldview expressed is secularism with the self as the core consideration. All the "why would God care" or "if it feels good do it" arguments are the only ones that make sense if you don't think God exists or consider Him and His will the most important thing there is. Your pleasure is not what matters most in the world. Knowing, loving and being obedient to God is what matters most.

Yes there are rules in the Old Testament about what people should wear, eat, who to marry and where to spill their seed. Animals had to be slaughtered and offered up to God to atone for sin. That changed when Jesus came and died for our sins, the one time and ultimate sacrificial lamb. Now much of that does not apply. Whether masturbation is sin or not I've heard preachers and scholars differ but the bottom line is it's a selfish act. Sex is supposed to be relational and selfless. Something given and only between a man and woman who are married and committed to each other exclusively for life. If the sex dries up, that's tough but your happiness is not the most important thing, it's loving her and putting her needs ahead of your own. You can live without sex just like you can live without chocolate without divorcing your wife.

Doesn't God have bigger things to worry about? I worry about my son's language development, his manners, his nutrition and how well he sleeps as well as how I'm going to pay my mortgage, pay for fertility treatment, getting a good monthly performance review and and the next time I'm going to get laid. Some of those are bigger issues than others but I love my son and always will worry about him and things that affect him, big or small. God loves us and wants us to thrive, sometimes that means being pruned. It's painful and a struggle but paves the way for more growth, more fruit and a more healthy garden.

In the end there's always Job. Sometimes our lives are painful for no apparent reason. God is completely fair to test us in the most excruciating ways if He wishes. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end and we are but blades of grass, here today and gone tomorrow but destined for an afterlife either in His presence or not as we choose.

 

Yes I am a Christian, no particular denomination, and yes I do. I need to have a safe release. I am in a looooonnnnggg dead bedroom, married to a wife who just isn't into it now for medical reasons. Working on changing that. A boy scout gets more than I do. Meanwhile, if there's no safe release, something's going to give. I never did it in the years I was actually having sex. Yes I've been told, "no, naughty. No doing that. Daddy smack". Ahh, Fooey. I know what is best for me.

 

How about an ex-catholic who never cared what the church said about anything?

 

As a Christian man wanting to do the right thing, I have looked closely and no, there is no scripture that tells us not to masturbate. Many who try to counsel people on this, tell me "it's naughty to do that. You might think bad thoughts" but I see that as religious one-upmanship, and I ignore that. I don't see how it's better to go into clinical depression and frustration as I have, and crack under the strain, than it would be to relieve the frustration by wanking off.

 

As a Christian I have struggled with this issue since I was a teenager. Unfortunately in religion and society it is such a taboo subject but it shouldn't be. The act of healthy, guiltless and acceptance of mature would cut down on many problems in society one s psyche.

I often view masturbation as a means to an end. If I didn't take care of my needs or desires because of my wife s lack of interest or love for me, I might be tempted to cheat. That in my mind would be much worse. I think God understands and agrees.

 

Yes I absolutely agree. Christian counsellors I know seem determined to drive the evil of masturbation out but I did not agree and told them so. I am in a sexless marriage and I have slipped up in the past, and have strayed. Now with a masturbation safety valve, I do not. I think it's driven by the cultural taboos rather than genuine scriptural reasons as I see it and some other activities never mentioned once in the scriptures.

 

Use to be Catholic and in my teens quit. Had youth pasture during a bible study try and tell us we were going to hell I stood up and left. He asked where you going? I said I guess hell! Two of my friends followed me out and home where we proceeded to go to hell together. They called my mom which was pro masturbation expecting she would freak out. She told them hes not coming back from "hell" We were the gossip of the church and we never went back. She was already disliked for being a hippy nudist. I use to joke to mom that I was going to my room to go to hell our new code word for masturbate. She was hilarious joking back stuff like hope you washed your hands after with holly water and you didn't spill your seeds on your clean sheets crap like that!

 

Read the Bible many times and it does not discuss masturbation explicitly or mention whether or not it is a sin. That's simply made-up catholic school stuff. You should have no guilt. The closest you can get is Matthew "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” There are plenty of things you can do with your dominant hand that doesn't involve your privates.

 

Agree absolutely. One pastor told me that at a live-in bible college they even made him shower with his pants on and masturbation was absolute perversion they say. He was so full of inhibitions that when he got married he could not climax at all until he got quite a lot of therapy. These are holier-than thou, Man made rules that they don't follow themselves. I say that and I'm a believer though I study these things objectively.

 

The Christian Bible is not, I repeat NOT, a place to go to for sexual activity guidance. It is filled with contradictory statements from page one to the end. Too many to make a sound judgement on a pure path to follow. Masturbation is not specifically mentioned anywhere. Neither is the use of toys during sex play. Nor lube, condoms, threesomes, open marriage, swinging, or many other consensual sexual activities. Find guidance on BDSM in the bible. You won't. But then you will. Take any passage or writing and twist it to your own way of thinking and there you have it. Someone else can take the same writing and twist it for their own justification. That's what's fucked up about Christian and many other religions based on the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc. Bottom line is if you want to jack off go for it. If it feels good and does not harm anybody else immerse yourself in the full pleasures of sex. Because there's no set rule that says you can't.

 

Of course there is no guidance of that sort but as for the rest of this. I'll leave that up to you

 

I have also left the Catholic church, albeit with slightly less pomp than you, and masturbation has played an important part in my decision to renounce Christianity. The Catechism of the Catholic church says that "masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action". I wanted to be a good Catholic kid - I served as an altar boy, I had taken all of the sacraments... yet masturbation was one temptation I could not see myself ever getting rid of. I never mentioned that I masturbated at confession - and even if I did, I would just end up having to mention it over and over again. For one's confession to be valid, you'd have to truly repent of your sins. I've never ever regretted masturbating (quite the opposite) - so what would even be the point of confession, then? The church might see masturbation as a sin, but I certainly did not!

Sometimes I would feel overwhelmed with guilt after masturbating, hoping that God would give me strength to resist such temptations in the future. Of course, my sexual urges became even stronger over time. Even during masturbation, I would occasionally get intrusive thoughts about God's judgement and how I was committing a grave sin. If those thoughts really were God's way of helping me overcome my temptation, then I must say he failed miserably, because that never made me stop fapping - in fact, it only made me more aroused! When I think of it, it's quite amusing how the might of a supposedly almighty deity and the entire dogma of the Catholic Church were made completely insignificant before the mere whims of an erect penis!

Over time, my feeling of guilt grew weaker and weaker until it disappeared altogether - as I realized that every ejaculation symbolized a triumph of the Phallus over the Christian God. Oftentimes, not long after my evening prayer, I'd find myself joyfully stroking my cock with such a religious zeal that Jesus could only be jealous of! I figured that I could never be a good, devout Catholic and an avid, proud masturbator at the same time. I had to choose between Catholicism and masturbation - and I have chosen masturbation!

Why should I feel ashamed to have sex with other men - or to pleasure myself while fantasizing about it? How could such wonderful acts of pure, physical love be deemed as sinful in any religion? Yet for some reason the Catholic Church teaches that masturbation is always gravely wrong, and therefore constitutes a mortal sin. For me, masturbation could never be a sinful act, for it is instead a truly delightful one!

 

My outright hatred for the Catholic Church took time. By my mid 20s I could clearly see they are all man made up to control the people. Then I slowly learned of the great wealth being horded their mass graves of children and infants! They helped move art and gold eventually helping the German Nazi escape! The child abuse that was done knowingly repeatedly and covered up. The list of crap they have done and yet still be allowed to operate!!!