Is Masturbation a Sexual Sin?
The 'M' word, Spanking the Monkey, Choking the Chicken, Bashing the Bishop, Buffin' the Bishop, Blowing Your Own Horn, Choking Kojak, Civil War (yeah, I'm not sure about that one either), Doing the Dew, Draining the Lizard, Flute Solo, Glazing the Donut, Han Solo (for all you pun-lovers), Jackin' the Beanstalk, and finally, my personal favorite, Getting Tennis Elbow.
We tend to talk about masturbation without actually talking about it, but if we're honest, most of us have masturbated at some point.
Sometimes the reaction we get when we talk about it is the kind of reaction you would expect if you admitted kicking kittens in your spare time. So let's start off like this, everyone poops, and pretty much all of us, at one time or another, have engaged in __________ (fill in your own personal preference from the list above).
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There have been many ways we've talked about masturbation here at XXXchurch. In fact Levi wrote post about this topic earlier. You can check that out here.
But the main question I always seems to hear is this:
Is masturbation a sin?
Usually a person asks this question from the context of their own personal private time; they're wondering whether it's okay to participate. The answer is usually something along the lines of, "Well, the Bible doesn't expressly forbid masturbation, but it does speak pretty clearly on lust."
Which then raises the standard follow-up question: is masturbation all right if your mind is completely blank and not focusing on anyone?
Which then makes me wonder: just what are you thinking about?
These are not bad questions in and of themselves, yet they often leave us scratching our heads more than giving us a clear direction. So I would like to propose a few different ways we can think and talk about masturbation.
1. Masturbation Is Not the Worst Sin Ever
I'm neither condoning nor condemning masturbation but simply taking a step back and realizing that masturbating does not make you an evil person.
The truth is, conversations around masturbation and porn are so rare that in our minds we create this huge wall that we don't know how to deal with when it starts to crumble on us. We make it so huge that we don't want to talk about it, which allows our addictions to grow taller and thicker, all because we're led to believe it's weird and no one else does it.
But they do. Which leads to …
2. Porn = Drugs; Masturbation = Bongs.
A lot of the time that anyone masturbates it is accompanied by porn. It's probably the easiest way to get aroused when you are on your own, and as such it is easy to become addicted to porn. When such a powerful force as porn goes along with masturbation, the hold porn has over us grows as well. If porn is the drug we use to suppress pain, then masturbation is the bong.
So a question better than "Is masturbation a sin?" might be, "Is there something deeper going on that we are trying to use porn and masturbation to heal?"
We can spend a lot of time doing our best to not look at porn or masturbate, and we might even be successful, but sooner or later, the question of why we use these things in the first place needs to be answered if true freedom is to be experienced.
3. Freedom Is Not Legalism
When we place masturbation in its correct context as something that can be potentially harmful but not something we need to be ashamed of or keep hidden from others, we can leave behind old ways of thinking about it that lead to nothing more than legalism for many.
Legalism tells us what we can't do but never goes into why we shouldn't. You just don't do it and don't ask any questions, and if you get caught you better believe we'll make you feel horrible for it. And guess what that leads to?
Grace, on the other hand, asks deeper questions. It asks what you are searching for; it listens to your experiences as a person with the purpose of better understanding who you are; it makes you feel secure and free to go to the deepest parts of yourself, not afraid of the dark because it is no match for the light; it doesn't control; and most of all, it seeks to give us freedom from those things which slowly choke us and keep us imprisoned.
When we talk so much about sin in a way that builds lust and masturbation into these huge monsters that are growling constantly, we seek to control them by placing them in cages. But we don't address the real issues, and so continue to feed them until they grow too big for their cages and finally break out, creating more damage than ever before.
When this happens, it may be time to think a little about how we talk about masturbation and everything that comes with it. Because some of our old ways are not helping anyone.
Least of all Kojak.
