Last updated on September 14, 2020
Question:
I wanted to thank you one more time for your material. It helped me a lot!
I understood that masturbation is not good (if it was we would get out of control) nor wrong (because it is a body function, and we need to respect what God made). Also, I learned that masturbation without sinful thoughts is not considered a sin, but if anything one sees made one aroused, then it is considered as porn (right?), and if one masturbates afterward it is considered to sin. Masturbation is not a sin only when it is done with a clear mind and if it does not become an obsession. I hope this is a good analysis, even though I am not 100% sure about some. But I have some questions:
- When I read about puberty, I get aroused, and I want to masturbate, even if it is nothing like porn, no images, or anything. Sometimes I do masturbate. Is this a sin? Whenever I see my penis I want to masturbate, and again I do. Is this a sin?
- If I don’t watch any porn or anything before masturbating, is it OK to have a masturbation routine, like 3 times a week? Let’s say that this amount of time is the maximum of time one can survive without masturbation. Is it acceptable to do this routine?
- I had some wet dreams, and I did not like it. It stains my underpants permanently and in the morning I have to clean myself, so this is why I masturbate. But I prefer masturbating on my bed. If I do not think in porn or anything bad, would masturbating in bed be fine? Because sometimes my positions in masturbating are like having sex, but I am not trying to imagine a girl, I just do it because I end up in that position when masturbating.
- Is it a sin to masturbate more than one time a day? Sometimes I masturbate, let’s say in the morning, but at night I try to sleep but when I am about to sleep the urge to masturbate doesn’t let me sleep, so I masturbate. Is this considered sin?
- In my school, there are people talking about sexual juices. Well, those words make me aroused. Is it a sin if I masturbate while thinking about sperm, and penises? Well, I see my penis when masturbating.
I am sorry for asking you so many questions. These questions really disturb me all the time. I really need the answers to be very thorough. This will help me so much in clarifying my doubts about masturbation. Thank you so much for all the time you put into all the emails that I send and thank you for understanding my urge and for answering every doubt that I have. I thank God because He made me find this web site when I had nobody to ask.
Thank you and God bless you.
Answer:
You are very close to being correct. Your definition of pornography is off, however. Pornography is material that deals with sex in a rude or offensive manner, material designed to shock the viewer in how sex is depicted, or material that is sexually explicit and intended to arouse sexual passion. Arousal is the result of pornography but everything that arouses you is not necessarily pornography. After all, when you first started having erections everything, anything, and nothing in particular would trigger erections.
When pornography is involved, it is the seeking out and viewing of pornography that is a sin. The masturbation that comes after is the physical result of overstimulating the mind with pornography. But we also need to add in those replaying pornography ideas in your head while masturbating is a form of lust. You are imagining yourself involved in sexual situations which are immoral and by masturbating to those ideas you are training yourself to accept those immoral ideas. “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:13-14).
When you are young anything even remotely related to sex is sexually stimulating. It is merely a fact of life due to your mind trying to learn when sex ought to take place. Just because you get an erection, it doesn’t mean you have to masturbate. However, a part of the arousal process in the body is the speeding up of the production of semen because the body assumes you are going to need it, even when its guess is wrong. Getting aroused a lot will increase the need to ejaculate.
There is nothing wrong with having a regular outlet for ejaculating semen. What I’m encouraging a young man to do is learn to control his body instead of his body controlling him. This is a part of gaining self-control in all aspects of life. Just keep in mind that during adolescence the hormone levels are not steady. There are going to be periods when you need to masturbate more often and other times when you can go without masturbating longer than you thought possible. Because of this, you need to pay attention to your body’s needs so that you take care of them before they start driving you.
It doesn’t really matter where you take care of your need. I suggest the shower simply because it is easier to clean up afterward and you are less likely to be tempted to look at pornography while in there.
Cleaning up semen is easiest if you get to it before it dries. A thorough rinsing in cool water will get rid of most, if not all of it. Don’t use hot water because the heat opens up fibers and sets the stain. A bit of laundry detergent on any noticeable spots will remove the rest if you let it set on the moistened area for a few minutes and then rinse it out. For more stubborn spots a bit of hydrogen peroxide on the spot will bleach it out, but be careful because it will also bleach out the color in some fabrics.
The urge to masturbate as you are about to fall asleep is related to wet dreams. The first cycle as you go to sleep is the dream phase and if your seminal vesicles are full then you have a strong urge to masturbate. Also, the aftereffect of orgasm is a desire to sleep, so it can easily become a crutch to get to sleep. There is nothing particularly wrong about this. But you don’t want to get into a habit where you can’t fall asleep unless you masturbate.
Lust and pornography are wrong because they involve thinking about breaking God’s law through lewdness or fornication. Thinking about things that are not immoral of themselves would not be wrong. However, you need to realize that if you focus on one particular thing, it is very easy to create an obsession for that thing or get to the point that you can’t ejaculate without thinking of that thing. That can cause problems by itself later in life.
I’m glad to be able to help you work out these issues. I figure that if we get you going the right direction when you are young, then you won’t be calling me with major issues when you are older.
Response:
I am so happy now. It feels like a ton of pressure now is off my shoulders. Thank you so much. You helped me so much. Thank you again. God bless you!