Last updated on March 27, 2023
Question:
How long does it take to quit masturbating? I also am afraid to tell anybody that I masturbate, and am scared, but I know it is right. How could I tell?
Well, I started masturbating when I was a kid. It was as if by instinct, I could be watching SpongeBob and I would do it. I didn’t know what it was until I was thirteen. I had every intention of stopping. but it is tough, and I realize that quitting will take my family, friends, and God. It is not something I can do alone. But asking for forgiveness will be hard. And I’m afraid people won’t think I’m capable of good.
I need help. I don’t know why, but I did transfer from the good (sort of) type to the bad type. I mean, I do the bad kind of masturbation and look at porn. I curse myself every time, but the urge to ejaculate again and again is overpowering. I feel like someone needs to know this sin because they will help me get through it. But I’m afraid that this sin will always hang over my head in my family’s eyes. I know that there is more to me than bad, but as they say, to people bad overshadows good. I mean, this can’t taint me forever, can it?
Answer:
Like many people, you went to an extreme position in trying to avoid sin. To avoid pornography stopped ejaculating completely, which puts you into a battle with your body. See “I stopped masturbating, but it is such a struggle. I feel like I’m dying inside.”
Ejaculating, by itself, is neither right nor wrong. It is what you do to cause an ejaculation that determines whether the situation is right or wrong. Masturbating, by itself, is neither right nor wrong. See: I’m still confused about masturbation. Is it right or wrong? Masturbating is merely the method most guys use to take care of their body’s need to empty the seminal vesicles so there is room to produce fresh semen. Some guys also masturbate in their sleep, which is called a wet dream.
The problem that you have is that you’ve trained yourself to masturbate to pornography. You keep yourself from masturbating and wet dreams through conscious effort, but you can’t stop your body from continuing to produce semen. It is very similar to a guy deciding he is too busy to run to the restroom at the moment. The feeling that he needs to pee builds as the bladder gets full to the point that it keeps interrupting his thoughts. If he ignores it long enough, it will come out whether he is ready or not. The body does the same thing with semen, but it is a slower build-up and the feeling is a desire for sex (or orgasm in particular). You ignore it for so long that eventually, the body takes over in desperation to get an ejaculation. In that desperation, it latches onto what it knows to be the quickest way to orgasm, which in your case is looking at pornography.
Basically, you keep holding off until you lose control of yourself. You then take that loss of self-control as evidence that you are weak and need to stop ejaculating. The result is a vicious cycle where you continually feel like a loser and you are constantly battling the temptation to look at pornography.
The solution is simple. You visit the restroom regularly so that you don’t wet your pants. You recognize the indications that your bladder is getting full and you do something about it as soon as you can. In the same way, you need to start paying attention to your body’s signals that your seminal vesicles are getting full and that you need to have an ejaculation.
Instead of telling yourself, you are never going to ejaculate, you accept the fact that it is just a fact of life for males because this is how God made your body. When the desire for sex gets strong and sexual thoughts to start intruding, go take a shower and masturbate while you are in there. I suggest the shower because it is a private place where people aren’t going to walk in on you. Also, water is going to keep you from looking at pornography at that moment. Controlling your thoughts is going to be a bit more of a problem, but if you wait until the need to ejaculate is strong, it won’t take long to trigger an ejaculation. If it is taking longer and your mind is straying off into forbidden areas, simply stop and try again another day when the urge is stronger. What you will find is that in a few months, you will have more self-control, not only over your body but also over your thoughts. You will also find that urge to look at pornography will dramatically decrease because your body has an outlet for its needs.
The focus is on breaking the habit and the connection you’ve made between needing to ejaculate and looking at pornography. We’ve picked a place where you can safely take care of your body’s needs, now we add on making pornography inconvenient. What I want you to do is look at installing a web filter on all your phones, tablets, or computers where you have a habit of looking at pornography. The application won’t completely stop you, but it will slow you down if you try to bypass it. That is what I want to happen. If you find yourself tempted to bypass the lock, then go take a shower and relieve yourself. I can almost guarantee that by the time you get out of the shower, you’ll not want to look at pornography and will be disgusted at yourself for even being tempted.
The second layer of protection is to look into OpenDNS FamilyShield. I’ve used this product for years in homes and businesses. You make a simple change to the router which then prevents all devices on the network from going to bad sites. It can be custom-tailored to your family’s needs. And your parents can hold the password for making those changes. Again, it isn’t perfect, but it should give you a chance to think.