Last updated on September 5, 2020
Question:
Hi,
I have a question that I am ashamed of. I have a very high sex drive. I get horny in the morning when I wake up with morning wood and at night before I go to bed. Is there any way to get rid of or lower my sex drive? I strongly feel my high sex drive is a sin, which tempts me to masturbate and have sex with my girlfriend.
Also, I sleep naked, and when no one is home I walk around my house naked. Is this a sin? And many times, I go throughout my day without wearing underwear, boxers, etc. Is this also a sin?
Answer:
The reason your sex drive feels so strong is that you are not used to it. You spent your childhood basically unaware of sexual feelings. Now that you’ve reached your adolescent years, the sudden and strong appearance of a sex drive is nearly distracting. In this, you are no different than any other male.
“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (I Corinthians 10:13).
Your teenage years are about learning self-control and sometimes those lessons are difficult. Wanting to have sex is not a sin. Your body is built with a desire for sex, which is how God designed it. However, a desire does not mean you should do it whenever or with whoever you feel like having sex. Sex has its proper place and proper role and that is within a marriage. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Thus, your sexual desire will eventually drive you to get married.
Having erections is a normal part of being a man. You have four or five erections every night when you sleep, they come when you are in your dream stage of sleep. The first dream stage is just as you drift off to sleep, and the last dream stage is just as you wake up. Therefore, guys usually have erections when they wake up.
Satan uses any and all the desires a man has to tempt him to sin. You notice the sexual ones more because it is new and strong. If you think about it, it makes sense that if Satan is going to get you to sin, he is going to attack your weak points. Since you are inexperienced is controlling your sexual urges, he is going to strike there hardest. “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:14-15). Being tempted is not a sin. Temptation is Satan trying to encourage you to sin.
Your body produces semen constantly. The semen is produced and stored in the seminal vesicles. There is limited storage space for the semen, so you have to ejaculate once in a while to get rid of the older semen and make room for new semen. See I’m still confused about masturbation. Is it right or wrong?
Having sex with someone you are not married to is a sin called fornication. Sin is not an option and it is here you have to learn self-control by avoiding stirring up your passion for sex.
Being naked in private is not a sin, but it should trigger a sense of shame or embarrassment to expose yourself where others can see your genitals. See: Is it a sin to hang out with no clothes on?
What you wear or don’t wear underneath your clothes is your choice. But underwear does serve useful purposes. See: Why do we have to wear underwear? Why’s it so important?
Question:
Thank you. Also, my age is 17. I have a very difficult time controlling my sex drive. I enjoy not wearing underwear. Is that pleasure of enjoying that a sin? And is being naked and the pleasure from it and going to bed a sin as well?
Answer:
God built our bodies to feel pleasure to encourage us to do things necessary for life. We have to eat and drink, so when we eat or drink, there is a feeling of satisfaction. We need to have children for the next generation, so with ejaculation comes a feeling of pleasure. But just because something is pleasurable, it doesn’t mean we can do it any time we feel like it or in any manner. We get pleasure from eating, but if we eat all the time, we get fat. If we eat junk food constantly, we lose our health. If we drink products with alcohol in them we don’t think reasonably and eventually harm ourselves.
Satan is out to sell sin and he uses our desires to make sin look appealing. “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren” (James 1:14-16). Personal pleasures can be so distracting that we forget to look to see whether what we want to do is actually something good or bad. Satan distracts us with pleasures so often, it is easy to just assume that if something is fun, then there must be something wrong.
If we start chasing the pleasurable feelings that come with ejaculating, we start making bad choices. Some start looking at pornography because it makes them sexually excited and more likely to ejaculate. Others start fooling around with sex long before they are ready to get married. Each of these involves bad moral choices, but the boys don’t think about it because they are focused on wanting pleasure.
When you are doing something that is not wrong, there is nothing wrong with enjoying what you are doing. “So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and to drink and to be merry, and this will stand by him in his toils throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 8:15). It is perfectly fine to enjoy your supper. It is fine to enjoy a cool glass of water after running around outside.
Your body produces semen all the time. It has to because semen is only good for a limited amount of time. It is stored in the seminal vesicles, where it is made, but the seminal vesicles only have so much room. So when the seminal vesicles get full, you get an increasingly stronger urge to ejaculate, though you might realize what the urge is at first. Eventually, you will have a wet dream or you end up masturbating. That gets rid of the excess and the cycle starts all over. That is normal and there is nothing wrong with the fact that it is enjoyable.
But when you start pursuing pleasure, then you open the door to temptation and sin. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). If that went over your head, here is what Paul said: God wants you to keep yourself set apart for a special purpose. Your body belongs to your future wife, so don’t go polluting yourself by having sex before you are married. You should know how to control your own body, treating it as something special and honorable. We are not to be like the rest of the world who don’t care about God and so chase after sexual lusts and passions.
If you find wearing no underwear more comfortable and you like sleeping in the nude, then that is your business. There is nothing wrong with it because you are keeping it private to yourself. It is when you impose your nakedness on others that it can become something wrong.
Response:
Thank you so much.