Last updated on September 3, 2020
Question:
I’m a 14-year-old boy, and I tried masturbation for some reason a few days ago. So I was wondering what I should do because before I search for what my faith believes, and I found information that said it was not OK for a 14-year-old to masturbate. Then I prayed that I was sorry to God because I did not know it was against my religion. So I guess what I am asking is what should I do because I think I had an ejaculation. Because it felt like pee was building up for a while. Also right now it’s kind of tough right now for me to resist masturbating. But I did not masturbate since I found that information. So I am wondering what I should do.
I found out that the Lord might see it as a sin. But I also heard that it’s not sinful if you don’t use it for sexual purposes. I’m wondering about this because right now it feels like I should masturbate right now. Also at random times, I get boners. Also by the Tanner Stage Calculator, it says I’m at stage 3. I did not masturbate for sexual purposes but because I wanted to get a bigger penis. I started rubbing my penis to get a bigger erection and it felt like something was coming, so I kept doing it and a cloudy white fluid came out. I tried it again later and the same thing happened. And now I feel like I need to masturbate now too, but I’m afraid of sinning. But I’m not sure if I’m doing it for a sexual purpose which makes it sinful. Because to me, it feels good to have the cloudy white substance to come out.
I really feel like I have to masturbate right now. I think it would make me ejaculate which I feel like I need to do right now. So can you help me with this, please? Also, can masturbation make you at a higher risk for testicular cancer? One more thing is that I have been restraining myself right now from masturbation. What I am afraid of is that this will make me sinful if I do it any more.
Now I know it is a sin if I look at porn or have sexual thoughts while doing it. But I don’t do those things. I was doing it because it felt good. It just started two days ago and I been having a problem controlling myself from masturbating. But I haven’t done it since I found out it might be a sin. I have seen most of your masturbation answers from the site, but you never really said if it’s just because it feels good does it make it a sin. I would really like to know.
So if you can reply to me as soon as you can that would be great. Thanks.
Answer:
Let’s start with a basic concept. Sin comes when you break a law of God. “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness” (I John 3:4). It is God who defines whether some action or thought is sinful or not. The opinions of a particular religion are just that — an opinion.
What you will find is that most people are unable to separate the act of masturbation from lustful thoughts or viewing pornography. Few people start out masturbating in this way. Most discover it by accident such as what happened with you experimenting with how to increase the size of your erections. The real problem is that Satan uses bodily desires as motivation to do sinful things. “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). For example, when Jesus was fasting in the wilderness, Satan used the idea of eating bread as a means to tempt Jesus to sin (Matthew 4:2-4). Jesus didn’t take the bait. He pointed out that what Satan was asking of him was wrong. Thus, eating bread wasn’t wrong. It was the reason for eating bread that would have made it wrong.
For the same reason, you are now to the point of your development that your body needs to ejaculate semen. What I’ve pointed out in “I’m still confused about masturbation. Is it right or wrong?” is that masturbation, by itself, is neither right nor wrong according to the Scriptures, but it can easily become wrong if pornography or lustful thoughts are used to cause ejaculations. Since many people are unable to see masturbation as a separate topic from pornography and lustful thoughts, it is condemned as a group.
The problem is that the male body needs to ejaculate. How often depends on your age and individual factors. It typically ranges from once every few days to once a month. However, when it is new it is not at all unusual to need to ejaculate daily for periods of time. Like any other bodily need, ejaculating feels good. It feels good to satisfy hunger, it feels good to satisfy thirst, and it feels good to ejaculate. The feeling you have at the point of ejaculating is called orgasm. Like any other desire of the body, it can easily be used as a point of temptation. For young men, it can become an obsession to experience orgasm.
Once an ejaculation occurs, hormone levels change rapidly that take away the desire to ejaculate again for a period of time. There is a feeling of relief to have the desire for sex to disappear, but for many young men, there is also a feeling of something like guilt for a period of time. A part of it comes from wondering if the pleasure is somehow wrong, but it is more because of the sudden changes from your hormone levels.
Some boys end up having wet dreams to ejaculate. A wet dream is simply masturbating while you are asleep or semi-asleep. The dreams that accompany these events are usually weird and have some sort of sexual connotation to them. The dreams are not sinful because you have no control over your dreams other than trying not to fill your mind with bad ideas.
Almost all, if not all, young men masturbate at some point in their life. For a number of men, masturbation is the only way to achieve ejaculation without feeling like you are going nuts because your seminal vesicles are getting full. Masturbation gives them a way to control their sexual desire. If masturbation is limited to times when you feel a strong need to ejaculate or when you feel your sexual desire get out of hand, then you can easily masturbate without lustful thoughts. The downfall for many young men is that they want to ejaculate more often and then seek out pornography to get themselves aroused enough to ejaculate even when they don’t really need to do so.
Quite a number of young men end up having both wet dreams and masturbating.
Ejaculating does not increase your risk for testicular cancer. Actually there is a study that suggests that it might lower the risk for prostate cancer when you are older, but this study is unconfirmed. Testicular cancer is more prevalent in young men because they are growing and cancer is uncontrolled growth. Even so, the odds of getting testicular cancer is very small. As a young man, you should check your testicles about once a month while you are in a hot shower. Your testicles should feel smooth, except for a soft bump on the top backside of each testicle. Any hard bumps can be a symptom of testicular cancer and should be checked out by a doctor.