Question:
Hi,
I’ve been looking at your website for a while now, and it says that you believe in masturbation and that it’s no different from eating. My point is that you simply have to eat else you’ll die, and masturbation is a lust of the flesh. I would like to know why you believe in masturbation.
I’m looking forward to talking to you.
Answer:
The difficulty I have is that you did not quote what I wrote accurately. I suppose you are referring to How would I know if I am addicted to masturbating? My illustration of eating was to show that his claim of addiction was inaccurate. I then went on to discuss the fact that men have to ejaculate semen because their glands can only store a limited amount but the glands constantly produce additional semen.
There are two basic ways that boys get rid of excess semen. One is through masturbation and the other is through wet dreams. Both operate the same way, though masturbation is done while awake and wet dreams are done in your sleep. Both involve the touching of the penis to provide the necessary stimulation to trigger ejaculation. Wet dreams are actually a form of sleepwalking. The problem is that not everyone sleepwalks and not everyone is able to have wet dreams.
When John talked about the lust of the flesh in I John 2:15-17, he referred to those strong desires that come from being in a physical body. Yes, the desire for sex and to ejaculate are lusts of the flesh but so are the desire to drink (which could lead to drunkenness) and eating (which could lead to gluttony). These strong desires can tempt a person to sin, such as Satan’s temptation of Jesus to turn stones into bread after he had not eaten in forty days. Eating is not a sin, but it can be done for sinful reasons. Ejaculating is not a sin, but it can be done in sinful ways. For example, a boy wanting to ejaculate may be tempted to watch pornography in order to make masturbation quicker. Yet, pornography is a sin (I Thessalonians 4:1-3).
For more on this, including passages that cover wet dreams and masturbation, see Is masturbation considered a sin?