By masturbation I mean deliberate sexual stimulation when alone. Manual stimulation with a partner is not covered here. Instead, see Help for Christian Couples. Behavior in relationships deserves separate attention because it is obvious that at least with some sexual behavior, what has God’s blessing does not depend solely on the nature of the act but on the context, such as whether it is within heterosexual marriage.

Masturbation is an issue Christians cannot ignore. With little regard to gender, age, or even marital status, what is sometimes called solo-sex plunges many of us into the pit of guilt and the despondency of defeat. But are these guilt feelings the product of biblical truth or merely a hangover from the misconceptions of a bygone era?

Respected Christian authorities are divided over whether masturbation is for the sexually deprived or the sexually depraved. With this perplexing divergence of opinion, compounded by one’s natural reluctance to mention the M word, it is no surprise that pastors in most churches prefer to say little publicly about the morality of masturbation, with the result that most of us are left to flounder unaided through the moral maze, with little to guide us but the noise of the world and an often uneasy conscience. I, too, intended sidestepping the subject, with just a few noncommittal words before moving to what I regarded as more uplifting topics. Against my wishes – and sometimes to my annoyance – this webpage kept growing longer and longer, and yet I found the result surprisingly edifying. I pray you, too, find it illuminating and uplifting.

One of the aims of net-burst.com is to be a place where Christians of all flavors feel comfortable, if they fervently love the Lord. So it is my intention to be gentle and not stomp on the sensitivities of anyone committed to biblical Christianity. Instead, my prayer is not to impose my views upon you but, by helping to clarify the issues involved, to be used of God to move you closer to your own personal, divinely-approved resolution of the matter.

Babies of both sexes can discover how to give themselves genital pleasure long before their first birthday. We might conclude from this that masturbation is obviously “natural” and therefore morally neutral. A moment’s thought, however, blows this logic to shreds. It is equally “natural” for little children to lie, steal, slander, bash each other and break any commandment they have the strength to break. If morality were decided on the basis of what children do the moment they gain the ability to do it, life would be horrific. Morality is about choosing what is right above our natural inclinations.

Nevertheless, one needs little knowledge of infant sexuality to understand how many of us get well and truly hooked on masturbation long before any thought dawns that this practice might have moral implications. Even adults can commence the practice without the slightest thought that moral issues might be involved. When the time comes to put aside childish things, it can be even harder to give up than our security blanket and thumb sucking. So the practice is often hidden, rather than stopped, thus allowing the habit to become even more entrenched.

Consequently, many of us find ourselves masturbating not because we have chosen to fly in the face of morality, nor because we have soberly concluded that the practice is of no moral consequence, but simply because past events beyond our conscious control have brought us to the point of addiction. Once addicted, we have a vested interest in deciding the practice is harmless. This webpage examines whether there is any moral need to break a pleasurable habit that many conclude to be morally neutral and yet others believe to be immoral.

Some readers will value reassurance that this issue deeply affects both genders. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for including so many women’s testimonies,” responded a woman to this webpage. She had been married for eighteen years and still battled an uneasy conscience and an attracction to solo sex. “I have become so frustrated as I hear our pastor preach over and over against sexual addiction exclusively to the males of the church. I have searched in the past on the Internet for help for women on the subject and some clue that I wasn’t the only one, and I only succeeded in finding links to porn sites or to crazy sites.”

In all, quite a number of women have e-mailed me, confiding that their love-hate affair with masturbation is compounded by their belief that it is somehow more shameful for women or that secular society is more accepting of male masturbation. I have now received too many such responses for me not to regard this view as fairly common, but I was initially surprised because I have stumbled across many more secular articles encouraging female masturbation than I have ever seen for males. The truth, of course, is that solitary sex is common to both genders and that what godless secular society thinks is irrelevant. God alone has the final word on this matter, and moral issues apply equally to both genders.

Wrote D. H. Lawrence in Pornography and Obscenity:

The one thing that it seems impossible to escape from, once the habit is formed, is masturbation. It goes on and on, on into old age, in spite of marriage or love affairs or anything else. And it always carries this secret feeling of futility and humiliation, futility and humiliation. And this is, perhaps, the deepest and most dangerous cancer of our civilization. Instead of being a comparatively pure and harmless vice, masturbation is certainly the most dangerous sexual vice that a society can be afflicted with, in the long run. (Source)

This, surprisingly, is the opinion of the author of sexually explicit books featuring immorality and perversion, such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was banned for many years.

But what does the Bible say?

Hidden Agendas

I don’t think I’ve heard anyone preach more powerfully against sexual looseness. He kept it up year after year – until it was discovered that he visited prostitutes. I don’t believe his preaching was blatant hypocrisy. I suspect he was preaching at himself, trying to bolster his flagging resolve to fight temptation.

Personal experience cannot change God’s truth, but it can hinder one from discovering the truth or from accurately conveying it. Not even a genius can think straight about an activity that enslaves him. A former addict also has clouded thinking. Ex-smokers, for instance, are legendary for the emotive way they react to people smoking in their presence.

Ideally, no one should be writing about masturbation for whom it is an emotive subject. People wanting to indulge themselves with a clear conscience, or to keep it as an emergency backup should their marriage partner suddenly be unavailable, will be strongly pressured to justify their secret longings. On the other hand, people wanting to argue against solitary sex, whilst still fighting to be free from the habit, or fearing a return to the habit, will be pressured to come out strongly in the other direction, overstating their case and making loud noises like the evangelist just mentioned, in a desperate attempt to strengthen their determination to flee what they regard as temptation. So you have the right to demand that I not spare my own humiliation in laying bare my habits and pressures.

Throughout my entire teens, I was both highly committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and highly addicted to masturbation. There have been times in my Christian life when I indulged without the slightest consciousness of guilt, and other times when I masturbated with a guilt-stricken conscience. Sometimes I masturbated in a way to maximize my pleasure, and other times I sought to lower my libido by deliberately choosing ways that brought no pleasure. All this might be a rare confession, since it is currently a taboo subject among Christians, but I am convinced it is not a rare experience. Starting as an accidental self-discovery as a tiny child, I indulged myself on literally thousands of occasions – more thousands than I can possibly calculate – until, in my early twenties, the seemingly impossible happened: I escaped from the jaws of what for me was an overwhelmingly powerful addiction. (In a link at the end of this web series, I explain how this came about.) I was never the same again. Thereafter, the morality of masturbation ceased to be my sole consideration. A new factor entered the equation. Having tasted freedom, who would ever want to be enslaved again?

Over the long years since then, I have at times held each of what I suppose to be every possible view concerning the morality of masturbation. I have known what it is to feel that any form of masturbation – even aspects of marital foreplay – is sin, and had other times when I’ve believed that in some contexts solitary sex is acceptable and in other contexts it is not. I know from vivid experience what it is to feel sickened, offended and threatened by anyone suggesting masturbation might in any way be acceptable for Christians. And yet I know with equal intimacy why some devout Christians feel solitary sex is perfectly natural, even God-given.

Confessing my past wavering might undermine my authority on this subject, but I long not to be seen as an authority. I seek instead the higher honor of pointing you to the Authority. My prayer is that I not impose my personal views on anyone but that I be granted the undeserved privilege of being used of God to assist you in reaching your own, divinely-inspired convictions. My greatest joy would be to accompany you part of the way on your own personal adventure in discovering the beautiful and perfect will of God.

I am now fifty and have never married, so I have had strong motivation over what seemed endless years to consider solo-sex. Finally, however, a combination of my aging body and past self-control have so lowered my libido that without even considering moral factors, I have little desire to indulge, except perhaps to test myself to see if my sex drive is actually dead or merely dormant. Yes, I confess to a slight preference for concluding that God approves of self-stimulation. As far as I can tell, however, my personal biases on this matter are fairly close to being neutral, while at the same time I can approach this vexing issue with a profound experiential understanding of the pressures involved.

Equally critical, however, are the reader’s biases. No one peering through the fog of guilt feelings, defeatism and sexual cravings can hope to see this webpage clearly. Try to read as if the issue means little to you personally. If, for example, you find yourself strongly drawn to masturbation, try to read as if with a simple prayer everything positive would remain untouched but you would never again feel the slightest desire to masturbate.

A Brief Prayer

Some readers will enjoy the way that much of my approach to this subject appeals to the intellect. We cannot avoid the reality, however, that spiritual things are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). That is not a cue for flaky claims and unsubstantiated speculation. On the contrary, it is sobering call for God-fearing, yet joyous, dependence upon humanity’s Creator and Judge for revelation and understanding.

Let’s celebrate our privileged position in the heart of God by commencing with a quick word of prayer. Even if I miss the truth, it is important to me that you find the truth. So would you join with me by seeing if you can make this your prayer?

Precious Father,
I come to you, the all-knowing Lord of the universe, seeking truth. I ask that in your mercy you lift from me legalism, fear of pleasure, worldliness, selfishness, a know-it-all attitude, and anything else that could fog my mind from detecting and delighting in your truth. Give me your heart so that I might be worthy to be given your mind on this important subject.

Beautiful Lord, you are no killjoy. In the extravagance of your love and creative genius you have crafted for your children a stunning array of exquisite delights. Before sin’s pollution, when everything sparkled with your perfection and purity, pleasure was an integral part of the creation that you pronounced to be very good. But I know it is not good to be a slave to pleasure, nor to be defiled.

May I delight you and thank you by enjoying all the thrilling things you have lovingly planned for me. And may I avoid every treacherous imitation of eternal fulfillment; every enemy of lasting joy.

I can escape disaster and find truth only by you breaking my infatuation with sin. So cause me to be so in love with you that my highest joy is to see you honored. I want to be so swept off my feet by the dazzling beauty of your holiness that I recoil in horror from the smog of the world; so captivated by the perfection of your ways that I would rather suffer a martyr’s death than experience the exquisite pleasures of sin.

I am surrounded by deadly traps – both satanically inspired license and equally satanic legalism. Only you can show me where the dangers lie. I cannot trust my own intellect nor even my conscience. As your Word says, “The heart is deceitful” (Jeremiah 17:9). Open my eyes to the way you view my sexuality, so that I may be one with you on this vital issue. May your light burst through the fog of my upbringing, cravings, prejudices, fears, past experiences, faulty logic, lack of faith and whatever else could keep me from knowing and living your glorious truth.

When used as you intended, all of your gifts are perfect. May I not dishonor you by spurning your gift of sex, nor by misusing your priceless gift. In your mercy, show me the difference between holy pleasure and Satan’s bait.

“Onanism”

The obvious place to start a biblical examination of masturbation is Genesis 38:8-10:

Then Judah said to Onan, “Lie with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother.” (9) But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. (10) What he did was wicked in the LORD’s sight; so he put him to death also.

Some people so equate Onan’s act with masturbation that one term for masturbation is onanism (yes, named after Onan in the above Scripture). Whatever Onan did, however, it certainly could not be called solitary sex. He did it “whenever he lay with his brother’s wife.” Translators chose the expression lay with because of its sexual connotations, but it is not the Hebrew word usually translated lay with in the Bible. The word used here literally means to enter into. What better term could there be to describe penetration? Indeed, the word is used over and over in Scripture for nothing less than sexual intercourse (Scriptures). Theologians usually conclude that Scripture is here referring not to manual stimulation but to coitus interruptus. This is the contraceptive method in which a man engages in full intercourse but withdraws the instant ejaculation becomes inevitable.

Whilst doing all he felt necessary to prevent conception, Onan would surely have gone as far with his wife as he dared. If exceptionally cautious, he could have gone no further than masturbate while somehow intimately involving his wife. Human nature being what it is, however, before long he would surely have edged closer to full sexual relations, with coitus interruptus being the most likely result. This Scripture might possibly be used to condemn contraception, but it has nothing specific to say to those who have no partner, nor even to marrieds who occasionally indulge in coitus interruptus. A significant factor in Onan’s behavior is that he did it every single time he related to his wife, thus denying her a baby. Most Bible scholars conclude from the context that what particularly incited God’s wrath was not the act itself but the reason for the act – selfishly disregarding his responsibilities to his wife, his father and his deceased brother, by refusing to have a child. His offense would have been equally serious had he abstained from sex. In fact, he would have added to it by defrauding his wife sexually (along the lines of 1 Corinthians 7:3-5) as well as his original offense of denying her a child and robbing his brother of an heir. It could well be significant that the child Onan was determined would never be born was a direct ancestor of the Savior of the world (Matthew 1:3).

Adam Clarke (1760-1832), wrote in his Bible commentary:

The sin of Onan has generally been thought to be self-pollution [Clarke’s emotive term for masturbation]; but this is certainly a mistake; his crime was his refusal to raise up seed [children] to his brother .  .  .

It would be hard to find any Bible scholars taking any other view, but I chose this product of the early nineteenth century because I find it fascinating that despite Clarke’s conclusion about this Scripture, he nevertheless in his commentary on this passage launched into a most extraordinary attack on masturbation. Lest anyone die of horror while reading the following quote, let me assure you that I believe Clarke exceedingly overstated his case. I cite Clarke as an historical curiosity and to demonstrate a reason why Christians in past eras so strongly opposed masturbation. As you read, note how his inaccurate medical understanding seems a significant factor behind his outburst. He writes about masturbation (in original spelling):

“The sin of self-pollution,  . . . is one of the most destructive evils ever practiced by fallen man. In many respects it is several degrees worse than common whoredom, and has in its train more awful consequences, though practiced by numbers who would shudder at the thought of criminal connexions with a prostitute. It excites the powers of nature to undue action, and produces violent secretions, which necessarily and speedily exhaust the vital principle and energy; hence the muscles become flaccid and feeble, the tone and natural action of the nerves relaxed and impeded, the understanding confused, the memory oblivious, the judgment perverted, the will indeterminate and wholly without energy to resist; the eyes appear languishing and without expression, and the countenance vacant; the appetite ceases, for the stomach is incapable of performing its proper office; nutrition fails, tremors, fears, and terrors are generated; and thus the wretched victim drags out a most miserable existence, till, superannuated even before he had time to arrive at man’s estate, with a mind often debilitated even to a state of idiotism, his worthless body tumbles into the grave, and his guilty soul (guilty of self-murder) is hurried into the awful presence of its Judge! Reader, this is no caricature, nor are the colourings overcharged in this shocking picture. Worse woes than my pen can relate I have witnessed in those addicted to this fascinating, unnatural, and most destructive of crimes. If thou hast entered into this snare, flee from the destruction both of body and soul that awaits thee! God alone can save thee. Advice, warnings, threatenings, increasing debility of body, mental decay, checks of conscience, expostulations of judgment and medical assistance, will all be lost on thee: God, and God alone, can save thee from an evil which has in its issue the destruction of thy body, and the final perdition of thy soul! Whether this may have been the sin of Onan or not, it is at present of small moment, it may be thy sin; therefore take heed lest God slay thee for it.”

If solo-sex caused the blatant physical or mental impairment that in past generations it was sometimes thought, we need proceed no further in deciding how God views the act. There are times when God expects his children to courageously take enormous health risks. You might be called of God to serve as a missionary in a disease-ridden country or to minister to traumatized people in a war zone or to remain faithful in a situation where spiritual compromise is the only way of avoiding physical persecution. In circumstances where there is no divinely inspired, God-glorifying reason for exposing oneself to physical harm, however, another principle takes over. Scripture is clear that not only do our bodies belong to the King of kings because he made them, he purchased our bodies with the blood of his dear son and he is so thrilled with us that he has taken up residence within us; sanctifying our bodies with his very presence; making our flesh and blood his palace, his holy of holies, the most sacred place in the universe. To selfishly indulge in anything that harms our bodies is to be guilty of the gravest form of sacrilege, since the Holy Lord inhabits not bricks and mortar, nor “sacred” objects, but the bodies of those he has redeemed.

Nevertheless, masturbation does not have dire bodily consequences. Today, a few people have gone to the opposite extreme of absurdity by wondering whether there might be something unhealthy about abstaining from all sexual stimulation. This seems as ludicrous as Clarke’s misconception. Even if it were true, however, it would not suddenly make masturbation moral. For more on this, see the webpage What if masturbation prevents prostate cancer? listed at the very end of this series.

So health issues throw no light on this subject and even Clarke believed that masturbation was not Onan’s sin.

So our Bible search must continue.

Self abuse, an old term for masturbation, sounds a little like, “abusers of themselves with mankind,’ (1 Corinthians 6:9, KJV) but, as confirmed by the original Greek, it turns out to be a reference, not to self-stimulation, but to homosexuality.

Under the Old Covenant, any emission of semen (even intercourse) made one temporarily unclean. Deuteronomy 23:10 says that if an emission occurred in an army camp, the soldier would have to spend the rest of the night outside the camp. Although this passage seems to be referring to a nocturnal emission (also known as a “wet dream”), it would seem to apply equally to an emission resulting from a deliberate act. If so, it is obvious that even though the soldiers were deprived of their wives, the Lord made little allowance for Do-It-Yourself sex. If many were in the habit of masturbating, there would be more outside the camp than in it!

And that’s about the only hint the Bible gives concerning the practice that many children innocently discover. Their divinely designed bodies find autoeroticism pleasurable and without instruction to the contrary they will continue this practice until it becomes an ingrained habit that is likely to continue throughout their single and married lives, unless they find from somewhere strong motivation to stop. Is the Bible devoid of this motivation, or have we missed something?