Masturbation: More Truth

In the last blog post, Masturbation: The Truth we explored the effect that pornography use has on the brain. Today we’ll look at how this seemingly harmless pursuit can affect other aspects of your life.

Masturbation’s Effect on Marriage

FACT: Fantasy about someone other than your spouse is always wrong.

God says thinking about someone lustfully is adultery. Even fantasizing about your wife doing things that would not be normal or comfortable for her can create a binding to a “fantasy wife” and create a dissatisfaction and disinterest in true sexual intimacy.

FACT: God’s solutions to marital dilemmas will bring the couple together. Human solutions separate us.

Relying on masturbation as a solution to unmatched libido (even if it can be rationalized as best for the relationship) keeps a couple from seeking God to teach them how to be truly intimate, accommodating and sexually mature.

FACT: There is actually nothing wrong with fasting from sex for a time by mutual consent. It can be a tool God uses to bring us closer to him and each other.

Sexual tension and sexual longing can cause you to yearn to be closer to your spouse. If you take away that longing through other sexual behaviors, you take away one of the drives toward intimacy.

Masturbation’s Effect on Life

FACT: Sex is intended to be a relational experience where attention is given to another person’s needs and pleasure at least as much as our own.

If we start selfishly obtaining sexual release away from our spouse, we may begin to prefer masturbation over pursuing relationship. Most of us can pleasure ourselves more quickly than our spouse could. True intimacy can begin to seem like an unnecessary hassle, especially if we’re stressed or already distant as a couple. Masturbation usually leads to even greater separation in the marriage.

FACT: God is very clear about how he feels about idolatry.

Idolatry is defined as “an immoderate attachment or devotion to something.” The combination of bonding and habit can cause sex or sexual images to become the object of our idolatry.

FACT: We were meant to have a balance between sex and the other activities in our life.

Masturbation disrupts the balance in our life by training our bodies and minds to expect gratification more frequently than normal. It can divert our energy, time and resources into sexual activity instead of a more healthy variety of activities.

Masturbation’s Effect on Singles

FACT: Masturbation is not an easy solution for living a chaste single life.

Masturbation is often assumed to provide an viable answer for maintaining a sexually pure single life. The problem is that whether you’re married or single, it still creates the same neuro-connections and unrealistic sexual expectations that get in the way of having a truly healthy sexual relationship with a person you love, now or in the future.

Since we are seldom given the information we need to make an intelligent decision about masturbation, it is easy to get caught in its lure. It feels good. The release can be a great stress reducer. It’s easy to think of it as harmless.

But, be warned, masturbation, with or without pornography, can quickly and very unexpectedly take root and become an escalating and increasingly destructive problem for anyone who chooses to invite it into their life. None of those we work with that struggle with compulsive masturbation ever thought it would happen to them. Be careful, it’s a subtle and cunning trap. Never be careless enough to think that you’re the one that can outsmart it.