As with other issues, many myths persist about masturbation. I addressed five of them, including secular and Christian myths, in a previous post [1], and I have also provided an explanation about how masturbation cannot itself be sinful according to the Bible [2]. Nevertheless, there are still a few more false beliefs about masturbation that I have heard of and want to dispel.
Masturbation offends one's significant other or spouse.
Having a spouse or significant other in no way makes masturbation a moral offense. Some of them may be irritated if their partners masturbate, as if it indicated a lack of appreciation for them, which does not follow at all. But a spouse will not necessarily, as some might, feel threatened or deprived by the masturbation of his or her partner. There is nothing about someone masturbating in a marriage or romantic relationship that signifies a deficiency or problem in the relationship. In fact, some significant others or spouses may perceive it as very sexy and arousing. I know for sure that if I were married I wouldn't care if my wife masturbated a lot. I wouldn't think she was dishonoring our relationship because masturbation doesn't signify or communicate lack of contentment with such relationships to begin with, much less some negative mindset! Even if spouses became irritated or jealous, nothing is wrong about the act itself, so this is ultimately a red herring to the morality of sexual self-stimulation to begin with. No one, whether a government or parent or spouse, has a moral right to demand that another person give up something that is not sinful. This demand is at the heart of much extra-Biblical legalism.
Masturbation leads to addiction.
A person can masturbate, and even love doing so, without doing it regularly. Masturbation is not something that will inevitably control a person's life. Although some ignorant fallacy-machines might say otherwise, there is nothing to fear about masturbation itself. While some may need to take care that they do not fall into an addictive pattern without which they begin to experience an inability to function normally, addiction is not some guaranteed outcome.
People who masturbate always masturbate out of sexual desire.
Asexuals (I am an asexual), or even people who regularly have sexual desires, might masturbate out of enjoyment of the physical sensations it brings and not out of sexual motivations. In my previous post on myths about masturbation I showed how it does not follow from someone being asexual that he or she will not or does not masturbate. Here I am doing the reverse: explaining how masturbating, even when done by a sexual person, does not require or necessitate the existence of sexual feelings. Some people, asexual or not, might masturbate, not because they are experiencing sexual desire at that moment, but because handling their genitals in a way that brings about their sexual arousal simply is physically pleasurable to them--having aroused genitals does not indicate the mental presence of sexual desire. The penis and clitoris can still feel pleasure even when attached to the bodies of asexuals, and a person can seek this pleasure for its own sake.
Masturbation may not be discussed openly (or appraised rationally) in many churches, but I have no problems directly addressing the subject and affiliated issues and questions. The stupidity of sexual prudery does not appear anywhere on this blog!
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/myths-about-masturbation.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
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