The stigma around masturbation in various Christian communities often prevents fallacious ideas about the subject from being examined and refuted. When other charges fail, evangelicals might resort to calling masturbation selfish, saying that it is immoral because it promotes a focus on personal pleasure. There are many flaws with this position, but one of its ramifications is ignored even by those who endorse it. If masturbation was sinful for this reason (and it clearly isn't sinful by Biblical standards [1]), it would follow that many trivial activities that can provide an individual with pleasure would also be immoral.
Masturbation itself is objectively nonsinful on the Christian worldview (Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 7:7). Even masturbating to thoughts or images of someone of the opposite gender to whom one is not married is likewise nonsinful on its own regardless of one's marital status, as mere sexual thoughts about another person are not objectifying, lustful, or adulterous by default [2]. However, many Christians mischaracterize masturbation as sinful or shameful even when it does not involve fantasies about fictional or actual people.
They regard it as a selfish pleasure that somehow destroys one's ability to love one's spouse (if married). In some cases, they even treat the act of sexual self-pleasuring as inherently immoral simply because it does not give a partner pleasure (which ignores that some people enjoy mutual masturbation or seeing someone they are attracted to masturbate), a completely unbiblical position. There is a major flaw with this stance even if one ignores the fact that Biblical morality prohibits imposing rules on others that the Bible itself does not prescribe (again, see Deuteronomy 4:2).
If it was true that masturbation is sinful because it is allegedly "selfish," then eating one's favorite food for no reason other than to enjoy the taste would also be sinful, as would reclining in a comfortable chair for the sake of comfort or enjoying the pleasantness of a warm shower--but even a conservative legalist is likely to recognize how unbiblical it would be to say that such things are sinful! It is only because masturbation is a sexual behavior that many Christians condemn it. The mistaken charges of selfishness are practically never applied to other activities that the church is comfortable with.
Furthermore, an act is only selfish if it involves ignoring or trivializing one's moral obligations to others in favor of self-gratification. A person, married or single, can clearly masturbate without selfishness, as nothing about simple masturbation violates one's moral obligations to God or other people. A married person can masturbate without depriving his or her spouse of sexual satisfaction; a single or married person can masturbate to the thought of someone of the opposite gender without mentally reducing them to nothing but their subjective sex appeal. Thus, nothing whatsoever about masturbation is selfish in itself.
Pleasure is not sinful as long as it is pursued in a way that does not violate God's revealed commands, even when that pleasure is explicitly sexual in nature. The equating of sexual pleasure with selfishness and sin is not a doctrine of the Bible; it is instead a delusion of legalistic Christians! Irrational prudery may have dominated the church and secular society alike for centuries, but it does not have to maintain its grip on Western civilization.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/masturbating-to-mental-imagery.html
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