In today’s permissive society there are few taboos left.
Teenagers are educated in areas of sex that would have
shocked and embarrassed many married couples in
previous centuries. Fantasies are discussed freely; and
films become more and more explicit. Premarital sex is
virtually the norm. Homosexuality, S&M, group sex,
wife-swapping – all can be freely discussed in polite society
now. More concern is registered over someone making a
value judgement against such practices than whether or not
someone indulges in them.
But one bastion of privacy and shame remains, and that is
the subject of masturbation. Sperm banks in Australia suffer
from a shortage of (paid) donors simply because the
Australian male is too bashful to face a receptionist with
evidence in his hand that he actually masturbated.
Some men find it painful to admit to themselves that they
indulge in wanking, much less acknowledge such a
practice to their friends or even to their GP.
Paradoxically, masturbation is despised by religious prudes
and liberated machos alike. Prudes see it as sinful, and
machos see it as a sign of weakness. Yet both parties
practise it.
Here is the ultimate in sexual hypocrisy. All of the arguments
used against wowserism and double standards in every
other area of sexual practice have overlooked the number
one offender. While “self-abuse” as it used to be called, is
practised almost universally, it is also done with almost
universal shame.
It is like the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. We all
implicitly support the lie that no respectable person would
touch themselves “down there” when what we really need is
for an innocent child to speak the truth and say, “Hey look!
The emperor is playing with himself!”
Many people have found it liberating to be able to speak
freely about their fantasies, about their sexual preferences,
and about other practices which were once frowned upon.
But how much more liberating it would be if people could
overcome the dictates of their biological needs when those
dictates interfere with other goals. And that is exactly what
masturbation represents. It is the safety valve on the sexual
pressure cooker. Masturbation stops us from exploding in
unacceptable or inappropriate ways.
I spoke about this situation quite frankly with a fellow
minister once, in an effort to get him to realise the positive
side of masturbation. He eventually confided to me that in
his youth (“Before I became a Christian, of course!”) he had
gone out on a date with a girl that he greatly respected. He
did not want to scare her off by being too forward, so he
stopped at a service station and went into the toilet to relieve
himself in more ways than one. And, of course, it worked.
Yet this same minister still teaches boys in his
congregation that they are guilty of a great sin if they indulge
in masturbation. Paedophilia, incest, rape, homosexuality,
bestiality… all these practices seem to be tolerated more by
a church which refuses to speak the liberating truth about
masturbation.
The traditional reason given for condemning masturbation
within the Christian church is that Jesus Christ taught that it
was just as bad to “look on a woman with lust” as it was to
actually commit adultery with her. In other words, the thought
was as bad as the action. So a teaching developed that
thinking about sex (which obviously occurs during
masturbation) is evil, whether you would ever actually
indulge in the practice you are thinking about or not.
Some tried nobly to suppress all thoughts of sex, only to
discover that they resurfaced, often in more bizarre forms
than they had when first pushed underground. In Arab
countries where women are covered from head to toe, for
example, sexual offences still occur. And the same is true of
the most extreme “holiness” cults.
Covering women’s bodies will not take away the God-given,
biological urge to have sex. Nor is clothing going to stop the
war that rages in the minds of people who feel guilty about
sex thoughts. Some Amish groups have succeeded in
stopping all forms of ejaculation for extended periods of
time, only to develop cancer from the rotting semen inside
their sex organs.
Others have taken the attitude that, if they are going to fry in
hell anyway, they may as well get as much pleasure out of
this life as they can before the final judgement.
So a rule aimed at teaching greater morality has led to
greater immorality, both from those who have thrown it out
as too hard and from those who have tried their hardest to
follow it.
The mistake is that people confuse “thinking about sex” with
“lust”. Lust is actually wanting to do something that you
know is wrong. There are plenty of people who lust these
days. And it is not limited to matters pertaining to sex.
Let’s say, for example, that you like pizza. You don’t feel guilty
about this do you? But if the only way you can get one is to
steal it from your neighbour, then fulfilling your desire could
mean doing something that you know is wrong (i.e.
stealing). You can desire the pizza all you want, and even (if
you like, for the fun of it) fantasise about stealing it; but if the
bottom line is that you would not actually do it (because you
know it is wrong), then you have not sinned.
But if you would steal it if you could get away with it, and if
you held back simply because you were afraid of being
caught, then you are spiritually guilty of the act (robbery)
whether or not you ever got up enough courage to actually
do it. You have “lusted” for the pizza, by wanting it more than
you want to do what is right. But the pizza (i.e. the thing you
desired) is not wrong in itself.
Applying this to sex, the sin is not in desiring sex (since that
is as universal as the desire for food), nor is it in fantasising
about sex. The sin is in wanting to actually perform a sexual
act that you know is wrong, and then refraining from doing it
only out of fear about what people would think of you or what
they would do to you if they found out.
Being turned on by a rape scene in a movie (or a detailed
description of one in a book) is not the same as actually
wanting to rape someone. And if you felt the scene was
tempting you to rape someone, then masturbating as a
result of the fantasy turn-on is the best way to overcome the
temptation and to stop yourself from indulging in the action
in real life.
Masturbation is the universally legitimate way to satisfy your
sexual appetite without indulging in something else which
may not be legitimate. If there was more masturbation, there
would be a lot less incest, fewer rapes, less infidelity in
marriage, etc.
Instead of trying to stop people from masturbating, the
church should be encouraging them to do so, thus leaving
them free to choose (without the overriding pressure of
sperm build-up) not to do those things that God has
forbidden.
Much of this has relevance to females as well. Many
marriages would be happier if wives weren’t so riddled with
feelings of guilt about their own need for sex.
There is a popular myth that people cannot live without sex,
and it suggests that God is unreasonable to expect people
to remain faithful in marriage, chaste outside of marriage,
and single if the first marriage fails. But people can live
without engaging in sex with another person; and to do so
does not require some impossible level of discipline.
Living without ejaculation is, however, a different story. And
because the church has fostered the myth that people can,
through sheer willpower, become asexual, it must take
some responsibility for the sexual permissiveness, high
incidence of divorce and remarriage, and the backlash
against God that has resulted from this lie in today’s world.
In conclusion, we should ask ourselves: Was Jesus fully
human? If so, did he have wet dreams? (For if you don’t
masturbate, then sooner or later, the semen will come out
through “nocturnal emissions”.) And if this happened to
Jesus, would he have had thoughts about sex at the
moment of ejaculation? The obvious answer is Yes. For
ejaculation itself is sex. And if Jesus was without sin, then
thoughts about sex (and ejaculations outside of marriage)
must not be any more sinful than eating or going to the
toilet. It is only cultural brainwashing that has taught us
otherwise.
As a sexually frustrated, religiously uptight youth I used to
look forward to wet dreams, because it was the one time
when I was free to indulge in activities and thoughts which
were forbidden to me in the daytime. And yet even these
were marred by the fear that the dream might not be just a
dream. How much better to consciously choose to fantasise
(and masturbate) while awake. For me, this became a
guilt-free option only when I discovered that there was
absolutely nothing forbidding it in scripture.
One of the cleverest ways the church has ever found to
control the masses has been to make masturbation a sin.
The consequence has been that the most dishonest (i.e.
the ones who try to give the impression that they don’t
masturbate) are looked on as being the most holy, while
more honest believers are made to feel guilty and in need of
absolution from the hypocrites.
Anyone interested in a genuine revival of sexual morality and
sincere faith should consider the possibility that the first
step in that direction might be to enlighten the masses to
their right (and perhaps even their responsibility) to
masturbate.
At the same time, those who suffer from guilt because of the
secular myth that real men don’t wank need to stand up to
that lie as well. The result will be a happier, healthier
society.
Dave McKay is a co-founder of the Jesus Christian
communities, located in Sydney, Nairobi, London, and Los
Angeles. He lives in Sydney with Cherry, his wife of 41
years. His email address is:
