Masturbation and my faith

B ored and without much to do on a Saturday night, I was alone in the basement surfing through TV channels. Like snapshots with sound, the images flipped by rapidly, telling me that, as usual, there wasn't much of anything on TV. Then I hit a couple of numbers randomly, and suddenly I was staring at slightly blurred images of naked bodies having sex. The blurry reception told me our cable connection had picked up a station that wasn't part of our package. I glanced at the remote, and then looked nervously toward the basement stairway. I knew I should change the channel, but instead I stared at the couple on the screen.

This post is part of a weekly Her. Masturbation doesn't fit within typical modern ethical concerns. It's not unsafe or cruel; in moderation it does not interfere with academic or economic performance, and it doesn't make your children more likely to flunk high school or get pregnant out of wedlock. There are no peer-reviewed studies linking it to obesity or reduced charitable giving, and it is virtually the only thing on earth that doesn't give you cancer. Conventional wisdom tells us it's a healthy form of stress relief.

Because ethnicity is part of the good of creation, we seek to honor and celebrate the ethnic identity of those with whom we serve as well as those we seek to reach. What does God have to say on the topic of masturbation? Actually, there is one occurrence of a man spilling his seed, but its context has little relevance, relating to inheritance, not sexual immorality, and should not be applied to this issue. Many have wondered why something so heavy on our conscience is never addressed in the Bible.

Among the world's religions, views on masturbation vary widely. Some religions view it as a spiritually detrimental practice, some see it as not spiritually detrimental and others take a situational view. Among these latter religions, some view masturbation as allowable if used as a means towards sexual self-control , or as part of healthy self-exploration, but disallow it if it is done with wrong motives or as an addiction. Masturbation was now valued as an adult, non-pathological, pleasurable activity.