A Post About Masturbation

Putting a wedding ring on new spouse's finger at the wedding ceremony. Image source.

So I want to write about this article on Desiring God about masturbation. It's called If Your Right Hand Causes You to Sin, because of course it is. The article is from 2016 but I saw it being discussed on Twitter recently, and you all know God called me to blog about crap from Desiring God.

The article is quite long so I won't respond to the whole thing. I just want to talk about this part:

2. God purposed that all righteous forms of sexual expression be for the marriage bed. Masturbation removes sexual expression from its only God-intended context.

Sexual expression manifest in orgasm is a good gift of God (1 Timothy 4:2–5) that men and women are to enjoy only in the context of marital intimacy (Genesis 2:23; Song 8:4–6; 1 Corinthians 7:2–3; Hebrews 13:4). When people reach orgasm outside the covenant-confirming act of lovemaking in marriage, the act becomes solely self-seeking, divorced from its purpose of creating intimacy. Sexual expression through orgasm should be an overflow of a desire for a spouse, not merely for a feeling or experience.

• “[Liars] forbid marriage . . . that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:2–5)
• “Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. . . . Do not deprive one another . . . so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:2–3, 5)
• “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4)

So wait wait wait. Let's see if I'm understanding this: God wants you to only have orgasms if your spouse is there participating.

...........................................................why...?

What is this business about "Sexual expression through orgasm should be an overflow of a desire for a spouse, not merely for a feeling or experience"? Like, this writer just completely made that up. Who made him the expert on everyone else's orgasms?

In this culture of "sexual purity" (which Desiring God is a part of), sex and love are connected in only one way. Sex (and anything involving orgasms or anything sort-of sexual) is something you do with your spouse, of the opposite gender, to whom you are committed for life, monogamously. That is, apparently, "God's design" for sex. Because sex means love, and sex means lifelong commitment, and marriage means sex. There's no acknowledgement that maybe sex could mean different things to different people.

I love my husband. And I am interested in learning about my own body through masturbation. And those two things just aren't in conflict. Like, why would they be? They're two completely unrelated things. Masturbation doesn't take away from my love for my husband- it has nothing to do with him at all. (Well, except in the sense that if I understand my own body better, then we will be able to have sex together better.) Just because we're in love and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with him, why on earth would that mean that he needs to be present every time I stimulate my genitals?

Like why does genital stimulation need to have anything to do with love?

Yes, I grew up in that culture, I know the reasons that Christians say masturbating is bad. Because if you get good at masturbating, then maybe you won't be interested in having sex with your spouse any more. And if you don't have enough sex with your spouse, then you two will feel like you're not close. Blah blah blah. Sure, it's possible that could happen in some cases- so if you find yourself in those cases, then take a step back and figure out where you went wrong and what you need to do to get your marriage healthy. But that's no reason to teach that masturbating is bad for EVERYONE in ALL CASES. I'm tired of being afraid of my own goddamn body, and I'm angry.

Why, in "God's design," is "sexual" supposedly synonymous with "lifelong love and exclusive commitment"? Why would a certain physical action always have the same emotional and symbolic meaning, to everyone? Why?

Many married people have had sex with an ex before they got married, and they're fine. Some couples (who are having sex- not that it's any of your business though) choose not to get married, even though they are committed to each other. Some people have casual sex. Some people are polyamorous and have sexual or romantic relationships with multiple partners, and do so in a healthy way that relies on honest communication between all the partners involved. Some married couples don't have sex at all, maybe because they're both asexual. Or maybe they don't have sex with each other because one spouse is asexual, but the allosexual (non-asexual) spouse has sex with someone else.

And all of those examples about relationships aren't even related to masturbation at all. You can just masturbate by yourself, no matter what your relationship structure is. It doesn't have to "mean anything" about your love for your partner(s).

Like, there are a lot of ways to mix and match sex, love, and commitment. How on earth could it be possible that those things would map to each other in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY for every person in the world? Above all, we need to value consent, respect, and honest communication.

And I'll conclude by saying this: I very much recommend masturbation. I see no downsides at all- it's just a thing one does by oneself, it doesn't have the emotional vulnerability risk factor that partnered sex does, and you can learn about your own body. I wish I had started a long time ago, like maybe when I was a teenager, rather than believing that masturbating was sinful and being terrified of it. I personally use a magic wand sex toy like this.

And maybe that's "too much information" but I am saying it here because I spent all those years not allowed to talk about it, not allowed to have desires or even curiosity, too scared to even think about the existence of my genitals. No one should have to live like that and I'm ****ing angry. I want to preach the good news of masturbation to all the church kids. 

Especially the aces. Because they're the ones most likely to actually be able to keep the rules about abstinence and no masturbation. They're the ones who are likely to remain ignorant about their own genitals, because they don't learn it through "falling into temptation" and beating themselves up about it like other kids. I feel so sad for all the good pure baby aces out there who believe they're so godly and that someday they'll be rewarded with mind-blowing awesome honeymoon sex. (And speaking of asexuality- I want to make it clear that some people just aren't interested in masturbation or sex and THAT'S ALSO COMPLETELY 100% FINE AND NORMAL. I personally am very interested even though I don't experience sexual attraction.)

All right. Anyway, the point is, that Desiring God article believes that God intends for orgasms to only ever happen in the presence of one's spouse. Which is just so absurd. So laughably ridiculous. My favorite part was how the writer couldn't even find bible verses that said anything like that- the examples given are along the lines of "marriage is important, and don't be sexually immoral." Apparently, figuring out a reason why masturbation is "sexually immoral" is left as an exercise for the reader.