Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
History and Religion
Masturbation: Thoughts on Why it is as Wrong as it Ever Was

Masturbation: Thoughts on Why it is as Wrong as it Ever Was

Last updated on: August 16, 2019 at 7:08 pm by Dave Armstrong

Masturbation: Thoughts on Why it is as Wrong as it Ever Was 2019-08-16T19:08:17-04:00 Dave Armstrong

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The reasoning in favor of masturbation is quite curious: if we tell people it is wrong and that God disapproves, what happens to those [implied multitudes] who aren’t able to stop? They grow up thinking God hates them or that they are some miserable, shameful, dirty creature that belongs under a rock. Therefore, let them do it . . .

It’s essentially a secular libertarian, or even utilitarian argument, not a Christian one. It’s contradicted whenever the same advocates decry pornography and contend that exposure to it might begin a terrible and perhaps lifelong addiction. As pornography is addicting, so is masturbation, and often they coincide. So do we also argue that pornography ought to be freely available, as a good thing, lest those who can’t break the habit feel condemned and worthless and turn against God as a result?

Do masturbation champions advocate free availability and moral sanction of cocaine and heroin, or approve of alcoholism (or oppose remarkably successful programs like AA)? Do they also take a position that homosexual acts are permissible and moral simply because the lifestyle is extremely hard to break (as we know it is)? Why make an exception for masturbation?

The Catholic Church disagrees, of course, It regards masturbation as a mortal, soul-threatening sin. And it will continue to do so, no matter what the prevailing zeitgeist may be. If something is wrong, it’s wrong. What period of history (or cultural decadence) we happen to be in has no bearing on that wrongness. Strong Church authority is precisely what prevents these “slippery slope” descents into sexual compromise.

Masturbation is a form of non-procreative sex. It perverts sexuality and has an adverse effect on proper, healthy sexual development. It turns sex into something entirely selfish, rather than giving and other-directed. This “if it feels good, do it” mentality is in perfect harmony with the sexual revolution and humanist ethics and hedonism, but in perfect disharmony with traditional Christian sexual morality.

Masturbation was an exceedingly serious and defiling sin according to traditional Protestantism as well. Martin Luther (the founder of it) described the sin of Onan, in spilling his seed on the ground (traditionally applied to masturbation), as follows:

Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin . . . That worthless fellow . . . preferred polluting himself with a most disgraceful sin to raising up offspring for his brother. (Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 38-44; 1544; Luther’s Works, 7, 20-21)

John Calvin, in his Commentary on Genesis, stated: “It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman.”

The contrary position is literally calling evil good.

***

Nocturnal ejaculation is not considered a sin (in the Catholic view) because no willful decision is involved. Involuntary reactions to dreams are not sinful. Masturbation is wrong on the same grounds that homosexual acts or contraception are: recourse to unnatural methods that run contrary to natural law: which is that the sexual act is and ought to be connected to at least the potential for procreation.

Since masturbation is a selfish act completely separated from reproduction and the union of a man and wife, it is intrinsically sinful. Period. This ain’t rocket science. People know this instinctively. They only unlearn it because of our sex-crazed culture and giving into lustful desires.

Of course the sin of masturbation can be forgiven, like any other sin. Forgiveness awaits. God is merciful, and the Catholic Church teaches that He is, and that repentance and confession followed by absolution can liberate anyone from the terrible burden of guilt.

The fact remains that being against contraception is not just a “Catholic” thing, but a Christian and biblical thing. That’s why all Protestants and Orthodox as well as Catholics, thought it was a grave sin until 1930, when the Anglicans first allowed it for exceptional cases only. Now we see that most Protestants (including myself before 1990) have caved in to the spirit of the age and have adopted pagan, heathen sexual morality in this area. Historically this was not the case at all.

“The Catholic Church hates sex” canard is old, tired, and inanely asinine. We don’t hate sex; we hate perversions of the natural and proper function and nature of sex. The world has perverted the great gift of God, and we see the fruits all around us.

***

As the secular society goes, so go Christians, so often. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a compromise, rather than holding firm what Christianity has always taught. Libertarianism holds that if something is widespread, it must be okay. Instead of “might makes right,” instead we have “frequency and commonness makes right.” These are not Christian principles.

If we fail to say that God condemns some sin as wrong, and water it down, then it’s a sea change. Do we also advocate fornication and cohabitation (also mortal sins)? Those sins are extremely common today, even among Christians, so by this diabolical “reasoning” regarding masturbation contraception, we would have to also say (it seems to me) that we should refrain from telling the fornicators that they are in grave sin. What’s the difference? If pornography leads to fornication or masturbation, then it is quite likely that masturbation would lead further to fornication (or adultery, as the case may be), due to the progressive nature of sexual desire (and particularly that desire gone awry).

If we overcome addiction to nicotine or alcohol or cocaine or heroin or pornography by going cold turkey, why should we think that masturbation (itself highly prone to addiction) should be any different? We get completely away from the flame in the other instances, but we keep it at a medium-low flame in this one? That makes no sense. It is literally non sense. All of this madness presupposes (at some level —or, I should probably say, reduces to, once scrutinized) the libertarian mentality and lie that “doing this little thing with your own body hurts neither yourself not anyone else.” Hogwash . . .

The Catholic Church and its traditional moral theology draw a distinction between subjective culpability and objective gravity of a sin. The former doesn’t affect the latter in the least. It is, of course, true, that there are all sorts of factors affecting individual culpability. People are so ignorant today that they very often can’t be in mortal sin by definition because that requires three conditions being met:

Sufficient knowledge

Grave matter

Full consent of the will

Ignorance and disinformation abounds (#1); people don’t know or understand the teaching in the first place (let alone the reasons behind it: #2), and addictive behaviors and other psychological factors affect consent (#3). None of this, however, affects the graveness of the thing itself, which is, as the Catholic Catechism states, “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”

Pastoral understanding and mercy depending on age, circumstances, one’s background, etc., are one thing, but flat-out denying the wrongness and immorality of the act is another altogether. Once we hold that it ceases being a sin based on circumstance, then we are right smack dab in the middle of situation ethics and ethical relativism.

So what is next? Fornication becomes “not a sin at all” if a young person is messed-up enough or abused by their parents or had lots of tragedy in their lives? Let them go at it, because now it is no longer wrong? All of this is utterly obvious, as far as I am concerned. Inconsistency ought to be closely examined, because it usually indicates a serious flaw in premises or reasoning, somewhere. It’s a warning signal.

Lust is an interior sin, and it is just as serious (according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount) as the outward acts. The good news is that grace is given even to those not following Christ, and it is often given outside formal sacraments (this is all good Catholic theology).

What God commands, He gives the power to carry out; even with regard to the most extremely difficult issues of sexual abstinence. C. S. Lewis said that the people who really know the power of the devil and temptation are the ones who resist the devil and immorality. This is true particularly in sexual matters.

God lets us know on the inside that something is wrong, but if we refuse to listen to His voice, that can all be discarded with frightening rapidity with the onset of puberty and the emotional, social, and hormonal onslaught of adolescence. The trouble today is that people have bought the lie that it is impossible to carry out these difficult ideals of the Christian life (even with God’s grace). So they give up. But I think that if people would deepen their trust in God and trust in faith that He knows what He is talking about when He makes His commands, and that He has granted the Church wisdom in proclaiming it, that it would be much different.

People have to be willing to follow God and to carry their cross and to take the hard road where necessary. Christianity is not easy. Probably the most difficult thing in it is its sexual morality (along with forgiving one’s enemies). But faith means trusting that God can enable us to do all this hard stuff.

Don’t accept the lies of our age. Something can be both very difficult and also attainable; able to be accomplished by the grace of God. With God all things are possible. We claim to have faith and belief in God, yet we will compromise with very little provocation. We don’t believe He can give us the grace to persevere. Nor do we believe that we can be restored if we fall (as we all do, in one way or another). The devil gets in there and starts the condemnation trip, then: “God won’t forgive you, you miserable, worthless hypocrite. Who do you think you are, thinking you have the power to overcome your addiction and sin?”

Masturbation is a dead-end. Nothing good can come of it. God knew what He was doing when He designed sex and made all the “rules” about it. If a person follows the guidelines and endures the titanic struggle he or she will be rewarded in the end. I can guarantee that. It works. To the singles out there: abstain from sex before marriage. It may be (if you’re anything like me) the most difficult thing you ever do in your life, but you will be rewarded a hundred times over, with a happy, fulfilling marriage.

Even many secular researchers in social science are finding that married sex between those who abstain prior to marriage is more fulfilling and pleasurable than for those who did not and who slept around. Committed Christians are more sexually fulfilled than the wild free love hedonists, and have happier marriages. It’s true, and sociology has demonstrated this again and again.

The current sexual ethic has not produced the paradise and Utopia that all the “enlightened” sexual liberals in the 60s were “sure” would come to pass. That much is utterly obvious, so I won’t belabor it. We refuse to yield up intrinsically disordered and grave sins to the zeitgeist, the polls, or the latest issue of Psychology Today (or Time). Does a moral wrong remain so for all time, or does it shift according to the times and fads and whims and fancies and how prevalent a behavior is becoming in a sitcom or a dope opera?

Christian masturbation advocates need to ask themselves why the Christian Church was against contraception and masturbation all those long centuries? Was it because Christianity was “puritanistic” or “sexually repressed”, etc. (i.e., the often self-serving stereotype and caricature), or because it was really onto something important and crucial, and perhaps more in tune with God than we are today?

One needs to look at psychological and sociological data, consider the connection between abortion and contraception, and between masturbation and impure sexual fantasies or pornography, or as related to how one relates to a future spouse. Those are the important things here.

There are not “loopholes” and excuses and extenuating circumstances on a variety of levels with these sexual sins, so that therefore, we somehow can conclude that sin isn’t sin, or that we can wink at it and be unconcerned with the massive personal and societal consequences that all sin has. “Let ’em sow their wild oats,” etc.

If it’s wrong, then it cannot be justified. We can have all the mercy and understanding in the world towards individuals (and I try my best to do that — I may sound “judgmental” in certain of my writings, but I am not at all like that in person), but sin is sin, and we cannot compromise in describing it as such. Once we allow it at all as a moral option or an excusable one, then we’ve already taken the most dangerous step. Human nature will always create a slippery slope. This is especially true in sexual matters.

What we know is that masturbation has been considered sin throughout Christian history, and that sins don’t disappear in proportion to how many people are committing them. My job as an apologist is to point out what we think is sin, and (especially) why we think so. If I am correct, I have helped aid people in arriving at a fuller understanding of Christian and Catholic moral teaching. If I am wrong, I haven’t really hurt anyone (I might, I suppose, be regarded as puritanistic or merciless; well, that’s a price I am fully willing to pay, if I can proclaim these truths for the sake of souls). It’ll all come out in the end who was being merciful and who was indeed following God’s true teaching, when all things are revealed. I’m just trying to do the best I can.

Masturbation is an intrinsically disordered, grave sin (just as sodomy or fornication or adultery are). It’s not “routinely” treated as a venial sin (which is contradictory), but rather, the subjective culpability is examined, according to the times we live in and how people are affected by the mass defection in sexual matters from moral sanity and Christian tradition. That’s why we allow for human weakness, but we don’t compromise our Catholic, traditional moral doctrine because of the weakness.

If the idea is to attain sexual fulfillment no matter how, and to hell with Christian sexually repressed morality, then the ontological and spiritual elements of sexuality have been removed. It’s simply about rubbing body parts together and getting off on it. It has no meaning other than sense gratification. Masturbation amounts to an infantile self-gratification. The Catholic position is that it is intrinsically disordered, as a non-procreative and abnormal sexual act, because sexuality (like marriage) was designed by God to be between a man and a woman in a committed marriage relationship, and its deepest (but not sole) purpose is procreation.

The bottom line is this: some things are wrong in the nature of things, and contrary to God’s will. This is how we view masturbation and contraception and sodomy and fornication and any other grave sin. We arrive at these judgments based on revelation, Christian tradition, human experience, sociological and scientific and anthropological data, philosophizing, etc. And we know things from natural law and moral intuition and instinct, and how we feel after we do them (a little phenomenon called “guilt” that our society comprehends less and less these days). But we can unlearn these things, too.

Martin Luther Condemns Masturbation (“Secret Sin”) [6-2-10]

Masturbation Reference in Sermon on the Mount? [10-18-11]

Why Did God Kill Onan? (The Bible on Contraception) [2-9-04]

Dialogue: Why Did God Kill Onan? (Contraception) [2-13-04]

Onan, Contraception, & Two Protestant Bible Dictionaries [2-21-04]

Biblical Data Against Contraception: Onan’s Sin and Punishment: a Concise “Catholic” Argument [3-7-14]

Bible vs. Contraception: Onan’s Sin and Punishment [National Catholic Register, 5-30-17]

Dialogue w Several Non-Catholics on Contraception [1996 and 1998]

Contraception: Early Church Teaching (William Klimon) [1998]

Dialogue: Contraception vs. NFP: Crucial Ethical Distinctions [2-16-01]

Luther and Calvin Opposed Contraception and “Fewer Children is Better” Thinking [2-21-04; published at National Catholic Register, 9-13-17]

Contraception: Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, & Teddy Roosevelt [2-21-04]

Biblical Evidence Against Contraception [5-3-06]

Dialogue: Contraception & Natural Family Planning (NFP) [5-16-06]

Humanae Vitae: (1968): Infallible Teaching Against Contraception [12-31-07]

Q & A: Catholic View on Sexual Morality & Contraception [1-1-08]

Humanae Vitae: August 1968 & the “Progressive” Revolt (Cardinal James Francis Stafford) [7-29-08]

Bible on the Blessing of [Many] Children [3-9-09]

Protestants, Contraception, the Pill, & NFP [8-12-11]

Natural Family Planning (NFP) & “Contraceptive Intent” [8-28-13]

Orthodoxy & Contraception: Continuity or Compromise? [2015]

Dialogue on NFP: Anti-Sex and Anti-Pleasure? [1-23-17]

Contraception and “Anti-Procreation” vs. Scripture [National Catholic Register, 6-6-18]

Contraception, Natural Law, & the Analogy to Nutrition [2-21-19]

How Legal Same-Sex Unions Came About: A History of Ideas [12-8-15]

Masturbation: Gravely Disordered According to Catholicism [8-16-19]

***

(originally 3-14-04 and 9-7-05; abridged, edited, and slightly modified on 8-14-19)

Photo credit: Title page of M. Tissot’s A Treatise on the Crime of Onan: 3rd English edition of the original (1766). Wellcome blog post (archive) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license]

***

Life Issues

Sexuality and Gender Issues

Natural Family Planning

Previous Post

August 13, 2019

Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #1: Intro. & Overview

Next Post

August 14, 2019 David Madison vs. the Gospel of Mark #2: Chapter 1

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category & Last Things About Me Anti-Catholicism Atheism & Agnosticism Baptism and Sacramentalism Bible and Tradition Blessed Virgin Mary Books by Dave Armstrong C. S. Lewis Calvinism & General Protestantism Catholic Apologetics Catholic Apologists Catholic conversion Catholic converts Christmas Church (Ecclesiology) Church History Conversion and Converts Development of Doctrine Eastern Orthodoxy Ecumenism & Christian Unity Eucharist & Liturgy Fathers of the Church French Translations G. K. Chesterton Hell Hell & Satan Hell & Satan & Last Things Heresies & Comparative Religion Holistic Health Inquisition & Crusades & Scandals James White Jews & Judaism & Old Testament John Calvin John Henry Newman Liberal / Modernist Theology Life Issues Literary Resume Lutheranism Mariology Martin Luther Music Orthodoxy Papacy & Infallibility Personal Page Philosophy & Science Political & Ethical & Moral Issues Protestant Persecution & Intolerance Protestantism Purgatory Purgatory & Penance Romantic & Imaginative Theology Saints & Purgatory & Penance Salvation Salvation & Justification Satan & Last Things Sexuality and Gender Issues Spanish Translations Traditionalism vs. Radical Catholic Reactionaries Traducciones al español / tradução para português Trinitarianism & Christology Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 April 2010 March 2010 December 2009 October 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 March 2009 February 2009 October 2008 September 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 October 2005 June 2005 April 2005 February 2005 July 2004 May 2004 April 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz