This blog makes use of several taxonomies of definitions to componentise Christian sexuality. One of these is referred to as the 3-D principles. This concept essentially defines the purposes of healthy masturbation in a Christian context, by breaking it down into three aspects:
- Sexual development. The idea behind sexual development as an aspect of sexuality is that it encompasses that we are constantly learning about our sexuality and developing it for purposeful use in everyday life. The most obvious time when this happens in a person’s life is during adolescence, but it can also come into other issues in life, for example in recovery from sexual abuse, or for women who have given birth and possibly had a birth trauma experience, these being examples of situations that affect people’s ability to participate fully in sexual intimacy. Therefore it follows that sexual development is not really something that just happens in a defined period of time – we believe it can be thought of as ongoing and continuous throughout life. We believe it does in fact have application as a context continuously throughout marriage – a topic that is addressed more fully in Principle 9, the article that is particular to marital Christian sexuality.
- Sexual discipline. Sexual discipline is very important for Christians because they are expected to follow various principles and limitations on moral and spiritual grounds. Our belief is that masturbation provides for this especially for singles giving them a healthy outlet for sexual pressures and drives whilst allowing them to remain celibate before marriage. Masturbation can also be used in marital situations as per Principle 9.
- Sexual devotion is simply the idea that we participate in ongoing times of devotion, which can be during a masturbation time, which are specifically focused on our sexuality and devoting it to God’s service and purpose. This can also be a focus during marital sex, although it has to compete with spiritual intimacy between the husband and wife which is also a key focus at such times.
The PSS taxonomy presumes that any particular aspect of sexuality has physical, sexual and spiritual components. Each of these might be held to correspond with one of the 3-D principles mentioned above. In a sense, we are physical, sexual and spiritual people.
There are a number of miscellaneous matters that may affect the sexuality of individual Christian believers in various ways. Of particular importance and relevance is neurodiversity; for example, scientific research has suggested a link between this type of condition and gender dysphoria. This has led us to consider the possibility that neurodiversity may turn out to be linked with a wider range of issues with personal sexuality.