So last time we did a lot of stuff about the relevance of sexual pleasure in masturbation, on the basis that all sexual stimulation produces physical pleasure, and the enjoyment of this pleasure is a key blessing of masturbation, and as our bodies are made to produce this pleasure, it is a reasonable goal or expectation of any believer who masturbates to be doing so in order to enjoy sexual pleasure.
One thing we are going to talk about the most in this post is sex drive and arousal. Our ministry as a whole generally encompasses people who have a high sex drive, because they are the people who are most in need of a physically and spiritually healthy way of managing that drive. They are the ones who might need to masturbate several times a day if they are single, or fit masturbation around sexual intercourse if they are married. The mechanisms for sexual arousal and drive appear to be quite complex and vary from person to person. We are just going to talk a little bit about physiological factors here that are directly related to the workings of our reproductive systems. Males perhaps have the most consistent experience of that because their bodies from the onset of adolescence are constantly producing and storing seminal fluid. When this has built up to a certain level in a guy’s body, he firstly feels the pressure in his body and secondly, he also experiences a stronger level of sexual arousal and drive. It is for this reason that males tend to find masturbation highly physically satisfying because the ejaculation of seminal fluid relieves that pressure for them. For a female. hormonal changes influence her sex drive, and she is likely to find this increasing at ovulation. Pregnant women also find that changes in their hormones during maternity can increase their sexual desire and drive.
What makes masturbation so useful for both guys and gals who have a high sex drive is being able to manage and discipline that drive (remember discipline is one of our 3 Ds). One of the arguments that complementarians put up about males and their sex drives is that they are unable to control themselves and that women are responsible for the way they dress (the typical phrase is “being a stumbling block”). Whilst it is correct that males can have a strong sex drive, there is clearly a means to control and discipline it by using masturbation. For this reason we recommend a guy have a goal of achieving a daily orgasm as a sexual discipline. Women have the same duty to practice sexual discipline if it helps them to avoid sexual sin but complementarians have sought to achieve this by repressing female sexuality, and in some extreme viewpoints, by advocating female circumcision.
The repression of female sexuality in complementarian viewpoints and generally in patriarchal societies as a whole has been so effective that we don’t know so much about all the female sexual physiology as well as how Christian women with a high sex drive have been able to reconcile that aspect of their sexuality with the conservative male-dominated teachings about sexuality in general. The conservative church decries the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and we agree it has been an affront to Christian sexual mores overall. But we actually do believe that the sexual revolution in terms of the advance of feminism is something that was long overdue, both for society and the Church. Unfortunately there are still segments of the evangelical Christian community that are stuck in the past with complementarian theology and which are damaging and limiting their members, especially women, with their unbiblical teachings.