Today we are going to talk about another masturbation controversy. This is hardly a new area of exploration for this blog and we doubt the answer will make a lot of people happy. So we are going to take a more indepth look at the subject of masturbation in childhood for boys and girls. This is the first real look in depth at this subject on this site. Articles of this type fall into the site category Childhood Sexuality but most of the previous references have been removed as they are superficial. It is necessary to write this post and address this issue because of developments in our ministry whilst acknowledging the considerable difficulty that exists in finding a constructive role for masturbation in childhood. But we have wrestled in depth with this subject for a whole lot of time without coming to a conclusion that childhood masturbation is universally harmful and should never be permitted. Scientific studies generally affirm that boys and girls are born with the greater part of their basic genital functionality fully developed. From virtually the time they are born, boys are capable of experiencing penile erections and girls can have vaginal lubrication, resulting in both being able to masturbate and orgasm for physical pleasure. Some of the adolescent phase changes such as increased hormone production and the beginning of reproductive functions provide a subsequent influence on genital function mainly through mechanisms of increasing sex drive and pleasure. It appears that as in older phases of life, boys are more likely to masturbate in childhood than girls.
Childhood sexual development is not confined to adolescence; that journey for most children begins at infancy, but in those early years the nature of this development is very different in character from that which takes place from puberty onwards. As such, sexual development in childhood is mostly relevant to self-awareness of the child’s own body and its physical attributes rather than knowledge or awareness of sexual arousal, reproduction or relationships. This limits the application of childhood masturbation considerably and also the physical, sexual and emotional pressures within a boy’s or girl’s body or overall life surrounding masturbation or sexuality in general. For children who masturbate, these children have for various reasons discovered their body’s response to sexual stimulation at an earlier age than other children, although practically all have caught up by their mid-teens. As long as childhood masturbation is kept at a stage which recognises and helps to preserve young sexual innocence and healthy individual development without the full relational complexities that develop under the overarching narrative of reproductive desire, and as long as it does not create injury of any sort either to a child who masturbates or anyone else around them, then it is probably fairly harmless and not a major cause for ongoing concern. Whilst we have postulated various benefits for masturbation when used by adolescents and adults, we have not yet been able to determine what those are for pre-adolescent children. We have, however, in our ministry to date, been unable to find any evidence of harmful consequences. This does not mean that there is no potential for this – in everything to do with our sexuality there is plenty of possibility of misuse – it just means that we can’t make any blanket assumption about masturbation at any age.
Parental guidance has an important relevance for masturbation at all stages of a child’s early life from birth to maturity. It is necessary to set boundaries for all situations in which a child is engaging with masturbation to ensure that it is kept healthy at all times. In all scenarios in which a child of any age is masturbating, particularly in a Christian context in which people are expected to abstain from sexual relations before marriage, and to avoid lust, addiction and the inappropriate use of media materials, parental support and the setting of proper boundaries will greatly aid their sons or daughters in confining the contexts for the use of masturbation to what is generally supportive of a spritually intimate and worshipful Christian lifestyle, whether in relation to God, other believers, or other people in the communities they live in. At the same time, parents should strive to exhibit constructive attitudes towards their child’s journey of sexual discovery and to give him or her appropriate knowledge and information on each stage of their sexual development. In the early childhood years this will mostly be confined to affirming the private nature of masturbation at all times and that the frequency with which it is undertaken is not excessive. There is of course no actual consensus on this, but we suggest that pre-adolescent masturbation should not regularly exceed four times per day. One of the most important reasons for parents to guide their children who masturbate is that they will have something of a head start on knowledge of their physical sexuality when they reach adolescence. Our ministry understanding already has led us to conclude that girls who masturbate in childhood are likely to have a stronger sex drive from adolescence.
If your young son or daughter is developing in their understanding of Christian faith, or they are at least interested in your own expressions and practices of faith in the family household as parents, they’ll also want to understand if masturbation can be considered as a possible spiritual blessing. This is not an unreasonable idea because we also looked at it for the treatment of masturbation for adolescents and adults. We have formed the view that that treatment of masturbation could be justified for children because we couldn’t see any evidence of harm in a number of church kids that were masturbating. Clearly their parents had put in place enough good solid standards and boundaries that they were pretty normal healthy kids in all the right ways that we’d expect in a church that follows the traditional view of sexuality. Things might change when they get to adolescence, of course, but in childhood, there wasn’t any evidence of negative consequences from masturbation at the present time. So it could be expected that they may be able to appropriate masturbation as a spiritual blessing, which means submitting it to God in prayer. It will take a lot longer with a lot more ministry experience of the issue before we are able to form a complete understanding of how it might be considered a blessing. It is still hard for us, let alone the parents of any kids who are masturbating we are sure, to get their heads around their young children’s decision that orgasms are what they need in their day to day life, and their ability to understand the full implications given their developmental stage. Ultimately the benefit might be found in having a fuller understanding of their sexuality before adolescence kicks in and not having to deal with all of the issues when they arrive there. Children are subject to a lot more expectations these days that older generations didn’t have to deal with, and this includes the pressures of living in a society that is increasingly sexualised. But ultimately masturbation boils down to the fact that the pleasure associated with it is a built in capability of a person’s body, and the pursuit of such pleasure in moderation is neither harmful nor sinful.