Whether we have written anything like this before, we will write this stuff down as we wish to continue reiterating some of our most important themes in different ways on this site. As usual, we also recommend reading our Masturbation For Christians 101 series.
The most important principles which we want to articulate for masturbation as far as Christians are concerned is that masturbation within certain limits can be a healthy means for adolescents to achieve sexual discipline, sexual development and sexual devotion. The benefits obtained from using masturbation with these 3-D principles in mind are able to be received as blessings in physical, sexual and spiritual contexts, or another way of putting this is that Christian adolescents can use masturbation to bless their physical, sexual and spiritual bodies. The PSS contexts are analogous to the 3-D principles just being a different way of describing them.
The physiology of sexual development for adolescent guys goes something along these lines. At the onset of adolescence, around the age of twelve (there is a range of actual ages), the production of various hormones in a guy’s body causes the commencement of manufacture of seminal fluid which is stored in his body. He also begins to experience erections and the discovery of these along with the increased sensitivity to touch of his genitals will combine for him to discover masturbation at the point where touching and stroking his genitals produces his first orgasmic ejaculation.
Once an adolescent guy has begun masturbating our focus in a Christian context must then be on the necessity of ensuring a healthy physical, sexual and spiritual focus on masturbation that enables him to achieve the 3-D outcomes. Key objectives are the maintenance of sexual purity, the development of the physical sexual and spiritual aspects of his life, and developing appropriate PSS contexts for the use of masturbation in his everyday life. One of the most important sexual contexts for masturbation is to provide for our adolescent guys to develop a sexuality that focuses on respecting women rather than viewing them as objects of sexual desire. Masturbation provides the means for a guy to achieve the strongly desirable goal of sexual discipline without depending on a woman to provide for his sexual release. It is therefore a very important tool for single people to use and it is highly relevant in our culture and society, where a period of adolescent singleness, generally at least six years, is considered to be appropriate for the best outcomes for families and the community at large.
Whilst there has been a preference in conservative Christian communities in the past on abstinence from masturbation the physical pressures on adolescent guys make this very difficult to achieve and our observation and study is that masturbation carries multiple benefits, apart from providing for release from physical pressures (physical blessing) it also allows for sexual development (sexual blessing) and sexual devotion (spiritual blessing). Development of healthy sexuality includes the physical development component which is aided by regular masturbation. An example is guys learn how to delay the onset of orgasm for increased ejaculatory pleasure, this focus is highly relevant to marriage when dealing with the inevitably slower process of foreplay with a wife. One of the biggest benefits for masturbation for adolescent guys is in being able to dampen down physical drive during a working or school day when he is spending hours in spaces in close proximity to females. In a Christian context, knowing that masturbation is healthy in all PSS aspects and that the resulting pleasure is a gift from God to a guy’s body, greatly enhances the development of healthy sexuality for adolescent Christian guys.
Families obviously have a very important role to play in supporting their adolescent sons during this developmental phase of their life. Healthy sexuality is developed in family settings, with parental support and encouragement, especially considering that children spend such a large percentage of their time with their families. This starts to diminish from the beginning of adolescence, but remains very significant until the point where they are old enough to leave home. Allowing adolescent sons enough free time and privacy to fit in times for masturbation at home is important. They are likely to need to masturbate more at adolescence than at any other time in their lives, as their sexuality is developing and maturing through those teenage years, and it is likely they will need to masturbate daily, and possibly more than once a day. In fact, we feel the most important thing we need to communicate about male sexuality in this post is just how strong adolescent guys’ sex drives can be, and how much they really need that time and space to relieve those pressures, sometimes two or three times in one day.