One of the reasons this ministry exists is the threat to Christian sexuality that has become such a problem in recent years from the tide of pornography as well as alternative viewpoints of human sexuality that have become commonplace. Whilst we acknowledge that people are caught up in both of these areas and that our ministry seeks to support such people as much as we can, we still feel that we want to strongly affirm and support those who want to be a part of the orthodox Christian view of sexuality. We view masturbation in the contexts in which it is described and affirmed in these blog pages as an essential technique that Christians can make use of in order to strengthen their ability to affirm these orthodox viewpoints within their own lives.
The previous post in this series sought to look at the physical relevance of masturbation for Christian adolescent guys in the development of their sexuality and this will be further expanded upon in this post. As we have discussed previously, guys are strongly physically driven in their approach to sexual interaction, and it is most useful for guys to be able to develop this interest during phases of singleness in their lives, of which adolescent is the first and most important phase, because to be strong in his identity of being attracted to gals, he has to be given the means in adolescence to affirm this attraction. He does this through masturbation aided by visual references to female sexuality as opportunities present themselves in his day to day life. We feel that access to suitable visual media which is not hardcore but does give him a physical view of female sexuality is a very constructive way of achieving this, and has an important secondary benefit to his social interactions with Christian gals. More specifically we believe the type of media could include fully naked pictures of women and possibly those who are masturbating or having sex depending on context. This is consistent with our view that masturbation is a healthy expression of sexuality for Christians, and therefore, that expressions of masturbation are healthy, and also that sexual expression must be consistent at all times with norms of behaviour for Christians. Sex is also a healthy expression when it is carried out in expectation with widely understood norms in the context of biblical marriage and is relevant to single people on the assumption they are seeking marriage.
It is also relevant we note that sexuality is a lifelong situation, not something the relevance of which is limited to particular phases or periods of life. It is a part of our life from the cradle to the grave, although at some points it will be expressed more strongly than at others. It is necessary to acknowledge that sexual development begins in early childhood, and this may lead to masturbation becoming established in that phase of life. Masturbation in children often begins by the age of two years and frequency may be as high as several times per day. Such behaviour even at the higher end of the range is generally harmless, the main relevant concerns being if the child is injuring themselves, acting excessively compulsively, behaving in an embarrassing way in public or around other family members, or using masturbation as a substitute for relational intimacy – all grounds that would apply to the use of masturbation for any age group. At some level, we may go beyond the suggestion that masturbation for children is generally harmless, to advocating that it presents similar opportunities for benefit as masturbation by adolescents and older, although pre-pubescent masturbation is not used for sexual purposes.
The conventional Christian view on sexuality is that looking at pictures of naked people for sexual reasons (e.g. looking at porn) is committing adultery. Adultery, however, is considered to be an act that is committed by people who are in a marriage. We advocate this arrangement only for single people to practice. We also advocate that it can only be used where there is clear certaintly that sexual addiction and lust are absent. These can be prevented by following certain principles in the use of such material. So the use of media for this purpose, helping single Christian guys achieve strong sexual development and sexual identity, has to be compartmentalised in their lives away from public social interactions, such as going to school, church, youth group etc, and to help achieve this the media cannot depict any person they have actually met or know. There is also a concern over where such media can be sourced from, the most common source of it being pornographic websites, and that viewing such content from these websites also exposes Christians to material that depicts sexual perversion. In a sense, there is almost a case being made for a Christian organisation to operate its own website to disseminate media of this type so that it firstly has been cleared as suitable for this use and secondly that the website doesn’t contain other, unsuitable content. For Christian guys who are married, all sexual development must come from within the marriage and the only visuals permitted are those of their actual wife.