Psychology Today published this article six weeks ago. It is a secular approach to this topic, and we chose to dig through their article database and explore a number of approaches they have to the subject. Largely, their writings on the subject confirm the views we have articulated within this blog, and whilst at the same time we wish to distance ourselves from necessarily endorsing any particular view expressed on the site, we feel that the views we have expressed on masturbation within this blog are very likely consistent with professional medical beliefs.
This article from the same publication expands on the range of benefits that can be ascribed to the practice of masturbation. Amongst these are benefits to women attempting to conceive as it alters conditions within the vagina, this not being something we were previously aware of.
We are publishing this post on the basis that we continue to review secular or mainstream material on this subject rather than being solely reliant on Christian viewpoints as the endorsement of masturbation is extremely uncommon in conservative/evangelical circles and this is a part of the challenge we have taken on with this blog and our ministry in general.
What drives us in general is to question the general Christian attitudes to sexuality overall, inasmuch as there has been a long history of misogyny within the Church and generally negative attitudes to women overall. We have a strong and enduring conviction that much of this is innately ignorant and that it is very important for the Church to come to terms with some key facts. Chief among these is that female sexuality is created by God and like all facets of humanity, it is “very good” and intended to achieve some very excellent purposes. In order to be able to endorse this wholeheartedly within the Church, we have to acknowledge all of the physical facets of women’s bodies that are innately connected to their sexuality and create environments within our Christian communities for free and frank discussion of the sexuality of our female membership in a way that is deeply respectful and affirming of femininity in general. We can do this at the same time as advocating for traditional Christian virtues such as chastity and pre-marital celibacy, and certainly the overriding theme of this blog has been to cleave wholeheartedly to traditional Christian mores on sexuality whilst advocating that the conservative/evangelical Christian approaches to female sexuality and masturbation are two things that need to be addressed.
One important aspect of this, as an example, is to acknowledge some key aspects of female anatomy, specifically a woman’s genitals and reproductive organs, as these parts taken together are considerably more complex than those of a male, and therefore have a greater impact upon daily life for women, including Christian women. We have generally on this blog emphasised the positive impacts of masturbation for Christian women in being able to affirm their sexuality and in this being especially important during adolescence as an important developmental phase in preparing for adulthood and the assumption of marriage. We also acknowledge that Christian women do engage in masturbation and that since the onset of the sexual revolution, we believe this is becoming more prevalent and this is generally a healthy trend for female sexuality within the Church, as long as we also emphasise that it is important to separate masturbation from addictive or lustful practices, chief among them the use of pornography or any type of sexual addiction.