We’ve been planning this article for a long time and now we’ve got enough insight to write it, along with perhaps a few focusing on Christian manhood more in coming weeks. For a male, your whole life is shaped by your sex drive, and the steps you take to manage it can have major impacts not only on your life but also others around you It is imperative that Christian guys make very wise decisions about how to manage these impacts in a way that honours God and enables you to live a fulfilled life of Christian purpose and ministry.
The key determinants of sex drive for a human male include:
- Visually-driven sexual arousal. This is not exclusive to men, but is important for them.
- Physiology of their reproductive system organs, particularly those which are associated with the production of seminal fluid.
- Extension of the typical male performance / achievement drive to their sexuality
- Sexual lust is a major driver of inappropriate sexual behaviour for all people but when combined with the other factors that cause men to have a strong sex drive, is primarily responsible for many of the negative attitudes in society towards women and sexual crime committed by men.
Lust is considered to be sinful behaviour when practiced by anyone and the most important issue for you as a Christian man for the purposes of this article is to engage in appropriate techniques to manage and discipline your sex drive to avoid lustful behaviour. This is the most important issue to be addressed in this post. It is extremely important to consider this issue in the Church because survey data suggests there is a high rate of pornography use by Christian men. Given that the availability of pornography is widespread and that society as a whole generally condones this, it is important for the Church to take a stand against sexual sin. As we have made clear elsewhere on this site, as supporters of Christian egalitarianism, which recognises and endorses the roles of women in the church as equals with men, it naturally follows that we must equally seek to treat women with equally great respect for their sexuality in general and therefore the Church needs to discover an appropriate and consistent message for Christian men that gives them healthy ways of dealing with the pressures caused by the first three factors, whilst continuing to condemn sexual lust. Recognising that we live in highly sexualised societies that create many pressures for men is an important role for the evangelical church community, as is the embarrassing and sensitive personal aspect of many conversations and discussions that we have about sexuality and sex drive.
Masturbation remains a highly controversial topic in the Church at large because so much of our sexuality teaching in general is still dominated by complementarian perspectives, including its offspring the sexual purity movement which has widely influenced the development of sex education materials for adolescents in the Church, and which conveys many unnecessarily negative attitudes towards sexuality, including major repression of female sexual desire and their sexuality in general. As we have made clear numerous times elsewhere, we believe masturbation is a healthy practice for all Christian believers provided it is practiced in the absence of lust. This last point is the most critical negative factor influencing any type of sexual activity that Christians undertake and we can’t underscore highly enough how important it is for any Christian man to have addressed this issue head on in his personal life. Men have enough pressures already from the other components of their sex drive to manage without having the additional challenges created by lustful thoughts and practices that generally provoke a man to trample on many of the positive attributes of the Christian faith that are taught in the Bible, including especially in relationship to others.
Whilst many teachers believe Christians should abstain from masturbation, which they mistakenly conflate with lustful practice, we endorse and support the views of those who suggest that Christian men can masturbate constructively, in the absence of lustful thought or behaviour, and for purposes which are consistent with leading a godly lifestyle and making a positive contribution to the lives of other believers. The key importance is for a man to be in control of your mind and thought life at all times. During a time when you needs to masturbate, you must ensure that your mind is focused on godly things. It is for this reason that we have talked elsewhere in the blog about the practice of sexual devotion as an important focus that any Christian can engage in during times of masturbation.
We have written at length elsewhere in this blog about 3-D purposes of masturbation; that is sexual development, sexual devotion and sexual discipline. We believe that the development aspect is especially important for adolescents, which particularly assists them to reach sexual maturity during that phase of their lives. Devotion is the practice of engaging with God, and enables the believer to have an appropriate mindfulness during masturbation. It can be part of an overall focus on dedicating your sexuality to godly purposes in your whole life. Discipline is especially important for all Christian men because you must be able to control and manage all aspects of their sex drive, especially if single, which is the normal expectation in evangelical churches during adolescence and early adulthood.
As with our discussions on female sexuality, we have sought to undermine the attitudes generally taught by complementarians who have sought to portray singleness as abnormal and in so doing, created an unreasonable amount of pressure both on men and women in the Church. There are few references seen in the teachings of many churches on Paul’s advocacy of singleness for men. Whilst we understand and fully endorse that marriage is a great personal goal and ministry focus for Christian men and don’t wish to detract from it in any way, there are situations for some men where singleness is better for them and the Church needs to recognise and support them as well as single women in its ministries. Singleness is not an aberration or abnormality that has to be overcome in any way in the life of any believer.
Some guys can seek to use masturbation as a substitute for intimacy in relationship. This can be harmful to a marriage where if you are withdrawing from sexual intimacy with your wife and substituting it with times of masturbating alone. It is also possible that if you masturbate too much then you will not be able to perform satisfactorily in times when you are with your wife. You should seek godly marital or relationship counseling if there is any suggestion that sexual tension in your marriage is related to lack of sexual intimacy between yourself and your wife, as many factors can influence this, for both husbands and wives.
We are wrapping up this post by seeking to bless you if you are a Christian man who is reading this post right now. Masturbation can be a healthy sexual practice for you, especially if you are an adolescent or single. It helps you to develop your sexuality and sexual maturity, and relieve the many pressures which you come under as a result of the strong sex drive that is a key characteristic of human male sexuality. Achieving sexual maturity is very important to entering adult manhood, and together with sexual discipline, these components are key aspects of a productive contribution towards marriage and family life, especially in relation to the Church as a whole. We believe that in general, the evangelical church community needs to recognise the damage to Christian beliefs about human sexuality caused by complementarianist teachings which are still prevalent in some church communities, and seek to encourage healthy and positive conversations amongst Christian men and women about sexuality in general.
We believe that as a godly man, your personal sexual discipline can be greatly blessed and enhanced by regular masturbation, at an appropriate frequency and timetable that you can arrive at by prayerful consideration and personal devotion in your daily walk with God. Many of you who are adolescent or single will benefit from daily schedules, and any of you can find physical and spiritual sexual fulfillment through masturbation. If you are married, you’ll want to focus more on achieving sexual fulfillment as a shared experience with your wife, and getting her blessing to masturbate mainly when you are temporarily unable to participate in marital sexual relations, such as times of travel for work, separate holidays, or if she is sick, pregnant, or is recovering from childbirth.
Masturbation when practiced in a healthy way within a marriage can bless your wife by taking pressure off her to participate in sexual relations in those times when she may temporarily need a break and remove from her the sense of obligation that can create a marital tension. We understand that managing differences in sex drives between spouses can create a level of conflict and challenge in many marriages and a husband’s willingness to either practicing solo sexual devotion where necessary, or varying the type of intercourse to reduce the use of penetration, can be highly beneficial to those times of sexual intimacy with your wife, and that this is likely to be a primary reason why statistical surveys have suggested that frequency of masturbation can be positively correlated with frequency of intercourse. Both you and your wife will benefit from times of solo sexual devotion, perhaps weekly, during the course of your marriage, and balancing your personal needs for sexual release and fulfillment with hers and by being willing to substitute more physically intimate activities with masturbation to respect situations when she feels challenged, can greatly enhance and benefit your mutual willingness and desire for sexual intimacy as a whole.
We enjoin you, whether you are single or married, adolescent or adult, to understand that it is incumbent upon you as a godly male to live a demonstrative Christian lifestyle which is in all ways reflective of a highly devotional approach to your personal sexuality, which conveys the utmost respect at all times for people around you and their personal boundaries, and which keeps the personal practice of masturbation firmly within your private life as a combination of personal devotion to God and an important component of a disciplined Christian faith that seeks to serve others through personal or corporate ministry. It is neither sinful nor harmful to be horny as a male and to desire sexual release in your daily life, but it is extremely important to manage and discipline those desires, and we believe masturbation is a constructive way for you to achieve that which is compatible with your personal Christian faith as long as you abstain from sexual sin when engaging in it. It is also important for you to disengage from any pressure, obligation or expectation of sexual performance at any level in your life and to ensure you remain fully in control of your sexual desires at all times and they are there to serve you and others close to you and no one else.