So our previous two posts in this series have discussed normalising adolescent masturbation from the perspective simply that we believe that there is too much harmful focus on the supposed evils of masturbation, which is not actually even mentioned in the Bible apart from possibly one place in the book of Leviticus, where its spiritual impact is comparable to normal sexual intercourse between a husband and wife. We have the approach that for adolescent guys, their bodies place them under considerable pressure to masturbate and that in moderation this can be actually quite healthy for them both physically and spiritually. We advocate normalisation on the basis of it being a means to help adolescent guys maintain sexual purity and be a part of effective strategies for standing strong against the tide of perverted sexuality that is prevalent in our present society which is strongly expressed in the widespread availability of pornographic materials and themes. To date as far as we are aware the church has mostly focused on teaching young men complete abstinence from all sexual thoughts and practices, including masturbation, which is pretty hard to deal with when their bodies are intent on producing and expressing sperm on a daily basis. We also believe that most of the existing teaching on sexuality within the Christian church is dominated by complementarian theology, which has filled a void because egalitarianism doesn’t delve into the area of physical sexuality very much or at all and instead focuses mainly on leadership roles. This gap means that complementarian ideas are often all that people have to refer to for substantive theological teaching in the area of physical sexuality and sexual development and a lot of these beliefs are very repressive and promote very negative attitudes to female sexuality in particular.
The key objective of this post is to focus on the need for parents, friends and other supporters of Christian guys to be able to support their need to masturbate and recognise it as a healthy outlet for the physical pressures of living in an adolescent or adult male body. Males through their particular physiological makeup are embodied by design with a strong sex drive that manifests itself in various ways, such as having a lot of sexual thoughts, being aroused by viewing women’s bodies, and the physical feelings associated with continual production of seminal fluid. These all contribute to a desire for men to masturbate. Christian males of all ages past the beginning of puberty, almost universally and consistently experience this strong sex drive day in and day out and don’t have the same kind of cyclical variations that women tend to experience through changing hormonal levels. In other words, the variations of the male reproductive cycle that influence sex drive are far fewer than those for the corresponding female reproductive cycle. Males also naturally have much higher levels in their bodies of testosterone, a key hormone associated with sexual desire, and this also influences the typical (though not exclusive) male experience of high sex drive. In terms of our sex drive level suggestions made in a previous post, we believe most males are placed at the high to extra high end of the spectrum, whereas for females, the greater percentage are likely to sit at the low to medium end of the spectrum, with a minority in the high/extra high category.
How then can we give support to adolescent masturbation? It goes into two general categories, which are essentially spiritual and physical in nature. The spiritual support we can provide starts with encouraging healthy conversations about sexuality, masturbation as a healthy component of sexuality, and how it can fit into the life of a Christian. The physical support mostly is relating to providing our adolescent guy with the time/space he needs in the household and in his everyday life for the personal and private act of masturbation. Obviously it’s in the first category that we have the greatest opportunity to engage with him. The most important aspect of supporting masturbation for any adolescent Christian is that it must have a meaningful context to their personal faith in Jesus Christ. That means it must transcend purely physical pleasure or sexual release in and of themselves. So there must be a belief that these things have deeper spiritual significance in the life of a young man or woman, and we have attempted earlier in the blog to address these issues. The 3-Ds we constantly articulate in this site help to provide a spiritual framework for supporting masturbation in a Christian sexuality context. Masturbation must of necessity be part of a healthy appreciation of sexuality as a whole and a key part of spiritual discipline for a Christian, as well as contributing to their physical and spiritual development overall, and finally it must be able to be framed in a devotive context that sees it as an act of worship. Conversations of this type between adolescents and caregivers should be ongoing and they should be encouraged, as all conversations to do with adolescent issues should.
Once those questions of masturbation being for an appropriate purpose and used in an appropriate context have been resolved then more practical aspects like scheduling and privacy could be considered.