So for out next article in this series we want to write about the benefits and blessings that a Christian woman or man can experience from masturbation. It goes without saying that that theme is a core part of this blog in general.
It is timely for us to write about our perceptions of the purposes that are fulfilled through masturbation, both physical and spiritual. These are different for men and women, because of different approaches to sex that are inherent in the differences in male and female sexuality as a whole.
We believe that for a Christian woman, the primary focus for anything sexual is of an emotional nature. In a marriage, she’ll focus on getting to know her husband better, and letting him help to meet her emotional needs during times of sexual intimacy. A key aspiration of a woman is to feel beautiful and physically desirable to her husband.
In solo masturbation as a sexual devotion, the important goal is to receive these messages of beauty directly from God, which are primarily reinforced by the woman allowing herself to receive and enjoy pleasure from physically touching different areas of her body, and experiencing emotional and spiritual intimacy directly with God during a masturbation session. These are among the key reasons why masturbation makes for great sex therapy for a woman who has had her sexuality damaged by a myriad of possible causes, including sexual harassment, abuse, even from a difficult birth or pregnancy. If both husband and wife are in agreement, a married woman can have times of sexual devotion through solo masturbation, and this may be desirable as a regular practice for a spiritual refreshing and affirmation of her sexuality.
We formed the view that any kind of Christian practice of sex that is in accordance with God’s will produces spiritual refreshing and sexuality affirmation for the participant(s). The primary spiritual symbolism for a Christian woman in sex results from the physical opening up of her body. Whilst in marital sex both husband and wife are theoretically vulnerable, the physical differences in male and female bodies and in the different way sex is viewed by men and women and the different purposes it achieves, means that women have made themselves more vulnerable, due to the physical entry into their vagina. This results in the physical aspect of sex being much more sensitive for most women than most men, including a woman’s physical perceptions of her body in general, but especially in the most physically sensitive and vulnerable areas – her genitals and their immediate surrounds of buttocks and thighs. We believe that in solo masturbation, a Christian woman is opening herself up to spiritual intimacy and sexuality affirmation directly from God. This directly feeds in to her present or future marital relationships, in that she is also making it possible for her to be more sexually receptive to her husband, and it is for this reason that masturbation is found to be statistically correlated with a higher frequency of sexual intimacy in marriage.
For a Christian man, sex is primary a physical act. This, we believe, results from the typical male life focuses of performance and achievement. In marital sex, the achievement for the husband begins with persuading his wife to have sex with him, and proceeds through to being able to complete his orgasm and help her to reach the same level of arousal herself. In masturbation, the man must get that achievement from orgasm and ejaculation alone. A key reason for a male to become sexually aroused (aside from visual stimulation) is because his body has manufactured and stored semen ready for ejaculation; when the storage sacs in his reproductive system become full, he feels the physical pressure within. For some men, this can occur more than once a day. For a man, the sense of achievement begins with this knowledge that his body has primed itself ready to go, and all he has to do is complete the job. Obviously, when his orgasm and ejaculation takes place, that achievement is completely fulfilled. Hence, the sense of sexual fulfillment for a man from masturbation is achieved by the physical satisfaction of ejaculating millions of sperm that his body made. Another important aspect for a man is the knowledge that having discharged his load of semen, his body will immediately start preparing the next load.
The physical pleasure of masturbation for a man also sends an appropriate validation message, just as it does for a woman, and understandably, for a man, that is the message of sexual achievement through the action of masturbation. A man also measures his sense of sexual achievement by the frequency with which he is able to orgasm. For a married man, if he needs to orgasm more often than his wife is able to provide for, then with her blessing and consent, he can use masturbation to achieve this, and it is especially useful when his wife is pregnant, or has recently given birth, for example. The average male is likely to desire a higher frequency of masturbation than the average female, and we believe that within certain guidelines (we recommend reading our “Masturbation for Christians 101” series of articles) it is the personal choice of every Christian man as to how often he needs to masturbate, and daily masturbation (up to four times) can be a healthy personal choice for many adolescent and single adult males, and for some married men who need to manage a high sex drive.
The spiritual symbolism for a man from an act of solo masturbation arises from the fact that his sperm are capable of creating human life. Whereas a woman can only release an egg for conception for two or three days every month, a man is always fertile, and his body manufactures huge numbers of sperm (there can be as many as 300 million in one volume of ejaculate), any single one of which is capable of fertilising a woman at any time (provided that she is also fertile at the same time). A man’s fertility is also not as age restricted as for a woman. A Christian man who is masturbating is as able to enter a time of sexual devotion as a woman is, and experience spiritual intimacy with God. The spiritual symbolism for him is bringing life into a current or future marital situation. The time spent in masturbation is a great opportunity for the man to focus on managing and controlling his sex drive in a way that is deeply respectful of his wife’s different sexuality and seeks to bless their marriage together by focusing on meeting her needs such as various types of affirmation.
We’ve written a lot of articles in a series about the sexuality of Christian manhood and womanhood, but most of them were about Christian womanhood. Our ministry is now shifting into an increased focus on Christian manhood, so we’ll be putting out some more posts in that series specifically focused on male sexuality in coming weeks.