Is masturbation a sin?

Answered by · · 3 Comments

Masturbation can be part of a loving relationship between a husband and wife, and in this situation it would be fine; but masturbation as a single person, or between people not married to each other, would be a sin.

Masturbation is stimulating the sexual organs for sexual pleasure:1 outside of a marriage, it is part of the process, or the end result of, inappropriate sexual lust, lusting after people we are not married to.2 Either our inappropriate sexual desires take control of our thinking, so we want to masturbate, or we masturbate and it helps bring inappropriate sexual images and desires into our minds. And, either way, inappropriate lustful thoughts are clearly wrong:

…anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Mat. 5:28 NIV)

So, we should resist the temptation to masturbate.

…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Rom. 13:14)

Masturbation is a symptom of a mind that is feeding the wrong desires (Mat. 15:19). By masturbating we are encouraging – gratifying – our sinful thoughts. Instead, we should both avoid masturbation (so as not to encourage our inappropriate thoughts) and begin to deal with the root problem in our minds, removing our sexual lusts from there, and then it will be easier for masturbation to cease to be part of our life.

Removes sexual tension?

Sometimes it is argued that masturbation is a convenient way to remove sexual or physical tension. However, the body has its own natural ways of dealing with any physical tensions. If it needs to, the body releases semen on its own during sleep.3 The medical name for this is a nocturnal emission, more commonly known as a wet dream. There’s no need, then, to attempt to release tensions by masturbating (the body will sort itself out without our “help”).4

A practical suggestion to help us resist

Psalm 36:4 says:

Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong.

This is talking about far more than masturbation, but its principles can be applied to the topic here. Sometimes masturbation is most tempting when we first wake up or first go to bed; if it’s in the morning, then don’t just lie there — as the psalm says, reject what is wrong and get out of bed. Move on to something else. If the temptation is in the evening, do something else until you can sleep: read, for example. The principle from Ps. 36:4 can be applied to other situations. Part of the idea from Ps. 36 is that the person is dwelling on their evil thoughts, which is something we can do at any time. There might be certain situations when these temptations are stronger than at other; for example, if you are tired or feeling lonely. We need to fill our time – and our thoughts – with something else to remedy the cause of this problem: spend time with friends; enjoy a hobby; exercise; etc.

Notes
1. ‘masturbate’, Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English (Oxford: OUP, 2005)

2. Sometimes people say that they can masturbate without thinking about anybody sexually. I find this very hard to believe because masturbation involves the stimulation of the sexual organs so, even if it was not intended for the masturbation to involve inappropriate thoughts, in my experience, inappropriate thoughts would surely follow. And, as we’ll see in a moment in Mat. 5:28, inappropriate lustful thoughts are as sinful as any physical sexual sin. Masturbation that doesn’t involve inappropriate sexual thoughts is something I personally can’t comprehend. My advice here would be that we need to make sure we are being honest with ourselves (and with God!): we have a tendency to want to deceive ourselves (Jer. 17:9), so we need to make sure we aren’t deceiving ourselves into thinking we aren’t doing any harm if we masturbate. It’s better for us to be honest and, with God’s help, face up to the struggle to resist temptation than to deceive ourselves and (using Jesus’ word [Mat. 18:9]) end up in Gehenna.

3. Erections and wet dreams (MassGeneral Hospital for Children), online (accessed 12/02/11). For more on wet dreams, see ‘Is it sinful to have a wet dream?‘.

4. If we have sexual tension then the way to release that is not through masturbation, but through removing the attitudes we have that lead us to feel sexually tense. Feeling sexually tense is not an excuse to masturbate; rather, feeling sexual tension in our bodies is most probably a symptom itself of us having the wrong thinking about sex (we shouldn’t really be feeling sexually tense in the first place!). Christians need to resist the temptation to masturbate and, even more importantly, get to the root of the issue and have our minds renewed (Rom. 12:2).

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  • ez

    I feel this topic is often unrealistically examined.
    The Matthew quote when taken out of context actually seems sexist. Both men and women can lust in their heart. Besides the Matt5 quote is speaking in respect to the self-righteous (Pharisees etc) committing adultery in their hearts and thinking this was ok with God. Jesus stomps on this because he wants conversion to come from the heart.

    Paul speaks in Romans 13 in relation to all sexual lusts not just lusts surrounding masturbation. The word ‘provision’ in vs 14 means ‘forethought’ or ‘cares’ for the flesh, just as Jesus speaks of in Matt6:25-34. Here he reminds us not to be anxious for our fleshly needs for God will provide. In other words don’t revolve your life around sexual gratification in general. This verse is not particular to masturbation.

    Wet dreams mostly occur with males and mostly when they are a boy or young man. In any respect, these are often completely involuntary and certainly don’t always coincide with the individuals conscious needs.

    The only traditional quote that eludes to this behaviour negatively is:
    “8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
    9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
    10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.”
    (Gen 38:8-10 KJV)

    God punished Onan not because he wasted his seed but rather he tried to abuse his duty and deceive God. His sin was that of selfishness for not carrying on his brothers name.

    Paul speaks of the need for marriage if someone ‘burns’ in 1Cor7, thus realizing the need man/women have for companionship as well as sexual temptation.
    On this note too we must remember that we shouldn’t marry just for the sake of releasing sexual tension. This Union is life-long and involves much more than sexual release.

    The Law of Moses in regards to Semen Emission in Lev15:16-17 only regards the act as needful of physical cleansing. It does not require a sin offering such as a potentially unhealthy ‘discharge’.

    The most important thing to keep in mind in all of this is how such an action can stay controlled. Unfortunately whether a person is involved in the act or merely walking down the street, such Lusts can enter our hearts.

    The issue of private masturbation is a very personal one. It involves one’s own body and does not include any other sexual partner.

    The most important thing though, whichever way people choose, is not to let ANY lust continually distract us from serving our God.

  • LP

    If you’re masturbating without having any lustfull thoughts I don’t think that’s a sin.

  • Julia

    As I understand the Bible about the subject, satisfying sexual desires is not wrong as such, for married or single person. Masturbation becomes a sin when a person imagines (in sexual context) someone who is not their spouse.