Wankerrrrsss...
This is the Public Service "I'm Procrastinating On Important Stuff" Bulletin No. 69.
I'm rather annoyed at how NG over the last few years or so seems to have been cutting down on quality writing in favour of having much more graphics-heavy articles, having a lot of unnecessary computer-generated figures, and pandering to popular topics. Compare recent and 1970s Readers' Digest issues if you want to see why I'm worried about that last. Case in point being this month's issue, which includes a VERY badly written and poorly organized essay on the biochemistry and some social aspects of romantic love. Wonder if the timing has anything to do with Valentine's Day. =PPP
Bouncing off something that was in the article, i Googled 'oxytocin orgasm' (oxytocin is one of those interesting neuropeptides that do a bunch of different things) and to my surprise one of the top hits was a Christian website called The Marriage Bed. After reading what they had to say about oxytocin, I browsed through the site a bit and came across a section where the authors discussed masturbation...and came to the conclusion that the Bible has nothing bad to say about it and it's okay.
-_o
You have to see this site to understand why I was surprised. At first blush it's one of those freaking corny ugly redneck fundamentalist sites. It's got cute little fishies next to the titles of essays, and the logo is a corny cross superimposed on a corny pink heart. The authors are from Texas, the land of the evil botanical object, and look like fat rednecks with a fat kid. However, it seems to be surprisingly well-organized and all of the links WORK, which is amazing to find in this genre of website. And the articles...surprise, surprise...make sense.
The authors of this site, as far as i can tell are quite traditional with regard to other stuff like no making out before you're married (drat...), no revealing clothing in public, wife submits to husband, and so forth, but the site also has quite a lot of biology-oriented information, advice on how to give massages, oral sex, using vibrators, etc.
And wanking is a much-under-discussed topic in all those BGR workshops (those of you who have been to either sunday school or SUFES camps in Malaysia will know that that's an acronym for 'boy-girl relationships') we attended as teens. The one time I remember it being brought up - Methodist Family Convention 2000 - was one day when we split into sex-segregated sections so people could ask the winkwinknudgenudge questions. The person in charge of the girls was called Angie, a twenty-eight-year-old who looked sixteen with two toddler sons. She said something vague like "I'd rather my boys not do it when they're older" but not whether it was actually sinful per se or just sort of borderline discouraged.
So I emailed a panel of my parents, a cousin in seminary, another cousin who wants to be a bodhisattva, a friend in seminary, a friend who's a journalist, a friend who's a part-time social worker, anddd...assorted male friends who are probably experts on the subject by virtue of their gender, asking for their opinions on the site.
(Yan is going to kill me for being scandalous, i know...we've already argued over Joshua Harris' "I Kissed Dating Goodbye")
Anyway...here's what the site owners plus one guest columnist who's a pastor had to say about wanking. Note that the pastor seems to be quite the AOG type:
Why Didn't God Call Masturbation Sin?
Masturbation Q and A
Pastor's Thoughts on Masturbation
Sample:
There are passages which clearly label as sin such things as fornication, adultery, lust, incest, rape, homosexuality, and even bestiality. Surely the urge to masturbate is more common than most of these, and much stronger than many of them, and yet the Bible says nothing about it. If God felt it necessary to tell us not to have sex with animals, why didn't He also find it necessary to tell us not to masturbate?I can only come up with three reasons why "thou shalt not masturbate" is not found in the Bible:
1.. It's an oversight.
2.. One must have special knowledge or be spiritual to know this truth.
3.. Masturbation is not an inherently sinful act.
Number one makes the Bible incomplete, while number two is the heresy of Gnosticism. By process of elimination I am left to conclude that number three must be true.
Hm. None of us want to be heresiarchs, do we?
Anyway, this is mostly an exercise in curiosity for me - I won't say scientific curiosity because I can't disclaim that other parts of my mind are also interested. Although I think I may have killed all the nerve endings in my pelvis by commuting to work on a bicycle with a _really_ unyielding saddle, so the masturbation question is personally irrelevant =D
Oh yes, and I think male mammalian anatomy is very funny-looking and terribly exposed to environmental hazards, except for the whales who keep their important bits inside and only whip them out when they need them. Sorry guys. I just think you're weirdly constructed.
Incidentally, The Marriage Bed site had a link to a Christian (!) website that sells sex toys. Hmm...my parents's birthday - yes, they have the same birthday, I didn't leave out an 's' - is coming up 5 days after Valentine's... All their kids are out of the house... hmm....international air mail can reach in about 10 days... hmm...
^_^
posted by xenobiologista @ 21:57
6 Comments:
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Hi SH,
I totally think that masturbation is a sin. I'm saying this with a big '=/' on my face, b'cos it's not like I've never done it. Many things I've learned (and continue to learn) come from my own experience, and some awkward but empathetic conversations with friends over recent years.
- Not only Christians wonder if masturbation is wrong. I had a friend once who IMed me once, sounding like he'd just been washed ashore after several long days at sea on a life buoy. He lamented how masturbation/fantasizing had gotten him into a very low point, and how it really took the shine off his LDR r'ship with his girlfriend. Masturbation, though enjoyable to the body at the instantaneous moment of administration, wrecks the spirit, whether we know it or not, Christian or not. It's so fleeting, temporary, and flesh-y, serving our desires instead of aspiring to a better goal. It's like paying rent all your life instead of buying a house on a mortgage.
- Masturbation, IMHO, is giving in to temptation. Masturbating is not like, you know, washing the dishes or sorting your mail. It's fed by something: a kinky comic strip, GoDaddy.com commercials, the sex scene in every R-rated movie, Jessica Alba. The pastor in one of your links said he 'got naked and masturbated 5 times' in between giving sermons at a conference (I find that midly disturbing; a pastor's supposed to be a better model than me, kinda ...). I'm sure he didn't do it to cross off 'Masturbate 5 times today' off his to-do list. It could very well be stimulated by the hot brunette in the congregation that morning, or the lingering image of Jane Fonda from years ago. I can't believe that they argue that it's a lesser sin than committing adultery. Sometimes we can't just pore over the Bible to find a 'do not' instruction or a sin with 300% more weight.
- That said, I think masturbation distracts you. From your productivity, your girlfiend, your wife, your God. Totally, I think that at a fundamental level, masturbation is a sin because it brings you far away from God/Jesus. You can wank off to Angelina Jolie or a memory, then roll over to give God a high five. I feel that feeling guilt is the correct response to such an act (the pastor in your link said he tried to make men not feel that way). I don't think it's right to explain/rationalize away our struggles. Guilt is what you feel when you've done something you gotta hide. I've been there. It's a sad place. And it's a long trudge back to the father's house again.
It's a sin, and something many of us struggle with.
heh, i love this.
i'd like to say, quite proudly, that i enjoy guiltless masturbation. in fact, without mutual masturbation, sex with my woman would be quite rare (so susah to go out buy condoms).
i used to be quite the puritan (kneeling by the bed, my spent seed spiralling down the plumbing; 'oh god, please remove these sinful thoughts, please god please'), as some of our old mutual acquaintances might testify. one day, though, i just refused to be so petty.
let's see whether the FSM considers every sperm sacred. i'd like to pull out another item from the Way Back hat: i once purchased a book of qoutes from old brit wit malcolm muggeridge at a christian writers' camp. he said: 'if i found, after death, that god took himself seriously, i would ask for the other side'.
amen.
I'm not a boy. I'm not even a particularly horny girl, although I really like making out, certainly. Hence the need to ask my male friends as a source of reference - since it's a sin for you, how do you deal with being horny?
Seriously, I think it's like when Paul discusses eating meat vs. eating veggies, having a sacred day vs. treating all days the same. He's certainly the last person on earth you could call a relativist, but he acknowledges here that to one believer something could be sacred or forbidden, aand to the next it's like eh, biasa lah tu. His conclusion is "Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way."
It seems that what the site authors are saying is that for people who have tried for a long time to stop jacking off, including praying about it, guilt is indeed a terrible stumbling block and so they're saying "don't beat yourself over the head about it if you do fail to stop".
ARTHUR THAT WAS A VERY DISTURBING IMAGE
I didn't read the article. From my understanding of Christianity, I believe that Christianity is on the perspective that man is innately sinful. Therefore it's useless to argue about the sinfulness or sinlessness of a particular activity. One wrongs God by one's very own existence - and, from my readings and experience, Christianity also believes that one glorifies God by one's very own sinful existence, simply because it shows on a comparative kind of thing, how unachievably holy God is. So there aren't any karma points involved.
I don't know. I don't consider myself a Christian anymore.
That was me - CatR.
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