On Masturbation

If you’re taking this program, then we’ll assume that you’ve experienced that porn hasn’t contributed anything positive to your life. However, sometimes people question the harm that masturbating has. Or maybe they think it’s not good, but aren’t clear why that’s the case.

The confusion is only escalated by what the “professionals” have to say on the matter. Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, even medical doctors weighing in that masturbating is natural, even healthy.

The first thing to communicate is that masturbating on its own is far less severe than masturbating to pornography. If eliminating pornography first and then tackling masturbation is a part of your recovery process then we encourage you in that.

However, we want to paint the picture of what the end goal is. Like we said earlier this week, the goal of sexual integrity is an amazing sexual relationship with your spouse. One element of that is selflessness, putting your spouse’s sexual experience above your own.

Masturbation is the practice of self-gratification, getting into the habit of using the organ designed for your mate for yourself.

We could go on, but we believe C.S. Lewis puts it most eloquently,

“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back, sends it back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.

For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival.

Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness…

In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of ourselves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”

We believe that it’s not only possible, but the natural state of a man and woman to focus the entirety of their sexual energy on their partner. We’ve seen case after case of the inspiring results to be experienced when two individuals, rooted in sexual integrity, enter into holy matrimony.