How do I defend the catholic stand agaisnt masturbation?

[Charlie_Vivian]

No one’s mentioned Christopher West’s “Theology of the Body for Beginners.” It’s an awesome book, and gives a fantastic explanation of the purpose of our sexuality, and really clear explanations of why un-contracepted sex is right, and all other forms fall short. His book is based on JP2’s teaching on the same subject. (I’m reading JP2’s book currently, but it’s heavy going for my brain size!)

Basically, our gender is meant to be an icon of the union between the bridegroom (Jesus) and bride (his church). This in turn should reflect the relationship within the Godhead. A true relationship is free, total, fruitful and faithful. None of these can be compromised if the icon is to be authentic. Masturbation (like contracepted sex), cannot be a true icon.

So when we fail, the correct response is contrition and repentance.

READ THE BOOK!

 

[wynnejj]

First off, to deal with the “sin of Onan”:

Onan’s sin wasn’t masturbation. (You can find this story in Genesis 38.) Judah was the father of Er and Onan. Tamar married Er, who died. Onan’s sin was to practice a form of birth control, what we call today “pull and pray”, i.e., withdrawing before ejaculation. He did this because as long as Tamar didn’t have a male child, Er’s property (livestock, etc.) belonged to him. G_D, on the other hand, had plans for this child, which is why after Onan died, Tamar had twins with Judah. This is the same Judah that is listed in the biblical genealogies for Jesus.

As for masturbation, you can understand why it’s sinful because of basketball. When psychologists were first investigating what we now call “visualization”, one experiment involved having one group of subjects practiced free throws for 30 minutes a day, a second group did math for 30 minutes a day, and the third group “visualized” throwing free throws for 30 minutes a day. After 30 days, the math group had no improvement in throwing free throws; the free throw group had a large improvement, and the visualization group had almost as good an improvement as those who had actually thrown free throws. This proves that it’s possible to train the body to react in a specific way to stimuli that you are just imagining.

Now consider masturbation. It frequently involves visualizing women with whom you may or may not be involved. This means you are training your body to react in specific ways to imagined stimuli. Ask yourself if you’re training your body to react to the woman you are married to, and to react in a romantic and loving way? If not, just what are you training your body to do? This is why Jesus said that if you look at a woman with lust you have sinned against her.

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Jesus also said this about the “thought crime” of hatred in relation to murder in the same discussion about lust and adultery. One has to ask one’s self, 'What is worse: doing a horrible thing, or all the little steps taken beforehand that pre-conditioned you to do the horrible thing?". With the thought crime of lust, to emphasize the seriousness Jesus suggested that gouging out your right eye or cutting off your right hand might be a proper solution. In other words, consider the problem as serious, despite conventional wisdom, and correct it.