At which point, you’ve essentially claimed there is nothing anyone can say to change your mind. But maybe you’ll help us out and tell us which journals you’ll accept, and what counts as “cold hard evidence”.
If you want evidence, then my life should suffice. (But it won’t, because you want me to quote an invasive study that doesn’t exist that maps, mathematically, masturbation to tangible negative outcomes, like rape and molestation, with no margin of error.) But let me explain my life. I began masturbating when I was 11. I continued doing so, daily, for 15 years. I was addicted, no doubt about it, but it wasn’t until this past March that I was willing to admit it.
Every relationship I entered, I started immediately into sexual contact (groping, heaving kissing, petting), and even into sex, even after just a short period of dating. To me, because I had trained myself to believe that the important aspect was the pleasure (and masturbation is only, can only, will ever only be about the pleasure), taking pleasure from these relationships was what I was after. And every relationship suffered because of it. I pressured my wife into having sex shortly after we started dating, well before we were engaged, well before we were married. And our relationship suffered because of it. She pleaded with me to stop having sex, because she claimed she was feeling used.
And she was being used. Because once you accept that seeking pleasure from sexual acts is okay, every sexual act becomes masturbation, and it is very, very, very difficult to “fix” sex so that it is the loving, giving act. Keep this in mind: every time we had sex, I was just masturbating, using her as my tool for masturbation.
Even worse, though she begged that we stop having sex until marriage (pregnancy was a worry for her, too), I still would force myself on her, arousing her will she was sleeping and taking advantage of her somnolent state and arousal to have sex.
Because, once you accept masturbation, sex itself is just masturbation, because you’re only after the pleasure.
I had a pornography habit that was miles wide and leagues deep. It grew like a cancer, because once you start masturbating and find that you want the pleasure, you need to keep finding ways to keep it pleasurable. Moreover, you have to keep finding ways to make it more pleasurable. So I did. Until it nearly destroyed me.
Now, you will argue that I’ve simply gone off the deep end, that many people don’t go that far. Fine, but I’m just talking about myself, and what I have learned from direct experience. But if you want to say that we can’t generalize from that, then maybe you could help us out again with the journals you accept as properly scientific so we know what grounds we can argue this on.
Now, you’ll also argue that my wife and past relationships aside, when I’m masturbating, I’m not hurting anyone. Yet even that is wrong. I’m hurting myself. Masturbation is fundamentally exacerbating that disharmony that has existed in man since the Fall. It is pitting mind against body. It treats the body as no more than a pitiful tool to be used and abused. And if that doesn’t immediately resonate, then you really need to consider the role of body and soul.
Body and soul are not suppose to be two separate entities (as they kind of are in our fallen state, and will become when we die), but are supposed to be one, whole unit, as will happen after the Resurrection.
Just as another person’s body is not meant to be your plaything, neither is your own body supposed to be your plaything. That strikes against the dignity you possess as a human being, and it strike against self-respect. Masturbation is the statement that you’re willing to abuse your body’s natural functions solely for the purpose of yoking pleasure out of it.
To claim this is not harmful is ludicrous. Now, the degree of harm may very. Some people drink heavily, but never become alcoholics. There’s not necessarily any rhyme or reason to it. Just so, someone can masturbate heavily and still go out and have a satisfying relationship with a woman for many years, and it looks as though little harm was done. Others can masturbate infrequently, and yet find themselves hurting others sexually. The extent of the damage is always variable, always contingent on other factors, but it is always real, always present.
