I have no sexual guilt

[sw85]

hello all. this might be offensive so, if you wish to not be offended, please don’t read or comment.

i know this is a touchy subject that most will disagree but i find it perfectly normal and healthy to regularly masturbate. i have never ever felt guilty or disgusted with this. i find not only a stress release but a way to sleep with less anxiety.

i have sinned, and when i do, i have guilt, i know God is telling me i messed up. i have done things that are enjoyable that are also sinful that i have felt guilty about and struggled with, but i have gotten through.

my question is, did God just not give me guilt about this? i find no Biblical evidence that this is wrong.

also, i was previously married, i saved myself and had never had sex or masturbated, i was in a catholic marriage and my wedding night was nothing short of scarring. i didn’t understand my body. i didn’t know what i was doing and it was awful. i was married for 2 years (another story).
now that i am out of that and live a life of what i find to be a healthy amount of masturbating i am not afraid of sex and look forward to when that might happen.

why does God want me to have a sexual life of fear and anxiety?

Well, first, it sounds like your first sexual experience was similar to most people’s. (Virtually) nobody knows what they’re doing the first time and perform appallingly and embarrassingly badly, at least compared to future “performances.” Like many things, sex is a talent, and proficiency is acquired through practice and repetition.

All that said, I think you fundamentally misapprehend the nature of the Church’s teachings if you think they’re primarily concerned with your emotions. Emotions are the baggage of our physical forms; they are chiefly physiological reactions. You have no control over them, nor are you expected to.

Repentance doesn’t require you to feel the right emotion (what a horrid and tyrannical religion this would be if it did!) but simply to know that what you did was wrong and commit yourself to avoidance of sin in the future. It is primarily an exercise of the intellect and the will, not of feelings.

That said, I can tell you’re not well versed in Catholic moral theology, especially since you’ve said you are “out” of a Catholic marriage and looking forward to having sex with someone else in the future. Catholic marriages are indissoluble; unless you managed to get an annulment (and you cannot without good reason, e.g., your husband knowingly concealed a condition of infertility from you) future sex is off the table if you intend to live a life in conformity with the Church’s teachings.

 

[sw85]

This talk about the Bible confuses me. It’s a collection of stories and broad teachings, for heaven’s sake, not the 10,000 Step Guide to Living a Perfect Life. People talk about the Bible like it’s a set of stereo instructions or something, and if you’re confused just open the book and flip to the index and look up M for Masturbation and turn to page 535 and there you are!

I mean one can always simply point to Christ handing Peter the keys to the kingdom of Heaven and telling him that what they bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven. Is this insufficient? If so, why?

 

[Rache]

why not just believe what the infallible Bible says opposed to fallible men?

also, what happened before the magisterium? were people just sent to hell because God forgot to tell the magisterium to tell the people what is worthy of a ticket to hell??

why is the Bible not enough?

I think if you want to interpret the bible literally, than perhaps Catholicism is not for you. Catholicism will require more critical thinking than just reading a bible and doing what you’re told. I was once a Southern Baptist. Maybe that would be better for you >.> But being a Protestant was way too simplistic for me. I understand now, why masturbation is discouraged. It’s more involved than “don’t touch yourself you’ll burn in Hell”.

Funny, when a hip and trendy Buddhist says to abstain from masturbation and channel that sexual energy into something like art or work or exericise, (or save it for his spouse) people find it “totally rad” but when a Priest says it…well, then it’s a load of Propaganda…

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

Well, there’s a BS answer. By default, you can’t say it is wrong.

Yes, it is, but if you cannot show where, then the OP’s questions is valid.

If the OPs question is valid then so is mine because the OP wouldn’t be able to show me where masturbation is specifically promoted in the Bible which leads to the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t contain everything Christians need to know! I did this to show the necessity for a TEACHING AUTHORITY aka A CHURCH. Get it? Funny how NewsTheMan was the only one to get this out of all of you! I wasn’t challenging the OP’s point that masturbations isn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible but rather I was challenging the OP’s logical fallacy in thinking everything we need to know is contained in the Bible. Basically I was agreeing with the OP and showing them why it’s not in the Bible and why we need a Church since using the OP’s logic I could just as easily and validly I might add, tell the OP that masturbation is a sin since the Bible doesn’t specifically promote it.

:idea:

 

[Equites_Christi]

lovingyou, here is the situation.

You are on a Catholic forum, talking to Catholics.

Catholics believe the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church officially pronounces masturbation to be wrong.

You do not believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, therefore you don’t care if the Church pronounces masturbation to be wrong (not to mention I would wager that you have a vested interest in it, since not only is it pleasureful but I think it may seem to you a kind of ‘healing’ from your tragically negative sexual experience.)

If we can convince you to follow the Catholic Church, then we can convince you that masturbation is wrong. If not, we are wasting our time and energy.

But as others have said, I don’t think you are truly 100% ok with what you do, or at least have some suspicions, or else you wouldn’t have brought the issue here.

Some food for thought: would you masturbate in a church bathroom, or tell a trusted pastor of your comfort with masturbating? If no, why not?
Would Jesus have been ok with his apostles masturbating? If no, why not?

 

[Monica4316]

Right or wrong isn’t determined by what we feel… it’s objective. Our conscience must be informed by Church teaching. I’ve read that there are 3 types of consciences…

1. lax conscience - the Church says something is a sin, and you feel it is not. Your conscience has not been formed by Church teaching and is erroneous/incomplete.
2. well formed conscience
3. scrupulous conscience - you feel all kinds of things are a sin when they are not.

It seems that your conscience would be in the first category. Maybe it would help you to learn more about the Church’s teaching on this. Sex needs to be procreative and unitive. Anything that goes against this contradicts what God intended, so it’s a sin. Masturbation is sinful because - it is neither procreative or unitive, it’s based on lust and self gratification rather than self gift to a spouse. That is lust which it says in the Gospels as being sinful. Jesus said, even if you look at a woman lustfully you have committed adultery with her in your heart.

You talked about stress relief, etc, there are SO many other ways to relieve stress. You don’t need to sin and leave grace.

Please don’t receive Communion until you repent and confess this. Talk to a priest…

God bless

 

[vsedriver]

and again, why isn’t the Bible enough? you didn’t answer that.

Where the Bible is silent the Church has the authority to speak. It says so in the Bible.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I need to point out to the OP that the lack of a sense of guilt is not, in itself, an indicator that one is not engaging in immoral activity. We can become numb to our inmost conscience (written on the heart of every person) due to poor moral education, due to isolation from a thorough moral framework, due to self-validating habit which reinforces via physical reward (and/or emotional reward), due to contemporary culture which regards the self as the fulcrum of moral standards, regards pleasure as a ‘right,’ and regards biological urges as on a higher plane than self-control.

A person desensitized from habit, or a person not yet sensitized to the impulse of conscience due to insufficient exposure, is a person whose sense of right and wrong has been blurred or numbed. Our minds (and the Devil using our minds) can rationalize just about anything that feels good – from pleasuring oneself to putting down an enemy to taking justice in our own hands. However, someone above the age of reason who has not been desensitized does have in fact a natural guilt about masturbation. This is built into the human psyche.

 

[marine13]

hmm, i didn’t know the jews back in the day followed a magesterium??? you mean it has been around since the CATHOLIC church…which isn’t the beginning.

why didn’t God mention that there would be “more rules to follow!” ?

how do we know we need more rules?

and again, why isn’t the Bible enough? you didn’t answer that.

if it isn’t enough why did God do that to us? how do we know what “addons” are the right ones?

God’s revelation of His devine laws/commandments happened through a slow progression starting with Adam and Eve and culminating with Jesus Christ. Before Jesus died he granted authority to judge sins to Peter (John 20:23 “whose sins you forgive are forgiven, and whose sins you retain are retained.”) which was the beginning of the Magesterium. Backed by a combination of the Bible, the Magesterium, and Sacred Tradition the Catholic Church wrote the Catechism which shows why masterbation is a grave sin.

Here is a simple answer to why the bible isn’t enough:

John 21:23 “Of course, Jesus also did many other things, and I suppose that if every one of them were written down the world couldn’t contain the books that would be written.”

We will never know the full works of Jesus but that is why He created the Church. The Catholic Church is the infallible source and highest authority when we have questions. The Church has proclaimed that masterbation is a grave sin and so through the Magesterium and the authority granted by Jesus there can be no more clear answer.

Furthermore, I assume you fantasize (have lustful throughts) when masterbating. If so you should consider the following:

Matthew 5:28 “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

 

[searching04]

If the OPs question is valid then so is mine because the OP wouldn’t be able to show me where masturbation is specifically promoted in the Bible which leads to the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t contain everything Christians need to know! I did this to show the necessity for a TEACHING AUTHORITY aka A CHURCH. Get it? Funny how NewsTheMan was the only one to get this out of all of you! I wasn’t challenging the OP’s point that masturbations isn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible but rather I was challenging the OP’s logical fallacy in thinking everything we need to know is contained in the Bible. Basically I was agreeing with the OP and showing them why it’s not in the Bible and why we need a Church since using the OP’s logic I could just as easily and validly I might add, tell the OP that masturbation is a sin since the Bible doesn’t specifically promote it.

:idea:

Obviously didn’t come across that way, did it? Maybe in your mind that was the intent.

You could have just as easily - and more nicely - said exactly what you did above, don’t you think, without the sarcasm and hidden point?

DOH !

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

Obviously didn’t come across that way, did it? Maybe in your mind that was the intent.

You could have just as easily - and more nicely - said exactly what you did above, don’t you think, without the sarcasm and hidden point?

DOH !

In regards to the sarcasm, yes (I was having a rough day and the OP didn’t deserve that). In regards to the “hidden point”, no, since the point of my question wasn’t hidden.

To the OP I apologize for my behavior yesterday. I hope you will accept it.

God Bless

 

[Bezant]

I think the other responders have rather failed to consider that Loving-you, as a Non-Catholic, needs to sort out certain ideas like Magisterium, Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Scripture via Sacred Tradition, before you lot chuck Church doctrine at him about why the Church is right about masturbation.

Lovingyou,

IMO masturabtion is sinful. For one, it can keep us from being chaste, for one, tempting us to explore pornographic or sexually explicit material. Secondly, it turns the body into a sort of tuning-fork, an instrument. Thirdly, Christianity and Judaism have traditionally prohibited men in particular from “wasting” their seed, following Onan’s example.

The Catholic Church teaches that this is a moral (damnable) sin – though I don’t accept that position. In any case, masturbation seems something better to avoid than to induldge, and we’re called to repent all our sins, moral and venial.

On a different topic, as other responders have said, the Bible’s not a rule-book, laid out. It’s a book of stories, embedded with rules on who to believe in and how to live. Because it’s essentially literature, and you need to extract the rules: everyone interprets the Bible. That’s why the Bible isn’t readily about on masturbation.

You asked, a few posts back, whether or not the Jews had a Magisterium – no, they didn’t but they have something like it: the Talmud. It is the Oral Law, a component to understanding the Written Torah and just as authoritative as the Torah. Jews who rejected the Oral Law became the Karaites, a seperate religion, and Karaite Jews have all but disappeared.

Whenever you’ve a holy text, it’s important that there’s an agreed, common source/authority to clarify.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I think the other responders have rather failed to consider that Loving-you, as a Non-Catholic, needs to sort out certain ideas like Magisterium, Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Scripture via Sacred Tradition, before you lot chuck Church doctrine at him about why the Church is right about masturbation.

It’s unnecessary to criticize the responders. Some of us haven’t “failed to consider” that the sorting has not occurred. In fact, my own post 48 addressed that, and there may be other posts which have also addressed that.

 

[Newbie2]

when/where did god say masturbation is a sin?
and i think it is a pretty valid arguement. the bible doesn’t say i should brush my hair, yet i do that. the bible doesn’t say i should eat chinese food, yet i do. the bible say i shouldn’t curse, so i don’t, it says i shouldn’t have false idols, so i don’t… i abide by the Bible says. just that simple.

I wonder about the agenda of the OP; just to get her opinion out there? To Challenge the teachings of the Church? To better understand the Church?

 

[Ruthyankees]

Hey, there, lovingyou -

I find the thread fascinating not only because of the legit questions, but also as usual, the attacks from those responding.

Not sure if you are really looking for answers or stirring the pot for fun, but the bottom line answer as to why masturbation is wrong is that Catholics believe that God gave us the gift of sex; He said go forth and multiply; that sex is for couples and having babies (THAT will start a whole new thread); and that as such, masturbation is simply pleasure seeking so is wrong because it abuses the purpose of sex.

Physical stress release, etc? Yes, it can be; probably why guys fall alseep after sex! But physiologically, it is a stress reliever. Does it make it right? No.

As a Catholic, I will tell you that while I don’t believe masturbation is right and everyone struggles with sin to some degree, there is much in the Catechism that is worded such as to scare the hell out of people (no pun intended, but maybe appropriate) - gravely disordered, intrinsically evil. You won’t find in the bible where it says couples have to use NFP for having babies, but the church says so; and any other sex act other than intercourse to where the man climaxes, it is also wrong (I don’t agree and you won’t find that in the bible either, but it goes with church teachings on sex, like masturbation).

Bible written by fallible men? Yep. But the church teaches and believes that the fallible men were guided by the infallible Holy Spirit.

In the end, if you believe in God, then search your heart, see what you find; if you are Catholic, go to confession, get some gudiance, but do not beat yourself up either. In spite of what you are told here, which is spewing back only what the CCC says, a priest will tell you that while a sin, there are situations which mitigate the degree of sin or culpability for masturbation - habit, past life experiences, etc. Doesn’t mean it is OK, just that you need to focus on finding other stress relievers.

this is the most genuine post i have read. thank you so much. why i do have qualms with catholic theology i appreciate the way you present it at face value. thanks

 

[Ruthyankees]

Now THERE is a whole other discussion!

Girl’s aren’t “wasting the seed” as the argument goes, so … ?

my thoughts exactly…

 

[Ruthyankees]

lovingyou, here is the situation.

You are on a Catholic forum, talking to Catholics.

Catholics believe the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church officially pronounces masturbation to be wrong.

You do not believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, therefore you don’t care if the Church pronounces masturbation to be wrong (not to mention I would wager that you have a vested interest in it, since not only is it pleasureful but I think it may seem to you a kind of ‘healing’ from your tragically negative sexual experience.)

If we can convince you to follow the Catholic Church, then we can convince you that masturbation is wrong. If not, we are wasting our time and energy.

But as others have said, I don’t think you are truly 100% ok with what you do, or at least have some suspicions, or else you wouldn’t have brought the issue here.

Some food for thought: would you masturbate in a church bathroom, or tell a trusted pastor of your comfort with masturbating? If no, why not?
Would Jesus have been ok with his apostles masturbating? If no, why not?

a very true and valid point, but who said i wasn’t catholic? i was raised cathlolic and have has issues arise in my faith…this being one of them.

and to answer your question, while i wouldn’t masturbate in a church bathroom, i also wouldn’t eat a big mac in there either, that doesn’t make it wrong. could i talk to a pastor about it? yes, i am very comfortable with this.

but overall, i would agree with your point, while i am talking to catholics about catholicism i was just curious as to why on a lot of points.

 

[Rache]

I wonder about the agenda of the OP; just to get her opinion out there? To Challenge the teachings of the Church? To better understand the Church?

Who knows? In my experience, people like to do this even when playing/chatting in videos games. And they love to end things with “but I’m a girl”. Thinking somehow that’s a really cool and big deal…barely being able to hold that in, until they finally get to say it and chastise us readers for not already knowing. Thinking that the seemingly, the well thought out (not) spin on it, will truly confuse us all, and prolong the (perceived) ever present wavering in our faith and stance? I’m sorry I have to put an emoticon here.

Whether it was for fun, for real, it is sadly representative of the status quo, and it serves as a reminder how easily people are influenced and willing to give in and give up. It takes a backbone to truly feel all the wonderful emotions & sensations God gave us, and also, to feel them they way God intended us to. Never opting for a cheap imitation.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Great post, Rache: seriously accurate Paragraph Two and a very funny Paragraph One, which is rather perceptive about the state of sexual politics in 21st century America.

 

[handmaidenByzC]

I do understand the reasons that The Church teaches that impurity with self is sinful…male or female. However, as a gynecologist (where many things of sexual nature and questions thereof are posed to me…), are there mitigating circumstances especially for women. Women who habitually and decidedly masturbate with lust on their mind and in their heart…do exist. Most do not tell me it as concern about sin, but just have questions about eg sexual dysfunction with their husband…and the inability to achieve orgasm. (They usually do not ask…nor do I think it is their concern that it is sinful). But my understanding of Catholic teaching is that sexual acts which achieve orgasm in the female as part of or in preparation for intercourse are acceptable.

Though…I am not sure

In the case of the woman who very rarely masturbates (single, widowed)…she may describe a sense of what seems to be a simple physical urge or drive…apart from lustful fantasy. Would this be a sin with “lack of full consent of the will” or mitigating circumstance? I suppose somehow another this is unchaste simply by definition. What would I say to such a woman who is concerned from a spiritual perspective…perhaps left to a priest…Though they may not ever get spiritual education or help…because they are often terribly embarrassed and ashamed…taking much courage to discuss it with their female doctor…not likely with a male priest…sometimes for fear of being inappropriate to their priest.

Ironically it is the latter group that are more worried about their actions, they feel guilt shame, embarrassment…though usually without lust. The former group…often own a vibrator…often just want advice about how to use it more effectively…or complain that it is not working anymore…wonder what is wrong with their normal sexual function.

That said…as a doctor…and human. It must be admitted that libido is natural and part of humanity. It was given to us as a gift to procreate and bond women and men in intimacy (think elderly couples past childbearing ages…sex is still for intimacy.)

So I guess, one of my questions is how do I help women who are concerned about very occasionally acting on their libido. I do not want to make them feel shame…but I am not their spiritual director or priest.

Thank you,
Unworthy Handmaiden