Masturbation a Sin ? :confused:

[LilyM]

And it’s that kind of thinking that led a substantial number of priests in to such confusion that they wound up raping children in the back room of the parish Church, which the Church then tried to sweep under the rug, a huge ugly scandal that will deeply damage the Church’s reputation for the next century at least. That’s where this kind of nonsense leads.

All things in moderation is pretty good advice. The Catholic emphasis on family is great. The celebration of marriage is great. The generally modest and dignified qualities of Catholic culture are too. These are good things about Catholicism that can serve as excellent role models for the rest of the culture.

You’re stomping all over your best qualities by getting carried away and letting the kooks among you turn Catholicism in to a big judgemental fire and brimstone cultural conversation about masterbation and homosexuality. You’re flushing the credibility you deserve down the toilet for no good reason, and it’s painful to watch.

Wake up. The churches are emptying out all over the Church’s European homeland. There’s a critical priest shortage. Masses of people are just walking away, never to be seen again. There’s a big price to be paid for rampant irrationality. And it’s all over nothing. Nothing at all.

Where is the confusion? Surely no honest and informed person can possibly be in any confusion as to the fact that child rape is in fact more morally repugnant to Catholics than masturbation.

A cursory glance at the section of the Catechism dealing with masturbation would show you that. It speaks of allowances being made, in relation to those guilty of the sin of masturbation, for psychological immaturity, force of habit and so on. No such softening of harsh edges, or pleas for understanding and mercy for the guilty, are made in the Catechism or any other official Church teaching in relation to child rape.

I don’t claim expertise in psychology, but it seems a very odd suggestion that someone who has the self-control required to avoid the act of masturbation would suddenly lose all vestige of that same self-control when it comes to sexual abuse of children.

And one who has a moral viewpoint that pedophilia is preferable to masturbation (as if those are the only two options in any case!) would surely be lost to all proper sense of right and wrong in a way that is more suggestive of deep-seated mental illness than of being led astray by supposedly faulty Church teaching.

 

[Ormond]

Where is the confusion? Surely no honest and informed person can possibly be in any confusion as to the fact that child rape is in fact more morally repugnant to Catholics than masturbation.

Please link us to the threads on the forum where Catholics endlessly express what a sin child rape by priests is, and heap ruthless judgment down upon their souls.

Masterbation is punishable by eternal damnation, as is rape. If I masterbate, why not rape too, given that I’m already going to hell. Aha, that’s it, rape, the solution to masterbation!!!

No such softening of harsh edges, or pleas for understanding and mercy for the guilty, are made in the Catechism or any other official Church teaching in relation to child rape.

Look, I mean you no personal offense, truly I don’t, you are not the problem, but…

The Church went out of it’s way to sweep the child rapes under the rug, thus endangering even more children. Screw the official teachings, I can see for myself how they are implemented.

You guys simply don’t get that on the subject of sex, Catholic credibility is shot, gone, dead, destroyed by the clergy itself. On other subjects Catholic credibility remains in tact, but on sex, it’s over for the next century. When you realize that, you’ll wisely try to change the topic to any other subject but sex.

I don’t claim expertise in psychology, but it seems a very odd suggestion that someone who has the self-control required to avoid the act of masturbation would suddenly lose all vestige of that same self-control when it comes to sexual abuse of children.

That is an odd suggestion, so I’m glad I didn’t make it.

And one who has a moral viewpoint that pedophilia is preferable to masturbation

No idea who you’re talking to now, but ok, thanks for sharing.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Where is the confusion? Surely no honest and informed person can possibly be in any confusion as to the fact that child rape is in fact more morally repugnant to Catholics than masturbation.

Well, I was under the impression that the punishment for ANY (unrepented) mortal sin is eternal damnation. Is there a new revelation from God, which would change this? Something like: “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”?

 

[LilyM]

Please link us to the threads on the forum where Catholics endlessly express what a sin child rape by priests is, and heap ruthless judgment down upon their souls.

Why is endless condemnation required for something that is self-evidently morally repugnant? God only said “thou shalt not kill” once, after all.

Why not demand that Catholics endlessly condemn terrorism, theft, adultery and the like, and criticise us for lack of endless condemnation of those things?

Masterbation is punishable by eternal damnation, as is rape. If I masterbate, why not rape too, given that I’m already going to hell. Aha, that’s it, rape, the solution to masterbation!!!

Mortal sin is indeed punishable by eternal damnation - if unrepented. But eternal damnation is not the only consequence. Sin, all sin, damages our souls in the here and now. The more frequent AND grievous the sin, the more hardened the soul becomes, and the more difficult is repentance. So there’s no room for a “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” attitude in Catholic thinking.

Look, I mean you no personal offense, truly I don’t, you are not the problem, but…

The Church went out of it’s way to sweep the child rapes under the rug, thus endangering even more children. Screw the official teachings, I can see for myself how they are implemented.

You guys simply don’t get that on the subject of sex, Catholic credibility is shot, gone, dead, destroyed by the clergy itself. On other subjects Catholic credibility remains in tact, but on sex, it’s over for the next century. When you realize that, you’ll wisely try to change the topic to any other subject but sex.

Education departments historically have done the same with teachers who abused children, as have hospitals with doctors who abused children - why is their credibility not shot as well?

That is an odd suggestion, so I’m glad I didn’t make it.

Sorry, but you HAVE said exactly that “that kind of thinking” (the idea that masturbation is to be avoided - including, obviously, by priests) leads to them being “at war with their bodies” and thence to child rape by priests. So yes, you are saying that priests (or at least some of them) rape children precisely because they’re not allowed to - and therefore don’t - masturbate.

If not, then what exactly ARE you saying?

 

[LilyM]

Well, I was under the impression that the punishment for ANY (unrepented) mortal sin is eternal damnation. Is there a new revelation from God, which would change this? Something like: “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”?

As I’ve just explained, the punishment for UNREPENTED mortal sin is hell. As I’ve also just explained, we are concerned with repentance, not merely damnation. And the more frequent - and grievous - the sin, the more hardened the soul becomes, and the more diffficult repentance is.

As an analogy - many things can, if untreated, be fatal, but it is easier to treat (and so survive) a slight overdose of a slow-acting poison than twenty gunshot wounds to the head and vital organs.

 

[goout]

Really underscores the importance of context, eh? Even atheists try to proof text…and they always seem to take verses completely out of context, displaying an utter lack of any sense of biblical scholarship.

That’s called fundamentalism, of which atheists are the twin siblings.

 

[goout]

And we are back to the question: “Where IS the official and exhaustive interpretation of the Bible? Chapter by chapter, verse by verse?”

You make the same mistaken assumption day after day, (which a pretty good definition of insanity).
Catholicism is not sola scriptura. Scripture is always read in the context of the whole, along with Tradition and living Magisterium.
So no, you won’t find a verse.

 

[Rau]

Please link us to the threads on the forum where Catholics endlessly express what a sin child rape by priests is, and heap ruthless judgment down upon their souls.

Threads on masturbation are mostly created by persons wishing to argue or propose it is not a wrong act. Lots of people hold that view or seek to have others join them in that view.

I doubt anyone believes child rape is not wrong. Thus, it is not surprising that few threads on the topic appear. The news thread invariably cover media reports of clergy abuse and Catholics are no more backward in condemning those acts than anyone else.

 

[josh987654321]

bible.org/question/does-bible-say-masturbation-sin

Hi Ransri, yea it’s a sin.

Also, as for the discussion that this thread went into in regards to Our Lords teaching “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” that’s hyperbole, as the Church also has something to say on self mutilation (Not to be confused with mortification).

I hope you don’t mind if I share the following that I believe will help -
Extract from the book 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis:

Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong.

But I have other reasons for thinking so. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond it’s biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous preposterous excess of it’s function.

Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act - that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

One critic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving. He meant, of course, to imply that such things as the strip-tease act resulted not from sexual corruption but from sexual starvation. I agree with him that if, in some strange land, we found that similar acts with mutton chops were popular, one of the possible explanations which would occur to me would be famine. But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one. In the same way, before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of the strip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since pagan times. Nor is the hypothesis of ‘starvation’ the only one we can imagine. Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged; as well as the famished, like titillations.

Here is a third point. You find very few people who want to eat things that are really not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare. But perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorry to have to go into all those details but I must. The reason why I must is that you and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not.

Please continue to next post -

 

[josh987654321]

Continued:

They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess. Modern people are always saying, ‘Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.’ They may mean two things. They may mean ‘There is nothing to be ashamed of in the fact that the human race reproduces itself in a certain way, nor in the fact that it gives pleasure.’ If they mean that, they are right. Christianity says the same. It is not the thing, nor the pleasure, that is the trouble. The old Christian teachers said that if man had never fallen, sexual pleasure, instead of being less than it is now, would actually have been greater. I know some muddled headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure, were bad in themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body - which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, or beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, when people say, ‘Sex is nothing to be ashamed of,’ they may mean ‘the state into which the sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of’.

If they mean that, I think they are wrong. I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of If half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips. I do not say you and I are individually responsible for the present situation. Our ancestors have handed over to us organisms which are warped in this respect: and we grow up surrounded by propaganda in favor of unchastity. There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us. Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales resistance. God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matter is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.

Before we can be cured we must want to be cured. Those who really wish for help will get it; but for many modern people even the wish is difficult. It is easy to think that we want something when we do not really want it. A famous Christian long ago told us that when he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying, ‘Oh Lord, make me chaste,’ his heart had been secretly adding, ‘But please don’t do it just yet.’ This may happen in prayers for other virtues too; but there are three reasons why it is now specifically difficult for us to desire - let alone to achieve - complete chastity.

In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural’, so ‘healthy’, and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humor. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth - the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’, and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal.

Please continue to next post -

 

[josh987654321]

Continued:

Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousy, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humor, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilized man must have some set of principals by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others. One man does this on Christian principals, another on sociological principals. The real conflict is not between Christianity and ‘nature’, but between Christian principals and other principals in the control of ‘nature’. For ‘nature’ (In the sense of natural desire) will have to be controlled anyway, unless you are going to ruin your whole life. The Christian principals are, admittedly, stricter than the others; but then we think you will get help towards obeying them which you will not get towards obeying others.

In the second place, many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian chastity because they think (before trying) that it is impossible. But when a thing has to be attempted, one must never think about possibility or impossibility. Faced with an optional question in an examination paper, one considers whether one can do it or not: faced with a compulsory question, one must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone.

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity - like perfect charity - will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

Thirdly, people often misunderstand what psychology teaches about ‘repressions’. It teaches us that ‘repressed’ sex is dangerous. But ‘repressed’ is here a technical term: it does not mean ‘suppressed’ in the sense of ‘denied’ or ‘resisted’. A repressed desire or thought is one which has been thrust into the subconscious (usually at a very early age) and can now come before the mind only in a disguised and unrecognizable form. Repressed sexuality does not appear to the patient to be sexuality at all. When an adolescent or an adult is engaged in resisting a conscious desire, he is not dealing with a repression, nor is he in the least danger of creating a repression. On the contrary, those who are seriously attempting chastity are more conscious, and soon know a great deal more about their own sexuality than anyone else. They come to know their desires as Wellington knew Napoleon, or as Sherlock Holmes knew Moriarty; as a rat-catcher knows rats or a plumber knows about leaky pipes. Virtue - even attempted virtue - brings light; Indulgence brings fog.

Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the center of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The diabolical self is the worst of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to Church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

As I’ve just explained, the punishment for UNREPENTED mortal sin is hell.

So in God’s eyes there is no difference between a child rapist and a teenager who “plays” with his genitals after having been warned by his priest. Whether you consider a rape more repugnant is of no relevance. If the punishment meted out by God is the same, then God considers both equally “repugnant”.

Threads on masturbation are mostly created by persons wishing to argue or propose it is not a wrong act. Lots of people hold that view or seek to have others join them in that view.

Naturally. The condemnation of a perfectly natural and physiologically useful act is extremely detrimental to those poor teenagers who submit to their red-hot libido. Even if they go and repent, their mental health is ruined due to the perpetual guilt. And THAT is the reason why this problem needs to be brought up over and over again.

The news thread invariably cover media reports of clergy abuse and Catholics are no more backward in condemning those acts than anyone else.

Only after the cover-ups became impossible to maintain. The problem is not just the misdeeds of FEW (and I repeat a FEW) members of the clergy, rather the attempt to hide these acts. And, of course it seems that the Holy Spirit did not prevent the church from these cover-ups.

 

[goout]

Why bother having a God given brain then?

Again, members and The Church are reading the Bible the way they want to read it in regards to this question, which pulls the plug on your credibility in regards to this particular issue. Explicit statements by Jesus are completely ignored, while unclear references are interpreted according to the reader’s preference, and then declared the word of God.

Let me rush to add I have no complaint with this at all if it remains a private matter. If anyone wishes to think that the creator of all reality is sitting around heaven with a clipboard keeping track of which human beings masterbate when, well, it’s your brain to do with as you wish.

I also have no complaint with anyone who chooses not to masterbate for whatever reason by the same logic, your body, your business.

1. is it possible that, if you are going to obsess over masturbation, that you at least learn how to spell the word?
2. You ask “Why have a brain?”.
   So that you might think. Weigh alternative propositions. Make fine distinctions. Reason. A brain is used to reason.

 

[Faithdancer]

Hi Ransri, yea it’s a sin.

Also, as for the discussion that this thread went into in regards to Our Lords teaching “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” that’s hyperbole, as the Church also has something to say on self mutilation (Not to be confused with mortification).

I hope you don’t mind if I share the following that I believe will help -

Please continue to next post -

Hyperbole, yes indeed. I may be preaching on that very passage in Matthew in 2 weeks. Have to decide between that and Ezekiel, they’re both in our lectionary.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I hope you don’t mind if I share the following that I believe will help -

Hi Josh Lewis is wrong. He says: “The biological purpose of sex is children.” He should have said: “ONE OF THE biological purposes of sex is children.” In the animal world most animals have sex only during the estrus. The higher apes - including the humans - are exempt. The bonobos and others use sex as a frustration “remover”. They actually follow the wonderful slogan, “Make LOVE not WAR”. Very sad to see that those apes have a better ethical system than the “crown of creation”. We should learn from them.

 

[josh987654321]

There’s much I admire about Catholic culture, but this part is pure insanity.

I don’t think so.

But hey, I’ll join in. Teaching people to go to war with their own bodies is a huge evil ruthlessly cruel sin punishable by 5,000 eternities in hellfire damnation etc etc.

If someone calls you a hurtful name, and you get angry at that person, but you restrain yourself and say it would be wrong to punch him in the face, or even if you forgive someone, by the same logic, is that not also going to war with oneself?

We are fallible creatures, in Christianity we are fallen, and prone to evil that comes from within that we must fight against in many different areas for different people.

A man who doesn’t go tit for tat with someone over something, is one who may be fighting against their desire to do so, but we all see them rising above the tit for tat and we consider it noble, precisely because he/she is at war with those base desires/instincts.

This whole masterbation thing, nuts, completely nuts.

Not really if you give it some thought.

Wacky cult nonsense.

lol

So much pointless suffering.

Actually, for someone to achieve perfect Chastity, it is liberating.

Isn’t there enough real suffering in the world already?

Yes, do you really think masturbation has nothing to do with that? What of the pornography and prostitution industry?

Do you really have to invent some more, out of nothing?

Not inventing anything.

For crying out loud, show some mercy to the young folks who aren’t married yet. Give them a @#!#$ break. Such a cruel philosophy.

Yes, we should show mercy, but one can’t deny that it’s a sin and we can’t give up in our struggles against it. It’s not a cruel philosophy either, it only seems cruel if one doesn’t understand it, but stepping away and looking at it objectively, I think it’s quite clear. Consider the pornographic industry, prostitution, adultery and promiscuity and it’s actually the contrary, what is cruel is those who are enslaved to such desires. So much so that they would do things like that.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[josh987654321]

Hi Josh Lewis is wrong. He says: “The biological purpose of sex is children.” He should have said: “ONE OF THE biological purposes of sex is children.” In the animal world most animals have sex only during the estrus. The higher apes - including the humans - are exempt. The bonobos and others use sex as a frustration “remover”. They actually follow the wonderful slogan, “Make LOVE not WAR”. Very sad to see that those apes have a better ethical system than the “crown of creation”. We should learn from them.

I would have probably said the ‘primary’ purpose, nevertheless, I think what C.S. Lewis has written on the subject very good.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Faithdancer]

I don’t think so.

If someone calls you a hurtful name, and you get angry at that person, but you restrain yourself and say it would be wrong to punch him in the face, or even if you forgive someone, by the same logic, is that not also going to war with oneself?

We are fallible creatures, in Christianity we are fallen, and prone to evil that comes from within that we must fight against in many different areas for different people.

A man who doesn’t go tit for tat with someone over something, is one who may be fighting against their desire to do so, but we all see them rising above the tit for tat and we consider it noble, precisely because he/she is at war with those base desires/instincts.

Not really if you give it some thought.

lol

Actually, for someone to achieve perfect Chastity, it is liberating.

Yes, do you really think masturbation has nothing to do with that? What of the pornography and prostitution industry?

Not inventing anything.

Yes, we should show mercy, but one can’t deny that it’s a sin and we can’t give up in our struggles against it. It’s not a cruel philosophy either, it only seems cruel if one doesn’t understand it, but stepping away and looking at it objectively, I think it’s quite clear. Consider the pornographic industry, prostitution, adultery and promiscuity and it’s actually the contrary, what is cruel is those who are enslaved to such desires. So much so that they would do things like that.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

Very well stated indeed. And I agree with your previous post, not all grave sins are equal in gravity. I think that consciously urging others to commit sexual sin is more wicked than the sin they are urging, in many cases. We need look no further than the planned “Parenthood” spokeswoman encouraging teens to engage in sadomasochism, for example.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

I would have probably said the ‘primary’ purpose, nevertheless, I think what C.S. Lewis has written on the subject very good.

It was not you who made the mistake, it was Lewis. However the church’s teaching is that sex is also “unitive”, not just procreating. So why is it a “mortal sin” to concentrate on the unitive part, when the procreative part becomes relevant only a few times in a whole lifetime?

Maybe you find Lewis logical. That is your prerogative. The problem is that neither you, nor Lewis nor the “Pontifex Maximus” can present a rational argument for your side. There is an old saying: “Of all the sexual perversions the most unnatural one is chastity”.

 

[superwimp]

bible.org/question/does-bible-say-masturbation-sin

I read through all the posts and I am sort of surprised no one mentioned the book of Leviticus.  It gives instructions on giving offerings for sins.  It will name a sin and tell what the offering should be.  If no sacrifice is required then it wasn't a sin.  We also need to recognize that the Israelites had to be on there good behavior because of there closeness in proximity to the Ark.

LEV 15:16 And if any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then
he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even.
LEV 15:17 And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of
copulation, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even.
LEV 15:18 The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of
copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean
until the even.

It seems to me that verse 16 is referring to both masturbation and sexual intercourse.  There is no sin offering demanded therefore it wasn't a sin.