I been fighting this sin for many years, & I have a lot of company, & from what i hear lately , the church is realizing that it
s not as much a sin as they used to think it was, but dont quote me on that find out more if u canThe Catechism of the Catholic Church is a “sure norm for the faith” according to Pope John Paul II. It has already been quoted, but I will post it again:
"By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."139
"To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability"There seem to be too extremes when it comes to sex.
The first is to be condemned because it cheapens sex. It is promoted by much popular TV which appears to condone and even encourage pre-marital and extra-marital sex. These are presented as natural and daily experiences.. I rarely watch prime time network TV but I understand that it also is promoting gay sex in various ways. It's distressing how far the sexual revolution has taken us toward irresponsibility in sexual matters and how much it has been removed from love and devotion.
The second seems to be reflected in many of the postings here. They view masturbation as a serious sin. Ridiculous! Masturbation to excess is bad for several reasons, such as distracting us from more important things. But occasional masturbation, certainly among teenage boys (and perhaps girls as well) and others, is all but inevitable and it's silly to load them down with guilt because of it. Too often the Church comes across as an enemy of sex. It isn't, but many Catholics make it sound that way - as many of these postings do.
Sex ought to be viewed as a wonderful gift to enjoy. If a teenager or young adult masturbates occasionally, perhaps it should be viewed as normal and even healthy. It demonstrates a normal and healthy human sexuality. We ought to thank God rather than fret and stew about its sinfulness.
God bless the whole world - no exceptions!Unfortunately, masturbation is the improper use of such a gift. Masturbation is selfish. Sex in its proper context is sharing of oneself with your spouse. NO EXCEPTIONS. The natural use of sex is for procreation. To seperate the possibility of procreation from the sexual activity is a serious sin. Paragraph 2352 describes it as “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action”.
Thats what the Devil wants you to believe, that it is normal and healthy and if only we abandoned the silly old catholic idea of abstaining from it then everything in the garden will be lovely. This is a lie. So… you have trouble controlling yourself, dont despair ask the Lord’s help and you will be given self control. “Ask and you will recieve”. A side note: Getting married simply because you want to use your wife as a release (i.e. you cant control yourself) is a pretty stupid reason to get married. Perhaps the Bible rarely explicitly mentions masturbation as a sin ( except for example the case of Onan) but it is implied and I think we are decieving/hurting ourselves by expecting the Bible to be straight forward and literal. There are 2 reasons why masturbation is wrong ( 3 if you add lust) 1) It is a selfish act and 2) Its using the sexual organ for the wrong reason. The primary purpose of sex is to reproduce, to bear children. Not to mention it is supposed to be unitive. The monstrosity of any sexual act outside of marriage is that it tries to devalue and degrade sex into purely an act of obtaining pleasure for one’s self, it becomes something dirty instead of something beautiful.What can you say about the topic title?, thisSite, contains some thoughts, or information (if you may), in accordance to masturbation being a gift to control ourselves, the site says that it is okay to masturbate AS LONG AS “WE DO NOT THINK ABOUT LUSTFUL THINGS”, the site also say to pray before we indulge ourselves,
in my opinion: I see the point, that the bible NEVER explicitly mentioned the word: “Masturbation”, and that masturbation is a SIGN that a man/woman CANNOT control himself, and that he/she SHOULD marry, and that the bible says that: if a we look at someone with lust in our hearts then we are already sinning.
I also can see the point that: “IF WE CAN MASTURBATE WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT EROTIC THOUGHTS, THEN MASTURBATION IN ITSELF IS A ““gift”” THAT GOD GAVE US SO THAT WE WILL NOT BURN IN PASSION/LUST”,
here’s another catch,
“CATHOLIC” is a word NEVER mentioned in the Bible, but it is still considered as the most comprehensive religion and also the most complete religion in the world, so if such a word can be so successful in the Holy Spirit, can MASTURBATION, (also a word NEVER mentioned in the Bible) be NOT A SIN IN ITSELF, BUT RATHER A WAY TO KEEP OUR PASSIONS FROM CONTROLLING US?.
GOD LOVES YOU>
Hon, my heart goes out to you and I have to think that so does our Lord’s. I can not tell you that masterbation is okay, but I am sure that your attempts to improve and your prayers have not gone unnoticed by Our Lord. Perhaps your goal right now should not be to expect yourself to stop completely (ie. go cold turkey), but to limit the number of times…and to slowly reduce the number of times. I wonder whether your anxiety over this doesn’t help your situation.
It is normal, healthy & necessary I think too. It
s too powerful of a temptation, most people never get control of it no matter how hard they try. Meaning no disrespect toward God I think its alright to masturbate. My opinionWhen, oh when are we going to realize that our opinions mean nothing. Masturbation is a sin. Period. When we allow our opinions to trump Church doctrine, we become cafeteria Catholics…then non-practicing Catholics…then we cease to be Catholic at all and find a church that fits out behavior, rather than letting the Church mold our behavior. I for one am not arrogant enough to think that I know more about faith and morals than the Church.
Nah, its perfectly natural, like the poster said, like taking a breadth of air, God gave us all our sexuality, married & single, for God`s sake babies masturbate, teens masturbate big time because of such strong sex urges.Many married men continue to masturbate, its too accessable. Any man that has a penis is going to masturbate
Repeating an untruth doesn’t make it true.
It`s God given, we are all sexual beings, we all need sexual release, married or single
“Ask and you will recieve” Why do you doubt that God has any plan for you? He has UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for you, of course he has a plan for you! Of course that doesnt mean He has to make it perfectly obvious what it is…
I think there is an error in your reasoning. You assume that because people are sexual beings that it follows we must indulge in sexual activity in order to be happy. This is wrong. You can be perfectly happy if you abstain from sex and lead a single life. In fact you will not be happy (more specifically not free) if you give in to all your desires. Sexual Immorality is a sin, it will do you alot of harm if you engage in it.
For some , yes, others No. Why did God give us all this & expect us to suppress it, which again I say , it`s almost impossible to do, I dont care how much church You have.
Having fallen into this sin myself, I can wholeheartly disagree with you, Masturbation like any sin (whether considered trivial by society’s standards or not)does great damage to you.
I believe in God, But there are certain things that stay as they are
Natural shmatural.
