Masturbation or celibacy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dray
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thorolfr said:
some men might have a much stronger sex drive or libido than some others which would make it more difficult for them to refrain.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and some men have a much shorter fuse or worse temper than others that makes it harder for them to keep from screaming and punching the wall or another person when they become angry. And some men have a much greater inclination to consume too much alcohol or to drink it every day rather than just a beer once a week or once a month. And some men like to live large and spend money to make themselves feel good even when they don’t have the money to spend and are maxing a credit card or borrowing or worse yet doing something dishonest or criminal just to get the money.

We’ve all got temptations that are harder for us personally to resist than the next guy, who has a different temptation. There is nothing special about sex in that regard.

I get tired of sex being placed on some pedestal where people act like they can’t live without it. Nobody ever died for lack of sex.
 
Last edited:
I did re-read my post and I do think I could have been more soft. However, there are threads after threads here about masturbation and it seems that people just can’t accept that it is intrinsically wrong. Actual compulsive addiction in sexual areas is a rare psychological disease. You, or anyone can read up on it on the Mayo Clinic site. And in psychological and medical areas one should seek professional help. On these forums however it should be stated that it is not God’s will that we act out sexually. That we commit adultery and masturbate. But for some it is harder than others. Be that as it may, it is possible for ANYONE to stop sinful behavior. And that is indeed what God wills and what He has given us grace to do. It is a choice to masturbate. A physical choice we can make or not make. Saying anything less than that is disrespectful to the poster’s dignity and ability as a human created and loved by God to be Holy and achieve a state of grace.
 
Last edited:
Is it healthy to abstain? I am not sure you can say that.
You won’t die is not the same as," it is healthy."
We know from Saint Paul that some are blessed with a Charism. And we know from Paul some are not.
If you want to say it is mandatory even if unhealthy, fine. That is very different
 
Last edited:
Reproduction or unity, and both within the sacrament of marriage. Either one is a valid reason for the marital embrace so long as the act is ordered towards both.
 
Your argument is that To be healthy God designed us to masturbate and he Wills that!?
 
Maximus1 said:
We know from Saint Paul that some are blessed with a Charism. And we know from Paul some are not.
Click to expand...
Even those who would fall in the “Better marry than burn” category are not guaranteed of having a woman available to marry and being in a place in their lives where they are able to marry. Sometimes the option of “marry” is not available; for instance, you may be already married and your spouse has left you or is unable to have sex with you because they have become ill or disabled, or you could be stuck in a prison with no conjugal visit privileges, or perhaps you simply can’t find a suitable person to marry who also wants to marry you. So you are stuck with needing to be abstinent whether you find it easy or difficult.

it is advisable for everybody to try to get their sex drive under control the same way they would get their temper under control, or their appetite for food under control, because one never knows when one will end up in a situation where one is called to be celibate for a time or even permanently.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
40.png
Thorolfr:
some men might have a much stronger sex drive or libido than some others which would make it more difficult for them to refrain.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and some men have a much shorter fuse or worse temper than others that makes it harder for them to keep from screaming and punching the wall or another person when they become angry. And some men have a much greater inclination to consume too much alcohol or to drink it every day rather than just a beer once a week or once a month. And some men like to live large and spend money to make themselves feel good even when they don’t have the money to spend and are maxing a credit card or borrowing or worse yet doing something dishonest or criminal just to get the money.

We’ve all got temptations that are harder for us personally to resist than the next guy, who has a different temptation. There is nothing special about sex in that regard.

I get tired of sex being placed on some pedestal where people act like they can’t live without it. Nobody ever died for lack of sex.
Click to expand...
I wasn’t speaking only about sex. I was just objecting to the notion that “anyone” or “any man” or “any woman” can do something that some other person finds easy or not “too hard.” And not everything that people do that might be considered wrong or sinful is merely a result of some “temptation.” In some cases, these are a result of real physical things going on in someone’s brain or body. For example, people with ADHD sometimes have more difficulty than others controlling their emotions. They suffer from “emotional dysregulation” which does indeed sometimes make it more difficult for some people with ADHD to control their temper. I’m not saying that it’s OK to get angry, but some people do get angry more easily than others and this isn’t just a “temptation” that everyone shares to the same degree.

I’m not placing sex on a pedestal, but like many other behaviors, it also can’t be denied that some people have a more difficult time controlling their sexual behaviors, too. I’m not saying it’s OK, just that other people’s struggles shouldn’t be minimized or dismissed and the difficulty that some people have in refraining from some behaviors has genetic or physiological causes and isn’t just a temptation.

 
Last edited:
Yes just like with any sin or temptation some are harder than others. People are different with different vices and shortcomings and limitations. But thier dignity should not be minimized and their sins excused or justified. For the poster above barring a medical or psychological condition that needs treatment they can simply Choose to sin or not.
And there is grace and forgiveness if needed. But sin should not be encouraged and the dignity of the poster, his character and his will deserves the belief that he can choose holiness as I can or my brother can.

Using your adhd point, if someone strikes another they are accountable for their actions. And if the adhd is so severe that they cannot control anger or violence then they have the moral obligation to seek treatment and ensure the safety of themselves and others. If someone posts on here that they get angry with their wife and it’s hard not to hit her we don’t minimize the sin or threat by just saying it’s unfair to tell the person they can choose to be holy or not
 
Last edited:
Op, if you feel you have a sexual addiction you should seek medical help. If you feel it is unfair that it is hard not to masturbate or that for you it is ok to do this. You should not find that solace here. Though sometimes that does happen. We should encourage each other to be saints. What else is there?
 
I wasn’t commenting on the rules. I was commenting on health. Including mental health. Instigated upon biological causes.
I said I don’t think you can say it is healthy.
Of course you equate appetite. Where again your body is signalling if you don’t eat you will die. Jesus said man does not live by bread alone. Not breadless completely.
 
I don’t think people are dismissing it so much as reacting to the fact that sex is the only temptation that people seem to regard as being impossible to conquer. A person can be addicted to sex the same way they can be addicted to shopping or gambling or the Internet or anything else that is not a substance-abuse addiction, i.e. not something you ingest or inject or absorb through your skin, etc. However, most people who have a hard time doing without sex are not sex addicts, they simply have a hard time doing without sex, partly because our current society makes it very easy to have sex. In some past eras, it was much harder and riskier to have sex outside marriage, and people who did so risked all kinds of unpleasant consequences ranging from social ostracism to death. The risks and consequences didn’t stop everybody, but they stopped a good many people, just like if heroin is available cheap on your nice safe street corner then more people will use it than if they have to get 100 dollars a day together and drive into a terrible crime-infested neighborhood to score.

Now that sex outside marriage (including masturbation) is rarely frowned upon and to a certain extent it’s expected behavior, people treat it like something they need to have or are entitled to have. Consequently they often don’t fight the temptation very hard.

If somebody came on here with a weed habit and said, “I don’t have a marijuana prescription, so does the Church really teach that I can’t smoke marijuana ever again for the whole rest of my life?” people wouldn’t have any trouble telling him that he can learn to do without weed and that if he needs help he should find a support group or counselor. But when somebody says, “I can’t get married/ can’t have sex with my spouse, so does the Church really teach that I can’t have sex ever again for the whole rest of my life?” people seem inclined to feel very sympathetic to that. I don’t understand the difference, frankly.
 
Last edited:
That is an interesting question. God designed us with an instinctual impulse to procreate. Like a salmon or any other creature. ( Unless we are born with charism . ) Because Saint Paul makes it clear some are blessed with the charism and some are not.
For those the Holy Spirit has not given this gift to, science has identified unhealthy states. Especially unhealthy mental states. These are documented. Priests have written books about their experiences with bouts of depression and other sequelae. Just as one example.
Of course everyone is different. But in terms of my point, it seems that it can be unhealthy. Which is my point
 
Pot and sex?
Just because we are not salmon does not mean that we don’t have our own biological need to do the human equivalent to spawn up river.
We are flesh and spirit. We cannot deny the realities of the flesh. We can abstain. But they are there.
You can choose to starve to death but you will die if you don’t eat.
So my point had only to do with harm.
 
I cannot follow that twist. It does not match up with my faith or theology.
 
I hate to say it, but if you are in a situation where you cannot be with your lawful wife, then yes, your calling is to celibacy, and it might last the rest of your life.

The very first thing to do, aside from avoiding the near occasions of sin and practicing self-denial and asceticism, is to tune out what the secular world has to say about the matter.

The world outside of the orthodox and traditional teachings of the Catholic Church and her magisterium have absolutely nothing useful to tell you about this situation. When the secular world can suffer through the worst physical punishment imaginable, die on a cross after hanging there three hours, be buried, rise from the grave, forgive your sins, redeem your soul, and ascend body and soul into heaven after forty days, then yes, the secular world may have a claim upon your attention. But not until. They will tell you that this sin is okay, that it is normal and natural, and that you need this release. Don’t pay any attention. They are simply wrong. They will do absolutely nothing other than to drag you down to hell for all eternity. They’re not worth your time or attention.

I can tell you that I was forced to take on a celibate lifestyle, of uncertain duration, perhaps even for the rest of my life. What I will not tell you is that it was easy. It certainly wasn’t. Anything but. It has been 13 years now. It can be done. Do not lose heart.

ETA 02/26/20: There are secular websites that seek to guide readers away from masturbation and pornography for reasons of mental and even physical health — it is called “resetting oneself”. I will not link to these, as they contain language that could violate CAF guidelines, but you can search for yourself. And just in the interests of full disclosure, I have not been so unfortunate as to have had to resort to the remedies taught on these websites, but to the extent that their advice does not violate Catholic morality, they are a good thing.
 
Last edited:
We are not animals. We do not have a “biological need to spawn” firing off once a year or once a month or whatever. If we did, we would go into heat for a time period, as animals do, and then not want to have sex the rest of the time when we weren’t in heat.

Sorry, but your posts just read to me like more of the same old excuses.
If someone is really going to get depressed over a lack of sex, then I think the person should see a counselor. I also would suspect there is a lot more going on that may be contributing to the depression.
 
Last edited:
I didn’t discuss the rules about masturbation. I just said you cannot say abstinence is healthy as a blanket statement.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top