Masturbation.

[NFP1Kate]

To the OP

First of all you are wasting your time with this.

Secondly…break it down. We are animals, right? What do animals do? DO they masturbate to climax? Can you name even one animal???

Sure, they ‘clean’ themselves, lick and play…but do any climax by masturbation?

If the answer is no (and I suspect that you will find it is)…then do you really need any further scientific proof that we, as humans, are doing something against our nature by masturbating to climax?

Furthermore (if you actually care to know) Catholic Sexual Theology is very much based (not in Scripture) but in the natural law. Natural law is based on the Thomistic sense of justice (giving to a thing that which it is owed by its very nature). Here, the purpose and end of sex is procreation. Masturbation goes against the natural law because it fails to render the sexual act that which it is owed- namely the possibility of procreation. Therefore, masturbation is a grave sin. When something goes against the natural law (thus, masturbation, birth control, and so and so on and so on…) then we believe it goes against God’s law.

 

[Rolltide]

To the OP

First of all you are wasting your time with this.

Secondly…break it down. We are animals, right? What do animals do? DO they masturbate to climax? Can you name even one animal???

Sure, they ‘clean’ themselves, lick and play…but do any climax by masturbation?

If the answer is no (and I suspect that you will find it is)…then do you really need any further scientific proof that we, as humans, are doing something against our nature by masturbating to climax?

Although I do not support the original poster’s proposition that masturbation is not sinful, I should point out that it has been scientifically documented that bonobo apes do engage in a whole host of self and mutual masturbation activities. I’m pretty certain that several other species do too, although I haven’t looked it up to confirm it.

That said, this is not as much a scientific debate as it is a philosophical and ethical debate. Health benefits are irrelevant because this is an issue regarding a philosophical construct. For example, having sex is beneficial, but most people would regard cheating on their spouse as unethical. Why? Doesn’t sex have health benefits? Just because the damage from masturbation isn’t quite as overt as this doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

 

[NFP1Kate]

I grew up on a farm…never saw an animal do that.

 

[holyghost]

Catholic Sexual Theology is very much based (not in Scripture) but in the natural law. Natural law is based on the Thomistic sense of justice (giving to a thing that which it is owed by its very nature). Here, the purpose and end of sex is procreation. Masturbation goes against the natural law because it fails to render the sexual act that which it is owed- namely the possibility of procreation. Therefore, masturbation is a grave sin. When something goes against the natural law (thus, masturbation, birth control, and so and so on and so on…) then we believe it goes against God’s law.

This is it. The reasoning behind masturbation being a sin goes back to the reason and nature of human sexuality, from a Catholic perspective. You would want to start there, in order to get the answer you seek.

 

[Sair]

I would hazard a guess that most married women in the secular world do not care in the least, as they have an understanding that it is beneficial and is of no harm.

Well, I’ll put my hand up as a married woman in the secular world, and say, frankly, it bothers me not in the slightest. My opinion regarding love for a spouse is that it encompasses the whole person, not just sexual sharing.

 

[NFP1Kate]

Although I do not support the original poster’s proposition that masturbation is not sinful, I should point out that it has been scientifically documented that bonobo apes do engage in a whole host of self and mutual masturbation activities. I’m pretty certain that several other species do too, although I haven’t looked it up to confirm it.

That said, this is not as much a scientific debate as it is a philosophical and ethical debate. Health benefits are irrelevant because this is an issue regarding a philosophical construct. For example, having sex is beneficial, but most people would regard cheating on their spouse as unethical. Why? Doesn’t sex have health benefits? Just because the damage from masturbation isn’t quite as overt as this doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Out of curiosity I looked up those apes and it sounds like it is documented in captivity only.

 

[cjmclark]

I’m still waiting for your citations.

Even one citation indicating that it is harmful for humans to masturbate?

Why do you insist on asking me to prove an assertion I never made?

Let’s look at this again:

LOL. A “gotcha” question, eh?

Well, no dice. Even if you can provide compelling medical evidence that directly links masturbation to its supposed benefits (as in some that shows actual causation as opposed to mere correlation; all the studies I find use the word “may” a whole lot), that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s seen as an objectively disordered act by the Church in that it takes a sexual act intended by God (sorry, OP, you’re just going to have to be disappointed and unconvinced here) to be both unitive and procreative and makes it neither one.

Catholic bachelors and priests are called to chastity. There ya have it. Some will succeed better than others, but for those who truly acknowledge that it’s wrong and repent of it, there’s always Reconciliation.

First post - I assert that a great deal of supporting evidence is circumstantial, and that it’s irrelevant to Catholics in any case because the purported health benefits are not the area of concern for us.

Thank you for elucidating this in a way that I could not.

Second post - I thank another poster for their explanation. Really neither here nor there.

Cite your source that most married women in the secular world (whatever that is) do not care in the least, as they have an understanding that it is beneficial and is of no harm.

And cite sources that definitively demonstrate that it is beneficial and is of no harm, please.

After all, smoking used to be good for you. Now we know better.

Third post - I ask you to support your positive assertion that masturbation is beneficial with definitive evidence.

Your “evidence” includes a lot of “might”, “may” and “likely”. Not exactly definitive, as at best it shows a correlative relationship and not a causative one. I have made no positive claims save that “evidence” supporting health benefits of masturbation is largely anecdotal and that in any case, it’s irrelevant to a practicing Catholic as it is considered a gravely disordered act. Both you and the OP make claims it’s “commonly known” to have health benefits, but all you have managed to provide is circumstantial evidence and a statistic that basically says “a lot of people do it”…not exactly definitive proof of a healthy practice.

Fourth post - I find your evidence lacking and circumstantial…supporting my initial assertion that much of the evidence that masturbation is beneficial is circumstantial.



As other posters have indicated, the health benefits of masturbation (whatever they may be) are irrelevant to whether or not it is considered a sin by the Church. The OP appears to be looking for a reason why it’s a sin that’s absent any explanation that includes God, and I must be one of those “simple-minded” “you people” who had “brain-washing material” shoved down his throat at some point because that makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

 

[Durus]

You have factual evidence that non-believers who masturbate aren’t sinners? Think about what you just typed.

I think what he means is that the concept of offending God through our behaviour is a human construct.

 

[Durus]

That is actually incorrect. The biochemical effects of masturbation and sex are not the same. There is an entirely separate chemical dimension to sex that involves emotional bonding. This is fundamentally absent from masturbation.

You post a lot of ’ facts’ but never seem to back them up with evidence. I’m still waiting for all your sources proving that masturbation is harmful and addictive.

Please add to the list this post, post your source of this claim.

Is itching addictive and bad for you?

What about jogging and receiving a rush of endorphins, is running bad for you as well?

 

[Durus]

You can always just exercise self-control.

A contrary thought, you could just do what you want to yourself, in the privacy of your home that is no harm to yourself or others.

I remember when I was much, much younger…I swore to God I would stop. I think I lasted all of ten minutes.

I was absolutely devastated, guilt ridden and cried like a baby for having offended God.

Looking back the only thing that was unhealthy about that entire experience was the pressure, guilt, unrealistic expectations and arbitrary control an institution placed upon my own body.

Now as an adult, I have a very healthy view about the subject matter and I would not wish the feelings I had back then upon any young person.

 

[Durus]

To the OP

First of all you are wasting your time with this.

Secondly…break it down. We are animals, right? What do animals do? DO they masturbate to climax? Can you name even one animal???

slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2009/07/hands_or_paws_or_anything_they_got.html

Sure enough, hairy palms abound in the animal kingdom. (Wikipedia offers a good summary of the evidence.) Dogs, cats, lions, bears, and a number of other mammals self-stimulate with their front paws; randy walruses use their flippers. Horses and donkeys, whose masturbatory habits have been particularly well-studied, engage in “rhythmic bouncing, pressing, or sliding of the erect penis against the abdomen” (PDF); male deer do the same. The 19th-century physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach has even described something like female ejaculation among solitary mares, which “rub themselves against whatever obstacles they find, often spurting a white, viscous mucus.” A bull, meanwhile, stimulates itself by alternately protruding its penis from a genital sheath, while some moose can ejaculate simply by rubbing their antlers on bits of vegetation. According to observations made at the University of Buffalo in the 1940s, both male and female porcupines manipulate their genitals with inanimate objects—they’re also known to “seize, straddle, and ride sticks about the cage.”

Our fellow apes are among the most ardent and industrious masturbators: Female orangutans have been observed to fashion primitive dildos from sticks or pieces of liana, while males stimulate themselves with pieces of fruit, leaves, or other objects. Although it’s sometimes said that only mammals masturbate, we have clear examples of autoeroticism among birds, which rub their cloacae on whatever’s handy. Turtles have also been observed in the act.

 

[Durus]

I grew up on a farm…never saw an animal do that.

…that settles it. Animals do not masturbate, because you’ve never seen it.

 

[sw85]

A contrary thought, you could just do what you want to yourself, in the privacy of your home that is no harm to yourself or others.

I have no doubt you’re already doing that plenty, so what do you care what any of us think?

At any rate, this is is a really sentiment. Do you genuinely believe that all the religions of the world must do things your way? That “freedom” consists of the freedom to masturbate but not to inquire about the moral character of masturbation? etc.

I remember when I was much, much younger…I swore to God I would stop. I think I lasted all of ten minutes.

Yep. Because masturbation’s addictive. Perhaps not in the extremely narrow medical definition sense but we all know it is (yes, this is anecdotal, but it’s no more anecdotal than “masturbation helps you sleep” or “it keeps your sperm fresh,” as if that latter part is a concern for any man not trying to get a girl pregnant). I dropped it cold-turkey the day I was baptized and those first couple of weeks were a sincere struggle.

I was absolutely devastated, guilt ridden and cried like a baby for having offended God.

I’m guessing you were a Protestant of some sort.

Looking back the only thing that was unhealthy about that entire experience was the pressure, guilt, unrealistic expectations and arbitrary control an institution placed upon my own body.

Far from unrealistic. I managed it (with difficulty), and I’m hardly an exemplary specimen of self-control; I can barely even finish a book in a reasonable time frame (and haven’t in close to a year).

As for “arbitrary,” that remains to be seen. You don’t actually seem to be aware of what the Church teaches in this regard or why, so on what grounds do you claim it’s “arbitrary”? That it made you cry once? In fact, your argument so far amounts to “masturbation is morally good cause it’s healthy for me.” The jury’s out on that last bit (I have read some convincing evidence that it is in fact a net bad for men under 50), but even if it weren’t, the conclusion wouldn’t follow from the premise. “Good” does not always mean “good for you.”

Now as an adult, I have a very healthy view about the subject matter and I would not wish the feelings I had back then upon any young person.

Whether or not your view is “healthy” is precisely what’s under discussion here. There’s a little more to the Catholic idea of moral normativity than how it makes you feel.

We’re not going to get anywhere in this discussion if you just keep repeating the baseline assertion, which is that masturbation is good because it’s “healthy.” Even if true (and again, the evidence on that front is mixed at best and, at least in this thread, largely anecdotal), it would be irrelevant, because Catholic ethics are nonconsequentialist. Do you know what the Church actually teaches re: masturbation or why? Where this prohibition comes from? I mentioned earlier it derives from a natural theological and moral philosophical tradition that goes back 2,400 years, to Plato. Are you familiar with the relevant works? Have you read Plato, i.e., The Republic? Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Metaphysics? Any of the scholastic thinkers, e.g., Aquinas and his Summa Theologiae? Or at the very least a sympathetic treatment of them by a favorable scholar, such as by Ed Feser (who I cite and link to earlier in this thread)?

If not, on what grounds do you claim to *know *that the teaching is wrong (or even, for that matter, what it actually is)?

 

[BRZ]

To the OP and other detractors:

I know for a fact that it is addictive, and bad for your emotional development. I used to do it until I found out it was wrong. I don’t need a scientist or panel to do a study to know this. I can see what it has done and what it does to society in general. All it takes is a little observation and attentiveness. I stopped and never looked back once I found out it was wrong. No guilt, no “crying”. Having no self control shows a lack of mature emotional development. Your desires seem to rule you and you quickly believe any shred of “evidence” that you believe supports your case.The fact that you can’t accept it, shows that you are addicted to it and in denial in my opinion.

Regardless, this is a moot point. It isn’t our job as Catholics to convince you of anything. You seem to think that we have some kind of calling to convert you to our religion. This is not true. We have the responsibility of teaching the Truth. What you do with that truth is between you and God. If you choose to ignore it, that does not concern me, or any other Catholic. Coming to a Catholic forum and making demands of us Catholics to prove you wrong shows the problems that exist within your mind and within your soul. Problems which are magnified in the other things which you do in your life, I am sure, such as masturbation.

What I mean here, is that any Devout Catholic can easily see the wrong behavior which you are showing just from your single post alone. I am sure you think of yourself as a very intelligent, wise individual who knows exactly what he needs in this life and knows exactly what is right and wrong but the truth is, you look only like a child dangling his feet in the water to anyone who knows the real Truth. I can see exactly who you are and you are wasting your time here.

 

[Durus]

We agree to disagree and I’ll not convince any devout Catholic that it is a healthy, sinless and perfectly normal sexual activity.

( You’ll also not convince me that it’s sinful, harmful, addictive or that a supernatural being cares that the human animal, the human animal he created with the desire to masturbate…actually does masturbate.)

So, I’m out.

 

[sw85]

We agree to disagree and I’ll not convince any devout Catholic that it is a healthy, sinless and perfectly normal sexual activity.

So, I’m out.

OK. But I encourage you to consult some of the sources I cited back on page 1. Natural law is a complex and enlightening way of looking at the world, and even if you have no interest in continuing the conversation, you might benefit from learning more about it. I certainly did.

God bless.

 

[Durus]

OK. But I encourage you to consult some of the sources I cited back on page 1. Natural law is a complex and enlightening way of looking at the world, and even if you have no interest in continuing the conversation, you might benefit from learning more about it. I certainly did.

God bless.

…and I encourage you to think about the matter objectively.

As my 9th grade health teacher said about the subject;

" 99% of people masturbate. The other 1% are liars. "

 

[dimentichisimai]

…and I encourage you to think about the matter objectively.

As my 9th grade health teacher said about the subject;

" 99% of people masturbate. The other 1% are liars. "

And the other 0.001% that get rounded out of the anecdote used to be addicted to it, but overcame it through God’s grace and taming their passions. I’m much happier because of it.

And as for objectivity, since we’ve agreed to disagree and the feed is winding down, I’d like to suggest that you take a look into Epistemology, that is, the philosophy of the mind. Once you start down the rabbit hole, you’ll see that proving the objectivity of reality isn’t as clear cut as you’d think. From Descartes, through Kant, past Hegel, and ending with Heidegger, objective, secular philosophy taken to its limits barely gets us to the concept that existence exists.

Check out the life of Edith Stein. She was a 20th century secular philosopher that reasoned herself into Catholicism and eventually became a saint.

Just food for thought.

 

[sw85]

…and I encourage you to think about the matter objectively.

As my 9th grade health teacher said about the subject;

" 99% of people masturbate. The other 1% are liars. "

This is interesting, considering that your argument outlined above was that masturbation cannot be wrong because it makes you feel good and that the prohibition on masturbation is bad because it makes you feel unhappy to violate it (but wait, isn’t that the point of a prohibition?). Are these objective arguments? Clearly not; they are subjective and phenomenological.

Again, you don’t seem to be aware of what the Church teaches or why in this respect, and you are clearly not interested in learning, so I’m curious as to how you can say our position is not “objective.” Ordinarily, it would be considered imprudent to comment on the character of things about which one doesn’t know anything.

I’m also curious as to what it is that you think motivates my responses here if not an objective evaluation of the facts. Clearly I’m not emotionally invested in the idea that masturbation is bad. Clearly I haven’t been propagandized from birth (I only just formally entered the Church two months ago). You can disagree with my evaluation of those facts but I don’t see how you can claim they’re not objective, given that you don’t know me, like, at all. Do you normally go around accusing strangers of being liars because they won’t validate your beliefs?

 

[Durus]

This is interesting, considering that your argument outlined above was that masturbation cannot be wrong because it makes you feel good. Is this an objective argument? You have yet to outline one. Again, you don’t seem to be aware of what the Church teaches or why in this respect, and you are clearly not interested in learning, so I’m curious as to how you can say our position is not “objective.”

I know what the Church teaches. It is a grave sin, worthy of being condemned for eternity in hell.

I just don’t believe it.

I know it is healthy, normal, beneficial, harmless, enjoyable and of no business to anyone or any supernatural being.

I too could say that you aren’t interested in discovering why it is a normal and healthy behaviour.

Obsessing about masturbation being sinful and tearfully / fearfully / hopelessly praying to a supernatural God to help you resist the same hormonal feelings every single human feels and then feeling horrible, guilt ridden and bad after you partake in said activity…that is unhealthy in my view.