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Frank Answers About Masturbation and Prayer

This was a question I answered in the Frank Answers on the Immanuel Lutheran Church web site in 2013, the year I retired. I felt that the church needed to talk about sexual issues like masturbation that confuse and sometimes terrify the consciences of our youth. This is substantially what I wrote on the church website in answer to a boy who is probably in his mid-20s by now. But the question remains, so with some additional editing (and added images) I present it again. If you know a teenage boy who would be interested in this topic, please send a link to him.

Question: Dear Pastor: I’m confused about masturbation. In health class we learned that it is a healthy release of tension. But in church I’m told that it is a sin and we should pray for the strength not to do it. I try praying to ask God to help me stop doing it, but I end up doing it anyway. Do you think it is a sin?

Frank answers: If you learned in health class that masturbation is a healthy sexual release, that’s more and better information than I received back in the late 1950s. We had no sex education or even a health class in school. Even the medical books back then had information that has now been discredited. They said that masturbation could produce nearsightedness, pimples, and obsessive-compulsive behavior, among other things. (I know because I looked up “masturbation” in a medical book my mother had.)  I didn’t hear anything about masturbation in my Church, but an encyclopedia told me that the Catholic Church considered masturbation a sin because it is “disordered sex.” Sex is for procreation, not self-gratification. I wasn’t a Catholic, but I supposed that this was a general Christian position. So I felt I was doomed in this world and the next and I kept all this terror to myself.

From the Philippine film, “Antonio’s Secret.” It looks like Antonio is meditating on his penis and contemplating how it can be a blessing to him.

If we want to determine whether something is a sin we have to look in the Bible. A lot of people assume things are in the Bible that aren’t. If you look up the word “masturbation” in a Bible concordance (that’s an index of words in the Bible that tells you which verses use that word) you likely won’t find any references because the Bible never mentions it. Not even once. The Bible has a lot to say about sex, but it never mentions masturbation.

So why has it been taught that masturbation is a sin?

Because in the Bible semen, along with blood, was considered a life source and therefore one had to be careful about spilling it. Semen is called “seed.” Spilling one’s seed was considered a violation of semen’s purpose, which is making babies when joined to a woman’s egg. But the one reference to spilling one’s seed is the story of Onan in Genesis 38. He was supposed to provide children for his dead brother by inseminating his dead brother’s wife Tamar. That was the rule. It was called Levirate marriage. The purpose was to continue his dead brother’s lineage by producing blood offspring for him. But Onan spilled his seed rather than inseminating his sister-in-law. Perhaps he didn’t want his brother’s offspring dipping into the family inheritance. For this he was stoned to death. But this story can hardly be a blanket condemnation of masturbation. It had nothing to do with masturbation. It had to do with failing to fulfill his obligation to his dead brother according to the law of ancient Israel.

In fact, seed gets spilled in nocturnal emissions (the wet dreams that boys have as they attain puberty). Perhaps you have experienced this. In the Old Testament the spilling of semen, along with the hemorrhaging of blood during the menstrual cycles of girls, made one ritually impure (Leviticus 15). But this was not sin in the moral sense. In Leviticus there are moral sins and ritual or religious sins. Sins like discharging semen or mentrual blood made one ritually unclean, and until one was cleansed one couldn’t go into the tabernacle or temple to offer the appointed sacrifices. The way to deal with this ritual impurity was to take a bath — to clean oneself up — and to clean the stained bedding. This is a good thing to do anyway, but the Church early on decided that the ritual law was not applicable to Christians because the sacrificial cult was fulfilled in Christ’s once-for-all atoning sacrifice on the cross.  

Is there anything else that might make masturbating a sinful act?  Well, Jesus said about the commandment forbidding adultery, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28 NIV).  The problem is that we often masturbate because our minds are fantasizing about sex with some girl (or some boy). Or we begin to fantasize as we masturbate. In the days of my youth guys used the Playboy magazine centerfold as an inspiration for masturbation. They felt they had to hide their copies from their mothers. Today kids have access to internet porn on their lap tops and they often masturbate while watching online porn. I think watching porn should be avoided, for several reasons. But the issue here is whether masturbation is a sin. Since the Bible says nothing about masturbation but does speak about lust, I would say that the real sin is not masturbating, but the lust that goes with it.

However, in Matthew 5:27-30 Jesus is talking about adultery, which is unfaithfulness in marriage. This raises the question of whether “looking at a woman lustfully” really applies, say, to single people who, after all, are on the lookout for a possible mate. Also, this doesn’t apply to fantasizing in general because not all sexual fantasies are about someone else. Most of them are about what I would like to experience.

Antonio is having lustful fantasies about his handsome young uncle with whom he shares his bed. Unfortunately, the story ends in tragedy with Antonio’s uncle raping him and his mother coming in on the scene and stabbing the uncle to death with a kitchen knife.

I should probably say that teen agers today learn about sex by watching pornography on the internet. Many boys masturbate while watching porn. You should realize that much of what you see on internet porn is acting and not the way sex usual is among ordinary people. But it does fill the mind with fantasies about what you would like to do. You should be aware that where you focus your attention is where your energy goes, including your sexual energy. If your attention is on the screen, your sexual energy will be directed to that. If your focus is on your own body, you will have a more powerful orgasm.

With or without lustful fantasies, is the act of masturbating sinful? There’s nothing in Scripture by which we can say that it is.  In fact, if it is done merely as a hedge against the temptation to have sex with someone you shouldn’t be having sex with, and because the body requires sexual release, then it could even be considered a healthy alternative to sexual intercourse. So, were it not for our lustful desires, our bodies would not cause us much trouble. It’s our minds that get messed up, and unfortunately religion has often contributed to this. Because of religious and cultural views, usually passed on in families, kids grow up ashamed of their bodies and what they do with them. This can linger for a lifetime even if you intellectually know better.

So intellectually you know that organism is a biological way of giving your body physical release. As an adolescent your hormones are raging, you need release, so you rub yourself and get relief. In and of itself, I don’t think masturbation is a sin. I also think there’s something to be said for practicing self-control in all areas of life, including sex. It’s a good spiritual discipline to control one’s body through diet and exercise and sexual activity. There are other ways of releasing energy, such as playing sports or making music or doing something else that is creative. But you probably won’t stop masturbating, and you shouldn’t put God to the test by asking for God’s help to control natural biological urges that you will finally give in to.

So I suggest a different approach to prayer. (You were the one who mentioned prayer.) When the need presents itself and it’s hard to contain your urges, don’t only feed your lustful fantasies; feed your holiness as a child of God. In the moment of ecstasy, praise God for the vitality of your body. Don’t feel guilty for what you have done; feel grateful for the wonderful but mysterious gift of your sexuality.

Here’s how you can pray. Once your body has calmed down you and you’ve cleaned yourself up, stand or kneel next to your bed—just as you are, even naked as Adam and Eve stood naked and unashamed before God prior to their act of disobedience—and offer a quiet prayer of thanks to the God who knows you as you are because he has created you and redeems you through his Son Jesus Christ and gives you his Spirit.

Thank God for your life, your body, your health, your family and friends. Then, if you were disturbed by lustful fantasies you may have had while masturbating, pray this verse from Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” Conclude by glorifying God, saying “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit” while you make the sign of the cross that was placed on you in Holy Baptism when God claimed you as his own.

Why would you do this? Because you want to use your body not just for your pleasure, but for God’s glory. St. Paul said, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? You were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Pastor Frank Senn

P.S. Here’s a prayer you could memorize for use anytime. And there’s always the Lord’s Prayer that covers everything for which you could pray.

Frank Senn

I’m a retired Lutheran pastor. I was in parish ministry for forty years and taught at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for three years. I've been an adjunct professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. Since my retirement in 2013 I've also taught courses at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, and Carey Theological College in Vancouver. I have a Ph.D. in theology (liturgical studies) from the University of Notre Dame.