What Could Possibly Be Wrong with Christian Masturbation?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2016/february/what-could-possibly-be-wrong-with-christian-masturbation.html

Masturbation doesn’t fit within typical modern ethical concerns. It’s not unsafe or cruel; in moderation it does not interfere with academic or economic performance, and it doesn’t make your children more likely to flunk high school or get pregnant out of wedlock. There are no peer-reviewed studies linking it to obesity or reduced charitable giving, and it is virtually the only thing on earth that doesn’tgive you cancer. Conventional wisdom tells us it’s a healthy form of stress relief. It’s organic, and nothing could be more local.

So the question for Christian ethics is not, “Is masturbation sinful?” It’s, “What could possibly be wrong with it?”

Now, this is the best-case scenario we tend to believe about masturbation, though many times the habit becomes compulsive and tied up into the exploitative porn industry—which are compounding issues on their own.

But for masturbation itself? I approach the issue from two perspectives. First, I have my own experience: I’m an artsy, celibate convert; I’ve masturbated since childhood; and I’ve never been able to give up this habit for more than a couple months at a time. The other perspective comes out of my faith as a Roman Catholic. Catholic teaching offers what seems to be a compelling argument against masturbation, but ultimately my ethics are rooted in my relationship with Jesus and his bride, the church. No Christian is left alone with her reason and experience; she is also given the church, which nurtures us with Communion and teaches us to follow Jesus.

The significance of relationship—the way love, contact, kiss lie at the beating heart of Christian faith—anchors the argument that masturbation squanders our sexuality. Scripture is the great love story of God and humans, climaxing at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Christ is himself an image of union: justice and mercy (echoing the promises of Psalm 85:11), man and God. The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that relationship, union with the Other, is part of the inner life of the One God.

In this sense, Christianity is an erotic religion, in that it compels our longing for and contact with the Other. Our bodies are gifts given to us by God, and we give them to him and to others. We are not meant to keep them for ourselves. The sexual union of lovers shows an image and prophecy of our union with God. Sex is to prayer as masturbation is to comforting self-justifications.

Is masturbation a public health crisis?

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/is-pornography-a-public-health-crisis/17664

Michael Flood, the Australian academic, approaches it from a feminist perspective. At a recent conference at the University of New South Wales organised by Collective Shout, a lobby group “for a world free of sexploitation”, he listed some well-documented harms.

Pornography is becoming a primary sex educator for boys and young men, displacing explanations from parents, formal instruction in schools, and even conversations with peers. However, what they learn from pornography websites is kinky practices which strip sex of intimacy, loving affection and human connection. And they learn that women are always ready for sex and have insatiable sexual appetites.

Women feel betrayed by men who use pornography. Most often men conceal their use of pornography. When a partner discovers it, she often feels as if he was having an affair. Pornography use decreases intimacy and makes women feel less attractive and more like mere sexual objects.

Pornography may become an addiction. Flood is cautious about analogies to drug addiction. He points out that attachment ranges from recreational users to compulsive and self-destructive users. However, as with other addictions, some people experience social, work or financial difficulties because they use pornography.

Pornography entrenches sexist attitudes. Abundant research shows that men who use pornography are more accepting of attitudes that sexualise and objectify women. They tend to want sex without emotional involvement.

Pornography disposes men for violence against women. Flood writes, “Exposure to sexually violent material desensitizes male viewers to sexual violence, diminishing their emotional response to the stimulus, eroding their sympathy to victims of violence, and informing more callous attitudes towards women rape victims.”

As a pro-feminist man, Flood and other activists view the sex industry as patriarchal, misogynistic, and brutalising. They call upon men “to quit pornography and forge ethical sexual and gender relations.” Their strategy for change is good sexual education, mostly in schools.

But this does not exclude the possibility of “good pornography”. And it includes acceptance of masturbation as a normal and natural part of human sexuality. Even more troubling, a feminist approach to pornography isn’t interested in the context of sex. It doesn’t need to be within marriage; it doesn’t even have to be heterosexual. The key thing is that it should be mutually pleasurable and lead to greater intimacy and affection.

Flood characterises the other approach to fighting pornography as “Christian”: it is based on total abstinence outside of marriage and it frowns on masturbation. He believes that this approach is limited, because “the contrary tenets of a powerful sexual culture” make it unrealistic.

However, in many respects, the Christian approach might be more realistic, if harder. Fundamentally it is based not on “narrow sexual proscriptions”, as Flood calls them, but on virtue, building up good habits that lead to human flourishing. What the feminist approach lacks is a clear vision of the purpose of sex and how it can be integrated into a mature personality. At the conference, for instance, the idea that sex is connected with babies, children and marriage was barely mentioned.

Young people need to be exhorted to struggle to control their unruly sexuality. The task is made much easier if they realise that this is part of their capacity to participate in procreation and the even greater and more absorbing responsibility of raising children and participating in society as mothers and fathers. Without a unifying vision like this, feminist exhortations also shrivel up into “narrow sexual proscriptions” like “No means No”, “Yes means Yes” and elaborate parsing of the meaning of affirmative consent to sexual activity.

A public health crisis  

These important differences can put feminist and Christian activists at loggerheads. The beauty of describing pornography as a public health crisis is that they can work together in the same tent. Perhaps we can finally make some progress.

The idea had been kicking around for a while before Senator Weiler’s resolution in Utah. Cordelia Anderson, an anti-pornography activist from Minnesota, told a Congressional Symposium in Washington DC last year that “Individual stories and realities do not constitute a public health concern, but when the reach of today’s pornography through ever expanding and changing technologies create what some researchers, academics, and activists have called ‘the largest unregulated social experiment ever,’ we have reason to be concerned.”

“Various studies document the harms of viewing pornography [she said] including sexually aggressive behavior in adults and youth, sexually reactive behaviors in youth, desensitization to others in sexual situations, rape supportive attitudes, arousal to increasingly violent content, increased levels of sexual insecurities, and difficulties with intimacy or sexual functioning such as erectile dysfunction in males.”

Activists’ model for social change is the complete reversal of attitudes towards tobacco. In the 1950s, most people smoked and doctors even said that it could be good for people’s health. Today, smokers are treated like pariahs.

To be sure, pornography is deeply entrenched in the culture and the pornography industry is well-funded and powerful. But this was also the case with the Big Tobacco.

In 2009 social researcher Mary Eberstadt made a powerful comparison of the tobacco industry with the pornography industry. They both dispute the harms of their lucrative product; they both use bogus science to bolster their claims; they both rationalise addiction; and they both use sophisticated marketing techniques.

Bizarre as it seems, like Big Tobacco, Big Porn even uses philanthropy to burnish its image as a good corporate citizen. Earlier this month Pornhub pledged a one-cent donation to saving the whale through the Moclips Cetological Society, a non-profit organization, for every 2,000 videos streamed from its website in February. “This initiative allows us to demonstrate our sincerity and integrity when it comes to helping out one of the planet’s most sacred populations of creatures,” said Pornhub’s vice-president.

So if society turned its back on tobacco, why can’t it kick its addiction to an even more serious public health crisis, pornography?

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