The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
back to Questions Readers Asked
A reader wonders how the Bible views masturbation. Some readers will move on as soon as they read the word. I can understand why and wish they can believe that I think this question needs addressed or I wouldn’t do it. Others more capable than I might take it up to help us. It’s one of those issues, isn’t it? Big John Wayne wouldn’t have done it and nice ladies don’t discuss such things. There’s an aura of sleaze and shame that hangs around the practice even among people who say they’re completely “liberated” in sexual matters. You can hear it in the derisive terms they call each other when they want to insult each other.
Many preachers don’t like to be asked such questions because they don’t really know what to think about it (maybe we should do some prayerful and serious homework and then call it as we see it—while remaining open for correction). Many preachers don’t like to be asked such questions because we’re afraid of other preachers. We’re afraid of coming off as too “liberal” and “soft on sin” (maybe even justifying our own sexual weakness—horrors!) so mostly we take a robust line against the widespread practice.
And the people who have never been bothered with a desire to engage in it and those who have a happy and full sexual experience with their husbands or wives often have little or no understanding of the dynamics involved. This can move us to some impatience when we’re confronted with the question.
Since it’s difficult to find a biblical text that deals with the issue (it’s more than difficult!) we usually talk in “principles,” but even making a case against masturbation on “principles” is a bit of a job. By a “principle” we usually mean an underlying and basic law but basic “principles” are notoriously difficult to apply. (Why do you think we have law-courts and lawyers?) And, besides, the question covers a lot of ground and a host of different circumstances.
By masturbation we should mean something like, “sexually stimulating oneself in order to please oneself.”
We’re hungry for food so we cook something we can enjoy. Nutrition matters but we want pleasure as well. We want music so we put on a cd and enjoy it. We want to watch a movie so we put on a dvd or video. No one bats an eye at any of this. We touch our tongue, our ears and eyes with food, music and visual stimuli but we mustn’t touch anything sexual to satisfy our sexual hunger.
“Yes, but all sexual pleasure must be restricted to husbands and wives!” Oh really? Should kissing, hugging and holding hands be outlawed before marriage? Only the very strict believers would take such a view. The rest of us smile and think that bothering to debate the issue isn’t worth our time or energy. But these people can make a fair case on “principle”. If hugging is acceptable though it is sexually stimulating then what’s wrong with kissing? And if kissing is okay what’s wrong with caressing? If lips can meet why can’t other body parts? If people are permitted to sexually stimulate one another by kissing and hugging why not by fondling and other such things that fall short of a full sexual experience?
But haven’t we left the more immediate subject? Yes, but only to return to it. Yes, but only to deal with the claim that all sexual pleasure must be restricted to married couples. It’s clear that for whatever reasons, the bulk of believers don’t think all sexual pleasure must be confined to married people. The very strict among us can make reasonable arguments but the rest of us—whether or not we can adequately address those arguments—sense that their position goes way too far. The idea that people can only hold hands, hug one another and kiss after they’ve become husband and wife simply makes no sense to us in the light of the nature of people as God has made us. But if we grant that all sexual pleasure and stimulation must be restricted to married couples then, as I see it, the very strict believers must surely be in the right. Of course it means we’d end up debating issues like, “what’s hugging?” or “what kind of kiss are we talking about?” or “what kind of a look (glance) is acceptable?”
I don’t think we should accept the premise that all sexual pleasure and stimulus should be restricted to married couples. It’s clear that those that have covenanted to one another to be married or have already entered a covenant of marriage should keep their hands and minds for the loved one they’ve covenanted with. Not all of us have done that and many of us find it a battle to unwaveringly do it but there’s no doubt about the rightness of complete fidelity. Even if and when we fail we know we have failed and we should take measures to see it doesn’t occur again. I think that’s beyond debate; but it doesn’t begin to deal with the specific issue before us.
If we judge it acceptable for unmarried people to engage with each other in some degree of sexual stimulation and pleasure why would we think it unacceptable for an individual to engage with him/herself in some degree of sexual stimulation and pleasure?
“Because all sexual pleasure is meant to be expressed and enjoyed only couples.” Hmmm. But is it? Other drives aren’t seen that way. It’s a fine thing for solitary people to enjoy food or a soak in a hot sudsy bath or a marvellous massage (from a professional and in an honourable way) and such things but people aren’t permitted to privately engage in the release found in sexual pleasure?
“Yes, but if we have husbands and wives we can turn to each other.” True, but what if we’re one of the many millions that don’t have a husband or wife? What if we’re unmarried but will not engage in non-marital sexual intercourse because we believe it displeases God, even though we are hungry for the pleasure of full sexual engagement? Those of us that have a full and wonderful sexual experience with our spouses can have some difficulty getting the full power of Paul’s 1 Corinthians 7:9, “If they can’t control themselves, it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.” This section is Paul defending the right of a person to remain unmarried, which he thinks is a more advantageous situation provided that a person can live in honourable celibacy. But given the human situation he speaks of the possibility of people not being able to “control themselves” as a perfectly normal condition. Let them marry to keep from burning. (Only a silly person thinks that this is Paul’s whole philosophy about marriage.) People that go around filled with hunger that isn’t satisfied are pathetic and enslaved creatures (even if the hunger is a wicked one—maybe, especially if it is a wicked one) because they’re always obsessed with the hunger. Paul would teach that we should “ease our pain” and life a full productive life. [Not many sermons can be as glib as one on the advantages of singleness preached by a married man that (thankfully) enjoys a full sexual experience with the wife he adores.]
Here’s a girl or a fellow who will not engage in a premarital full sexual experience; furthermore, she/he won’t marry a person that isn’t in Christ or at least shows a real interest in him. She/he hungers greatly for sexual pleasure, in the way she/he hungers for food, drink, friendship or whatever. She/he is taught that all such hungers are God-given and that she mustn’t be ashamed of them or apologise for them but she’s forbidden to satisfy one of them—the sexual appetite. She is told there is no way in which she is allowed to cater to that hunger unless she gets married. Other can caress their tongues with chocolates, their ears with music, their eyes with (honourable) books or movies—all to feed underlying hungers but she is forbidden to caress “sexual” parts of her.
She knows perfectly well that the sexual experience is not an absolute that stands without guidelines for honourable engagement—there’s too much in scripture for her to believe that “anything goes”. She simply doesn’t understand why it’s okay for unmarried men and women to kiss and hold one another (and in doing it they sexually stimulate one another as well as satisfy their own hunger) while she’s forbidden to stimulate herself while alone. If she’s hungry she eats, thirsty and she drinks, so that these hungers are fed and kept in control without guilt and, in addition, she doesn’t go around a lot of the time longing for these things. But her sexual hunger is never to be satisfied; under any circumstances? Even Paul the honourable and cheerful celibate could easily see that “burning” would be a good word to cover such an ongoing experience.
You understand that I’ve been speaking about sexual activity as it were a simple and an undifferentiated drive when it manifestly is not! It’s a complex reality that, for a healthy person, connects with other needs and desires. It’s true that sexual activity has a solid contact with our “animal” nature but we aren’t brute beasts. We want to give as well as receive, we want love and devotion, we want to express deep feelings and experience intimacy. All this you know and don’t need to be told. It doesn’t matter that many have no other interest than to get the rush—the loss is theirs. And it doesn’t matter that our Western society is so preoccupied with raw sex—there’s still no shame in a sexual appetite (how did the Song of Solomon get into a Bible that thinks “sex” is a dirty word?) but to worship it, or any other drive, is idolatry.
It’s easy for happily married people whose sexual drive is real but modest and is satisfied by someone they adore and enjoy being with sexually—it’s easy for them to dismiss masturbation as a simple lack of control. The truth is, some of these people may be controlling more than the happily married people have ever had to contend with.
“But it’s...dirty...and...cheap.” Yes, many of us think that, but is it though? I don’t think we can establish that. Like everything else, masturbation (presuming it is viewed as a Christian liberty) and married sexual behaviour and kissing etc between the unmarried, food consumption and the rest, can become wrong. The matter of fantasies would come into the discussion. (Click here for a word or two on that. What are they thinking while engaging in solitary sexual pleasure?) Eating can lead to gluttony and recreation can lead to work-laziness. Much of the wrong in what is wrong is the unbridled nature of what we’re engaged in or the set of the mind when we engage in it. So, presuming that sexual self-satisfaction is a Christian liberty and presuming there is no fantasising that is cherishing something wicked—I know no reason why we should speak against it and make people feel guilt-ridden about it.
I recognize that the full story about our sexual activity will be about living out our lives before God and that it will express itself most fully in a devoted husband and wife relationship. And there’s absolutely no doubt that the theological richness of our sexual relationships comes to its fullness in marriage. But none of that gives us grounds for forbidding what has not reached that fullness. Husbands are called to love their wives even as Christ loved the church but we’re not to deny the reality and acceptability of the love they have, though they haven’t yet attained this ideal, which they affirm and strive for. (My use of Ephesians 5 here needs developed.)
I suppose there’s a strong feeling that our sexual gift is “wasted” if it isn’t experienced with another person. I would certainly think that our sexual gift is most fully experienced within a marriage covenant but I don’t think that to take sexual pleasure alone is a waste or a sin.
Let me conclude this rather rambling piece. I think we’re in a sex-soaked, sex-drenched Western culture and the sexual experience has not only been cheapened and perverted, it has become an obsession. I don’t think masturbation is inevitable (any more than I believe non-marital sex is inevitable) nor do I think it should be promoted (any more than I think sexual experience should be promoted). But I don’t think it should be condemned in principle. I think the moral right or wrong of masturbation depends on how it functions within the life of any individual. I believe what is obvious; there is more than one reason that people engage in sexual self-pleasing and I believe that in some cases there are underlying factors that need to be treated. There are some avenues of sexual release that I think the scriptures clearly forbid but I don’t think masturbation is one of them. There are some lawful avenues of sexual release that I believe can be engaged in, in a dishonourable way, and I think masturbation is one of them.
