Does masterbation break the law of chastity?

[mirkwood]

5 hours ago, Carborendum said:

As I recall it was nearly the entire cadre of frequenters to the site.

True.  Some of us have a better taste in 80's music too.  @MormonGator is on the questionable taste list.  #1 position in fact.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, mirkwood said:

True.  Some of us have a better taste in 80's music too.  @MormonGator is on the questionable taste list.  #1 position in fact.

Weren't you on the side of Devo?

[mirkwood]

13 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Weren't you on the side of Devo?

There is a ban button around here somewhere...

[mordorbund]

3 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

There is a ban button around here somewhere...

Is @Carborendum causing a problem? I have a chart that might help

[Vort]

11 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Is @Carborendum causing a problem? I have a chart that might help

Thread title checks out.

[NeedleinA]

28 minutes ago, Vort said:

Thread title checks out.

Oh boy

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

Is @Carborendum causing a problem? I have a chart that might help

You missed "move ahead".

[mirkwood]

2 hours ago, Vort said:

Thread title checks out.

Cause that never happens around here. 

[BJ64]

This is an old thread but I’d like to mention this since most probably missed this. 

Back in 2014 students at BYU Idaho made an anti porn video titled Wounded on the Battlefield. The video never mentioned masturbation but the public and press widely criticized and made fun of the video calling it an anti masturbation video. Kim B. Clark then president of BYU-I, now member of the Seventy was interviewed by time magazine about the video. Here is an excerpt. 

The online response was swift and unanimous. The Huffington Post proclaimed the video compared “self pleasure to war.” Mediate announced “BYU Implores Students To Report Masturbating Friends.” As the Daily Beast put it, “The Mormon university is urging its students to narc on chronic masturbators.”

For Clark, the sudden online attention missed the point completely. “Neither my talk nor the video has anything to do with masturbation. There’s nothing in the video or in my talk about that,” Clark said, in an interview with TIME Thursday. “We were really focused on addictions, pornography, things that are really damaging spiritually to people.”

 

On Thursday, TIME spoke with Clark about why the message of the video is important for students, the harm that pornography and masturbation can cause and how they fit in LDS teaching. Here’s what he had to say.

Do the church and the school see masturbation as a sin?

Well, it is interesting. I would frame it this way. Masturbation is a behavior that, if continued, could over time lead to things that are sinful, so the counsel that the church gives to its leaders is to counsel with young people to help them understand that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. That comes right out of Corinthians, that is what Paul taught, and it is a beautiful doctrine—that our bodies are a great gift from God and we need to take good care of them, and that the procreative powers that God has given us, he cares very much about how they are used, and so that we need to learn to use them in ways that are in accordance with his will and his mind.

 

I added the bold underlining for emphasis. 

Here is the whole article. 

http://time.com/5310/university-president-explains-world-war-i-anti-pornography-video/

I know he is not the prophet but he was speaking on behalf of BYU-Idaho so I feel that his words carry a degree of authority. 

What I get from this is that we should avoid masturbation because it could over time lead to sinful things but in and of itself it is not a sinful behavior. Of course the whole point of the video was a battle against porn so I would say that masturbation  done with porn would be a sinful behavior.  

 

[Grunt]

9 hours ago, BJ64 said:

 

What I get from this is that we should avoid masturbation because it could over time lead to sinful things but in and of itself it is not a sinful behavior. Of course the whole point of the video was a battle against porn so I would say that masturbation  done with porn would be a sinful behavior.  

 

2

Personally, I believe masturbation to be a violation of the Law of Chastity.  Whether that is a sin or not is irrelevant to me.

[unixknight]

As a comment on the effects of porn on the adolescent mind...

I recently learned of a study where young men are experiencing widespread chronic ED because of the impact porn has had on their brain when it was developing during adolescence.  Interestingly, older men in their 40s have fewer ED problems. 

Why?

Because men in their 40s and older went through adolescence before the rise of Internet porn.  So it looks like GenX will be the last generation of men to have normal sexual function (generally) because, at least until The Savior returns, easy access to porn is here to stay now.

I have never felt so grateful to be older before.  I'm 44 next week, and will do whatever I have to to keep my kids away from porn.

Sin is sin not because it harms God, but because it harms US.

Edited May 10, 2018 by unixknight

[BJ64]

I’m not here to say that masturbation is not a sin but I agree with @JohnsonJonesthat it’s not some great sin. In the words of Spencer W. Kimball “Masturbation, a rather common indiscretion, is not approved of the Lord nor of his church, regardless of what may have been said by others whose “norms” are lower.

Latter-day Saints are urged to avoid this practice. Anyone fettered by this weakness should abandon the habit before he goes on a mission or receives the holy priesthood or goes in the temple for his blessings.”

Note that he does not call it a great diabolical sin but a “rather common indiscretion”

How many other common indiscretions are there which we should be free of before entering the temple? How about envy, jealousy, hate, contention, gossip, listening to inappropriate music, watching inappropriate movies and disobeying traffic laws.

Then there are the greater sins of lying, coveting and taking the name of The Lord in vain which are also rather common. 

I do not equate masturbation and pornography. Although the two can be done at the same time, they are separate things. Pornography I beltis a more serious sin because you are focusing on the sexual acts of others. 

Some people act as though the two are always connected but for millennia people masturbated without internet porn or printed pictures. Though I will admit that porn has always existed. 

Certainly I had no access to porn as a youth.

As @JohnsonJonessaid, romance novels are pornography. Therefore LDS mothers who are reading them should abandon their habbit along with teaching their children to avoid pornography.       

Which is the worse sin? Touching yourself for pleasure (M) or gossiping to your best friend about something the neighbor lady did? M or running a red light and potentially killing someone? M or failing to be of assistance to someone in need? M or arguing with your neighbor when he complains about your dog barking in the night?

I think any of these things are damaging to the soul but M at least does not generally harm someone else in the process. 

On the subject of pornography, I in no way condone it. However I think we need to also consider the effects of other things we read or view. For example violence. I reluctantly took my family to see the new Avengers movie. I hated it. All it was was two and a half hours of fighting. There was nothing uplifting about it. The same goes for much of what we watch. 

While some might say that if you view pornography you should not attend the temple. I won’t argue with that however, a few years ago the speaker (I don’t remember who it was) at a BYUI devotional made the statement “If you are struggling with pornography you should attend the temple more frequently because the temple is the best washing machine for the mind. I think the point would be that regular temple attendance will help us to keep away from unclean things. 

To sum thing up, while I think it is best to avoid masturbation I think wise counsel might be “he who is without sin first cast a stone”.

Edited May 10, 2018 by BJ64

[Vort]

I largely agree with what @BJ64 wrote above, but I would note a couple of things:

First, the leaders of the Lord's Church have made it clear that masturbation is an unworthy practice, one that should be overcome before exercising Priesthood power such as mission, marriage, etc. (This is as true for the sisters as for the brothers; but because of the way our Father has designed the male mind and the male body, men tend to be much more prone than women to this specific weakness.) So it won't do to say as many do -- not necessarily in this forum -- "Oh, masturbation isn't a big deal. Just keep it private and don't worry about it."

Second, the fact that lying, backbiting, gossiping, unkindness, and other sorts of filthiness and harmfulness might be worse than self-stimulation isn't the point. Do we, or do we not, follow the Savior? Do we, or do we not, want to keep the commandments and be blessed with more? Do we, or do we not, want to stand clean before the Father? Do we, or do we not, want to overcome all things through Christ?

The world tells us that masturbation is healthy and good. The world can, and will, go to hell. We need to be better than the world. As for their mockery and pointing fingers, we know how to handle those.

[BJ64]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

Second, the fact that lying, backbiting, gossiping, unkindness, and other sorts of filthiness and harmfulness might be worse than self-stimulation isn't the point. Do we, or do we not, follow the Savior? Do we, or do we not, want to keep the commandments and be blessed with more? Do we, or do we not, want to stand clean before the Father? Do we, or do we not, want to overcome all things through Christ?

Yes we do want to keep the commandments. All of them.  I pointed out other sins to show that other sins are also very common yet are often not held in derision in the same way as M. Perhaps they should be. 

Also I think it’s important for people to understand they are not alone in a struggle with M. Many if not most have dealt with it in their own lives. 

The tone has softened somewhat I believe but when I was young it was drilled into us that masturbation is a sexual sin and that sexual sins are next to murder. Comparing masturbation to murder is not very helpful for those trying to overcome it. It scares people away from discussing it with parents their bishop.  

[Vort]

1 hour ago, BJ64 said:

Comparing masturbation to murder is not very helpful for those trying to overcome it.

I agree with this.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Vort said:

I agree with this.

I agree as well.  But when I read what some others are saying, I have to ask: What good does it do to tell someone that they don't need to think anything of it?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Guest

[unixknight]

Just now, Carborendum said:

I agree as well.  But when I read what some others are saying, I have to ask: What good does it do to tell someone that they don't need to sweat it?

I got the impression that it was less "don't sweat it" and more "don't let the guilt and shame be so debilitating that you can't bring yourself to talk to the Bishop."

But that's just my read on it.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, unixknight said:

I got the impression that it was less "don't sweat it" and more "don't let the guilt and shame be so debilitating that you can't bring yourself to talk to the Bishop."

But that's just my read on it.

I certainly agree with that sentiment.  I would even agree that various authors would clarify that that is what they meant.  What I'm uncertain about is how some lurkers might take it.

[unixknight]

16 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I certainly agree with that sentiment.  I would even agree that various authors would clarify that that is what they meant.  What I'm uncertain about is how some lurkers might take it.

Fair enough.

[BJ64]

Something else that is not helpful is vagueness in what is taught and inconsistency in how leaders deal with it. I’ve spoken with bishops and stake presidents on the topic and some have had the attitude of “just do your best” while others have a zero tolerance policy. Then there are those who say they never ask about it. I think how a bishop reacts to it depends in part on how he was raised and what he was taught as a youth.  

I asked my bishop why there is so much inconsistency and his answer was that “it’s not like bishops are trained on how to handle it. It’s up to the bishop to use his discretion and inspiration in deciding how to handle each case.”

I know that in the handbook the only mention of it is to say that “self abuse” is not a cause for disciplinary action. 

Which leads me back to what I said about vagueness. When I was a kid there was no vagueness. They were bold in speaking about it. The term self abuse can be confusing to some since it is also a term used when someone causes physical harm to themself such as cutting. 

For the Strength of Youth says something like don’t arouse sexual feelings on your own body. I read an account af a young man who said that in his teens he was frequently confessing to masturbation. Then when he was on his mission he discovered what masturbation really was and learned he had been mistaken. He had been confessing masturbation every time he had become sexually aroused such as when seeing a pretty girl at school. 

I think a strict interpretation of FTSOY could lead someone to believe that until marriage we are to be asexual. Having no sexual thoughts, feelings or arousal. That can set up a young person to have very unsatisfactory sexual relations as a married person. 

[mrmarklin]

I had never even heard the term masturbation until mentioned by a Bishop in an interview.  I had to ask him what it meant.  That was a long time ago.  I was familiar with other terminology, less polite terminology, of course.

When I was in Mutual back in the Stone Age as well, us guys used to ask each other what the term "petting" meant.  it dawned on us soon enough, but even then it was very outdated terminology.  Do they (the Church) still use this??

I guess I'm getting old.:-(

Edited May 10, 2018 by mrmarklin

[BJ64]

13 minutes ago, mrmarklin said:

I had never even heard the term masturbation until mentioned by a Bishop in an interview.  I had to ask him what it meant.  That was a long time ago.  I was familiar with other terminology, less polite terminology, of course.

When I was in Mutual back in the Stone Age as well, us guys used to ask each other what the term "petting" meant.  it dawned on us soon enough, but even then it was very outdated terminology.  Do they (the Church) still use this??

I guess I'm getting old.:-(

Yes, I believe they still use the terms petting and heavy petting. As a teen I knew it must have something to do with touching but I didn’t know the exact meaning. I didn’t have a girlfriend so I had no one to touch so I didn’t worry about it. However I’m 53 and just recently looked it up to see what it actually means. 

Necking is another term I don’t really understand. I can only assume it has to do with kissing but what necking is I don’t know. 

[Behemoth]

It’s kind of weird, that sometimes we don’t get really well educated on this stuff. When it seems like it would probably have been a good thing to know if we’re already members of the Church... I think, my thoughts had been “porn thoughts” long before I had ever “officially” looked at porn. I think being anxious about our bodies and sins is wrong, and there’s a healthy way to deal with porn and masturbation (they’ve spelt it wrong in the title tags of this converation). Is it a sin? yes. can we be healed from addiction? YES! That’s good! Today!! Don’t go back. Me neither! It’s just an emptiness in your soul, and if you trust in God, he will help you to fill it a better way, because he has said masturbation and pornography are wrong. Also believe that your Bishop is the man, God has asked us to talk to him, about ANY addiction. This absolutely counts. Take care! Hope things go great!

[BJ64]

I know that probably most church leadership feel that masturbation is sinful. I don’t think that feeling is universal though. Especially at the local level. 

I don’t want to sound like I’m promoting masturbation so don’t get me wrong but I would like to discuss where the anti masturbation teaching comes from. It is not found anywhere in the scriptures. Since if it is a sin it would surely be the most common of all sexual sins. Considering this, why wouldn’t it be discussed at length in the scriptures? 

Is there any other commandments we obey which cannot be found in scripture? Off hand I can’t think of any.

By the 18th and 19th centuries “medical” practitioners promoted the idea that virtually every disease and mental condition was caused by masturbation and that “masturbation insanity” was a leading cause for people being put into insane asylums. 

Considering the mass hysteria created over masturbation could it be that the whole anti masturbation thing is cultural rather than spiritual such as the cultural events that played a part in the priesthood ban on black Africans?

Again I’m bringing this up as a discussion topic and not to promote masturbation. 

I will add that masturbation has been spoken of about five times that I can think of in general conference while pornography is spoken of at about every conference. I will also say that porn should not be equated with masturbation since the two are separate things which may be done at the same time. 

To anyone who wants to use the story of Onan as a scriptural case of masturbation, be sure you understand the story before posting.

 

 

[zil]

8 hours ago, BJ64 said:

I don’t want to sound like I’m promoting masturbation so don’t get me wrong but I would like to discuss where the anti masturbation teaching comes from. It is not found anywhere in the scriptures. Since if it is a sin it would surely be the most common of all sexual sins. Considering this, why wouldn’t it be discussed at length in the scriptures? 

While not addressing the act explicitly (though one could easily argue they do implicitly), consider these:

Quote

Exodus 20:17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Quote

Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Quote

1 Peter 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

(And numerous others condemning lust.)  Add in the dictionary definition of "lust": "very strong sexual desire; a passionate desire for something; a sensual appetite regarded as sinful."... Add to that the fact that sexual acts outside of marriage between a man and a woman are clearly defined as serious sin....

And the conclusion we have is that the thoughts are sinful, and the acts with someone other than your spouse are sinful, so how can something in between¹ not be sinful?

¹(which has to involve thoughts, though I suppose the married could say they were thinking of their spouse - a dubious assertion)