Chapter 19: Myth—Sexuality Doesn’t Matter

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While the term masturbation has negative connotations in the act of

solitary sex, does that really define everything about masturbation? Here again, the sound mind has to look deeper. Exactly what is masturbation other than the stroking of the penis or the vagina-clitoris? And while this may be the solitary act of a self-contained person, exactly what do you think

occurs in every marriage bed between almost every husband and wife? Yes, it is the joint stroking of each other’s genitals. Isn’t this also masturbation? Yes, of course it is. Isn’t this a sin? I highly doubt it. For two lovers to stroke one another’s genitals is to offer pleasure to each other as foreplay

prior to actual sexual intercourse.

Therefore, besides the issue of destroyed sperm being specious, the fact that lovers masturbate one another’s genitals during the act of sex also belies the theology that masturbation is a “grave sin.” Intellectually the

question can be posed like this. Is our God so capricious that it is okay for the wife to masturbate the husband’s penis, but condemns the husband to the lake of fire if he does so himself? Likewise, is our God so capricious that it is okay for the husband to masturbate his wife’s vagina-clitoris, but

condemns the wife to the lake of fire if she does so herself? The answer is no, because our God is a god of order and not of confusion. Clearly the issue of masturbation does not rise by itself to the level of sexual immorality in either of these two contexts. That, however, does not mean that the act of

masturbation cannot become a precursor to actual sexual immorality.

What about when one of the married lovers rubs his or her genitals against the thigh of the other to obtain the pleasure of this erotic act during

lovemaking? Isn’t that also masturbation? Yes, it is. Is it sinful? No, it is not. The marriage bed is sanctified in God’s eyes for the pleasure of the two lovers. Aside from anal sex, bestiality or dragging a third party into the bed, it is hard to understand how these lovers can sin with only their own

mutually acceptable and beneficial love making pleasures.

The same reality occurs when considering oral sex. Is this not simply the act of masturbation in a different form? Yes it is. Therefore, oral sex

would be condemned if God condemned masturbation. Yet because God says the marriage bed is sanctified, both of these are also in that context.