This document discusses Christian views on masturbation from a Catholic perspective. It defines masturbation and notes that it is a common practice among males. It then examines biblical passages regarding lust and sexual immorality. The Church teaches that sexuality is meant for procreation within marriage, so masturbation is seen as intrinsically disordered. While always objectively sinful, culpability depends on knowledge and intent. The document outlines factors that can contribute to masturbation and recommends ways to avoid urges, like prayer and avoiding arousing materials.

1. Pastoral Issues relating
to Christian Morality
MASTURBATION

2. Masturbation
• It is the act or practice of the self-
stimulation of one's sexual organs.
• It is usually done with the goal of
achieving sexual climax, sexual
gratification, or the release of
sexual tension.
• It exists among both males and
females, it is generally considered
more common among men than
women (Leitenberg et al. 1993, 87-
98).

3. Mutual Masturbation
• It is used in reference to mutual acts of
sexual stimulation
• In which persons touch one another's
genitalia.

4. Factors Contributing to
the Habit of Masturbation
1. Loneliness
- creates disabling emotional pain and may
arise from stresses in one's vocation or from
unresolved sadness from childhood or young
adult life.

5. Factors Contributing to
the Habit of Masturbation
2. Weakness in confidence
- can result in intense anxiety in the home or
workplace.

6. Factors Contributing to
the Habit of Masturbation
3. Anxiety
- creates significant inner tension that can lead to
masturbatory behaviors that are often an
unconscious attempt to seek relief from life stresses
and responsibilities. Unconsciously, many adults
develop the harmful thinking pattern of believing
that they are overly responsible.

7. Factors Contributing to
the Habit of Masturbation
5. Anger
- associated with the hurts that give rise to
loneliness, weaknesses in confidence, and
anxiety need to be uncovered and addressed
through growth in the virtue of forgiveness
(Enright and Fitzgibbons 2000).

8. Factors Contributing to
the Habit of Masturbation
6. Selfishness
- leads to an obsession with self-pleasure and
with a failure to understand the true nature of
love as that of self-giving and receiving.

9. What does the bible say
about masturbation?

10. • The Bible says nothing specifically in favor or against
masturbation.
• Masturbation is not mentioned by name in either the Old
or New Testament.
• To understand how God feels about this subject, we must
examine other verses that deal with issues such as lust,
self-control and purity.

11. Matthew 5:28 Jesus says, "Everyone who looks at a woman
lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his
heart."
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you
should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you
should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification
and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do
not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).

12. The Church's Teaching
• The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches that
the sexual function is meant by God to be enjoyed in "the
total meaning of mutual self-giving" (CCC, n. 2352)
within the marital relationship of a man and a woman.
• The Church understands the purposes of sexuality to be
the begetting children and the mutual pleasure for
building the couple's unity.

13. The Church's Teaching
• Therefore, any deliberate activation of the sexual function
outside the proper state of marriage and the purposes
noted is seriously inordinate; if done voluntarily and
knowingly, it is sinful.
• Within marriage such self- or mutual-stimulation is moral
only when in some way it prepares for or completes a
natural act of sexual intercourse.

14. The Church's Teaching
• Masturbation is considered to be objectively disordered or
intrinsically evil (in se malum or intrinsece malum); that is, no
circumstances or intentions can render the action of masturbation
"morally good."
• The degree or seriousness of the moral culpability of a particular act
of masturbation, however, can be judged only in light of the degree
of the moral agent's knowledge, freedom, and intentions.
• Full moral guilt requires a fully deliberate choice of what the person
sufficiently realizes to be seriously evil, which can then be evaluated
as gravely, or mortally, sinful.
• If the act is performed with only partial realization or only partial
choice of the will, the person is presumed to be guilty only of venial
sin.

15. The Church's Teaching
• Masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered
act ... The deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside
normal conjugal relations essentially contradicts the
ultimate purpose of the sexual faculty ... For it lacks the
sexual relationship called for by the moral order, namely
the relationship which realizes "the full sense of mutual
self-giving and human procreation in the context of true
love." (CCC, n. 9)

16. How to avoid the urge to
masturbate?

17. • Prayer
• A sincere willingness to let the Holy Spirit control
• Involvement in busy activities involving others
• Avoidance of sexually arousing material (such as
erotic pictures or novels)
• A practice of not dwelling on harmful sexual
fantasies
• A recognition that sin (including lust) will be
forgiven when it is confessed with sincerity and
sorrow...
• When there is open communication on the subject of
sex, including masturbation... it will... not become a
major problem.

18. References:
• http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm
• NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA SUPPLEMENT
2012-2013: ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY
• http://saint-mike.org/csgsar/bb3/attach/Masturbation.pdf