If, as the Bible reveals, sex makes two people one, sex is an exceptionally powerful bonding agent. The implication is that anything related to it must be treated with more caution than handling superglue.

If sex bonds two people, then sexual pleasure without a partner will still powerfully bond you, but the bonding will be to whatever sights and thoughts are present at the time. For some people, the bonding will be to the sight of their own body. If so, it will be this – and possibly the sight of their own gender – that will begin to dominate their passions. Not everyone will slide down this particular ditch but, one way or another, the context in which one experiences sexual pleasure will certainly modify one’s sexual preference. If your thoughts during sexual pleasure are not focused on the opposite sex but on neutral things, then attraction to the opposite sex will begin to lower. If at such bonding moments your thoughts are on the opposite sex, you are likely to find yourself bonded to people or to features of the opposite sex that your future spouse does not have. Thinking of an object while having sexual feelings might gradually develop into a fetish. There are men who go crazy over shoes, for instance, and prefer them to any woman. Then there are those who try to convince themselves they are being godly by masturbating while focusing on spiritual things. If Jesus walked this planet today, would you try to have sex with him? Sexual bonding is exclusively for a husband and wife. Anything else is a perversion. Sexual bonding must not be used to join a person to a relative or a friend or an animal or an object or to the Holy Lord.

Masturbating cultivates yearnings for sensations that differ from those generated by intercourse. Just how destructive to heterosexual relations this becomes will vary from person to person. Even in the mildest case, however, it would seem inevitable that enjoying masturbation now will at least slightly detract from one’s future enjoyment of, and appreciation of, the uniqueness of heterosexual relations.

Masturbating now, to tide you over until God gives you a sexual partner, is like taking drugs to dull the pain of loneliness. When you find someone, loneliness might vanish, but the craving for drugs will remain. Even if you heroically break the habit, you will most likely for the rest of your life find yourself haunted by the occasional longing for the unique sensations the drugs produced. Of course, the more you had allowed yourself to become addicted, the more it will hound you later in life.

Just how serious is this matter? Here’s an email I received in response to Towards a Christian View of Sexual Self-Stimulation:

Thank you. I have found hope at the age of 61! I just wish God would have shown me your page sooner.

For a careful, biblical, spiritual examination of this complex subject, see Towards a Christian View of Sexual Self-Stimulation. At the end of the series are valuable links to help you break an addiction.

For insights into pornography, see Pleasure Secrets.

© Copyright 2005, Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: the text is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.net  Freely you have received, freely give.
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