You Won’t Go Blind, But… — MATURE CONTENT

PLEASE NOTE:  This blog post is written for the future audience of my adult children and deals with sexual self-gratification (masturbation).  If this topic offends you, you should stop reading this now.

 Dear TEAMS,

I am laughing to myself as I imagine each one of you, years from now, reading this post.  Betcha never even knew your Momma knew what that word was, eh?!? 

I’d like to talk with you about this concept, though, because I can’t imagine it won’t ever come up with you or your children.  I suppose it should have come up in our home with you as teens, reconciling yourselves to your adult bodies.  But your father and I just never knew what would fan a flame and what would serve as instruction, so like all chicken Christians, we dropped it.  My prayer is that it never became a stumbling block for any of you.

I am looking back on my life and thinking about how I just wanted to be told what I should and should not do when I was in my teen years.  I know I wanted to serve God and have a relationship with Him, and I wanted efficiency in my instruction.  I was pretty sure of the “should nots,” but needed clarity on the maybes.

As I have matured in my relationship with God, I realized I had it backwards.  Sure, sometimes just doing what is understood to be a good discipline even if you don’t understand the “why” can birth greater depth of understanding for issues.  For instance, spending time reading the Bible every day, even when I don’t feel like it or the words seem one-dimensional, has created in me a deeper understanding of the power of God’s Word and what those times that seemed inconsequential really birthed in me over time.  But the “biggie” topics—the ones that had the power to destroy or build up but aren’t mentioned in the Bible—God was trying to show me that it’s about what my base motivation is in my heart, not the action itself.

Individual masturbation has one goal:  to create sexual climax by yourself.  Let me tell you why Sexual self-gratification (SSG) matters, and why it’s a big deal. 

• SSG sets up the expectation that this is the end goal of sexual relationship:  YOU having YOUR climax.
• SSG sets up the idea that you can have what you want when you want it, which isn’t true in any dimension of any fulfilling life.
• SSG does not allow you to develop a healthy coping mechanism to deal with your sexual desires without climax.  There will be times in your marriage that your partner will be unable or unwilling to make love with you, but will need your presence in other ways.  You will need to have the skill of knowing how to “calm down” in order to better meet his/her needs.
• SSG robs your future partner of discovering sex together.  It’s this wonderful, marvelous new world and getting to learn together builds trust in the relationship in a deep way.
• SSG in marriage creates insensitivity to your partner’s sexual needs.  There’s this wonderful subliminal simpatico that lovers get where they discover they are feeling the same feelings at the same time, which they then schedule for or plan for fulfilling and meeting each other’s needs.  If you simply gratify yourself, you deaden that radar and your spouse feels alone.
• SSG creates memories that you bring into your relationship with your spouse which can cause frustration that he/she isn’t scratching your itch the way you do.  That’s not fair to compare, and is akin to being upset that your spouse doesn’t perform as well as your other active lover (you!).
• SSG can be a “gateway” for other non-God intended sexual behavior (such as pornography, etc.), because (once again) it makes sex about how YOU feel and how YOU are relieved and YOUR buzz.  Great sex is completely servant-hearted and not about any of that, even though you feel great and are relieved and buzzed afterwards.
• SSG can cause timing issues when you are making love with your spouse.
• SSG can cause guilt, which in turn can cause you to harden your heart because you get tired of the discomfort guilt brings.
• SSG as a coping mechanism for the stresses in life does not allow God to comfort you and teach you how to cope with the very real, hard things you are dealing with.  Using any sexual activity to cope with stress is pretty much addiction.  God not only wants to help you cope, He wants to deliver you from that stress…a more permanent, mature solution that helps you the next time you encounter stress.

In other words, masturbation makes everything about YOU.  You know from living life in our home that our happiest, most contented days were when everyone was purposing in their hearts to serve other’s needs over their own.  The Bible speaks over and over again about how placing others’ needs over your own are the ultimate act of love.  I want you to live out your excellent destiny.  I hope you will choose God’s best over your own.

Love,