THE PORN EFFECT

I feel very called and driven to address a particular issue. This last weekend, I was approached by a young man who asked me a question about a lie concerning pornography that I’ve heard numerous times. The widespread nature of this lie shows just how successful Satan has been at spreading it among young men, and how the evil one has given us just another justification to put between ourselves and purity.

He said: “Jesse, I’ve heard that it’s not a sin to masturbate if it isn’t lustful/if you can keep lust out of the picture. Is that true?”

I’ve heard a lot of young guys talk and ask about this particular statement or “loophole”, or whatever you want to call it. Furthermore, there’s a popular Christian book (which shall remained unnamed) which states this notion, or at least something very similar. It is a very widespread, common understanding about masturbation.

Well? Is it true?

First of all, if we’re honest with ourselves, this seems impossibly unrealistic. If someone, somehow, could separate lust from masturbation, they’d probably be up for winning the... Nobel Porn Prize or something (that was just off the top of my head, but come to think of it, if nothing’s done about the rise of pornography, don’t be surprised if they start issuing that to people someday...). Just quickly, to define “lust”, we’re talking about the twisting of love, from outward action for the benefit of another, to inward action for the benefit of self, sexually.

What does... masturbation in itself sound like to you? It’s certainly not “outward” or for anyone else’s benefit other than the self. And just briefly, to understand why this is just generally an extremely dangerous act to try and perfect, to masturbate without the incorporation of lust, all we need to do is to look at what the Bible tells us in Ephesians 5:3

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity....”

Not even a hint of sexual immorality or impurity. A hint means... more than 0%. Kind of like, if there was a hint of dog poo in your birthday cake you would not feel nearly as happy about surviving another year of life as you were before you found that out. You don’t want any dog poo in your birthday cake right? So why... put it on the counter beside the batter? Do you get what I’m saying? I’m not saying masturbation is equal to birthday cake.

But, even if it was okay to masturbate without lusting, the act of masturbating opens up a massive opening for the occurrence of lust, which, if masturbation was okay without it, would just be like opening up a large possibility for that black forest cake to become... crap forest cake.

But the biggest thing to understand about all of this, is that even if you can separate lust from masturbation, it’s still wrong.

Why?

The late Pope John Paul II stated that if a sexual act is to be an act of love, and not lust, it must be four things:

1. Free

2. Total

3. Faithful

4. Fruitful

The act of masturbation releases a chemical in the brain called Oxytocin, which is meant to bond us to our future wives during sex once we’re married. But if this chemical release is happening outside of marriage, what is it bonding us to? It can bond us to... anything related to the act of impurity that we’re involved in. This point destroys the first two points of that list shown above. If we are allowing this chemical to be released outside of marriage and apart from our future wives, we are limiting our ability to bond to our wives.

The act of masturbation, if ever “total” is “totally” based around the self. That sounds like lust, not love. And also, this chemical release opens us up to addiction (this chemical is released in the brain when someone takes cocaine as well), and addiction is quite understandably the polar opposite of “Free”.

The biggest point though brothers, is number 4. The only “fruits” of masturbation are not truly fruitful at all. Masturbation breeds self-absorption (pride), greed, sexual gluttony, and can often be a result of sloth. That covers four of the seven deadly sins. And all of these are focused on the self in an attempt to satisfy, while in reality leaving us wanting more. The difference between love and lust. Love satisfies, and lust does not. So it’s the opposite of fruitful.

I think it’s important to focus on always moving forward, always trying to grow stronger in purity, in self-discipline. A big trap that’s very easy to fall into is trying to figure out just how much we can get away with, while still being considered “Christian” or “a good person”. Why don’t we forget about just trying to get away with what we can, and instead focus on actually making things better in our lives and in the lives of others through true, honest, genuine love. Because I’m pretty sure that even if you do win a Nobel Porn Prize, you probably won’t be putting that one up on the mantle for Grandma to see when she visits for Christmas.