Sunday 9 July 2017

MASTURBATION - HEALTH - MORALITY


Image result for masturbation

To say that masturbation is always sinful - as the Catholic Church does - is absolute nonsense.

For masturbation to be a sin a believer would have to say to God: "God I have been looking for a way to offend you and I am now going to masturbate just to insult you". 

"Intention" always comes into sin and morality.

The person above might as well say: "God I have been looking for a way to offend you. I am now going to eat this orange just to insult you".

Masturbation is perfectly natural and normal. That why most people do it - and why many animals do it.

Masturbation has serious health benefits - the relief of stress, prevents depression, helps prevent prostate cancer, helps prevent cervical cancer, helps self-esteem, aids sleep, a help for sexual frustration, is STD free and prevents unwanted pregnancies. 

How could something with so many good benefits be a "sin" or an "evil"?


I once saw it referred to in a book I read as: Sex All Alone.

The negative connotations about masturbation come from an ancient and ignorant poor understanding of human sexuality. This ignorance was firmly adopted by religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Catholicism.

These religions had a dualism that said that the soul or spirit was the good part of man and the physical part of man - the body was evil.

This philosophy also embraced suffering as good and pleasure as evil.

There was also a thinking that said that the whole human person existed in the man's semen and that the woman only provided the "oven" that the bread was baked in.

And some went so far as to say that when a man masturbated he destroyed hundreds of thousands of human lives!

The Catholic Church that I and many others grew up in used all this STINKING THINKING to enslave and control us.

They knew that if you got people at the level of their sexuality you would literally have them "by the curlies".

As a teenager, I ran to confession all the time confessing "bad thoughts" and "impure actions" which I had been told were MORTAL SINS - often getting a sex-obsessed inquisition from a sexually frustrated priest and being told that I was "bad" and would go to hell when I died!

Thankfully in my late 30's and early 40's I did some serious work and therapy that freed me from all this madness. 

I have written about all of this in a book called - A SEXUAL LIFE - A SPIRITUAL LIFE which is available on Amazon as a book and as a Kindle download.




In it I say such things as the sexual climax being a mirror of the "Beatific Vision" - that is how we feel about seeing God in Heaven.

I also say that we have every much a right to say a Grace Before and After Sex as we have to say a Grace Before and After Meals.

Even atheists - at the climax of sexual pleasure often cry out - Oh God!

We all need to get away from massive guilt about our sexuality.

We need to treasure and enjoy it as one of God's greatest gifts. 

AND sex is not only for having babies.

It is also there for pleasure!


TWOSIES BEATS ONESIES:

There is no doubt that the most meaningful form of sex is between two people who love each other.

When you have this you have sex + love + intimacy.

When it is a man and a woman you can also have a beautiful baby.

Many people have told me that they found masturbation and loveless sex made them feel more lonely?

Masturbation by its very nature - unless we speak of mutual masturbation - is a solitary activity.

But sex is a very important part of most people's lives. 

The lucky people have a pleasurable, meaningful and life-enhancing sexual life. 







56 comments:

  1. Do I 'jerk off'? Of course I do! Do I feel morally guilty about it? Of course I do! This is how I was socially and ecclesially conditioned.

    Is masturbation morally wrong? I'm told it is, but...

    I do know that if a celibate (and I am celibate) man doesn't 'jerk off', he will have to 'spill his seed' in his sleep. In other words, he will have to experience 'wet dreams'. One way or the other, nature must flow.

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    1. Can you not "recondition" yourself and come to feel it is not sinful or immoral?

      People have to stop beating themselves about this issue.

      There are so many real moral issues to deal with.

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  2. This one I think is a storm in a teacup in the modern world. I would hate to think people are still having their heads messed about in confession. The phenomenon exists in the animal kingdom so it must have a biological function with a positive role. It's only humans who have sexual hangups.

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    1. Few people go to confession.

      I think God wants us to let go our hang ups and dance in the sun as his free sons and daughters.

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  3. I wish I could. I have tried so very much to be chaste. I have fasted; I have prayed; I have desired purity. All to no avail: I still, in spite of everything, 'jerk off'.

    I feel a moral failure, and that God is most displeased with me.

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    1. We are only "moral failure" when we stop trying to love and serve God and our brothers and sisters.

      We sense this in today's Gospel:

      "Come to me all you who labour and are overburdened and you will find rest for your souls.

      Yes my yoke is easy and my burden is light".

      In man ways masturbation is the expressing of a yearning for wholeness.

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  4. Is this the same Magna Carta who jerks off in the most unkind, nasty and venomous a manner? Is there a metanoia at work (gospel conversion)! God is more displeased with nastiness and the uncharitable mouthings that are encouraged on this blog.

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    1. Amid those mouthings the truth comes through too.

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    2. Through those "mouthings", elements of truth come through, along with a whole lorry load of prejudices and jaundiced opinions; but then you too, Pat, are biased. You allowed MC to run amok for long enough in any case.

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  5. What a topic to ventilate on the Lord's Day.
    Masturbation is morally wrong because it's a fundamentally selfish act directed towards pleasuring the self. Unlike the animals we can order our sexual urges in a way that is respectful of self and others. Of course the vast majority of men masturbate but all that proves is the there is a constant tension between our base human urges and our sense of moral good. Because of it's solitary nature masturbation turns the sexual instinct in all of us into something far less than God intended.
    Having said that, there are far more serious sins that we should attend to also.
    Every individual act of masturbation is an act which fashions the people we become, and who wants to be a self-centered hedonist?

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    1. I would expect such a comment from a Gay disordered person who exhibits all the traits of narcissism and is in all likelihood a compulsive masturbater.
      Or to put it more succinctly;
      what would you expect from a pig but a grunt.

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    2. So speaks; 'a self-serving hedonist?"

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    3. Absolutely spot on, 10:59. Although, I'm sure not in the way Pat intended, the Woody Allen quote at the top of the page sums this all up - that masturbation is "sex with someone I love". It is a selfish act, because unlike sex between a husband and wife, it is purely for the self and not about the other. It is a completely self-centered act.

      Of course some will try to make excuses for the guilt or shame that a person feels after masturbating - that it's society or the Church (as if all such conditioning is necessarily wrong). Why the need to explain guilt away and try to rationalise it - like comparing the human being to mere animals? If only we spent more time comparing ourselves to our Lord and to the saints who actually shared the same trials as ourselves and triumphed over them! Of course it's easier to compare ourselves with animals - they are not sinners in need of redemption. Shame and guilt are things that we rightly feel when we have offended God - when we refuse to admit our guilt and shame we are essentially saying "no" to God's mercy and grace to help us back on to the right track.

      To take the situation that Magna Carta has described - of feeling a "moral failure": No, it is quite the opposite! The moral failure would be to refuse to admit that we have sinned. The moral failure - and this goes for any sin - falling down, remaining down and becoming comfortable comparing yourself with the animals, rather than falling down but then looking up to grasp the mercy and the grace of God.

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    4. 11.19 The word is shyte I believe good and proper

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    5. What on Earth is morally wrong with 'pleasuring the self'? Don't we do such when we, for example, have a pint or two at weekends, watch a favourite movie, eat out at a restaurant?

      You are coming from a pseudo-moral perspective which regards any kind of self-love as reprehensible. If a person cannot love himself, then how can he love others?

      Delete
  6. Pat can I ask a serious questions here please. I mentioned a while back on here I was considering joining the priesthood and was sent to St Lukes in Manchester for an evaluation , the report came back and said I was sexually immature and was not allowed to go forward. I am sexually immature for masturbating and said i felt guilt for doing so. So my question is , whats the story with Maynooth, there doing far worse than me and there in there. Do priests masturbate? do bishops masturbate? After talking to a very wise benedictian monk, the reason why i wasnt chosen was I am a straight and they cant cope with this, he told me we live in a different age now. On a light note , he said those who stopped Gods work in me will have a alot to think about

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    1. I would imagine that most bishops and priests masturbate.

      I have met many who do.

      NO ONE can stop you being a priest if God is calling you!

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    2. 14.27: Who would be so foolish as to tell you, Pat, these actions and behaviour? You are obsessed with sexual language. Time maybe for you to be assessed again. Don't burden your mind with other people's failings and sinfulness. Offer hope filled words on your blog, not the tiresome, predictable, juvenile utterances here....

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    3. If you don't like it then don't read it.

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    4. 11.28 What sort of immature evaluation process were they using sounds daft and unjust

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  7. Indeed. There was an artical published last week on the mental/physical health benefits of masturbation. It's the silly hang ups that lead to sexual abnormality which leads to inappropriate questions being asked of people by priests in confession.

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  8. The Truth is not your concern Pat, not the TRUTH of a merciful, compassionate God. Your mouthings encourage hatred towards many whom you dislike. For all of us as God's people TRUTH is what we strive for but your version is a contradiction of the gospel calling to fairness, justice and integrity. You destroy too many with your innuendo, half truths and gossip. What a pity!

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  9. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following.
    2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."139

    To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

    So if it's a choice between makey-up Buckleys's teaching and that of the Magesterium of the Church. I choose the Magesterium every time.

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  10. (Sadie on the sofa)

    I think now is a good time for me to g'out and make a drop of tea... Bit of Swiss roll left...

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  11. I hear DM was questioned by a visiting Priest yesterday f he was publishing his Clergy appointments this year. His response was to stare in amazement at the Priest, asked him which Diocese he was from and then walked off and ignored his question. Perhaps the stare was because he dared to ask him such a question, I would hazard a guess that the Priest's Bishop Noel Treanor may be getting a phone call from Dermo. This is the behaviour of a man with responsibility for one of Ireland's most senior dioceses but then DM doesn't like his own Priests asking him questions. He was a bit nervy having the Assistant Secretary of the CDF from Rome on his patch yesterday. Dublin PP

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  12. MourneManMichael9 July 2017 at 12:48

    I find the comments by Anons @ 10:59 & 11:36 laughable!
    But then, I remind myself, I once inhabited that cradle catholic induced state of mind too.
    MMM

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    1. Was Shakespeare a cradle Catholic?
      Sonnet 129 is very suggestive:

      The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
      Is lust in action; and till action, lust
      Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
      Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
      Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
      Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
      Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
      On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
      Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
      Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
      A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
      Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
      All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
      To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

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    2. Shakespeare's true religious sympathys have been the subject of school and university debates for years! He and his family were, on the outside at any rate, Anglicans but many of his convictions and ideas were very much in line with Catholic teaching. His grammar school had some eminent Catholic teachers amongst the mixed-faith staff. Some people even speculated that he may have been an atheist!
      But this is unlikely and the idea grew out of the fact that because of his deep knowledge of ancient classical history and mythology, he often referred to ancient gods and Greek personages etc. (There were certain rules in Shakespeare's time which forbade Christian religious references in theatrical works outside the safe confines of religious Mystery Plays etc. Sorry, I cannot start to fully explain the Elizabethan etiquette and more... here. That would take a very long post!)
      The sonnet condemns lust as fleeting and deceptive and suggests it would be likely to bring out the worst in human nature.

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  13. Yes, I too choose the wisdom of the Magesterium of the True Catholic Church than what is presented here as freedom and choice. Pat's benevolence, however well intentioned, is a makey up teaching and he uses his blog too frequently to smash the good name of priests and bishops. TRUTH without mercy or charity is a lie and a grave injustice. Let's have honest,adult and intelligent debate here, not the bitch fest this blog has become.

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    1. If you don't like what you read on here then don't read it, simple. Now jog on because the Priests and Bishops mentioned in this blog have smashed their own good name, they don't need Pat to do it for them. Fr Rory Coyle, Fr X are prime examples.

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    2. I'm sorry, but your accusation ('makey up teaching') applies historically to magisterial doctrine. Successive lots of them have morally approved capital punishment, in spite of Jesus' clear teaching that we are to love all, especially enemies. Taking someone's life against his will is not a loving thing to do.

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  14. 13.00 can we give Meath a rest. You ask this same question day in and day out. Can you not get the message there is nothing to report yet otherwise the blog would have disclosed it by now. So no more Meath please.

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  15. Meath, you ask?
    Yep--it's still there! Lovely county in many ways. If you get the chance don't miss out on Bru na Boinne... well worth a visit and would take your mind off things!

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    1. Would that the Church in Meath were as beautiful as it's scenery.

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    2. That can only mean one thing... scandal!

      Get the register ready.

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  16. The are stories from other dioceses that are more ripe for harvesting before Meath.

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    1. They all need constant monitoring lest they occasion scandal.

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  17. Any of them in the North Bishop Pat? Is it Fr X again? You are teasing us today with little snippets but not much more.

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  18. Is Ferns or Waterford and Lismore one of them ?.

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  19. Quote - "So if it's a choice between makey-up Buckleys's teaching and that of the Magesterium of the Church. I choose the Magesterium every time."

    So, just for us plebians - can you tell us - in plain english - just what the Catholic teaching is?

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  20. Pat still waiting on news from Galway and Clonfert and two special priests, MB and CG

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  21. For Magna Carter. Would I be right in saying that you were a priest and gay?

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    1. No, I'm not gay. But I believe, very strongly, in LGBT equality.

      I wish I were gay. Perhaps I'd have been blessed with a loving partner.

      I'm celibate. I have never breached this. And, please God, I never shall. But I am incredibly lonely.

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  22. As a relative newcomer can someone explain Fr X? was there a blog on him? Why does he get an 'x' and others get named? Just asking.

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  23. Masturbation makes men and women commodities and objects of grave sexual desire!

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    1. Jeez! Wish I were the object of someone's desire. (It's always nice to be noticed.)

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    2. You are noticed, Magna... Keep up the good work!

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  24. For Magna 00:10

    Your response explains a great deal!

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  25. Masturbation is good for health and I do it with my pleasureplayz sex toy.

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  26. not everyone would need a nose job but my girlfriend really needs some rhinoplasty coz her nose is kind of crooked” food

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