Some talk from a Xtian site on the topic.
God created sex for marriage, and for marriage alone. It is meant to show your SPOUSE your undying and everlasting love for him or her AS WELL AS for the creation of life (the ultimate result and sign of a married couple's love). In sex, both the act of love and creation go together and are inseparable. To do otherwise, is degrading the very meaning and purpose that God gave us that most beautiful act. It would be considered an incomplete act if one or the other purpose were nullified, or "out of the equation".
This is why contraceptives are immoral. They reject the very reproductive aspect of sex. In using contraceptives, a couple is merely "enjoying themselves" (though the act of love may be involved), but what kind of marital love would want to completely deny the ultimate result and sign love can create? Contraception nearly fully closes that window for conception and life.
This is also why, although being married, having sex because you have lust for your spouse is just as sinful as contraception. In this case, the love part of the "equation" is substituted for lust. It is an incomplete act, or at least as God intended it to be.
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I think the Catechism makes it very clear. Sex is a procreative and unitive act for a married couple. This is why the homosexual act is considered disordered. And it is why masturbation is disordered. Neither meet the criteria for an allowable sexual act, or use of the sexual faculties. Ask your protestant friends if they would be opposed to homosexual sex. I would almost guarantee they would say that they would vehemently oppose it. And ask them why one form of non-procreative sexual activity is acceptable, but another is not. I don't know that it would stump them completely, but it may make them stammer a little.
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I would also like to add that the Church teaches that the soul and the body are not separate from each other. They are incomplete without each other, in fact, which is why our bodies and souls will be reunited one day.
Where does the Holy Spirit dwell? He dwells in our souls, yes? If the Holy Spirit dwells in our souls, which are incomplete without our bodies, then when we use our bodies as sex toys, we are, in essence, taking ourselves to a subhuman, unholy level.
There is more to sexual sin than simply lust and biological release. It's the denial of the restoration of our human dignity through Christ's taking on our humanity. It's also the denial of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our souls and, basically, dwelling in our bodies, since our souls and bodies are connected. Sins of the flesh are sins against the Holy Spirit.
I'm loving my body and I'm loving the Holy Spirit when I treat my body with dignity and respect.
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Another thought on the displaced nature of masturbation is justice.
The only person who has any right to your sexuality is your spouse. You don't have the right to even please yourself sexually. To masturbate is to take away that right from your future spouse.
Masturbation trains the mind to think that the other person is only incidental to the pleasure of sex. One should rather train the mind to think of your spouse as vital and personally responsible for sexual pleasure.
Let me restate it a different way.
The modern thinking is "My body gives me pleasure. Her body gives her pleasure."
The true Christian thinking is "My spouse gives me pleasure and I give back."
Masturbation trains people to take the sexual act as something solitary and individual rather than bonding and an act of self-giving. |
