I cannot stop masturbating

Dear Pastor,

I am a 19-year-old girl, and I am writing to you because I have a problem.

I am a Christian and more than a year ago, I started masturbating. I used to do it whenever I took my shower. Now I find that I have to masturbate when I go to bed. If I don’t, I won’t fall asleep. Whenever I masturbate, I feel relaxed and I fall asleep. I have my own room, so nobody knows that I masturbate. I keep a rag near to my bed or plenty of toilet paper. Sometimes I masturbate two or three times per day, especially when I don’t have to go to work or school.

I have a boyfriend. He is three years older than I am and I enjoy having sex with him. But if we don’t have sex when we go out, as soon as I get home, I have to masturbate. In a young people’s meeting, the topic of masturbation came up, and I was surprised that other young ladies admitted that they do it. But the leader of the group said that masturbation is a sin because whenever one does it, one has to be thinking about a man, and if you are a man, you have to be thinking about a girl. I don’t have to be thinking about my boyfriend when I masturbate.

Some girls use different instruments to masturbate; the only thing I use are my fingers. Since I heard in the young people’s group that masturbation is a sin, I have tried to stop, but I have not been able to and that is why I am writing to you. I discuss this with my close friend, and she told me that she also masturbates. Is there any verse in the Bible that you can show me that says masturbation is wrong and is a sin?

C.

Dear C.E.,

Masturbation is not addressed in the Bible. I cannot point out to you any verse where this topic is mentioned. However, many preachers have preached about it and have condemned those who practise it.

A young lady once told me how guilty she felt one day at her church. She said the pastor preached about masturbation, and he attacked the young women in his church by saying “some of you in this church say that you are not having sex, but you have sex with yourself.” He carried on, and she felt guilty because she knew that she masturbates.

I repeat, I will not condemn anybody who masturbates; I cannot tell folks that it is a sin because the Bible does not address the topic. In a counselling session that I had with a married woman, she told me that although she had sex with her husband, for her to have full satisfaction, she had to masturbate. She went on to say that she masturbates every night, and her husband is aware of it.

Some counsellors say that it is a very difficult habit to break, and you know that from experience. Some folks, not all, do not have the urge to masturbate when they are living with a partner. But for many, it doesn’t matter whether they have a spouse or not.

Pastor