Time to fight some ignorance.
This is not true. While some people with bad acne are unclean, and washing removes oil and dirt that clogs pores which causes acne, some people get worse acne than other people even though they do wash. Everyone is different, some people have it worse than others.
Broad generalizations like the above are unbased and rude. Think of the kids in high school who naturally have bad acne and cannot help it.
Don’t stereotype.
cmkeller, when you say:
I still think the case against masturbation is weak, but it is implied. There’s nothing that says it’s worse to do it intentionally than it is by happenstance. I sense I get of the Torah’s stance on either type of emission is a big shrug with a “stuff happens, go wash your hands” attitude.
cmkeller, when you say:
I still think the case against masturbation is weak, because it’s built only on implied offenses. There’s nothing that says it’s worse to do it intentionally than it is by happenstance. The sense I get of the Torah’s stance on either type of emission is a big shrug with a “stuff happens, go wash your hands” attitude.
Ha ha funny, that this came from someone called “Notthemama!”
But this all brings up an interesting point–and let’s assume we are talking about guys only, here–according to the Christian church, is it okay to masturbate if you don’t , er, bring it to completion?
So what the hell is Keri brand shampoo made from??? Shades of Something About Mary…
Um, Bean? 
I personally don’t really see the point of masturbating if you’re not gonna–ahem–ejaculate, but hey, different strokes, ya know?
Whatever turns you on… 
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
It is, but not by the Bible. Christian leaders, Catholic in particular, want us to believe that Onan’s fate was for the sin of wanking, even though it clearly wasn’t.
It’s the same way they never correct the common (erroneous) assumption about the Immaculate Conception, that Jesus was born to a woman without her having had sex at all, i.e. sex=dirty, virgin=immaculate.
I seem to recall (don’t have the cites but I’ll look into it) that the early Christian church didn’t have the sex=dirty policy until several hundred years after the birth of Christ.
The theory was that in early Christianity, worship did not make use of temples and took place in intimate, family/friend household settings. In those days the household was the woman’s domain; and indeed early Christianity may have been women in majority.
Later, when the “cult” turned into a major religion and bucks ‘n’ power started rolling in, men wrested control. One of the ways they did so is by starting the “women as temptresses” routine. What’s so tempting about women? You take it from there.
Thus (several hundred years down a slippery slope), according to strict (Catholic anyway) policy, ANY sex is sinful, unless done by a couple in the sanctity of holy matrimony, with the express intent to conceive a child.
<shudder> Maybe they need to go back to the policy they used to have where only priests are allowed to read the Bible.
Your brain-in-a-jar,
Myron
Sex is dirty–if it’s done right!
Ah… But you didn’t address the question. Since a common explanation for the injunction about masturbation is the story of Onan spilling his seed, is masturbation okay if the seed is not spilled?
I am not sure if the “whatever turns you on” comment was pointed at me directly or not, but in case it was, let me say that I never masturbate to the point of ejaculation.
–Bean
Green Bean:
Your Quadell
Interesting you say that, Green Bean. I seem to recall looking over a recent copy of Catholic Cannon Law and finding that the Catholic Church DOES allow masturbation, oral sex, and so on… AS LONG AS it is part of foreplay leading up to heterosexual love making.
The idea, again as stated in previous posts, is that it will promote sex for procreation.
-Dragwyr
“If God had meant for man to eat waffles,
he would have given him lips like snowshoes”
-Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
I am a Christian, and I attend a conservative Protestant church regularly, but I do not happen to believe that masturbation is a sin, whether you ejaculate or not, and as far as I know the church I attend doesn’t teach anything in particular against masturbation. Perhaps it does and I just never noticed–to me the whole subject of masturbation is one that was long ago resolved in my own mind, leaving me free to move on to other things.
I see a lot of people in this thread generalizing about “the Church teaches…”, or “why does the Church teach?..” I think it’s important to point out that not all Christian denominations take the same stand on masturbation, that not all Christian authorities agree that masturbation is a sin (Onan’s case aside, because I think it’s clear that what we’re talking about in this thread is whether it’s a sin to “beat off”, if I may use the vernacular without getting sent to the Pit, 
and I think it’s been pretty well established that Onan’s sin was not in “beating off” but in refusing to give his brother’s widow a child.)
Just to shed a little light:
From the 1913 edition of Webster’s Unabridged:
Notice the negative connotation of the phrase “self-pollution”.
From the (modern) Merriam-Webster:
So we can see that the concept of masturbation as something negative is a relatively recent development in human history. The “M” word itself wasn’t coined until 1766. I believe the word was coined during the 18th century Enlightenment because during that era, people in the scientific and medical establishment had a passion for putting names to things, to categorize things. It went along with all the scientific categorization, Linnaeus giving Latin names to all the plants, etc. “What should we call it when you do THIS?”
It was the Victorians in the 19th century who, for various deeply-ingrained psychological reasons, decided that masturbation was a dreadful sin, and began to try to suppress it. Our modern-day American culture is still carrying around an awful lot of the Victorian era’s emotional baggage.
Green Bean, I was not aware that it was physically possible for some people to stop halfway through masturbation. I have learned something today. Also, may I say, you must have phenomenal self-control.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Notthemama:
I just wanted to let you know that I never masturbate to the point of ejaculation because I am female.
Gotcha!
–Bean