I am quite sure it does. But still, clumsy as they were, the early days of sexual fumbling on my first romantic tryst are certainly never to be forgotten, and are held closely to my heart. Some of the happiest days of my life (I was lucky and had an absolutely perfect partner - and I don’t mean she was a playboy model or that crap)
Do you think it has something to do with the fact that everyone who has masturbated has, technically speaking, brought a person of the same sex to orgasm and enjoyed it?
Or are commiting incest:
in·cest ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nsst)
n.
- Sexual relations between persons who are so closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom.
You are too closely related to yourself to marry yourself, thus masturbation is incest.
I agree with you and Gorillaman, that’s quite likely.
Also, it’s mostly men who make the rules, (usually not men with happy sex-lives) and they would have been even less aware of the possibility of female masturbating then women themselves were.
(I’ve noticed that it’s usually men who lay down the law, but -apart from Saoedi Arabia with their mostly elderly male “religious police”- but mostly women who act as law-enforcers, through constant scrutiny and gossipping)
So where does that leave my argument, that there being no ban on female masturbation, because there would be too large a group that wouldn’t feel guilty?
I think it can both be true.
Not to get into your personal life (he says as he gets into your personal life), but isn’t there kind of a disconnect here? I mean, have you thought about adoption? The process isn’t necessarily cheap but IVF is expensive as all hell. I mean, it would help with the “some kids get treated like crap and we can’t even have any” issue - you get a kid, one less kid gets treated like crap, she doesn’t get stretch marks, etc. Everyone’s a winner.
More than six!
Sounds reasonable. . .until you realize that in every ejaculate there are perhaps millions of sperm, only one of which can fertalize an egg, and the majority ejaculations even in the “right” place do not result in a pregnancy. All those uncountable trillions of sperm that don’t “complete the journey” in a man’s lifetime are wasted. If it were really that important to a god that mankind replenish itself, why did he/she/it make it so extraordinarily difficult for sperm and egg to come together?
Also, if “wasting sperm” is a reason for making masturbation a sin, why is totally involuntary nocturnal emission built into the system? Does god just enjoy f***ing with our minds?
I can’t cite it either, but when I was in high school in what I thought were the dark ages (graduated in 1961) there was an assembly of all the boys in which a sex talk was given by some supposed expert. He said exactly the same thing. It was his way of telling us that we were not unnatural, sinful, awful or idiotic because we did what every other male in history had done, and we needn’t feel guilty about it. My upbringing was a little repressed, but by that time I had already sneaked a look (or two, or…) at the Kinsey Report, and I knew I was okay.
[stereotype]Well, of course there’s some built-in inescapable guilt. What, did you forget that God is, after all, a Jewish parent? 
;j You should be grateful for that guilt! [/stereotype]
I kid, I kid.
Sorry about the late entry.
God sometimes punishes promiscuous sex: Crabs, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, AIDS, etc.
Therefore ALL sex must be evil and a sin and must not be enjoyed.
Commandment 11
Thou should suffer through sex only for sanctified and procreative purposes.
(This was on the tablet Moses broke on the way down the mountain.)
Not.
rwj
[Bill Hicks] Mwah ha haa!! I am a prankster God!! [/Bill Hicks]
They say that idle hands are the devils tool.
Then why am I supposed to keep my hands idle when they’re near my tool?
It seems like, coming or going, they’ve got you beat…
But seriously, it seems that the religious objection to flying solo is the general objection to hedonism. Masturbation is done only for pleasure (nevermind donating samples. That didn’t start until much later than the ban on the hand.) Therefore, it is hedonistic. A person giving themselves up to empty pleasure is distracted from that which is truly important: the spiritual world. And what’s a quick wank compared to everlasting heaven or roasting in hell?
Whatever. I think they’re just jerking us around.
I always found the religious arguments against jerking off pretty weird. To summarize:
-masturbation cannot result in conception; therefore it is pleasure without the chance of creating life
-masturbation can substitute for intercourse, which produces human life
-masturbation induces “impure” thoughts (whatever they are)Oddly enough, Freud believed that wacking off might be harmful (something about depleting precious bodily fluids, or something).
What’s the latest take (of the RC Church) on this?
Well, according to this article the 1993 papal encyclical ‘Veritatis Splendor’ condemns masturbation as heavily as ever.
I also found a link to a Catholic forum with answers to somebody asking: "Is masturbation ever a mortal sin? ’ The answers (a big resounding yes) cite recent and less recent encyclics, the Catechism and official viewpoints of Church officials (who, as we know, can all speak directly for Jesus :rolleyes: ).
Maybe it’s the way we were all brought up, but if there are a bunch of people in a room, and one of them starts masturbating in front of the others, it would be hard for the others to just continue regular conversation.
If he/she does something else that is pleasurable to him/her (eating sweets, reading a book, etc), there is no problem, and the others can continue their conversation.
But for some reason, if a woman just slips her fingers down her panties and starts masturbating in front of the other people in the room, it cannot be ignored.
Why is that? Theoretically speaking, why can’t we treat it the same as if she was eating a very tasty cake?
The answer to this may help us understand the answer to the original question in the OP, that is, “why a great many cultures and religions have told, and are still telling, people, especially young people, that Touching Yourself is Wrong”
If mastubating gives people a kind of pleasure that makes others uncomfortable, then it must make people uncomfortable to think that their son or daughter is having this pleasure, even if it is done in private.
So, maybe the question becomes, why does mastubating give people a kind of pleasure that makes others uncomfortable? (as opposed to other pleasures which don’t make people uncomfortable)
Whoa ! That comparison doesn’t hold up. Most people would get uncomfortable when somebody with them in the room sits down and takes a dump. In todays’ culture, such acts are private. Not condemned, but private. What kind of parent would rather have their seven-year olds stop having bowelmovements alltogether, just because they no longer change the kids diapers?
Actually, such customs are heavily culture bound. I’ve seen in museums pottychairs designed for generals so they could sit down and have a dump without ahving to remove themselves from their staffmeeting.
Norbert Elias book on civilisation quoted an early etiquettebook (I’ll find the cite if anyone asks me too) that asked men not ot masturbate on the dinnertable. Apparently, that was such a normal practice an explicit rule against it was necessary.
Masturbating oneself is a mortal sin, but if you are a priest, masturbating an altar boy only gets you transferred.
I would claim that masturbating is closer to enjoying a cake than it is to taking a dump. Taking a dump or urinating necessarily involves the excretion of odorous fluids and solids, and that is why those acts are private.
Masturbation, especially female masturbation, does not necessarily involve the excretion of odorous fluids and solids, so I don’t see the difference between this and eating a cake, for example.
And if you object that the person’s hands will get dirty, what about remote-controlled vibrators in women’s underware? That is, there are some gadgets that enable a woman or her partner to press a button and it activates a small vibrator in the woman’s underware. If someone openly does this at a dinner party, and the woman is enjoying herself, why should people consider this awkward? How is this different than other ways of enjoying herself ? (like reading a good book or eating delicious food)
I should note that I would find it awkward myself, but I can’t seem to find a good enough reason for it.
If you can dig up a cite, that would be very interesting.
Okay, so you argue taking a dump is necessary, but masturbation is voluntary. And therefore, peoples aversion to seeing someone masturbate, signifies we feel at a gut level that masturbation is “bad”.
How’s about another example then: heavy french kissing? If I were at a dining table and a couple at the same table started some heavy French kissing, I’d definately feel uncomfortable. They, obviously, had forgotten about my existence (which is impolite) or are sending out a signal that they want to be alone (which makes me feel uncomfortable). Besides, watching anyone but tastefully filmed moviestars at it is not an pleasant sight (slobbering and wet, ew).
Kissing is voluntary. Would I want my kids to stop French kissing their loved ones when they were alone? Sure not. I would teach them not to do it at the dinner table, in front of their reatives though. Kissing, like masturbation is private. Not bad.