Masturbation is a serious mortal sin that offends God a lot and is a vicious habit that must be tried to nip in the bud. If you fall into it, do not despair but make a quick confession and put all the means to avoid falling again: Prayer and frequenting the sacraments, devotion to the Virgin, avoiding occasions Being busy and having a life plan and a clear objective Good, good readings companies, meditate on the seriousness of sin and eternity of hell etc.
The solitary vice (masturbation) consists of abusing one’s body by exciting the genital organs to voluntarily procure pleasure until orgasm. Sometimes, it begins with mere curiosity; but if this inclination is not corrected it becomes an obsessive vice that enslaves the person and disinterests him for everything else: as happens to the drug addict. André Léonard, Professor at the University of Louvain, says: “By its very nature, the masturbation contradicts the Christian sense of sexuality, lived as an alliance of love. (…)
The exercise of the sexual faculty is deprived of any affective reference with a partner, insofar as the subject retreats on himself, in the enjoyment of himself. (…) Masturbation, deprived of love, leaves often unsatisfied to those who surrender to it. It leads to emptiness and disgust. “You must have the courage to think, and also to say, that masturbation is evil. You will often hear arguments that try to defend that it is a harmless behavior, as nondescript as drinking, eating or perspiring. These reasons must be dismantled. (…) “It is certainly not the most serious sin you can commit. But that does not stop you from becoming a slave, getting used to a selfish sexuality, and suffocating the spiritual life in you.
“Masturbation can become obsessive in the person. It makes sexual pleasure something selfish, when God has done it to be shared within marriage. I know cases of failed marriages because one of the two, enslaved by masturbation, refused the natural expressions of love within marriage. Whoever is enslaved by the vice of masturbation can ruin the sexual harmony of their marriage. A young woman complained in a doctor’s office that her husband had very little sexual intercourse with her. He recognized, in front of her, that he preferred to masturbate. Who has the misfortune to be enslaved of this bad habit must put the greater effort in correcting itself as soon as possible.
This vice strongly chains, it is increasingly difficult to get away from it, and when you have enslaved a person, degrades, stultifies, destroys his will, destroys his character, disturbs the development of his personality, weakens the faith, produces nervous imbalance , makes selfish and incapacitates to love another person. «You can not abuse the organism. Nature then passes the invoice. The human body has its limits. You can not spend the energies for the integral development of the human person. »All doctors agree that when masturbation is frequent, it leads to neurasthenia. And when masturbation is a vice enslaves like all vices, “Masturbation is often an expression of egocentricity, (…) a sign of a delayed or arrested development of personality.”
“When masturbation becomes a habit, be qualified as lack of maturity. (…) When masturbation shows symptoms of psychosis and neurosis, you should seek the help of a professional who submits it to proper treatment. (…) The sources that give rise to fantasy-reading, television, film-must be considered as the basis of many actions that should not have taken place, if they had not been stimulated. “There are sexual maniacs” who seek pleasure again and again for themselves, and fall, like drug addicts, into the circle of an insatiable repetition, in order to overcome in each new attempt, the incessant frustrations. These parts of the body must be respected with delicacy, and only touched by necessity, cleanliness, hygiene, etc. But never touch these organs just for fun. With that you do not play. This is a degrading, disgusting, inconceivable sin in a delicate person. However, if afterwards you are ashamed to confess it, then the misfortune is double and irreparable.
If you had the misfortune of the fall, do not allow the shame of confessing it. Go to a priest and open your conscience to forgive and help you out of such a sad state. Have confidence. You have a remedy Many began this bad habit without knowing its importance. Either because they discovered it in a casual way, or because they were taught by another person who intentionally played down the issue. But masturbation is a vice that can strongly enslave and transform the character of the person, and even their religious convictions. Masturbation can lead to loss of faith.
Many disbeliefs have started in masturbation ». The young man feels inclined to masturbate, he hears that the Church forbids it, and he feels tempted to leave the Church that forbids him what he likes to do, and perhaps has trouble avoiding.
“But, on the other hand, we can not forget that masturbation does not contribute to overcoming the sexual problem or the tension of a given moment. It leads, by itself, in the long run, to a greater erotization and a growing obsession, so that in the long run the problem is not solved. Sex, let’s not forget, (Chauchard never tires of repeating it) is mostly in the head. It has such an obsessive capacity that the solution of the problem is only achieved when the man manages to give his thought to tasks that excite him. The solution to the problem of sex, and to an excessive obsession, is only found indirectly, when man manages to center his thought on something that excites him. I have witnessed how boys who have given themselves enthusiastically to a sports occupation, even in the presence of girls, or to another type of occupation, did not have any sexual problems; while it arose whenever they were carried away by leisure ».
It is easy for those who have contracted the habit of masturbation to experience a strong sense of guilt capable of destroying any stimulus of life and producing a permanent inferiority complex.
The only pastorally effective treatment is to seek to open horizons towards full expressions of affectivity and towards cultural, professional, social and religious tasks that give meaning to their lives.
The severity of each masturbatory act is not always easy to determine because it depends on many circumstances and can mitigate the responsibility, although it is a mortal sin, which must be avoided. A serious effort must be made to avoid it because of the danger of falling into the slavery of habit.
«Affective disorders and some neurotic situations frequently provoke manifestations of autoeroticism, which sometimes reaches a clearly psychopathic convulsive character … It is proven that masturbation always exerts a bad influence, especially in juvenile psychology. It weakens willpower, self-confidence, and disturbs the development of the personality. It creates melancholic and introverted and, in the end, selfish. Masturbation is a selfish sexual satisfaction, which marks the person and incapacitates her for true love”
Masturbation is, often, a cheap and sad resource; a compensation, a second class consuelillo for some other success of any other kind that we have not been able to achieve. However, not all masturbatory acts are of the same severity. When a young person has an interest in correcting himself and puts the means at his disposal even if he falls, these may have mitigating factors to his guilt. You can always go to God asking for help, because He never abandons those who come to Him, asking for help for something good and convenient. And as St. Paul says: I can do everything in Him who comforts me.
In adolescence, masturbation can appear as something temporary. Like that of the grains. But if it is repetitive, it can degenerate into habit; and this is serious. The logical thing is to leave a feeling of guilt. Without a doubt it is better to dominate than to let oneself be overcome. Mastering is a sign of adulthood. Victory is a sign of maturity. The fall is a sign of weakness; That’s why he leaves guilt.
“In mature age, masturbation can be a symptom of something more serious, especially if it is persistent. It can indicate a state of mental adolescence, or some other psychic deficiency. It is, of course, found in many types of senile dementia and in alcoholism. In general it can appear in all mental states, in which there is a de-cohesion of the personality that results in a loss of control over the most primitive instincts”
Sometimes falls in masturbation are not due to lustful intent. They are the result of depression, anguish, anxiety that does not allow you to sleep, etc. Cases like this can be remedied with a harmless sedative RECOMMENDED BY A PHYSICIAN.
In a conference I heard in 1976 from Dr. D. José María Poveda Ariño, Head of the Department of Psychiatry of the Autonomous University of Madrid, entitled Science and Sexual Moral Doctrine, said that masturbation is an avoidable phenomenon by any normal person. And in cases where this overcoming seems difficult, it is perfectly affordable with the products that a doctor can recommend.
In January 1976 the Vatican published a document on Sexual Moral where it says: “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, outside normal conjugal relations, essentially contradicts the purpose of this faculty” (nº5). This document also says that “masturbation is an intrinsic and seriously disordered act” (nº9).
n January 1976 the Vatican published a document on Sexual Moral where it says: “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, outside normal conjugal relations, essentially contradicts the purpose of this faculty” (nº5). This document also says that “masturbation is an intrinsic and seriously disordered act” (nº9).
This means that the act, “in itself,” is always a matter of grave sin (“objectively bad”). To determine whether the act of a specific person is a grave sin, we must also consider whether the other conditions of grave sin are met: that he has sufficient use of reason to know what he is doing and the malice of the act, and that he fully consents to same.
In 1983 the Vatican has published another document on sexual education (educational guidance on human love) where it says: “Masturbation is a serious moral disorder”
And although only God knows the subjective moral responsibility of each act, “in no way can it be maintained that in the sexual field mortal sins are not committed”
But you must not consider all the touching on your genital organs to be sin. Touches aimed at exciting sexual pleasure may be a sin; but other acts that are done out of necessity or hygiene are not any sin. And in the organic commotions that you feel involuntarily, repress the consent, and in peace. You have not sinned against purity. Learn to distinguish between feeling and consent. It may be that sometimes you feel movements against your will in your genitals. Get used to do without those sensations.
Sin is not in feeling, but in consent. In the ninth commandment I expose you the way to fight against these annoying temptations. But if you had the misfortune of voluntarily indulging yourself in that sexual pleasure, then you stained your purity.
The orgasm, which is the shock that the body experiences with the satisfaction of sexual pleasure, is the exclusive right of married people. A single person can neither voluntarily procure it nor accept it if he experiences it involuntarily. Sometimes the orgasm occurs unexpectedly. In that case, it is not licit to taste it voluntarily, although the pleasurable sensation can not be avoided. But when it happens sleeping is not a sin.
Complete venereal pleasure, orgasm, directly sought, is only allowed within marriage, within the conjugal act.
Father Jorge Loring S. I.
