Masturbation and your kids. These are concepts that we don’t like thinking about together. We all like thinking about our sons and daughters as “innocent” “not-sexually-interested” little kids. We forget that our children are sexual beings, and they were created to be so.
As we’ve been discussing this month, there’s a point when our children are young and sexual/self exploration is normal and appropriate. It’s our role as parents to instruct them and use these teachable moments as opportunities to teach talk to them about their body parts, how they work and to define what is and what isn’t appropriate behavior.
As our kids grow and mature, however, it’s our job to help them understand the importance of purity, discipline and freedom from sexual sin. It’s highly likely that during their teen and tween years that they will encounter some fairly powerful and misleading information about masturbation from the TV shows and movies they watch, from pornography, magazines and even sex-ed classes at school. Most of these sources promote masturbation and self-pleasure as normal, healthy sexual activity for teenagers.
Unfortunately, in our work at XXXchurch, we’ve found that masturbation can often lead kids (and adults!) down a slippery slope of sexual sin, including that:
- Masturbation often involves fantasy and lust. It’s incredibly difficult to masturbate without using pornography or calling up mental images. When our kids (or us) establish a pattern of using pornography or sexually explicit or sexually charged content to fuel their sexual release, it opens the door to pornography addiction.
- Masturbation becomes a form of escapism. Many begin to masturbate to escape or numb themselves from hidden pains, to escape reality or fill some emotional void. The healthier choice is to address the source of the pain/current struggles and take proactive steps to combat/confront and heal from life’s hurts, rather than running away from them.
- Masturbation teaches our kids that they don’t need anyone else to have a sexual experience. While it’s true, that we can stimulate ourselves into an orgasm, most of us on this site believe that God created sex for a husband and wife to experience together. A lot of teenagers think that when they get married, they will be able to stop their masturbation habit, but the habit of masturbation can carry well into a marriage. It will continue to be easier to touch themselves and engage in selfish sex, rather than putting the time and work into married sex. I’ve talked with women and men who feel as though their spouse would prefer to masturbate alone than connect sexually with them, and that can be pretty darn painful.
- Masturbation is a compromise, and compromise opens the door to further sin compromises. When your kids have a difficult time resisting their sexual temptations alone, then it’s likely that they will have a difficult time resisting temptation when they’re in the backseat of a car with their boyfriend and girlfriend. Turning away from masturbation can help them establish the discipline they need to turn away from sexual temptations and compromises when they encounter them down the road.
- Because masturbation can lead your son or daughter to many, deeper struggles. Check out this powerful blog from one of our contributors on how his struggle with masturbation opened the door to a world of painful sexual choices.