.Sometimes when things get desperate we find that we have only one option but to take matters into our own hands. Okay, I promise that will be the one and only masturbation pun. You know how it is, I had to get it out of my system.
Which ironically is how people usually feel when they masturbate. That they have to get it out of their system. I know how that feels. I’m sure lots of you know what I’m talking about also.
Stop me if any of this sounds familiar. Tension, boredom, stress, just can’t help yourself, lust…You can add your own, but these are just some of the feelings that lead a person to masturbate. But this blog isn’t about how you get there, it’s about what happens after you arrive.
And what it teaches us later.
Because ultimately as much as masturbation may meet some sort of unmet sexual need or keep an urge at bay, it is very rarely a one off event. I’m not too sure if there are many people who have only masturbated once. The reason being that it feels good. Sometimes even great. For a few seconds it feels exciting and it releases endorphins which are addictive and powerful and then cause us to want to repeat the experience.
And is there really anything wrong with that? Isn’t it a healthy past time of those of us who are comfortable with exploring their sexuality and simply want to experience a normal human sensation? Isn’t masturbation a good thing?
Perhaps. But maybe the issue isn’t the action itself. After all, the Bible doesn’t mention it. We’re just left to ponder certain apparently relevant passages. But if masturbation itself is not the issue, then what is?
Maybe it is in the ways that it encourages us to bring sexual pleasure ourselves, even though we are really just short changing ourselves. When as teenagers, we start to teach ourselves at an early age what we like sexually. That really we are the only ones who can sexually please ourselves. So that once we get married our wives or husbands, through no fault of their own, are just unable to compete with our own minds. We’ve built up years of rewiring that it’s just easier to do it ourselves. As the old saying goes, “If you want something done right…”
But through this we are missing out. Maybe masturbation is amazing for you. But that’s just the point. That it is nowhere near how amazing sex should be. With someone else. Not on your own. And if we train ourselves to be pleased sexually alone, we won’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as we should when we get to have sex for real.
Or maybe it is in how eventually we need something more to satisfy ourselves. Maybe you first masturbated with images in your head. Then it moved onto viewing a few pics online. But sooner or later that got boring and you needed videos and more extreme stimuli. Because the cravings became stronger and more intense and even if we started masturbating with nothing in particular in mind (yeah right!),eventually something will pop in. We are made that way. We are sexual creatures.
So porn enters the frame and then we end up further engrossed in ourselves, and because sex is so powerful, that carries through into our lives. In how we are nervous around girls or boys, in how we were once confident but have developed a self consciousness that sometimes we can hide, but can never really shake. In how we can’t feel God anymore. Or in how we can’t see a solution. In how we have become so caught up in our own tunnel that it is literally impossible to see light at the end. To see a world outside the one we have created in our mind.
Which brings us full circle. Because really what masturbation teaches us has everything to do with why we keep going back to it. Even when we masturbate while looking at porn, and even though we swear to never look again and “seriously this time”. And even though we feel horrible, ashamed and angry, we know deep down we will be back.
Which is why the biggest lesson that masturbation teaches us is that we will never be satisfied.
Not at least until we look in the right places. Not until we allow people into our lives to help and encourage us. Not until we ask why do I keep feeling the need to feel good sexually. Not until we see that God has something a heck of a lot more enjoyable for you.
And certainly not until we pull up our trousers.