So supposedly masturbation is bad for Christians. The Bible does not specifically state it, but the assumption is that because you fantasize to masturbate it is a sin.
Do you believe masturbation is bad? Can it be done in a healthy way?
I know you can masturbate without any fantasies so I wonder is it completely bad?
Yeah, that verse is about not fulfilling the command of God, not masturbation.
Is there a different interpretation of Onan? I don’t think he masturbated. I thought he had sex with his brother’s wife and pulled out to spill his semen. Isn’t that also a possibility?
I know it has nothing to do with Onan, but if you are married, you shouldn’t disrespect her by doing sex with others neither with yourself. That hits on Eph 5:25-30:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Matthew 5:27-30 (NIV)
“You have heard that it was said”
‘You shall not commit adultery’
“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
“And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
There’s enough ambiguity there to make a choice of who to follow.
We lust when we masturbate; just a fact. The Christian understanding would call that sinful. We also have to remember that our bodies were made for unity with another. When we treat a subject as an object in our mind- something to be used and do the same with ourselves, we are not following God’s plan for humanity. We treat ourselves and others as tools when we PMO or MO.