The Moral Danger of Fantasy

 

My family was almost fastidiously religious when I was growing up. Next to nothing was ever said about sex. At church, the preacher would condemn fornication, pornography, and the like, along with extolling the goodness of marriage, but little else was said about it. As I hit puberty and my friends started talking about masturbation, I was intrigued. It wasn’t too long before I figured that out and found a tremendous source of pleasure and release. Masturbation quickly became a compulsion, and was a daily, if not multiple times a day, ritual. I am sure many men have had similar experiences.

I attended a Christian high school and then went to a Bible college, not much was said about masturbation at either institution, other than some jokes here and there. If I discussed it with my friends, it was never with any seriousness. But I had an understanding, and I think most of my friends did as well, that it was not a healthy, Christ-honoring practice.

There are a number of different perspectives on masturbation, even within conservative Christian circles. Some condemn it outright; some say that it can be natural and healthy. At one point I was seeing a Christian therapist who would say that the Bible does not specifically condemn masturbation, and I was free to indulge in it if I wanted to. I appreciated his advice, and for a time I followed it. But still, I felt skeptical on the whole matter.

Masturbation has been something that I have gone back and forth with over the years, mostly thinking it was bad, and at certain points thinking that it was not that bad. I don’t think I have ever felt that it was a truly good thing though.

Ultimately, I am not too concerned about what men or women may think on the issue, what I want to know is the mind of God. I believe that God has given us Scripture, and in it we can find the answers we need. Sometimes we need to dig and really mine into what the Bible says, listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit to teach us God's mind on an issue like this.

Over the last few months part of what I have been doing on this blog has been an effort to lay a foundation for what God-honoring, truly healthy sexuality looks like, and this topic of masturbation will be a capstone of sorts.

Central to the issue of masturbation is the problem of fantasy. Most faithful Christians condemn pornography for the evil that it is, and we have discussed why that is in previous posts. Typically, when we engage in masturbation, if we are not directly using porn, then we are using fantasy to help things along. We imagine people and scenarios in our minds that we find provocative and stimulating.

We need to understand that God is greatly concerned with what is happening in our hearts, and just because something is hidden in our hearts does not mean that it is harmless. The last of the Ten Commandments condemns covetousness, which is a sin exclusively to the heart and mind. Jesus spoke directly to the issues of lust and fantasy when he said this, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."(Matthew 5:27-28)  Jesus looks directly into our hearts with his all-seeing gaze to see what is happening there, and for many of us, what he finds there is adultery.

We may have the exterior all in order, presenting ourselves as chaste and faithful single or married men and women, never wandering from the beds of our wives and husbands, all the while our hearts are lurking in every den of iniquity. Christ challenges us to think again, our hands may be clean, but our hearts are corrupt, and in the eyes of the Almighty we are just as guilty as if we had done the deed. We cannot indulge in fantasy, imagining ourselves entangled with other people and remain faithful to our spouses and the Lord.

C.S. Lewis offers some insight into these problems with fantasy and masturbation. Lewis acknowledges what we have discussed in this blog, that our bodies and sexuality were meant to connect us with another person in a life-giving covenant of love. Our sexuality was meant to be a gift we give to another, but with masturbation and fantasy, that sexual impulse is turned inward and "sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides."

Over time the man comes to prefer this fantasy land over reality and real relationships and connections, "for the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.

"Among those shadowy brides, he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.

"In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself...After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of ourselves, out of the dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided that retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison."

I have personally felt this sinister process at work in my own life. Masturbation and fantasy led me to porn, and porn led me to increasingly deviant and evil forms of porn. I became a captive to those fantasies. Masturbation led me down a path that ended in nothing but sorrow.

When I have conversations with men about this issue, there is a common response, "Well what about if I masturbate without engaging in fantasy, the Bible doesn't say that that is wrong."  This is a good question, and worth considering. We will dig into this more in the next post.