Christians are preoccupied with this subject, perhaps to the point of obsession. Christian culture starts them young. Beginning in youth group boys are pulled aside for “one-on-one time” during which the youth pastor tells them that sex is a beautiful gift from God and then urges them to remember God’s call for purity. The message seems to be: If your thoughts are pure then you won’t want to masturbate, right? Thus begins the shame spiral.

Sometimes in youth group a guy will stand up and ask for prayer for his chronic masturbation. Accountability partners are assigned so they can keep tabs on how they’re not whacking off. The youth group leader approaches guys at church retreats and asks “Do you struggle with masturbating?” The college singles group announces an Every Man’s Battle workbook study. Support groups are formed for the whackmasters to congregate and discuss how hard it is to keep their hands off their junk. No validity is given to the medical assertion that it’s the first thing men do when they’re coming out of a coma. (Poor guy, fresh out of a coma and already he’s lusting.) No one seems to engage the possibility that giving this subject so much attention could be feeding the obsession, creating a fetish, or becoming idol worship.

A typical excerpt from a Christian book on male masturbation goes like this: “I can still remember the first issue of Playboy I found in the ditch behind my house. The images are etched on my brain. Little did I know this encounter would lead me down a path of desolation and destruction that would dismantle and distort the God-given design and gift of sexuality.”

You’re not likely to read a Christian culture book that goes “I can still remember the first issue of Playboy I found in the ditch behind my house. Little did I know this encounter would one day lead me down a path of exhaustive married sex that is unspeakably better than wanking.”

**This post orginially aired August 28, 2008, and warranted a repost for the traffic volume it might incur.