Masturbation. A spiritual sin; nay, spiritual warfare to our religious elite who cannot access the gifts of the flesh without viagra.
But it can serve a purpose. Namely if your spouses sex drive is slower than your own it can be an outlet so as not to over tax your spouse. If however, you are doing it in lieu of being intimate with your spouse then there is a problem.
And it is a good way for singles to have an outlet that helps them stay chaste instead of say driving to Las Vegas to get married so you can legally have sex before divorcing and driving back to BYU, ya know, for example?
Addictive? No more so than sex of any other kind. Or any other thing in life for that matter.
What I see as far more damaging is the stigma, the judgmental attitudes, the slut shaming and ostracizing of those who do it.
This is something Boyd K Packer has had a specific hand in concerning the issue of slut shaming young men and guilting them into submission.
In times past masturbation was considered a sin because onanism as it was called was essentially spilling the seed without the possibility of having children, now I can think of dozens of sexual activities that would render children an impossibility but are considered ok between a husband and wife.
And now we know unlike ancient man and even unknown to the world into the early 20th century that men produce semen throughout their entire lives so there is no need to cry over spilt semen.
And what of couples who can't conceive due to medical reasons or even age? Are they sinning against God?
Heaven forbid people enjoy themselves! Lord have mercy!!
Just because something can be sinful doesn't make it inherently sinful by nature, there is a marked difference between use and abuse.
This McCarthyistic campaign against those who self gratify is nothing more that a puritanical inquisition period.
This campaign is doing more harm that good.
Slut shaming, guilting people into confessing their every sexual deviation when it is biologically proven to be both healthy and normal. Confessing your sex life to a non-trained lay clergy member who due to lack of professional knowledge and training is sure to botch every members relationship not just with the lay clergy but with the church as a whole and especially their value of self worth and their own image of their sexual normalcy.
According to doctors masturbation can be both healthy and normal.
It is McCarthyisitc inquisitional tests and meetings to determine the "purity" of members that strikes me as tyrannical to the extreme.
A really smart idea would be to stop shaming people for things that are normal, healthy and a safe alternative to std's and unwanted pregnancy.
But our leaders guilt and shame things that are normal because guilt is a means of control and if they were to guilt peole over something abnormal they would then only have control over a small slice of the membership but hey if they guilt people over something 95% of men and 89% of women do then they are able to effectively guilt the flock into repetitious repentance. Guilt is a means of control. And if we allow others to guilt us then we give them control over our actions.
The Lord will not punish you for things that are normal and healthy. But moderation is key to health and longevity in concerning everything.
When you realize that according to webMD 95% of men and 89% of women do it and there are plenty of scientifically and psychologically validated reasons why people do this then the onus is on the church to tell us why it is always so sinister regardless of context.
Much like the Word of Wisdom, beer and wine has proven health benefits, the Lord will not punish you for something that is healthy and at times necessar
True morality is doing what you know in your heart to be right and obedience is doing what your are told regardless of what is right.
When it comes to sexual advice; trust a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a counselor or therapist. In other words trust a professional.
This is spiritual warfare but it is about guilting the masses into submission, it's about making people feel the need to be cleansed and then cleansing people of the guilt they inflicted in the first place.
Healthy and normal is not sinful, not inherently anyway