Growthtrac Community

[veggiemelt]

KM - I wasn't always that willing to cooperate. A woman can't understand and accept a man's sexuality until she can understand and accept her own.
Comes with age, maturity and lots of prayer. Many women are confused or influenced by upbringing. It takes years to past the idea that "nice girls don't". Parents out there, do your kids a huge favor and talk to them openly and honestly about sex. When they become young adults, help them establish a comfort zone with their own bodies so that they can learn to be reliable and faithful partners. I'm probably going to get hammered for this comment, but young women and men need to explore their bodies through masterbation. They need to figure out how it all works and learn control.
Women especially need to figure out how to achieve climax. Your partner can't pleasure you unless you can show them how. One of the best ways to learn how to manually please your partner is to watch them. It is a huge turn on as well, and no it is not in any way wrong. It is the best form of education, God wants us to learn to please our partner and to seek pleasure for ourselves. Masterbation is not wrong if it enhances your relationship and does not involve impure thoughts. It is only wrong if it takes away from your partner or amplifies the urge for lust or fantasy with someone other then your spouse. This is the one that gets tough for guys. Women do not generally fantasize about anyone other then their partner nor does it inhibit our desire, so it is easier for a woman to indulge in self pleasure without sinning.
A word of warning though - young married couples should not just try everything they can think of. You have to leave stuff in the treasure box so that there is always more to look forward to. Learn the art of making love just as a simple pleasure and perfect it before you start involving anything advanced. Believe me, about twenty years into a marriage, you are going to need that reserve.

[resecured]

As Sam said, it is a choice, to sin or not to sin. When we stand before God on Judgement Day, I don't believe for one second that He will blame me for my H.'s adultery of so many years. We are each accountable for our own actions, period. He will not hear of any excuses of "Well, she didn't give it to me enough or the way I wanted, so that is why I failed and committed adultery."

Kind of the same story as Adam and Eve. Adam knew as well as Eve that eating of the fruit was forbidden, but he did it. God, cursed Adam as well as Eve, for his own choice of eating the fruit. He knew what God had said and chose to do it anyway.

veggiemelt - I'm not going to hammer you about your statement about masturbation but my husband and I do not agree with it. My h. started out mast. with magazines when he was 12 years old. That opened up the door to hyperstimulation. My h. says that mast. for him needed to be done with sexual thoughts or through visual stimulation. He simply could not mast. with pure thoughts. Later, the magazines were not enough and he needed other types of stimulation, like OW, (plural), adult porn houses, internet porn. He says that it was his experimenting with mast. that helped put him on the path to 40 years of bondage.

He believes that 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 tells us that our bodies are not our own to do just whatever with. That we are to "Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body."


-RJ-

[SAM]

The problem is, it is so easy to go the way of RJ's husband and have masturbation become an obsession - even for women. It's like walking right up to the edge of a cliff, knowing you need to stop, but the beauty and thrill of just peeking over the edge... well you just can't help yourself.
Where does one draw the line, without jumping of the cliff?

1 Corinthians 6:12
Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

While it's good to know your own body, is there a problem in waiting and learning to explore together?

I am a woman who had no experience prior to marriage. My husband had one partner prior to me. We spent time exploring and learning together. We bought Christian books on sex that really helped us. God showed us how to experiment and provide pleasure. Reading Song of Songs together shows a couple what God considers to be a thing of great beauty. Of course, we didn't get there overnight.

As a society, we look for such instant fireworks and gratification. We simply can't wait to let God work it out for us. And, we become frustrated with him if he asks us to wait a day, or a week or a month. It becomes a beautiful, wonderful,and satisfying sex life if we depend on Him instead of ourselves.

[veggiemelt]

I don't disagree that exploring your body can become something addictive.
That is why I say that we should teach our children how to control the urge they run across by accident. Leaving the subject untouched or making it sound like something bad or wrong leads to the idea that sex is bad or wrong. When our kids hit puberty, it becomes an open door for Satan.
It is the pathway to everything that plays with our minds as adults.
Masterbating to images and feeling guilt over sexual urges starts as teens.
Women come into marriage feeling like not only like we have to protect our bodies, but that it is wrong for us to enjoy sexual pleasure. Men come into marriage already entrapped in moral sin and a slave to their sexual urges.

Our society is becoming more and more about sex and the exploytation of it. God created our bodies as a beautiful home for our soul. He made us male and female and gave us the ability to experience pleasure in many things.
Our sexuality defines us from the moment we are born and is an everlasting part of our lives. We should value that, we should never be ashamed of any part of it. Turning self exploration as teens into something dirty and wrong is the very beginning of what harbors our ability to truly enjoy God's greatest gift in marriage.
If we as parents want to purify and preserve sex as a beautiful God given pleasure for our children, then we have to be willing to help them learn to embrace their bodies and to treat their sexuality with respect.
Masterbation, just like sex can become abused or even become an addiction. But it is the idea that it is wrong is what makes it such an easy target for Satan.
Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating self pleasure by any means.
I think we should always turn to our partner to meet our needs once we are marriage. In fact, other then for education, it really doesn't even need to be in a marriage and would probably solve alot of problems if it weren't. What I am saying, is that I believe there is a God given reason for it, for men in particular. But it needs to be something that they can learn how to use out of respect for their bodies and their minds, rather then something done in shame just because they don't really have a choice.

[SAM]

The fact that we are openly talking about masturbation here doesn't make it sick and dirty, filthy and hidden. This is a discussion which brings the topic out into open.

Discussion with our children in a must - and teaching them that our sexuality is a gift from God is an awesome responsibility. We cannot simply say, "This is reserved for marriage only - so don't do it." Of course, there needs to be more open and honest discussion that digs into all other aspects of not making our sexuality dirty - but beautiful.

Unfortunately, parents today are indulging every sexual whim themselves - even as Christians. And, destroying their marriages for the the next sexual high. It's rather difficult to teach our children if we aren't practicing what we preach.

[resecured]

I totally agree with you about having discussions with our children about sex. Our daughter is 25, expecting her first child in 2 weeks, and our son is 17. With both of my children, I have been very open about sex and the plan God has for it in marriage. My daughter understands that since they will be having a child, they still need to make time for each other. Go on dates, and have time alone to be a couple. I've told her it is hard to be a young mom and be a lover too. She also knows that it can be done. My son is aware that he needs to wait for marriage to have sex. That God requires that he does. He knows that satan tries to bombard him with movies, T.V. shows, magazines, etc showing that sex is ugly and dirty. That women are to be sex objects. We've pointed out that God did not make sex that way but meant it to be beautiful and fun. It's how we act out that makes it a sin. I've told him that sex with your spouse is wonderful. He knows that he needs to cherish his wife, be of one flesh with her, keep his vows he made before God. He also knows that he needs to equally yoked with his future wife. My husband and I have told him not to open the door to mast. That this can lead to false satisfaction that can hamper his relationship with his wife, plus possibly lead to other evils done the road.(as experienced by my husband) My husband and I do not want our son to fall vicim to the same life as my husband has lived for most of his life. I've been the wife of a sexually addicted husband. Unless you have lived it, you cannot begin to understand the pain. Pain for the wife and husband. We do not want that for our children.