Agathos:
Sorry to be late in my response here, but I’m going to give it a go nonetheless.
In your response, you merely stated your conclusion again in a slightly different fashion. When Snipe and I posited that it might help control actual actions, rather than leading to more craving/impure action this is what you said: "The truth is this this. It doesn’t help you not have sex. The more you think about sex, and the more you teach your body to crave it (with simultaneous mental and physical stimulation) the more likely you are to break down in a crucial moment, and uh’oh, “Mom, dad, I got this girl that I really don’t like all that much pregnant…”
This does not address the “weak and absurd” statement that masturbation could lessen the urge to act in people – I will add especially those who are not disposed toward obsessive/compulsive behavior, or who are not disposed to “addictive” behavior.
I’m not saying we laid out an argument to the contrary. We simply stated our own observations about how we function. Feel free to disagree, but don’t treat restating your own conclusion and disproving something.
You have to remember that, irrespective of how convincing you find it, your position is definitely an interpretation. While you may find it convincing, someone else may look at it differently. Especially given the litany of sins that are actually spelled out, it seems to me that you are actually starting from a relatively weak position in claiming masturbation should be a proscribed activity, unless you think God forgot to mention it along the way, getting lost amongst the minutae of other sins that are specifically presribed (many of which, I think it is safe to say, occur far more rarely than does masturbation).
Also, honestly, from your line of justification, one could argue that one should eschew any contact with the opposite sex – kissing, hand holding, etc., because that would lead to thinking about sex, and there you go down the slippery slope until you have 5 illegitimate kids. And in that case you’re actually a step closer to the slope because you’re already having contact with the opposite sex. While it may be that in extreme cases or lack of self control, or in common cases of not exercising any, you would follow that trajectory, I think any idea that one should not dance or kiss or whatever because it would lead to too much lust or to sex is a bit much.
I might as well say that I also don’t think finding a woman attractive and desirable constitutes a sin or too much lustful thinking on my part either. Part of the design of human beings is being sexually attracted to others – and that attraction seems, if one believes the studies, to be based on certain characteristics that reflect genetic and reproductive health. If that falls under your definition of impure thoughts, than I must respectfully disagree. To me, it’s healthy, and it’s functioning precisely as we were designed to function (and don’t tell me there aren’t plenty of psychological problems within marriages because the lesson that “sex is dirty” was imprinted a little too strongly in one or both members of the married couple).
BTW, I’ll jump off topic to leave you with this last note. If you really do end up getting all the sex you want whenever you want it when you get married, more power to you, but there is plenty of masturbation going on with the married guys I know, mostly because their sex drives are not always compatible with those of their wives. I don’t think they’re sinning, and they seem to have happy, stable marriages. Much better and happier, I think, than were they left to their frustrations and were fighting with their wives over the sex schedule.
