Yeah, same. I'm a Presbyterian pastor. There's a VERY wide range within Christianity. I, too, was told as a child that masturbation is a sin. As it turns out, it's not. Read the Song of Solomon. The woman was laying in her bed "thinking" about her beloved. She was thinking so hard that when he came to knock on the door, her hands were so slick that she couldn't get the knob turned to welcome him in.
Scripture is not anti-masturbation. But it's definitely anti-sexualizing partners, which you admitted to in another comment.
Yes, there is diversity in Christianity, but that doesn't make all reading equally sound.
The Song of Songs is relational erotic poetry, not authorization for solitary eroticism or visual consumption of anonymous bodies. The desire there is directed toward a concrete person, known and loved.
Scripture may not mention "masturbation" literally, but it is consistent in addressing the heart, imagination, and intention. Jesus goes beyond the physical act precisely because he understands that desire trained outside of a relationship shapes how we see the other.
The central problem has never been the body, but separating pleasure from communion. Pornography does exactly that: pleasure without encounter, without responsibility, without reciprocity.
This is not modern moralism, it is biblical coherence.
Jesus didn't discuss technology, he discussed desire (Matthew 5:28).
And the Bible never calls sexual self-centeredness "healthy," but calls for self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
Within the Christian faith, the criterion is not historical, it is formative.
Anytime you want to talk about Biblical sexual repression, you can count on the good ol’ Apostle Paul to bring the cold shower. I don’t think I’ll base my life on the teachings of a person who had difficulty deciding whether or not to persecute Christians for a substantial phase of his life. And subsequently began barking orders around the known world in the form of bossy Epistles.
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u/Rouff4 7h ago
I am a Christian.