[NSFW] Why some forms of sex and masturbation are considered as sin in some cultures or religions?

I’ll address masturbation.

Jewish doctrine has a thing about intentionally wasting the male seed. This is a big no-no with them. I’m not sure how thay feel about female masturbation.

In Protestant doctrine it is discouraged in many ways and many places in NT, such as Matt 5:28 which describes “adultery of the heart,” e.g. fantasizing about other people than one’s spouse. I suppose one is SOL if they have no spouse. Onan kept getting in trouble with God because he kept spillng his seed on the ground so much that an archaic word for masturbation is “Onanism.” Noah got in trouble with God because of masturbation an other sexual acts. I’ve noticed in the last few years, many Protestant sects have relaxed their taboos on sex in general, in practice (but somebody forgot to re-write the texts to support this)—as have all the religions

Catholic doctine is similar because sex is only allowed for procreation purposes, so masturbation is considered a mortal sin in that respect. This goes for both men and women. Then there are a plethora of lesser sins involved simultaneously in the same act, such as having “impure thoughts”, adultery of the heart, lust, vanity, self-gratification, etc., etc. So, one act can pretty much send you down the tubes if you die before confessing to a priest and receiving absolution. My guess is that, because of this, Hell is a lot more crowded with pubescent youth than people realize. LOL.

In Islam, only mutual masturbation between a man and wife is allowed. .Again, if there is no spouse, the person risks iniquity.

Those are the only religions/cultures I’m familiar with as far as masturbation and I’m pretty sure that most members of the religions above no longer take much of that stuff seriously anymore. I have no idea how the Asian religions feel about it.

My wild guess:

Because, back in the day, sex was seen solely as a form of procreating. Sex as an act of enjoyment was looked down upon. That is where the myths and notion that masturbation is a sin comes from. I think homosexual sex is/was looked down upon for the same reason (which led people to perceive homosexuality as a whole as a sin).

It developed in ye olden times and stuck because tradition n’ all.

Some corrections:

The passage about Onan is not about masturbation. That is a distortion imposed on it by later interpreters. The passage is really about about the levirate.

Catholic doctrine does not limit sexuality to procreation. In Catholic doctrine, sex has two purposes: the unitive purpose and the procreative purpose. When a person has sex without being open to both having children and bonding with a partner, the person commits sin. Note that one does not have to intend to have children every time one has sex, one just has to be open to that possibility.

Now as to why, if you don’t want a theological or supernatural answer, my theory/guess would be that sexuality for most people in the ancient world involved exploitation and domination. Much of the population were slaves and were subjected to the sexual whims of their masters. If the ancient Hebrews really were escaped slaves, maybe for them limiting sex to monogamous procreative sex within marriage was a step up, and also a way to preserve harmony within an embattled community that had to stick together to survive. As for the early Christians, many of the early converts were slaves or outcasts who had to deal with the depravity of their Roman masters. What seems like repression for us might have been liberation to them.

@Zissou Yes. I stand corrected.

I always thought that this had to do with the Church wanting to be the center of a person’s being in every way possible. A person who is masturbating is not thinking about god (!) and therefore must be stopped from doing so.

That’s connected to the idea of church-sanctioned sex (i.e. marriage) which gives the thumbs up to sexual activity in the name of god. And church disapproval of extramarital sex, for the opposite reason.

I think that at least a part of religious disapproval of masturbation because back then there was a comparatively primitive understanding of male and female physiology. What did they know about prostates in 400 AD?

^^It’s not just the Church. It’s every Abramaic religion and probably many others.

I once heard a Christian woman say masturbating is discouraged by the church, because if you masturbate it will increase your desire for sex, so single people shouldn’t masturbate. Once married, then you don’t masturbate because you should be sharing sec with your spouse and making babies.

I would think the powers at be once upon a time, discouraged sex outside of marriage as a practical matter. That children born out of wedlock usually have less supervision, and probably “less” provided to them in general. Of course, this became almost a self fulfilling prophesy, because judgement came along with these ideas, and so then these women and children were shunned, and being on the outside made life more isolated, more difficult, and probably often leading to poorer circumstances than might have been.

Pretty straight forward. \Catholics abhor shaking hands with someone with hairy palms.

Religions claim procreation is the reason they frown on masturbation, but I think the real reason is they want total control over their flocks, and saying this is a sin is just one more way they can keep control.

@SQUEEKY2 That is why Catholics also invented Confession.

I’m curious as to whether female orgasms were / are frowned upon in some cultures.

^^Well, if they are cutting off clitorises I’d say yes.

I’m sure the true answer is lost somewhere in antiquity.
Just like someday nobody will really know why folks still shake a milk carton

^^I’ve never shaken a milk carton. I guess that shows my age and that I grew up in an urban area. I’m guessing the fats used to rise to the top before we started homogenizing milk. It seems obvious to me. Is that incorrect?

^^I do it because my mom and dad always did

I always shook the individual chocolate milk cartons we got in school. It made the milk frothy.

^^I actually remember doing that sometimes also. I had forgotten about that. Having to drink milk at lunch time was not fun, but I got used to it.

Well, why did you drink it if you didn’t want to?

^^The only choice we had was white milk or chocolate milk in the elementary school I went to for 5th and 6th grade.

That’s the only choice kids have in any school. I guess I don’t understand what the problem was. You didn’t have to drink it.

^^I guess I could have had water from the water fountain. Or, brought a drink like I did at my other school. I was little and made do with what I was given at the time. Some days I did still bring my own food and drink.

Do you not like milk?

I remember shaking chocolate milk so the chocolate flavoring got mixed in. I think they use a different process now so the flavoring doesn’t settle out the way it used to. I don’t recall shaking plain milk.

Good thing they reopened this thread so that we wouldn’t have to miss out on such amazing milky insights into religious sexual taboos, har har

@Dutchess_III When I was little I sometimes had a glass of milk with dunkable cookies. We never drank milk with a meal. I thought maybe it was a leftover from being Jewish, but my husband’s family doesn’t either. His mom especially is grossed out by the idea of drinking milk, and she is the Catholic.

When I moved to the Midwest for college I was shocked some students who could get whatever they wanted in the cafeteria would drink milk with lunch or dinner. I don’t think any of my close friends growing up did that, except one family I can think of specifically.

I’ve always like cereal with milk. I still do.

Edit: I might ask facebook where a lot of my high school friends are out of curiousity.

We had milk with every meal. EVERY meal. I love milk. I can’t imagine eating pancakes without milk. Mom grew up on a dairy farm, Dad grew up in Texas. Milk milk milk. When my kids were growing up we went through about a gallon a day.

When I first logged on to Facebook, after about a week, suddenly there were almost ALL the people I went to High School with. Friend one of them and it just snowballs. You might update what HS you went to and let FB do its thing.

Now, what does any of this have to do with masturbation!?

^^That’s very Midwest of you. Lol. You’re proving my point.

My mother was raised in the Seattle area, which is the North East. I don’t think it’s a “Midwest” thing. But I’ll find out.

Pacific Northwest. lol. I wrote my Q on facebook. Check it out.

You’re probably right. The schtick when we were kids was the government definitely was pushing milk for growing children and especially the milk lobby.

Northwest! Yes! Shit I am so so so bidirectionally dysfunctional I should get disability! You should hear me on the phone trying to give directions to the police when we see a dangerous driver!