From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Cath. Christianity 101 - Church teaching on masturbation
Date: 15 Aug 92 06:19:37 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <l8osikINNono@skat.usc.edu> kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ) writes:

>From the SCDF's 1975 "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning
>Sexual Ethics"

>Regarding masturbation:

>  9. The traditional Catholic doctrine that masturbation
>constitutes a grave moral disorder is often called into doubt or
>expressly denied today.

... It is stated that there is real and
>serious fault only in the measure that the subject deliberately
>indulges in solitary pleasure closed in on self ("ispsation"),

	That's some of the craziest bullshit I've ever seen.

	I make this comment because I have never seen anyone who
thinks masturbation OK in some circumstances continue with the claim
that it is not OK just for one's personal pleasure.

	And why is doing things for one's personal enjoyment supposed
to be so wrong anyway???

	I don't think that solo sex is much ethically different from
(say) going off on a trip to Sacramento to visit the local tourist
traps.

	And I'm not impressed with all the Latinate vocabulary,
either.

>because in this case the act would indeed be radically opposed to
>the loving communion between persons of different sex which some

	Why can't one have it both ways?

	Why is solo sex supposed to exclude cooperative sex?

>hold is what is principally sought in the sue of the sexual
>faculty.

	What???

[The Church and people's consciences supposedly]
... have declared without hesitation that
>masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act [19]. 

	The reference is to some pope from the Middle Ages. No mention
of the Bible.

>The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting in this
>way, the deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal

	What defines "normal"? Judging from what people actually do,
masturbation is very "normal".

>conjugal relations essentially contradicts the finality of the
>faculty.  For it lacks the sexual relationship called for by the

	In plain language, masturbation is supposedly wicked because
it cannot lead to children (well, male masturbation can, if the semen
is used for artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization. Female
masturbation is only for the fun of it :-).

>moral order, namely the relationship which realizes "the full sense
>of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true
>love" [20].  All deliberate exercise of sexuality must be reserved

	Self-giving? Why not a cooperative relationship?

	Is dominance and submission the only things the Church can
understand?

>to this regular relationship.  Even if it cannot be proved that
>Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church

	Excellent evasion of the Bible's silence on this subject.

>has rightly understood it to be condemned in the New Testament when
>the latter speaks of "impurity," "Unchasteness" and other vices
>contrary to chastity and continence.

	Flame-bait vocabulary without clear content.

... The frequency of the phenomenon in question is certainly to
>be linked with man's innate weakness following original sin; but it

	Masturbation is not even specifically human; nonhuman animals
are known to masturbate. I once saw a picture of a male dolphin with
an erection pushing on a stretched rope with his penis; if that isn't
jerking off, then I don't know what is.

>is also to be linked with the loss of a sense of God, with the

	"Sense of God"? Is this a new sense? I thought that there were
only five :-)

	[rest of long-winded tract omitted]

	If these are the best arguments the Vatican can come up with,
then we have no choice to write off these aged celibates as a bunch of
ideologues. And very possibly a jealous bunch of ideologues, if not a
hypocritical bunch.

	I will continue to enjoy nonprocreative sex, just as I will
continue to enjoy non-nutritious food (example: spices).
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