Human Sexuality

O u r s exu a l i t y i s v i e we d a s a F U NDA MENTAL CO MP ONENT

o f p e rs o n a l i t y, a g o o d t h i n g c re ate d b y G o d , re sto re d b y
t h e p o we r o f J e s u s C h r i st a n d e n r i c h e d b y t h e s av i n g
a c t i v i t y o f t h e C h u rc h , a n d b y w h i c h t h e w h o l e p e rs o n
e nte rs i nto co m m u n i cat i o n w i t h o t h e rs .
M asturbation
 Robert is in the age of puberty. He has been experiencing
changes in his body and he has begun to have sexual
awakening. He has taken pleasure in fondling his genitals while
entertaining sexual fantasy giving way at times to orgasm. He
learned that his friends and classmates have similar
experience. Some of them even told him that doctors consider
it very normal for a child of his age. But one time he heard
from the preaching of a priest in their school recollection that
it is a grievous sin. This realization made him feel so guilty
leading him to go to you for counseling. How would you advise
him?
M asturbation
1. How do people view masturbation?
2. Is masturbation a sin?
3. How does the Church teach the morality of
masturbation?
4. How should one overcome or handle
masturbation?
 Robert is in the age of puberty. He has been experiencing
changes in his body and he has begun to have sexual
awakening. He has taken pleasure in fondling his genitals while
entertaining sexual fantasy giving way at times to orgasm. He
learned that his friends and classmates have similar
experience. Some of them even told him that doctors consider
it very normal for a child of his age. But one time he heard
from the preaching of a priest in their school recollection that
it is a grievous sin. This realization made him feel so guilty
leading him to go to you for counseling. How would you advise
him?
Psychological Interpretation and Human Meanings
 “A wicked and perverse experience, one capable of
corrupting a person physically and psychologically.”

“One of those actions that simply don’t hurt anybody.”

“Something not to worry about at all, just the second

best kind of sex”
Psychologist Eugene C. Kennedy
N OT A S A LWAYS H A R M F U L ,
but neither does he consider it honest or prudent to glorify masturbation or to regard it as virtuous

Expression of a person’s EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND AND INTEGRATE VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF HIS OR HER SELF-
IDENTITY as a sexual being so that there can further movement in the direction of mature interpersonal
relationship.

It can be stultifying and isolating when a person “FINDS THE LOCUS OF ALL THE PLEASURE IN HIMSELF.”

Masturbation is a COMPLETE COMPLEX PHENOMENON, and to suggest otherwise is serious disservice to people.
Sigmund Freud
Masturbation is not to regarded as a problem or entity (clinical entity) in itself
but rather should be seen as an action that expresses or reflects some internal psychosexual state.

In adolescence, for example, masturbation is often symptomatic of many nonsexual conflicts. This has
led SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S) to maintain that boredom, frustration,
loneliness, a poor self-image, inadequate boy-girl relationships, conflict with parents, too many
pressure in school, etc., can all create tensions that the adolescent tries to relieve through
masturbation.

In some cases it is not the masturbation that must be examined, but the conflict
of which it is symptom; and counseling or psychotherapy may be indicated.
Psychiatrist Frederick Perls

“Masturbation is healthy when it expresses an outgoing

drive and serves as SUBSTITUTE FOR INTERCOURSE
WHEN INTERCOURSE SIMPLY IS NOT AVAILABLE: The
healthy masturbation fantasy would be that of
approaching and having intercourse with a beloved
person.”
Psychiatrist Thomas Hora
“masturbation as a substitution for intercourse with the beloved
person when the opportunity for intercourse is not available is
UNHEALTHY AND INAUTHENTIC. Rather than simply a
substitute for loving intercourse, masturbation is more a
counterfeit of it. Masturbation allures and attracts but in the end it
is an illusion which confers the opposite of what it promises: a
sense of emptiness and non-being rather than fulfillment.”
Fr. Donald Goergen O.P
When masturbation is preferred to intercourse, something is wrong.
Although he does not consider the act to be intrinsically immoral, it
does, he says, raise some moral question.

This is not to say that masturbation is always or even usually selfish act,
but a definite possibility exists that such activity will lead a person “in
the direction of narcissistic rather than interpersonal sexuality.” Clearly
masturbation is not in complete accord with the goal of sexuality,
which is other-oriented love.
 When all is said and done, Goergen suggests that it is as false to say that masturbation is always
wrong as it is to say that it is never wrong. What can be most safely maintained is that
masturbation points to the unfinishedness of the process of a person’s sexual and spiritual
integration as a human being.

Goergen develops this point with wisdom and sensitivity:

To be unfinished is not to be immoral nor irresponsible.

It is, however, to be challenged toward further growth. We must accept unfinishedness but not choose to
remain there. There will always be the tension between accepting ourselves where we are and striving after
the ideals of Christian life . . . .
We should not be ashamed of our present stage of growth nor should we stagnate there.
M oral Evaluation
 Both the Magisterium of the Church – in the course of a
constant tradition – and the moral sense of the faith have
declared without hesitation that masturbation is an
INTRINSICALLY AND SERIOUSLY DISORDERED ACT.
The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting in this way, the
deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal conjugal relations
especially contradicts the finality of the faculty. For it lacks the sexual
relationship called for by the moral order, namely the relationship which
realizes “the fullness of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the
context of true love”
The Church’s official teaching is reiterated in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC),
which says that masturbation “is intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”

At the same time, however, the CCC affirms that in order “to form an
equitable judgment about the subject’s moral responsibility and to guide
pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of
acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors
that lessen or even extenuate moral culpability. (2352)
 T h e i s s u e o f a p e r s o n’s m o r a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y
or guilt in masturbating

For a person to be formally guilty of a mortal sin of masturbation, his act must be fully
deliberate choice of what he fully realizes is serious evil.

If the act is performed with only partial realization or only partial choice of the will,
the person is guilty of venial sin.

If there is no free choice of the will, there is no guilt at all, even if the person is aware of
what he is doing. . . .
Serious sin must always involve a fully deliberate choice of what one be fully realizes to be
seriously wrong.
 John F. Harvey, O.S.F.S
Reminded people of the moral principle that “spontaneous arousal is not a sin; the fact of struggle against
sexual fantasies indicates that one did not give full, if any, consent; and in matters of doubt concerning
consent the presumption is in favor of non-consent.” Harvey maintains that people, especially the young:

Must come to understand that one cannot sin by accident. If one is careful and sincere in
his spiritual life, in his effort to love God, he is not likely to give full consent to the act of
masturbation.
 In attempting to bring these thoughts on the morality of masturbation to
a close, some final observations may be helpful toward obtaining an
overview of the matter.

Learn to resist the urge toward immediate gratification of sexual desires.

Controlling our instincts, of course, is the work of a lifetime and constitutes an

integral part of the larger task of finding and developing our true selves.

We persistently resist the temptation to turn in upon ourselves, then we must be on

guard against any self-centeredness and self-preoccupation that can enter into our lives
and become a part of our daily routine.
In this context, the moral danger of masturbation is obvious: it can entrap a person in
such a way that he becomes so fixed “on himself, on his body, and his own sensual
pleasure that his capacity to show love in a relationship with a partner ceases to be
functional.

Masturbation is particularly seductive because it is an easy and accessible way to reduce

tension and to explore genital feelings and fantasies without interpersonal vulnerability.

In masturbation, we do not have to risk rejection, embarrassment, or failure. Instead of

engaging in mature relationship, we can create a world of make-believe people where
anything is possible and there are no limits.
Masturbation can satisfy interpersonal yearning while remaining an individual affair. In
fantasy we can explore the world of sexual intimacy without leaving our room, more
radically, ourselves. Masturbation can lead to an affair with oneself.

The folly of masturbation, which consists in the fact that through masturbation “we silence
the Spirit urging us to love.” As a result of this, we end up “being more empty and lonely,”
because the only kind of satisfaction masturbation provides is “momentary and not growth
oriented.”

A habitual masturbator is pressured to live according to immediate gratification and to see

life and other people in terms of self-satisfaction and these motivations and perceptions
may well continue to play an unconsciously role in whatever personal relationship he or
she enters into and attempts to develop.
ADULTERY
• Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) describes adultery, or marital
infidelity, as an injustice.
• does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is,
transgresses the rights of the other spouses, and undermines the
institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which it is based.
• compromises that good of human generation and the welfare of
children who need their parents’ stable union. (2380-81)
PROSTITUTION
• the CCC refers to it as a social scourge, and sees the person who pays
for sex as sinning gravely.
• does injury to the dignity of the person who engages it, reducing the
person to an instrument of sexual pleasure.
• A prostitute is robbed of his/her dignity as a person by being
reduced to a mere means for the selfish pleasure of the buyer.
There is absolutely no commitment, no love, no service of life.
PORNOGRAPHY
• the use of visual or print media to present nudity and sexual activity
in a degrading or depersonalizing way, often preys upon the most
vulnerable in our society.
• propagates the sexually obscene and licentious in a dehumanizing
and exploitative manner.
• By reducing persons to sex objects for illicit pleasure, it substitutes
self-centered, commitment-less “Playboy” fantasies, for genuine
loving interpersonal relationships.
• Both prostitution and pornography flourish as parasites on a society
that has become morally sick and sexually confused.
RAPE
• Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person.
• It does injury to justice and charity.
• Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral
integrity to which every person has a right.
• It causes damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an
intrinsically evil act.
• Grave still is the rape of children by parents (incest) or those
responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.