• How Serious Is Masturbation?
    Awake!—1987 | September 8

    • What Does the Bible Say?

      Though sexual offenses such as premarital sex (fornication), homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality are plainly condemned as gross sins in the Bible, masturbation is not mentioned. (Genesis 39:7-9; Leviticus 18:20, 22, 23; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10) Masturbation was common in the Greek-speaking world during Bible times, and several Greek words were used to describe the practice. Interestingly, not one of these words is used in the Bible.a

      Since masturbation is not directly condemned in the Bible, does this mean it is harmless? Absolutely not! Even those not especially concerned with God’s viewpoint feel uneasy about the practice. For instance, Dr. Aaron Hass in his survey of the sexual practices of 625 teenagers reported: “The majority of adolescents who masturbated reported feeling guilty, ashamed, dirty, stupid, embarrassed, or abnormal.” Surely, masturbation is an unclean habit. But since “uncleanness,” according to the Bible, is a term that allows for a wide range of degree of seriousness, masturbation is not to be classed with such serious sins as fornication or other types of gross sexual immorality.​—Ephesians 4:19.

  • How Serious Is Masturbation?
    Awake!—1987 | September 8

    • b The original Greek word for “sexual appetite” (paʹthos) was used by the first-century historian Josephus to describe the wife of Potiphar, who, because of an “excess of passion [paʹthos],” tried to seduce the youth Joseph; and the man Amnon, who, “burning with desire and goaded by the spur of passion [paʹthos], violated [raped] his sister.” The passion both of Potiphar’s wife and of Amnon was out of control.​—Genesis 39:7-12; 2 Samuel 13:10-14.