SWM 158 – Solo Masturbation – When You Remove the Other Person From Sex

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Today we’re continuing with our Sex as Worship series, and in this post, we’re going to be talking about masturbation, which is a highly contested argument in Christianity.  Is it okay, is it sinful, it is helpful or harmful?

And before I say anything else, I want to share that I didn’t always believe the viewpoint I’m going to share.  Also, I don’t really want to talk about it.  It’s still an embarrassing topic, and I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for it.  People will unsubscribe.  Sometimes I get messages saying they hope to see me in hell.  

But, I don’t think I can skip it.  This is a topic I see damaging so many marriages, so how do I leave it alone?  

Also, this is my second rewrite.  I tried to make the first one more clinical, and after recording it – frankly, I hated it.  I was bored from recording it.  So, I rewrote it.  Let me know what you think.

So here we go, take number two.

I grew up in a church culture where masturbation was not discussed. It wasn’t encouraged, but also wasn’t warned against.  There were jokes here and there, hints and side comments, but more or less the message was that it was private and not to be discussed.  

And as a young teenager – I honestly don’t remember how young, I developed a habit of masturbation, and it followed me into adulthood and marriage.  Later, as BBS became popular (pre-internet) and then the internet, I added porn to that habit.

But masturbation had already become more than a sexual habit.  It became a coping mechanism.

I used it to self-soothe, to manage sexual frustration, and, later, I used it to avoid dealing with things in my marriage like differing sex drives, or when conflict got in the way of intimacy.

I remember the first time the idea that masturbation might be sinful was really challenged for me.  It wasn’t until I was already married.  I was helping lead a youth group, and one of the other leaders decided the boys should read Every Man’s Battle together. That was the first time I encountered the claim that masturbation itself, not just porn or lust, might be sinful.

I don’t remember the arguments they used, I don’t remember any verses they shared, and I haven’t read the book since.  That was decades ago.

What I remember is my reaction.

I thought it was ridiculous.  I had a decade or more at this point of reasons, rationalizations and more for why it was okay that I’d built up myself, and I thought that my reasons were solid.  Looking back, I think I was really just defending my addiction.  I didn’t want it taken away from me, because I didn’t know how to cope without it.

At that point, our marriage was clinically sexless – we barely had sex, and we couldn’t talk about it without getting into a fight. We had bad communication skills, no real intimacy at all in the marriage, and no hope of it really getting better.  Masturbation felt like survival.

So when the idea was shared that my survival mechanism was sinful, I rejected it almost immediately. I leaned on my rationalizations, and I felt perfectly at peace with that decision.  I told myself that if God wanted me to stop, He would have put it in the Bible, or He would fix my marriage.

And I would love to be able to say that I dug into the scripture, found the truth, quit, and that gave me the push I needed to fix my marriage, and that I was going to show you all the verses that prove masturbation is wrong.

But that’s not how it happened, and they don’t exist.

Instead, it took us years to even start to fix our marriage, and years more to actually turn it into something positive.  It was only after we had rebuilt our sexual relationship that I finally let go of the habit.

And looking back, I can see that it contributed to keeping us in that broken phase longer than we should have been.  My sin of masturbation enabled her sin of refusal and gatekeeping, and I don’t say that to excuse either of us – but rather to show how sin often enables other sin.  It allowed us both to avoid dealing with our own issues.

And even then, I wasn’t sure it was a problem, just that it was my problem.  I let it get out of hand and get in the way, and that was the problem, that the consumption of porn was sinful as well, but that masturbation itself probably wasn’t that bad, in moderation. The church I grew up in spent a lot more time preaching “everything in moderation” and not so much on “flee sexual immorality”.

It wasn’t until years later, when I began coaching and answering people’s questions about their marriages, that I saw the same pattern repeated again and again across so many marriages.  And the more I learned about marriage, about relationships, about God’s intent for our lives, the more I became convicted and convinced that I don’t believe there is a place for solo masturbation in the Christian life.

Now, recently, we’ve been working through a series of blog posts and podcast episodes built around a simple but difficult idea: that sex is a form of worship, because how we have sex conveys what we believe about God and His intentions for sex and marriage, and when we trust in Him and His design, we give Him worth – we worship Him.

When we reject His design, when we don’t trust in the pattern He created, then we reject Him and elevate ourselves.  We choose to worship the creation instead of the creator.

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31

Because worship isn’t neutral – we are either worshipping God, or worshipping something else, usually ourselves, and that distortion always carries consequences.  God doesn’t give us rules, boundaries and guidelines for no reason.  They aren’t arbitrary.  They are the ideal way to live, and when we reject His ordinances, that always carries consequences, either temporally or eternally, whether we notice them or not.

And so far in this series, we’ve looked at what happens when you remove different parts of that design from sex.  When you:

• remove the covenant (sex before marriage)
• remove the relationship (hookup culture)
• swap out the person for a fantasy (porn, erotica, AI companions)

Today, I want to look at what happens when you remove the other person from sex entirely and engage in solo masturbation.

And ultimately the question becomes:

Does masturbation move you towards God’s design for marriage, or away from it?

So, let’s dig in – not to proof texts, but to a holistic biblical approach to sex and marriage.  What does God show us by His design and what He says about sex in the Bible?

God Designed Sex to Be Shared

From the beginning, sex was never designed to be a solo activity.  Right from the beginning, before sin entered the world, we see this:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24

Throughout Scripture, sex is consistently tied to:

• one-flesh unity – Jesus (Matthew 19:5-6) and Paul (Corinthians 6:16) both uphold Genesis 2:24 as the prime marriage verse
• mutual giving – 1 Corinthians 7:3-5
• vulnerability – Genesis 2:25, Song of Songs 2:3, 1 Corinthians 6:18-19
• and covenant faithfulness – Malachi 2:14, Hebrews 13:4, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

Biblical Language and the Design of Sex

Even the language that Bible uses for sex implies another person.  In English, we just say “have sex”, and there is no reason you cannot “have sex” with a person, yourself, a robot or a pie.  The term “self sex” is often used when discussing masturbation by sex educators.

We don’t see this in the Bible.  Instead, they use terms like “to know”, “to lie with” and “to be joined with”.  They all imply another person, and usually a more-than-casual relationship.

In fact, often the words used to imply sex are used in other verses to describe how our relationship with God should be.

For example:

“Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain…” – Genesis 4:1

Uses the same word, יָדַע (yada) here:

“And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the LORD.” – Hosea 2:20

And that verse earlier:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”  – Genesis 2:24

Uses word דָּבַק (dabaq), just as in:

“You shall cling to the LORD your God…” – Deuteronomy 10:20

When discussed in a positive light, sex in the Bible describes covenant attachment. It binds people together as intimately as we should feel bound to God.

What Is Missing Matters

In fact I can’t find any positive depictions of sexual expression in the Bible that is solitary, self-directed or disconnected from a relationship.  The negative depictions of sex always involve self-centered, exploitative or approaches to sex that reject covenant – rape, coercion, manipulation, adultery and the like.

This is not accidental. It reflects God’s design.

Sex, as Scripture describes it, cannot be reduced to consumption without fundamentally changing its nature from something positive to negative. When sex turns inward, when it’s used to take rather than give, then it stops reflecting God’s design.  So much so, that they use different words to talk about what’s happening.

So, while it’s handy to have explicit verses about topics, often what’s not said is also important.

Unfortunately, the lack of discussion in the Bible made it far easier for me to excuse the behaviour.  “If God hated masturbation, he definitely would have told us” is a common argument.  It’s the same argument I hear about threesomes, group sex, porn, and more.  

We take the phrase “sexual immorality” and decide that because our chosen sin isn’t clearly spelled out, then it clearly doesn’t include whatever sexual immorality we want to engage in, and suddenly the Bible is silent on the topic.  That was one of my justifications anyways.

But silence isn’t permission.  Scripture rarely lists every possible misuse of a good gift. Instead, it gives us a design and asks us to discern when we are moving toward it or away from it.  We need to look at God’s intent, because sin isn’t just doing something He said not to do.  It’s not doing something He told us to do, and sex was never meant to be a selfish practice.

What Happens When Sex Turns Inward

Solo masturbation, by definition, removes the other person from the sexual act – it makes it selfish.

When sex no longer involves offering yourself to your spouse, being seen and known, having that mutual vulnerability, then the act necessarily becomes self-directed.

That does not automatically make something evil, but when every verse in the Bible tells us sex is designed to bring a couple together – then this is clearly not what God intended.

What the Data Reveals About Solo Masturbation

Last year, I ran an anonymous survey on masturbation practices within marriage, including solo and mutual masturbation. Over 1,000 people responded.

Now, I didn’t design the survey to prove a theological point.  In fact, it wasn’t my idea for a survey, it was a requested topic by many people. 

When I asked in the survey whether a spouse was aware of solo masturbation, the responses were strikingly consistent.

Only 20 percent of respondents said their spouse was fully aware and that it had been openly discussed.

The remaining 80 percent described some degree of secrecy, avoidance, or silence. In most cases, solo masturbation was not a shared experience in any meaningful sense. In many marriages, even basic awareness was missing.

Even when awareness exists, openness usually does not.

Now, how does that align with 1 Corinthians 7:4?

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. – 1 Corinthians 7:4

Instead, these spouses are hiding their sexual activities from their spouse.  They are usurping the authority the marriage gives their spouse over their body.  This is not sexual fidelity.  

And usually it’s rooted in shame.  We should have no reason to be ashamed of our sexual activities, if they are grounded in biblical truth.

“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” – Genesis 2:24

Because shame is meant to lead us to God and repentance, but if we’re already following His will, then we have no reason to be ashamed.  

This pattern of secrecy is what I see in a lot of marriages though, and it was true in our marriage as well.

We didn’t talk about masturbation, because talking about it would have meant talking about our sex life, which was struggling. And whenever we tried to talk about sex, it often led to arguments, misunderstandings, or hurt feelings. Over time, it felt easier to avoid the topic altogether than to keep reopening something we didn’t know how to fix.

And on my side, masturbation became the way we avoided the conversation. Rather than seeking an intimate relationship with my wife, I instead went to bed late while she went to bed early, because going to bed at the same time every night and not being intimate was too hard.

Masturbation made the distance between us just barely tolerable, which means we didn’t fix it.  Not for a long time anyways.

Satisfaction Is Often Neutral or Negative

Back to the survey, when asked how satisfied people were with the role of solo masturbation in their life, the most common response was neutral.

Nearly as many reported dissatisfaction as satisfaction.  If solo masturbation were truly fulfilling God’s sexual design, we would expect confidence, peace, and integration.

Instead, what we see is ambivalence.

That is what happens when an activity meets a physical urge but fails to meet a relational purpose.  This is how I would have answered at that time – it was meeting a physical desire, but it left me feeling empty and alone.  The better our relationship became, the less satisfied I became with masturbation.

Solo Masturbation Is Framed as Personal Coping

Survey responses also frequently described solo masturbation as:

• stress relief
• release
• an outlet
• or something to “take care of needs”

Which is exactly what our spouse should be there for.  Often masturbation is used as a substitute for your spouse.  

Why Shared Sexual Expression Is Different

When we asked about mutual masturbation within marriage, we got a very different pattern.

First off, satisfaction with the role of it in their marriage increased.  But satisfaction is only part of the story.

Unlike solo masturbation, the responses consistently described mutual masturbation as something that involved conversation, shared boundaries, intentional preparation, and presence with one another.  This wasn’t just two people who were masturbating while beside each other to meet their own individual needs.  They were engaging in a shared sexual act.

In the comments, couples frequently referenced setting the mood together, checking in about comfort and limits, cleaning up together afterward, and enjoying the experience of being fully present with their spouse.

They show intentionality, care, communication and attention to each other.

Although the physical mechanics of solo and mutual masturbation might even be identical, the context is fundamentally different.

Mutual sexual activity preserves that covenantal context, it becomes a sexual offering instead of consumption, and it’s vulnerable, which builds intimacy.

Solo sexual activity, on the other hand, removes all of those elements. What remains may still stimulate the body and might provide some temporary relief, but it no longer reflects the relational design Scripture consistently attaches to sex.

The Neurochemical Difference Between Solo and Partnered Sex

There is also a difference in how our biology perceives the two, because while you might think there’s no difference physically between solo masturbation and mutual masturbation, our bodies know the difference, and chemically they react differently.

During sexual arousal and orgasm, the brain releases a bunch of neurochemicals that influence bonding, satisfaction, emotional safety, and attachment. The most significant of these include:

• oxytocin (bonding and trust)
• vasopressin (pair-bonding and attachment)
• dopamine (motivation and reward)
• and prolactin (sexual satiation and contentment)

Here is where the difference between solo and partnered sex becomes measurable.

Research consistently shows that partnered sexual activity, especially within emotionally connected relationships, produces significantly higher releases of oxytocin and prolactin than solo sexual activity. Now, oxytocin makes sense – it’s the hormone that makes you feel emotionally bonded and secure.

However, prolactin is different.  Prolactin makes you feel sexually sated.  It also is what’s responsible for the refractory period in men, and this is why the relief from masturbation doesn’t last long.  Depending on your refractory period, that can last minutes to hours, maybe a day or two.  

If you’re on a starvation diet of sex in your marriage, masturbation is a snack that isn’t fulfilling at all – it’s like eating a mint when you’re starving.  Yeah, it might tie you over for a little bit, but you’re going to be hungry again very soon.

During partnered sex, on the other hand, up to 4x more prolactin gets released, which directly affects how sexually fulfilled a person feels afterwards, and how long afterwards they feel that way.  For most men, that’s about 48 hours or more.  Now, that doesn’t mean you won’t want sex again sooner than that, but you won’t feel that sense of disconnection for a couple days.

I don’t believe that difference is accidental.

Biology Echoes Design

And this should not surprise us.

God designed sex to bond two people together, not merely to discharge sexual tension, and the body responds accordingly. When sex includes mutual presence, emotional connection, vulnerability, and intimacy, the brain releases the chemicals that reinforce attachment and unity.

When you remove the intimacy, the chemistry shifts.  You still get the stimulation and release, but without the full weight of the hormones.

The body still responds, but it doesn’t respond in the same way.

Biology reflects the theology of the Bible – we were designed for sex to be shared.  And I’m not saying that biology dictates morality, but it often reveals the wisdom of God’s design.

Masturbation Does Not Solve Relationship Problems

One of the most common reasons people gave in the survey for solo masturbation is not indulgence. It is avoidance.

They say things like:

• “My spouse isn’t interested often.”
• “I don’t want to pressure them.”
• “I don’t want to bother them.”
• “I don’t want to wait.”
• “It’s easier than dealing with the tension.”

On the surface, this can sound considerate or even selfless.  I definitely rationalized it that way – I was doing this so I wouldn’t be a bother to my wife.  But sometimes spouses need to be bothered, especially when not bothering them is enabling their own sin as well.

Because this doesn’t actually solve the problem – it only makes the problem easier to tolerate.

Sexual Desire Is Meant to Create Movement

I don’t think God intended for us to use masturbation as a pressure-relief valve.  I think He created sexual desire to push us into an improved relationship.

Sexual desire is meant to move you toward your spouse – whether you have one yet, or not.

But if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. – 1 Corinthians 7:9

When your sex-life is struggling in your marriage, that’s not a signal that you should find another outlet.  It is a signal that something in the relationship needs attention, and that desire to be close to your spouse should drive you to fix the relationship.

That might be unresolved conflict, emotional distance, exhaustion or overwhelm, hormonal or health issues, fear, shame, or past trauma, mismatched expectations, or a breakdown in trust or safety.  Whatever is getting in the way, sexual desire is supposed to push you to resolve it.

When masturbation is used to bypass that pressure, the relationship loses one of its strongest motivators for repair.  It definitely did for us.

Relief Can Undermine Resolution

Because masturbation can provide temporary relief from sexual frustration, but relief is not the same thing as resolution.  When sexual tension is consistently relieved in isolation, several things happen over time:

• the urgency to address relational issues diminishes
• difficult conversations are postponed
• patterns of avoidance become normalized
• sexual distance quietly stabilizes rather than heals
• you train yourself to seek options other than your spouse

The problem doesn’t go away, it just becomes easier to live with, and what becomes easier to live with often stops changing. The deeper a rut gets, the more likely you are to settle into it rather than climb out of it.

Avoidance Is Not Neutral

Choosing not to address sexual or relational disconnection is not a neutral choice – the avoidance shapes the marriage.

When masturbation replaces engagement, it subtly teaches both spouses that sexual frustration is a solo problem, sexual intimacy is optional rather than integral.

Over time, that training changes expectations in the marriage as well.  Spouses become more self-focused because problems are seen as individual and handled individually rather than seen as a team problem to be worked through together.

Desire becomes about “you” instead of “us”.

So, what starts often as a temporary workaround becomes a permanent pattern. This was true in our marriage for a long time.  Now we navigate both of our desires as a team rather than waiting for hers to catch up to mine – which may never happen.  If your spouse has responsive desire, then waiting for it to become spontaneous might leave you waiting for a long time.

Desire Is Meant to Lead Somewhere

That doesn’t mean every sexual mismatch can be solved immediately, and it doesn’t mean spouses are entitled to sex on demand, or that this justifies coercion or pressure.  It just means that desire has a purpose, and it’s meant to drive us towards relational healing.

Sexual longing is meant to push couples toward honesty, patience, creativity, empathy, and, if needed, outside help.

Understand though, that outside help isn’t to fill the sexual role.  I’ve heard people say their spouses try to give them that as an option as well rather than dealing with the problem. This now has the term “ethical non-monogamy”, but of course, there’s nothing ethical about it.  It’s one spouse engaging in adultery while the other engages in gatekeeping and refusal.

No, what I mean is this: if you need outside help to figure out how to work together and meet each other’s needs, then get it. And if you would like guided help working through these kinds of conversations in a clear, practical way, you can book a discovery call with me and we can talk through what is happening in your marriage and what your next steps could look like.

What This Means for Singles

Another common objection I hear is, “What about singles?”

If sex is meant to be shared, covenantal, and unifying, what does that mean for someone who is not married?

And the answer is that sexual formation doesn’t pause until marriage.  Every sexual practice forms us, trains us.  The question is – what are we training for?

Singles are not sexually neutral.  They are either preparing themselves for a shared, unifying sexual relationship or training themselves towards a self-centric understanding of sex. There is no third option.

Sexual Habits Train Sexual Expectations

Sex is not just something you do, it is something you learn.  Habits shape expectations and repetition shapes desires, and our desires reinforce our habits.

If you have a habit of solo masturbation, you are going to train your brain and body.  You’ll expect privacy, which you don’t have with a partner.  You’ll expect immediate gratification, which you won’t always get with a spouse.  You’ll get used to instantaneous feedback, which also doesn’t happen during partnered sex.

That training does not disappear when a spouse appears.  Many single men think that all their sexual problems will be fixed as soon as they get married – only to realize that marriage doesn’t solve sexual problems.  It compounds them – now you have two people’s issues to navigate.  And you were meant to tackle them as a team, not an individual, but if you’re been training your body and mind to be self-focused during sex, that can lead to a lot of conflict.

Common struggles are impatience with your spouse, difficulty attuning to their needs, frustration with their boundaries, and dissatisfaction that you need to negotiate with what the other spouse wants.  Add to that the ideas of vulnerability and sacrifice, and it’s a completely different event, and one that is more challenging, and not always immediately rewarding.

In contrast, self-control, discipline, and intentional direction of desire trains a person to be patient, giving and prepares them to have a spouse to work with as they build their sexual relationship together

The Bible Frames Waiting as Preparation, Not Deprivation

Scripture doesn’t frame sexual restraint as repression, despite the world’s claims. It frames it as formation.  

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. – 1 Thessalonians 4:3–4

The Bible doesn’t teach avoiding pleasure, it teaches us to build relationships, to learn how to honour them with everything that we have.  Honour towards God, honour towards our spouse (present or future), honour towards our own body.

Sexual discipline is not the absence of sexuality, it is the intentional shaping of it. And that shaping is difficult, sometimes lonely, and never easy, no one is saying it is.  But it’s meaningful and purposeful.

Because when the day comes to give yourself sexually to another person, you will not suddenly become generous, patient, or attuned if you have trained yourself for years in isolation and to consume sex as recreation or self-care.

You will give what you have practiced giving, or you will take what you have practiced taking.

Formation Always Has a Direction

Whether married or single, sex always points somewhere.

It either trains us to say: “I exist to be satisfied,” or “I exist to give myself in love.”

One prepares us for covenant.  The other prepares us to remain alone, even in a relationship.

I was not well prepared, and I know that led to a lot of our struggles.

That is why this conversation is not ultimately about rules. It is about worship – are you going to follow the design God intended, or will you feed your own temporary desires?

This Is Not About Condemnation

If you made it this far and you struggle with masturbation, or are starting to wonder if maybe it’s not helping you as much as you thought – this is not a call to shame you, but rather to invite you to a better way.

For a long time, I kept asking the wrong question.

Not, “Is this technically allowed?”
Not, “Where’s the line?”
Not even, “Is this a sin?”

The question that finally mattered was:

What is this doing to me and my wife?

What Changed for Me

I didn’t stop because someone convinced me with a clever argument or the right Bible verse.  I wish they had.

I wish I had quit sooner, I wish I had let it push me to fix things earlier.  Maybe this will help someone else do that.

Ultimately, I stopped because my marriage began to heal, and it no longer fit who I wanted to be.

What once felt necessary began to feel empty, and what once felt like relief began to be unappealing.

The more Christina and I learned to face desire together, the more out of place masturbation felt.  

I didn’t lose something, I healed and no longer was using it like a medication I had become addicted to.

And looking back, I can see that masturbation wasn’t just something I did.
It was something I was training myself to rely on.

When I stopped training myself to cope alone, I learned how to engage with my wife instead.

Bringing Sex Back to Worship

If sex is a form of worship, then the goal is not simply to avoid sin.

The goal is realignment with God’s design.

Sometimes that means:

• turning back toward your spouse instead of inward,
• having conversations you’ve been avoiding,
• rebuilding shared intimacy slowly and imperfectly,
• or asking for help when you don’t know how to move forward on your own.

You don’t have to be perfect to get started.  Worship is not about pretending everything is fine.
It is about turning toward God’s design, even when it’s difficult.

A Better Question to Ask

So, instead of asking:

• “Is masturbation allowed?”
• “Where’s the line?”
• “Why didn’t God just say it clearly?”

Ask this:

Is this practice training me to give of myself, or to serve myself?

Because sex was never meant to be about taking.

It was meant to be about offering.

And when sex becomes an offering again, to your spouse, within covenant, according to God’s design, it becomes what it was always meant to be.

Not shameful.
Not secret.
Not self-centered.

But holy.
Unifying.
Worship.