So much did the article interest me that I emailed it to my fellow choristers at All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi. I also posted it on my previous version of this blog, back in the days when I was a master plagiarist.
Despite being ministered to by the article, I never managed to break my masturbation habit for more than ten years - a proof that plagiarism just isn't right.
I began masturbating in 2006 when I was eighteen. Upon feeling how pleasurable masturbation is, I became a slave to it. But as the weeks rolled by, a voice in my heart told me that my masturbation habit was sinful. So I resolved to stop doing it.
At that time I was striving to be morally good by not masturbating, I disagreed with a fellow youth group member in the Catholic church I used to attend when he suggested to us on one Sunday that there is nothing wrong with entertaining lustful thoughts in our minds. What is wrong, he said, is acting those lustful thoughts out.
Standing up, I opposed his suggestion and said that the thoughts we conceal in our minds gradually transform themselves into physical reality. He soon changed his stand after another member of the youth group sided with me.
Looking back, I am impressed by how wise I was because it's true that the thoughts we conceal in our minds eventually transform themselves into physical reality. As Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped, the ancestor of every action is a thought. James Allen, in his book As a Man Thinketh, phrased it so beautifully:
A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of grovelling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power.That's precisely why masturbation is sinful, for it involves entertaining lustful thoughts in our minds. And in this day and age, the flow of lustful thoughts during masturbation is enhanced by viewing adult clips on the internet.
Although masturbation is sinful, some may argue: Is it not better to masturbate than to engage in promiscuous behaviour? The Bible answers that question when it condemns all forms of sexual immorality and implores us to be holy in everything we do. Jesus Himself stated that looking at a woman lustfully is a sin. Had He been incarnate in the 21st century, He would have spoken against viewing adult clips.
The problem with adult clips is that they tend to glamorize sex by showing how satisfying it is when done in a variety of styles and with different partners. When youngsters view the clips, the impression they get is that marriage is all about sexual ecstasy.
But hey! There is more to marriage than meets the eye. Marriage is not just about sexual fulfillment. (If that were the case, we wouldn't be having many celebrity couples breaking up.) Marriage is also about showing affection for a spouse, nurturing children and providing for the family.
Happy marriages are founded not just on physical attraction but also on trust, mutual affection and shared dreams. If youngsters could understand that, perhaps they would cease viewing adult clips and ultimately stop masturbating.
Besides being a sin, masturbation also adversely affects our health. According to one scholarly YouTube video, frequent masturbation can cause the following psychological and physiological imbalances and side effects: hair loss, problems with concentration and memory, deteriorating eyesight, mood swings, sleeping disorder, anxiety, stress and depression.
Having unsuccessfully tried to kick my masturbation habit for close to 17 years, I know how difficult it is to stop masturbating. Imagine I would go for several days, sometimes even weeks, without masturbating, then give in to it in my moments of weakness, after which I would lapse back to my old ways of viewing adult clips and thinking all sorts of immoral thoughts.
It's not until mid last year that I finally conquered my masturbation habit. For more than a year now, I haven't viewed any adult content on the internet or entertained a lustful thought in my mind. That's something, isn't it?
If I have conquered masturbation, so can everybody else. I urge you, my beloved reader, to encourage people to stop masturbating. Spread the word about how masturbation can lead not only to health problems but also to such revolting sins as rape and child molestation. Masturbation is, in a nutshell, sinful and morally wrong, period!
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on the masturbation menace, you might also enjoy another one on "Pursuing Righteousness" which I wrote last year. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
