Solo Masturbation?

Can a wife’s solo masturbation be part of a healthy married sex life for a Christian couple?

 I receive a range of questions from readers about this subject. Here is a sampling:

My husband and I like to use solo masturbation to keep the spark alive when he travels for work. If we both agree and are thinking only of each other, is this okay?

My husband and I haven’t had sex in months, and he complains about it all the time. We both thought I had a low sex drive. This morning he found my vibrator and I admitted to that I have been masturbating for years. (I’m not sure why this made me think I had a low drive.) Our relationship tension makes it so hard for me to want to have sex with my husband, and when we do have sex, it’s almost never good for me. It’s just easier to take care of it myself—but now he says he feels hurt. Am I in the wrong here?

Just a clarification: masturbation refers to sexual activity that you do alone, whether or not you experience orgasm. Touching yourself during sex with your husband or in his presence is more shared sexual activity than it is solo masturbation.

What I’d like to do in this post is talk about whether solo masturbation is a sin, motives for masturbation, and signs that your solo masturbation might be a problem in your marriage.

The Sin Factor

With any sexual activity, you and your husband need to determine whether God prohibits it. One thing is quite clear: your sex life should involve no one other than you and your husband. There’s a whole lot else that isn’t made explicitly clear, and Christians don’t all agree on whether masturbation falls into this gray area.

Some Christians say that solo masturbation is always a sin. Others say that it is not, or that it is a sin sometimes but not at other times.

Several Bible passages are used in discussions about masturbation. While that isn’t the focus of what I want to say in this post, I do want to give you a brief overview to help you and your husband think about how to address the subject.

Genesis 38:9-10 presents us with Onan, who spilled his semen. Some people see his sin as ejaculating outside of the woman’s body.

But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

Other Christians see the sin here not as where Onan ejaculated, but as disobedience of the law that a man was to provide an heir for his dead brother.

In Matthew 5:27-30, Jesus talks about lustful thoughts, which some Christians say is a prohibition of masturbation as they make the assumption that masturbation is always accompanied by lustful thoughts.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

While plenty of Christians will agree that lustful thoughts are a sin, some will say that thoughts and memories of your own spouse are not lustful, so masturbation with these thoughts is not sinful.

Galatians 5:22-23 addresses the fruit of the spirit, with an emphasis on masturbation as a reflection of the lack of self-control.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Christians who say masturbation is not a sin may agree that a lack of self-control is a sin but not that masturbation is necessarily a lack of self-control. In might be so for some people or in some circumstances, but it is the lack of self-control that is the problem, not the act of masturbation itself.

You and your husband should discuss and pray about these passages so you are both in agreement about whether solo masturbation is something to consider in your marriage.

Is Masturbation a Good Idea in Your Marriage?

My view is that when it comes to masturbation, it is the heart that determines whether it is a sin, not the activity itself. Your motive in masturbation matters.

God gave us the gift of sex as a way of connecting and uniting us, to help us be one flesh.

Our sexual attention and energy should promote this oneness. One question can help you determine whether a particular sexual activity is a good idea in your marriage:

Does it build intimacy in our marriage, or does it interfere with intimacy?

If your motive in masturbation is to build intimacy and create a better sex life for you and your husband together, then it might be acceptable.

That may sound counterintuitive. How can something you do by yourself contribute to the intimacy of the sex life you share with your husband?

Let’s look at some reasons why your solo masturbation might be good for the intimacy in your marriage.

• You are struggling to figure out what feels good sexually. When you’re having sex, you are so focused on doing things to and for your husband that it’s hard to pay attention to what your body is feeling. Self-exploration can help you learn—and then it is easier for you to share with your husband what kinds of touch you’d like him to try.
• After years of suppressing your sexuality, you are trying to learn to see your sexual response as a gift from God. Touching yourself in different ways provides you with an opportunity to pay attention to the intricacies of your female parts and to praise God for the sexuality he created in you. A positive view of your own body and your sexuality can lead to easier and more enjoyable sex with your husband.
• Masturbation can help you stay sexually aware and “primed” for sexual activity. Many women find that frequent sexual activity and orgasm help them respond more easily during sexual encounters. Some couples find that a wife’s frequent masturbation makes her more interested and engaged in sex with her husband. In contrast, a husband’s masturbation may make him less interested in having sex soon, so you and your husband might decide that it’s okay for you but not for him.
• It can be part of sexual play between you and your husband. If he wants to have sex that night, he might want to help you think about sex throughout the day. He could text and ask you to masturbate and then text him back to let him know when you have done so. Or he might ask you to masturbate a particular number of times during the day to help you feel extra ready for him later. By the time he gets home, you may be feeling wonderfully steamy and be ready for a hot lovemaking session with your man.
• You and your husband spend a lot of time apart due to business travel. You masturbate while talking on the phone with each other or having a video chat. Although technically you may be alone, this isn’t exactly a solo activity because you are sharing it with your husband. (If you masturbate as part of video chat, be sure to read Sexy Pictures and Video in a Christian Marriage? for more insight into whether this is a good idea for you.)

The motive behind everything on this list is to strengthen the sexual intimacy between a husband and wife. You are trying to enjoy sex more, improve your sexual response, or spice up the sexual play in your marriage.

Masturbation Red Flags

While there are some healthy intimacy-building motives for solo masturbation, there also are some signs that there is or could be a problem. Perhaps your motive isn’t a good one, it will interfere with the intimacy in your marriage, or it brings you or your husband too much temptation.

• You are masturbating as a way of avoiding having sex with your husband. You want sexual release, but rather than addressing the reasons you don’t want to have sex with him, you are taking care of yourself and leaving him out of the equation. This clearly gets in the way of intimacy in your marriage. It isn’t easy to work on things or to address sexual struggles, but the process of doing so contributes to the overall intimacy in your marriage. Avoidance does not build intimacy. If your husband is already feeling hurt due to the lack of sexual intimacy, just imagine how he would feel upon learning that you are choosing sex but just not choosing him.
• Your thoughts are not of your husband. Perhaps you are thinking about a favorite actor, an ex-boyfriend, a co-worker, or a character in a book you’ve read. Or maybe you are reading erotica or watching pornography. In doing so, you are involving someone other than your husband in your sexual experience, at least mentally. This is lust and is sin.
• You have little self-control in your masturbation. Perhaps your masturbation motives were good at first, but you discovered that you enjoy it so much that you keep pursuing it in a way that interferes with your marital intimacy or with your household responsibilities.
• You have struggled with porn in the past. While you are no longer viewing porn, solo masturbation brings to mind some of the images you saw or it tempts you to seek out those images “just one time.” Aside from whether solo masturbation is good for your marriage, it clearly isn’t a good idea for you.
• If your husband has struggled with porn and masturbation, the knowledge that you are masturbating may lead to extra temptation for him as he pictures you doing that.
• You are using masturbation to keep part of yourself away from your husband. For instance, maybe you really want to hear yourself say some earthy words as you are having an orgasm, but you don’t want to say them in front of your husband—so you masturbate when you are home alone and he can’t hear you say those words. In doing so, you are inhibiting the opportunity for intimacy rather than building intimacy.
• Your masturbation is secret. While solo masturbation is a private matter, it should not be a secret between you and your husband. You also should not be secretive about your means of masturbation. You shouldn’t be using a vibrator unless you and your husband have agreed that it’s okay for your marriage. (See 3 Ways a Vibrator Can Help Marital Intimacy.)

What Do You Think?

Can a wife’s solo masturbation be part of a healthy married sex life for a Christian couple?

In my view the answer is yes, it can be—but it also can be a problem.

If you have been masturbating or are thinking about it, take some time to think and pray about it.

• Check your heart for your motives. Is your goal to build intimacy?
• Can you masturbate with thoughts only of your husband?
• Do you have past sin that might become temptation if you masturbate?
• Are you able to have an open conversation with your husband about solo masturbation for you?
• Do you and your husband agree on this issue?

What do you think?

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If you’d like to have conversations about this and other intimate subjects with other Christian wives, join me in the Honeycomb & Spice community. In addition to community members sharing what’s on their mind and asking questions to help their marriages, we have a theme each month to help us dig in together. This month we’re talking about body image, and next month we’ll chat a lot about oral sex.

I’d love to have you join us!

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