Is masturbation immoral?

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My opinion: Sort of immoral. I don't like when I do it, so I try within reason to limit the practice; but I have no real problems if friends tell me that they do masturbate.

Now, if somebody lies to me and says they don't when in fact they do, the lying bothers me enough to end the acquaintance/friendship.

Interesting fact: Hatred of masturbation was the only thing that Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Roman Catholic Church could agree on.

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I won't participate in the euphemism game: it's too gross.

I do know that rural ("kuntree") Southern blacks masturbate the least, while suburban mid-Atlantic whites masturbate the most. For a few country southern blacks, masturbation isn't even a thought: as soon as they reach sexual awareness, they have sex, thus leading to the outrageous (pre-)teenage birth/abortion rates among the poor rural South.

But teaching masturbation techniques to nine year olds to halt the teenage pregnancy rate seems more than a little perverse to me.

 

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The funny thing about this topic is that, just 50 years ago, everyone would have said "yes."

I may have said it before, but it bears repeating: Hatred of masturbation was the only thing Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Catholic Church agreed on in the Enlightenment.