Here’s what confuses me about purity movement. They agree on the following:
- God designed humans to be sexual beings and gave us sex drives
- As part of that, he also designed us to have a biological yearning for sex from adolescence on
- But He also forbids sex outside of marriage
- And He forbids masturbation*
* This last point is theologically debated. The Bible doesn’t say too much about masturbation and Jesus himself never addresses it. He does mention “sexual immorality” but there’s an ongoing and sure to be virtually endless debate about what that term actually means.
But I can’t for the life of me reconcile why God would design us as sexual beings but then apparently leave unmarried people with no avenue whatsoever for sexual release. My personal belief is that masturbation is NOT sexually amoral, provided it is NOT being used as a substitute for a normal sex like while married.
Also factor in that in Biblical times, people got married a lot younger. There is of course much less of an issue waiting until marriage for sex if you are getting married at 14/15/16.