Grace Driscoll Does Not Masturbate

Strawberry Boy reveals it in his epic chapter on masturbation in the booklet, Porn Again Christian.

Mark Driscoll, a man obsessed by sex, and even more so, by gay sex, and even more passionately, obsessed by proper sexual activity, writes:

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

What?  If Mark is such an expert on anything that smells sexual, he should really know better.  If a woman is masturbating, well..., a woman is most definitely involved.  Oddly enough, further up in this laughable chapter, Strawberry Boy even acknowledges that women do masturbate but quickly adds that men do it more, subsequently dismissing the notion, at all.

Boy is Mark missing out.  I won't elaborate on what I mean by that.  But try it any way you want and you'll be glad you did.  Just don't do it with Monty Python swimming (pun intended) through your head.

Every sperm is saaaaaacred, every sperm is greeeeeat.  If a sperm is waaaaasted, god gets quite iraaate!

Now that that song is stuck in your head...

Mark goes on to say that the Bible doesn't specifically condemn masturbation and yet, it really does in a roundabout way.  But before he goes on to explain those creative references, he wants to save his guilty pleasure from being "Bobitted" (youch!  that hurt!) by claiming, in record time (yes, I could actually see the smoke trailing off the quickly written ink of these words, into the yonder reaches of the cyberworld), the following:

What I am not counting as masturbation is the manual stimulation between married people whereby a husband and wife enjoy pleasuring one another's genitals, as taught in the Scriptures, either orally (Song 2:3; 4:12) or with their hands (Song 2:6).

He HAS to keep his one tool for masturbation available - his wife's hand!  But, alas, Song of Solomon says nothing about pleasuring genitalia with feet, knees, elbows, nose, maybe a little usage of a few chompers, or even the ever-popular "Rabbit".  Sadly, Solomon had no rechargeable batteries to use, let alone un-rippable rubber (trust me...that rubber on that fine piece of machinery that opens doors to new sexual realms DOES. NOT. TEAR!).  Curse those lousy scriptures that are silent as to various body parts and toys!

Then, as he promised, Strawberry Boy takes us through a list of questions, with added scripture references to guilt us into not wanting to masturbate.  Let me take his test and see how spiritual I am.

1. Can you masturbate without lusting? - Job 31:1 - "I made a covenant with my eyes, how then could I gaze at a virgin?"

Well...yes!  I can masturbate without lusting.  And then....no.  I can't.  But sometimes I can.  And damn....sometimes I do it when my wife is away and all I can think of is her.  Maybe that's okay and all godly and stuff!?  But then, I think of Job's question and I think, "You dumbass!  With your eyes, brotha!"  Then I think of other questions like, can I have sex without lusting, can I walk past a restaurant without lusting, can I lust without lusting, can I lust about lust without lusting.  I get all twirled up in my head and come to, grasping my....oh...let's move on.

2. Can you masturbate in a way that builds oneness with your spouse, pulling you together more intimately through the act? - Genesis 2:24 - "A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh."

Whoa.  Wait up here, young sir Mark.  That's kind of a creepy reference to use here.  So...what you're saying is, prior to gettin' jiggy wif it with my bride, my mama and papa were supposed to assist me in pleasuring myself?  That scripture reference makes no sense at all.  But, I digress.  I'll answer the question.  Yes.

But I have a small problem with the way the question is formed.  I imagine myself, laying on my large bed, my wife on the far side, both of us pleasuring ourselves.  Then, as you, Sir Driscoll, so eloquently state, she turns to her side, grabs my unit, and pulls me over to her.  Not that I want to be all up in your business, Mark, but....DAMN!  That hurts!

3.  Can you masturbate without experiencing shame? - Genesis 2:24.

I read and reread that scripture reference a billion times and I still can't, for the life of me, figure out how it pertains to the question.  But yes, I can!  I used to experience shame, when it was beaten into my head by religious people that what I was doing was sinful.  But then, so was talking to a girl.  So was tapping a rock beat on the table.  So was interrupting my mother.  So was not tithing.  So many things that, today, as I look back, were stupid little rules to keep you in line, are normal, pleasant, and contribute to everyday happiness.  Why focus so much on anything sexual.  It's a small and yet very large part of life.  But seriously, so insignificant.  It doesn't need so many words to pillory it.

4. Can you masturbate with a clear conscience? - Titus 1:15 - "To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled."

Um...that reference is talking about EVERYTHING in life.  If you have an impure mind, even sex with your wife is impure.  So, who cares.  I don't want to answer this question because Jim Carrey does it so well.  Start watching at 5:30.  Apparently, Driscoll has never had a mind-blowing orgasm.

I could go on and deal with the fifth question.  But it's really just more of the same.  Mark Driscoll has decided that masturbation is bad and then went through the Bible to prove his point, trying very very hard to inject his ideas into the text where it simply doesn't fit - or rather, makes him look like a fool.  It's called prooftexting.

I won't pretend to be writing off his analysis based on his incorrect reading of the Bible, because I don't really care what the Bible says about sex - or sin, for that matter.  No book that tells me not to murder and then its god tells his people to murder whole nations, right down to the children, kidnap and rape women, and then sets up rules for proper slavery is ever going to to get close to my penis.  I might find a verse that tells me to cut it off and have to follow it.  Oh wait!

If your [penis] causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.  It is better to lose one member of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. - Matthew 5:29

OUCH!

Come join me where sexual activity is free and enjoyable.  You don't need a stone age or bronze age or pro-raping women age book telling you how.  Clearly it has no clue.

Million Dollar Idea: Perpetually Clean Fish Tanks

I'm calling it the Perp Tank.

The Perp Tank is simple and takes care of two problems: Cleaning out a fish tank (which everyone despises), and water that is entirely useless in your toilet tank, until, of course, you go potty.

This idea popped into my head when someone called me and asked me to come fix their toilet.  I don't usually fix toilets, electing to call a plumber for even the smallest whistle of water or creak of a mechanical part, but today was different.  I wanted to just do something from start to finish and make someone happy. 

I thought about the massive amounts of water that go through a toilet tank of a large family - like mine -  in an average day.  I also thought about the smaller amounts for smaller families, single people, or couples.  Then I thought about fish tanks that are routinely installed in opulent person's bathroom walls or left in the living room where they get in the way after the excitement of the first week of its presence wanes.  Finally, I thought about the drab nature of most bathrooms.

Then I put it together.

Swap out the toilet tank for a fish tank!  Add a filter to the hole at the bottom so you don't flush the fish, but their waste can easily get through.  Then, every time the toilet is flushed - BAM! - clean fish tank.  Fish can handle flapping about at the bottom while the tank refills and will be no worse for wear.  The family and guests are presented with a living work of art instead of a rectangular white thing that dates back to the days of King George the 3rd.

After completing my invention in my head, I jumped up from the toilet and burst out of the bathroom, rushing into the living room, to tell my kids the news.  As I spoke, they stared with a mixture of awe, disbelief, wonderment, and amusement, directly proportional to the length of time they have known me.  When I was all done, Felicity (5) looked at me with a confused look on her face and asked:

"But Daddy, we can't do that.  We don't have any fish food!"

She's right.  My idea is ruined.  I have no fish food.

If you want this idea, run with it.  Make your millions.  If you want to do it with me so I can make a few nickles, my kids will love you whence they can finally butter their bread.

Danger! Your Teenage Son is a Rapist!

Libby Anne wrote an excellent piece about how evangelicals view teenage boys in light of whether they allow them to babysit young children or not.

She writes:

[Evangelicals appear] to think that the fact that many (most?) teenage boys would give their right hands for a girlfriend and the chance to have consensual premarital sex means that these same boys would just as readily channel their sexual energies into sexually molesting children.

And that  is the crux of her article, which brings me to a curious thought.

I am convinced that mainstream Christianity, evangelicals, and fundamentalist, et al, have the cause and effect backwards.

They think young boys and men are so sexually driven, they would stop at nothing to rape your child.  Thus, you have to beat into their heads the idea that they are sexual beasts and must be saved from themselves.  They are taught that they have only a desire to do bad things and cannot, of themselves, be good.  Once they firmly believe this, and only then, can they have the tools to NOT rape a child.  But even then, it isn't good enough.  They simply cannot be allowed to get into a situation that puts a child at their fingertips while alone.

Again, this is back-ass-wards.

If you tell a child they are bad, they believe this about themselves.  They do!  I know.  I was called a liar my whole childhood.  I believed it with my whole heart - until a few months ago.  I had flogged myself for decades, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if the person I had just spoken to had really believed me or not.  One day, I had an epiphany of sorts and realized that I was a very truthful person.  So truthful, in fact, that I hurt myself all the time, due to it.  I was so honest, Abe freaking Lincoln would burn in hell for his lies and I would be granted eternal bliss in a Purgatory-less heaven.  Angels had nothing on me.

(Except for that one time, where I lied....oh nevermind.  The CIA reads this)

To my point, if you are constantly barraged with the idea that you are a sexual predator, capped only by rules and carefully prying adults, why would anyone be surprised if you end up believing the lies and becoming the evil they tried so hard to save you from?

In short, it is my non-objective, completely subjective, and entirely biased opinion, that the purity culture breeds deviants.  

Maybe it's time we began to educate people about sex instead of scare the living sperm out of them.