It's not a gross subject with me or my friends and most of my family as long as there aren't details talked about around certain people - because they're squicked easily. Hypothetical type conversations work well with them though.

As for the main topic, I don't see how masturbation, or sex in general, is a "gross" thing or a sin/crime.
That would be like telling me it's wrong to eat cake. In certain situations - yeah, it would be - but generally it's just a natural thing that many many many people do and it can be necessary for proper bodily functions - mental and physical.

Originally Posted by Codette

Not in my family or amongst my friends. We'll talk about anything *laughs*

Haha same here, but there are some people that are funny about that. xD The other night when I came back from the pub my mum told me about her getting a vajazzle, so that shows just how non-grossed out I can be. xD

I don't think it is. It's your own business, there's nothing negative that comes out of it, and it's your body. Coming from a person who hates sex, masturbation is basically just easier to deal with than all the worries about getting pregnant or dealing with discomfort or getting all those STD's or whatever.

Masturbation is natural, and nothing anybody should be ashamed of admitting that they do it, I'm pretty sure everybody in the entire universe masturbates, Masturbation is a way of relieving stress, so no masturbation is not a crime and should not be thought of it as one.

I'm totally for masturbation!!!! It's there for you when your partner isn't :D

Well, in my opinion, sexual desire and the drive to have sex is a very strong force. Why ask that people wait till marriage to have intercourse without giving them some way to combat that physical desire?

At the time the Bible was written, people got married about the same time those sorts of desires started popping up. lol. So it was much much easier to wait.

As far as I know - wasn't the original reason for masturbation [and homosexuality] being illegal - not because people were generally against it at the time, but because there was low birthing rates with a declining population? Thus anything seen as prevention male x female copulation was made illegal? Didn't the stigma come after?

At least, that was one of the theories I read in "The history of heterosexuality."

Luckily it is no longer a crime if you don't do it in public. x3

I don't even think it's a crime if you do it in public, just frowned upon...I'm probably wrong though.

It's illegal to do it in public. It's even considered a sex crime. Of course so is streaking, or even public urination, depending on the officer and judge you get.

Originally Posted by Glass

It's illegal to do it in public. It's even considered a sex crime. Of course so is streaking, or even public urination, depending on the officer and judge you get.

Just as well I'm not that much of a rebel. ;D I knew sex outside was a crime (well, if you get caught, hurrhurr) so I don't know why I thought "masturbation on the train is totally acceptable" :roll:

lol. It's not something I think about really, it was just mentioned on some show or something, and I noted it. lol.

Originally Posted by Cassette

Just as well I'm not that much of a rebel. ;D I knew sex outside was a crime (well, if you get caught, hurrhurr) so I don't know why I thought "masturbation on the train is totally acceptable" :roll:

Sounds like someones was watching too much hentai xP I joke.

As far as I know masturbation is not illegal in any country I know of therefore it is not a crime as such. As long as it's done in private I also don't see the big deal about it, in terms of morally right or wrong. I hear in some religions it's against their beliefs though.

As per the whole crime vs. sin debate; I do believe that the original poster meant sin, but crime could technically be correct had the original poster expanded the statement, as masturbation is considered a "crime against God" or a "crime against nature" as far as some religious sects go. Also, masturbation has been illegal in the U.S. before, to be exact, it was illegal during the Colonial time period in some places. Thank God for the separation of church and state, people. ;)

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Also, for the hell of it, I'll add a fun fact: masturbation is still illegal in Indonesia today. What happens if they find out you masturbate? They decapitate you. ^.^

Technically peaking, a State or city in the U.S. Could still make it illegal, as the separation of religion and state only applies to the federal government, and only applies if some religious group is being oppressed by a policy. XD

Regardless, the reason for all of the religious laws about that (I'm assuming we're talking Leviticus because it's what the three major monotheistic religions use.) had only to do with disease, in a time when there was no hand sanitizer, and not even a presentable sink to wash in. Spreading germs was easy, especially with biological material involved.

Usually I'd be inclined to agree with the disease explanation, but, really, I doubt the laws against masturbation in Leviticus had anything whatsoever to do with disease. People just thought sex and masturbation would send them to Hell--so I don't think there is any other explanation for the stuff on masturbation in the Bible.

Now, the stuff about, "thou shall not eat pork for it is as eating vermin" is explainable as disease because no one understood that pork has to be thoroughly cooked to prevent food poisoning. It's no wonder they thought that was a sin and put that in the Bible as a "thou shall not" law.

So you don;t think that having. . . erm. . . genetic material, all over the place might be unsanitary? Really?

Nasty, yeah, unsanitary? Not quite as bad as feces, but my point in the above post is that the reason for masturbation being a crime against God was definitely not because of the unsanitary aspect. I believe it's safer to say that the people who wrote the bible were more concerned about going to Hell than being unsanitary when it came to masturbation.

They didn't even know germs existed. Nor had they made the connection between what you eat and getting sick. These were nomadic peoples, who had no fricking clue about anything scientific, and yet suddenly they developed a series of laws which are only useful in preventing disease. Most of which serve no other purpose. I was stating what I believe to be God's reason for the laws. Especially when in this case it states specifically that if one does it, they are "unclean until the next evening."

If you go by the bible, masturbation is a sin...since people usually are thinking about sex when they do it and in God's eyes-thinking is the same is doing. And sex before marriage is wrong. Blah blah blah. Just saying.

My thought on it? I don't care. I don't care about sex with another person so masturbation is the way....just do it in private please.

Also-masturbation could be seen as murder. Since you're not giving the sperm a chance to make a baby (does not apply to women). If you want to go that far into it that is, which I don't count it as murder. Abortion I do, but that's due to laws saying if someone kills a pregnant woman that it's two murders and not just one.