Does anyone have any good resources on masturbation?

[ismnotwasm]

18. I'm in SE Seattle

On a hill--I saw almost all of the first part.

Anyway, I still can't think of what I'm missing- it may in the more radical work, or even "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong

I know your friend is an adult, but I found this little blurb, might be a good place to show how normal and natural it is.

First, let’s get the facts of life straight, then I will answer your question. Research going back 70 years shows that virtually all teens masturbate, and most continue throughout their lives. The number of women who masturbate is between 70% or 92%; with guys it is 98%. Anyone who says they have never masturbated is probably lying to you. Someone who says they don’t currently masturbate is probably lying as well.

The sexual health experts at Scarleteen have a ton of great, relevant and accurate information about masturbation, as well as every other sexual health topic.
Masturbation is as normal as eating and breathing for a human being. Unfortunately, religions of all kinds, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Mormonism, among others, all try to tell teens that masturbation is a sin. The irony is that virtually all of those telling you not to masturbate do it or have done it themselves.

In the Christian Scriptures, there is little or nothing about masturbation. Some site Matthew 5: 28-29, but that is not specifically about masturbation. Many religionists site the story of Onan to show that “spilling your seed” is immoral. That is not what the story says. The story condemns Onan for not having sex with his dead brother’s wife. That was his sin. He “spilled his seed” because he did not want to have any children with her. It has nothing to do with masturbation. So even religious scriptures do not support the idea that masturbation is wrong.

http://kidswithoutgod.com/teens/ask/what-do-i-do-when-my-parents-freak-out-about-masturbation/

Oh--I just found this

Father Knows Best: Is masturbation a sin?

A sin is an act of selfishness, it’s an act of destructiveness. A sin is something that fractures your relationship with your neighbor, that makes you smaller and more angry and more afraid, that turns you away from the big love that the Christian tradition calls God. Unless your masturbation is pathological in nature — unless, Anthony, you are masturbating instead of going to work or washing the dishes or paying the bills — it doesn’t do any of those things.

Research and anecdotal experience alike tell us that masturbation is a healthy, normal, and just about universal way that people express their sexuality. And the Gospel witness is that, while Jesus spends a lot of time talking about how you and I treat poor people and sick people and prisoners and immigrants and strangers, he is entirely uninterested in the question of whether or not his disciples masturbate.

As more than one wise person has taught us (and as my friend Lauren reminded me – the next couple of paragraphs are more or less plagiarized from an email that Lauren sent me), if you want to make the world kinder, a pretty good way to begin is to be happy. Happiness includes giving yourself pleasure, it includes treating yourself kindly and lovingly. It includes self-pleasure of the sexual kind.

When we befriend our bodies and, in particular, when we befriend our sexual longings, we become more compassionate towards ourselves and towards others. When we touch ourselves with genuine pleasure rather than that horrible mixture of guilt, self-loathing, and compulsion that poisons so many of our experiences with sex, we are committing a radical act of love that is desperately needed in this broken world. When we touch ourselves with that genuine pleasure, we remember that God celebrates the body in the incarnation. Ron Rolheiser puts it this way: “in becoming flesh, God legitimizes skin, praises skin, enters it, honors it, caresses it, and kisses it.”

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/08/13/father-knows-best-masturbation-sin/

And oh my God there is some disgusting religious drivel about mastubation--no wonder your friend is having a hard time. Catholics condemn it as 'selfish'--didn't know that, but I'm not a practicing Catholic. Now I'm worried about my 16 year old grandson. Shit. Certain evangelical churches condemn it--this is unbelievable bullshit. Arrgh.
Ooh! Mary Roach--if you haven't read any of her books, you're missing a treat, she's a fabulous, funny science writer. The one on sex is "Bonk" because she's hilarious.

In those days, masturbation was termed onanism — after the Bible’s Onan, who spilled his semen on the ground and was slain by God for this sinful transgression — and condemned as “self-abuse.” Applying hot iron to a child’s body was, evidently, not abuse but the cure for “self-abuse.” But beyond this gobsmacking moral irony lies a biological one. Roach circles back to science:

The bitter irony here is that regularly spilling one’s seed serves a valuable biological function. [S]perm which sit around the factory a week or more start to develop abnormalities; missing heads, extra heads, shriveled heads, tapered and bent heads. All of which render them less effective and headbanging their way into an egg. [Sex psychologist Rob] Levin speculates that that’s why men masturbate so much: It’s an evolutionary strategy.

The point, of course, isn’t that evolution explains everything or that our ancestors were ignorant brutes, but that the true power of science lies in illuminating, rather than controlling or punishing, the human condition so that we can live more intelligently and more freely, driven by a desire to understand rather than a blind righteousness.
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/12/mary-roach-bonk/

Ok one more--this looks like an older site design, but is packed full of good quotes.

"We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his
hands for masturbation." -- Lily Tomlin

Not only is it physically healthy but As one Christian said:
"Isn't it incredible that one of God's most beautiful gifts, masturbation, is held in such contempt by those who wear their religion on their arm. No one has ever become pregnant, impregnated someone, become diseased, or been physically harmed because of the act. I'd like to meet the person who has passed puberty without ever doing it."

Highlights From "Men's Health" Magazine
You are not insane. You are not blind. You have not grown hair on your palms. You are a completely competent member of society - despite all the times you've done it. Kinsey and the latest Sex in America report show there's a whole lot of shaking going on. Today's sex researchers have come to grips with the fact that masturbation has important physical and emotional benefits for both men and women.
http://www.libchrist.com/sexed/masturbation.html