Masturbation was always such a taboo topic in Mormon families, and quite honestly, I don't think I have ever heard the work mentioned in my house, and except for a few of the "serious" lessons in Priesthood where it was mentioned but not discussed, I never heard it at Church. I honestly don't think it is bad, and I think any damage caused by it is more or less related to the guilt that many religions associate with a normal action.
Anyway, here are a couple of honest thoughts about it:
I am sure nobody will believe this, but I am dead serious: I masturbated before I even knew what it was, and that is was "bad." I was always a smart guy, and didn't really have many guy friends that would talk about that kind of stuff, but I guess I just figured it out on my own. I grew up very naive. I am not kidding that I was masturbating for about 2 years before I had heard the word, and before I knew it was "bad." I was probably not even 12 the first time I did it. Needless to say, I felt awful about it, but never went very long without masturbating from the time I was about 12 to 24. I always joked to myself, if they didn't want me to do it, they should have told me that before I was already hooked. I guess that is an outcome of Mormon culture.
So yeah, all you mathematicians can figure out that I did not make it very long on my mission without pleasuring myself. In fact, I lasted about 8 days into the MTC, but if you can believe it, I did last about 5 months at one point on my mission, but then I honestly just stop caring about it. The only bishop that ever asked me about it was my freshman bishop at BYU and he asked me during the mission interview. I told him I had it under control, which I guess may have been a lie, but I never did it unless I wanted to. =)
Anyway, I continued beating myself up over it (no pun intended) through my years at BYU, and was "tempted" way more during my lame pursuits of dating girls. I eventually decided that I was not worthy to go to the temple and stopped attending. Before that I had gone weekly since returning from my mission. I later began attending at least monthly again.
Fast forward to today....
Since meeting Max, I don't even think about, let alone do it. The whole thing seems trivial now (you know, Satan has lulled me away and stuff), and I just have to laugh that I ever was so distressed over it. I think for many years I did it because it felt good, but then for many more years I did it because I felt a huge void in my life. I think that masturbation and pornography can both stem from certain unmet human needs (Mormonism calls those needs the "natural man" and that you must overcome them). I know that many believe that those "needs" will go away once a man marries a woman, but hearing about the countless stories of heartache caused by men who still look at porn and/or masturbate during marriage seems to indicate that that is not the case for many. Who knows, this is just me thinking out loud really.
But I guess if masturbation is so bad, it's just a good thing that I don't do it anymore.
