CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING Introduction The act of masturbation is still on a long-running debacle between the calling of the ﬂesh and the orders of the Roman Catholic Church. But regardless of that, it still has been a common practice especially among teenagers The Roman Catholic Church describes the act of masturbation as a congenial means of self-abuse. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have ﬁrmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here, sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved. To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the aﬀective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.” Regardless of non-existing mentions regarding masturbation and its ethical righteousness in the Bible, the Church still believes that it is a disordered, sinful act regardless of any motives. They believe that it lacks the mutuality, love and unity compared to sex of married couples whose aim is procreation. Page 1 of 15