doingtshuva wrote:

lol. there is a point of this thread and it was accomplished for the most part.

For the most part most respondents have not defined selfish correctly.

Selfish is when one seeks to please himself while disregarding others. Most of you have left out the crucial condition of that its must harm others.

If the question were is masturbation "self seeking" or the opposite of selflessness? Then I would vote a resounding yes. Since that doesn't require "harming others".

Why is "harming others" so crucial? Because that's what one of the recovery methods are about.

So lets rephrase the question Moish If I may. Does masturbating harm others? If so why? And specifically how about a single man who masturbates? Whom is he harming?

Why are you rephrasing the question? I already told you on your own thread to stop distorting my words. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

waydown wrote:


excuse me!
you defined it one way.
others have not.
excessive focusin' on oneself is bein' self-centered, and somethin' one should work on,

waydown wrote:


and like many posters above and in other threads have written, it has plenty of effects on others in a harmful way.

waydown wrote:

You took a quote from the dictionary and then corrupted it.
According to your quoted definition, selfishness is acting in your own interests with no regard for others. That is not the same thing as harming others as you blithely protest.

You have made this mistake over and over again in the interests of protecting your viewpoint that you are not a selfish person.
It is entirely normal to be a nice helpful guy who selflessly cleans the toilets and then later commits a heinously selfish act.

To answer your other question, a single man who masturbates is reinforcing a powerfully negative habit that harms:
1. Himself
2. His future wife and children

Assuming he is Jewish, his actions have a ripple effect that also harms

3. the rest of the world
4. Klal Yisroel specifically

Last point - please clarify why it is so crucial to recovery to determine if his actions fit the dictionary's definition of selfish or not (which they do).

Re "please clarify why it is so crucial to recovery to determine if his actions fit the dictionary's definition of selfish or not (which they do)."

Again recovery is all about letting go of resentment. Making a list of who we harmed and how we should correct it. Its about thinking and caring for others.

Cords said,

excuse me!
you defined it one way.
others have not.
excessive focusin' on oneself is bein' self-centered, and somethin' one should work on,

Honestly you can define "selfish" however you wish. If you want to define it as only harming oneself that's fine. And I vote yes if that's the case. And I totally vote yes to corde statement that its "excessive focusin' on oneself is bein' self-centered, and somethin' one should work on". Sure work on not focusin on onself. A thousand percent.
Again how does this relate to steps 4 & 5? What does lust have to do with "others"?

Eislassos,

To answer your other question, a single man who masturbates is reinforcing a powerfully negative habit that harms:
1. Himself
2. His future wife and children

So if a guy remains single for life he is not hurting anyone? I don't mean to nitpick rather my point is that masturbation in it of itself doesn't necessarly harm others albeit it can lead to harming others. Yes If one is hooked smoker it can harm his wife &kids if he has to suffer thru cancer and/ or lo alinu misa. It just sounds a bit far stretched to say that a 17 yr old who thinks he is just enjoying life now is harming others because at age 23 he will be married and won't know how to stop.

Also if you are jewish all averious including loshson hara are selfish. Perhaps you are suggesting that masturbation causes more harm than other averious. (I don't know it creates bad malchilm and katriguim on klall yisroell) So its more selfish. Again its hard to relate to spiritual harm in the context of harming others. I will concede that from a jewish point of view you are harming others.

waydown wrote:

So outside of masturbation where you have a daas yochid that it's not selfish you have nothing you can put on your step 4 list?

waydown wrote:

Hello, did you miss the item # 1 above?



Are you Jewish?

I haven't read every post here so apologies if this has been said.

In practical terms, it was not immediately obvious to me how much my acting out really did affect the people around me, but this has become clearer in recovery. I could elaborate for very long time on this and still not be done so I'll leave it there.

From a different perspective, it is said that masturbation delays the final geulah and all the things that the final geulah would bring us all, so yeah, pretty selfish.

Now, I have a question. Has this knowledge ever kept anyone here sober? I would concede that it may have contributed towards people trying to quit in the first place, but my question is, has it ever helped the quitting process?

waydown wrote:


Please explain this question.

Watson wrote:


Are you referring in general in terms of knowledge or just if this thread has tachlis? I venture two answers:

1) "Self - knowledge availed us nothing" - Big Book.
2) There is a tachlis of this thread, even if self- knowledge availed us nothing.

Watson wrote:

Speaking for myself I would say yes.
I have numerous reasons why I want to be sober and I am given numerous opportunities to slip. Sometimes some motivations kick in, sometimes others, so this knowledge is on occasion helpful.

Unless I'm in complete denial (slightly possible but not likely), self-knowledge availed me sometimes. All my buddies here - please call me out if you disagree. The rest of you can also

Bigmoish wrote:


Just as when a person his selfish, everything he does will inevitably contain some element of that selfishness, so when one is a lamdan, everything he says will inevitable be a least somewhat lomdish.

Bigmoish wrote:

This question is more about how you want to define the word selfish than it is about the properties of masturbation.

On the other hand, actually, it is absolutely selfish even if you define the word selfish to mean harming others as Waydown defines it. Because it is referred to in scripture as spilling innocent blood and as oppression (עושק).