Dallas Observer on True Love Waits
The Dallas Observer looks at the teen abstinence organization True Love Waits. The article addresses one question where TLW participants differ: fucking and sucking is clearly not allowed, but what about masturbating?
But his [a 20-year-old TLW member] beliefs compel him to stick to it--he considers masturbation a sin. "Whenever masturbation is involved, lust is involved, and that's impure," he says.
The problem, he says, is that even within supportive prayer groups and among abstinence-friendly friends, it isn't easy to broach the topic. "Like, you just don't want to even say it in the presence of other church people. I think it's just kind of collectively an issue of shame."
Indeed, the True Love Waits curriculum is euphemistic when discussing masturbation. In the text of four TLW workbooks--Until You Say I Do, True Love Waits Takes a Look at Courting, Dating, & Hanging Out, Pure Joy and Living Pure Inside Out--the term is mentioned rarely. References to viewing pornography abound, however, and they hammer that shameful theme: "Although the end result is different from person to person," one entry says, "it has to be noted that almost every serial murderer and sex offender began their journey to the depths of their depraved behavior with pornography."
Steven Bailey, a volunteer youth ministry assistant at First Baptist of Richardson, says he tries to steer kids away from the question of whether masturbation is right or wrong. "I try to teach them why we don't do those things," he says. "I ask them the simple question, 'When you masturbate, are your thoughts pure? Are your thoughts holy? Do you feel like you're glorifying God at those times?'"
