Week 4 Masturbation

What I seem to think is that in the west talking about masturbation has become a norm and people talk about masturbation with their friends, this is seen more so with guys than girls. I have a lot of female friends who all follow the same faith as me and I know that there is not set rule about masturbation but because Sikhism started within Punjab and in Punjab masturbation is seen as a taboo subject which not many people talk about.

Hereis a asian person who has writen an artical in a magazine about it http://www.asiancemagazine.com/dec_2007/masturbation_recreation

I thought I’d ask them what they think about the topic of masturbation and to my surprise they were a little bit shy to start but once the discussion got started they each gave their views. And each of them were different to each other one of them had the view that by masturbating you are allowing your vices to take control and that as Sikhs we should have enough strength through meditation to control the 5 vices. Which is a valid point and it is true that in Sikhism we are told that as Sikhs we must keep the 5 vices at bay (1 Kaam- Lust, 2 Krodh- Anger, 3Lob- Greed, 4 Moh- Attachment (to world objects), 5Ahankar- Self Ego) through meditation.

Then I asked a group of male Sikhs who I also know the same question but this is where I was shocked because when I had asked my female group I didn’t think they would be as open to discuss the topic as they were but I did think the group of guys who all knew each other would be open to discuss the topic. They didn’t say anything and brushed aside the question this maybe because they may think a person only masturbates when they can’t get pleasure through sexual intercourse like what is portrayed about “Nerds”. But what I found out also is that guys will talk more openly one to one rather than in a group which girls won’t because a guy would feel unconvertible talk to another guy about masturbation.

Then I tried getting a mixed group of people from all types of backgrounds and did the same thing and realised that people from a western background will openly talk about masturbation because in their culture they are a lot more open about these topics were as in Asian families the topic of masturbation would never be spoken about. This may have a lot to do with the fact that our parents and their parents never spoke about masturbation so they would never speak to us about it. But in the western sociality the parents talk to the child which is also known as “The Talk” I don’t think that the parent or the child likes having “The Talk” but they believe it will stop the child from doing anything wrong where they might do more bad than good.

So my answer to the question asked would be that it depends on who you friends are and how open they are about the subject, I would also say it depends on what background they from because as I know people from Asian background won’t open up t the topic as much as people from a western background. That is just the way that we have been brought up, to never discuss anything which will bring shame to yourself or your family.