I think I should start off this post with a disclaimer, I don’t masturbate. I never really got into the past time. I’m serious, while everyone in yeshiva was hoarding the latest in the JC Penny underwear ads from the Sunday paper I was off riding my bike or rollerblading. This post is for hypothetical times when I should have masturbated, those natural times when it would have seemed like a good idea, but instead I went for a bike ride or picked up a mussar sefer and was scared of boiling in my own semen to change my taiva-dick ways.
The second disclaimer is that even though every religion has forbidden masturbation for all eternity and of course the Jews had to follow suit and prove it from one obscure passage in the Torah about not wanting to knock some chick up. The whole proof doesn’t have much to do with actual masturbation, but I guess the Rabbis decided that if they legalized masturbation the shidduch crisis would have started thousands of years before the invention of free porn – besides there are a lot stranger halachos based on a lot more obscure Torah pasukim.
So now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s get down to business.
A friend of mine alerted me to the post with the title as this one on Yeshiva Forum, so I decided to answer the question. No, I don’t remove my yarmulke when I pleasure myself, on top of this I usually say asher yatzar when I’m done – thanking Hashem for all of my working parts and allowing me the ability to pleasure myself even though I am just another unmarried statistic of the shidduch crisis. I will say this, I definitely cover up or remove Rebbe (not just the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but all Rebbes) pictures when I’m getting down to business. I don’t know, Rabbis always seem to be staring at you from their portraits and I was never into letting people watch me do my thing.
Some lady friends of mine have confirmed that they also tend to cover up any religious articles in the room when they are getting down to pleasure themselves. For me, removing pictures of sefarim is more out of respect than hiding from what I’m doing, I know the apikorus police are going to bitch slap me for saying this – but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a healthy amount of masturbation by men or women. The built factor ruins a lot of people and plus it’s good for you. It clears the prostate, relieves stress and now with the internet Jews don’t have to remove their yarmulkes when they buy porn.
So do you wear your yarmulke when you masturbate?
Find out more about the halachos of masturbating on 4torah.com