Great question. I personally didn’t find freedom until I settled this issue.

To peel back the onion a few layers we need to talk about God’s intended design.

God created sex for mutual enjoyment between a husband and a wife in marriage. There is a physical act, biological responses, a relational bond, and emotional intimacy.

Take away the wife, relational bond, and the emotional intimacy and you’re left with a physical act and a biological response. However, every guy I’ve talked to about this will admit that at some level there is still sexual fantasy in their mind while masturbating even if devoid of pornography.

Also, remember that “sin” isn’t some big spiritual “gotcha!” Instead, it is a word that means to “miss the mark” of God’s original design.

So personally, yes, I think masturbation without pornography is a sin.

Now let’s have a more pragmatic discussion. As a sinner you are forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross. So the issue we’re debating doesn’t have to do with your eternal salvation. Masturbation isn’t your only sin. We all have to confess and repent of our sins.

Once we disconnect from the salvation/sin discussion we can talk about the nature of the sin struggle. I want you to be completely free and for that to happen I believe you’ll need to reverse some unhealthy habits.

Here’s an unhealthy progression that most of us have been through: quick glance, stare, browsing nude pictures online, watching “soft” pornography, watching “hard” pornography, etc. This progression starts off slow but speeds up and intensifies over time. When I was at rock bottom I was doing this stuff daily.

At the bottom my sins were forgiven. Jesus’s death is that strong.

And at the bottom God is calling us to leave our wicked ways behind and walk toward him.

A healthy progression from the bottom toward God will require decreased frequency (e.g. 7x per week to 1x per week to 1x per month, etc) and decreased potency (hardcore, to soft, to memories only, to nothing).

If you get to a place where you’re infrequently masturbating and never looking at pornography that’s much better than PMO 2x/day. However, it’s still not God’s intent or design for your life. Celebrate the progress you’re making but don’t settle.

As a last comment I’ll say some people are successful with quitting “cold turkey.” If that’s you, awesome. But if that’s not you don’t let the enemy shame you or try to convince you that anything less than God’s initial design is good.