Understanding Ellen White

Statement 12: “Solitary vice”

Ellen White used the Victorian euphemisms “solitary vice” or “secret vice,” but the precise intent of her terminology is not known. She did not use the term masturbation, which has a precise definition. Some believe these euphemisms refer to excessive or addictive masturbation in association with lustful thoughts. Whatever the precise definition, Ellen White repeatedly warned against this practice, describing in detail the potential consequences to mental, physical, and moral health. ⁷³ What she wrote was in general agreement with medical and societal authorities in her day, but is mostly rejected by authorities today. UEGW 190.4

Some of her language indicates a repetitive, habitual “practice.” ⁷⁴ If she meant compulsive masturbation, then some of her descriptions of its physical effects resemble what contemporary specialists say about sexual addiction. According to therapist Robert Weiss, for example, frequent masturbation stimulates various chemical reactions in the body, “resulting in the over production of sex hormones and neurotransmitters.” This situation creates a “big change of body chemistry” ⁷⁵ Psychologist William M. Struthers, author of Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain, states, “Masturbation is playing with neurochemical fire” because it “affects one emotionally and neurologically” Citing several scientific studies, Struthers demonstrates that men who masturbate compulsively “suffer from depression, memory problems, lack of focus, concentration problems, fatigue, back pain, decreased erections, premature ejaculation, and pelvic or testicular pain” ⁷⁶ Perhaps research is only beginning to discover the impact of compulsive masturbation on the physical being. UEGW 190.5

On the relation of masturbation to mental health, some clinical research concluded that the link is primarily psychological, without altogether dismissing the possibility of a physical link between masturbation and insanity. ⁷⁷ Psychological factors include fear, guilt, shame, remorse, and loss of self-respect. In the nineteenth-century worldview of an eternally burning hellfire, all of these were potent prods to insanity. In the far more secular world of today, these negative emotions are still factors in a variety of common psychosomatic ailments. C. C. Pfeiffer wrote, “We hate to say it, but in a zinc-deficient adolescent, sexual excitement and excessive masturbation might precipitate insanity.” ⁷⁸ D. F. Hor- robin agreed: “It is even possible, given the importance of zinc for the brain, that 19th-century moralists were correct when they said that repeated masturbation could make one mad [insane]!” ⁷⁹ UEGW 191.1

Regarding the effect of masturbation on moral and spiritual development, the claim of Jesus Christ that lustful thoughts constitute a violation of the seventh commandment (Matt. 5:28) surely has implications for the practice of masturbation. UEGW 191.2

The point Ellen White is most ridiculed for is her statements about the potential effects of masturbation on physical health. In considering this, even if White’s explanations of the physical effects of masturbation could be shown to be overdrawn or linked to nineteenth-century ideas, the basic instruction remains valid: For Christians who are striving for holiness, masturbation represents a self-centered indulgence that falls short of God’s ideal, and as such is morally and spiritually detrimental. ⁸⁰ UEGW 191.3