On the Wrong of Masturbation

Taken from Pruss, but substituted in "masturbation."  I think the argument works.

1. Each kind of deeply humanly significant pleasure is a way of affectively relating to an independent deeply humanly significant kind of good in which the pleasure is taken. (Premise)
2. There is no deeply humanly significant good in masturbation when the person takes no pleasure in the activity. (Premise)
3. Climactic sexual pleasure is deeply humanly significant. (Premise)
4. Climactic sexual pleasure is a pleasure taken in sexual activity. (Premise)
5. If a kind P of pleasure is a way of affectively relating to an independent kind G of good, and an instance of P fails in this way to relate to an existent instance of G, then that instance is empty. (Definition)
6. It is wrong to deliberately induce an instance of a deeply humanly significant kind of pleasure when that instance is empty. (Premise)
7. If there would be no deeply humanly significant good in an activity were the activity done pleasurelessly, then the activity fails to realize an instance of an independently deeply humanly significant kind of good. (Premise)
8. Therefore, masturbation fails to realize an instance of an independently deeply humanly significant kind of good. (By 2 and 7)
9. Therefore, taking climactic sexual pleasure in sexual activity is empty in masturbation. (By 1, 5 and 8)
10. Therefore, climactic sexual pleasure in masturbation is empty. (By 4 and 9)
11. It is wrong to deliberately induce climactic sexual pleasure in masturbation. (By 3, 6 and 10)

We can ask whether the person who has foregone masturbating has “missed out” on anything.  And it seems not.  He doesn’t seem worse off for it.  And this is because masturbation is an empty pleasure without any underlying good.

Unnatural sexual acts (coitus interruptus, masturbation, homosexual acts, bestiality, etc.) do not contain any union on a biological level; there is no common striving of a united organism on the biophysiological level for an end.  It is worth noting that all these acts are basically the same. E.g., homosexual acts are essentially equivalent to two persons cooperating in masturbation. Thus, on a natural law level, if any one of these acts is wrong, it follows that all the others are wrong as well, since the distinctions between them are accidental from a moral point of view.