Sex and sacrifice: On the structure of autoeroticism

A few weeks back, I wrote the following for Rachel Held Evans’ symposium on whether masturbation is permissible for Christians:

“If our ethic is to be Christian, then it must be qualified by the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  That is to say, the pattern for our lives and actions must be shaped by a love that treats pleasure as the (sometimes delayed) fruit of our sacrificial self-giving for others, rather than a good without qualification.”