Question: I’m 16 and sometimes when I go to Mass and look at the large crucifix I get an erection. Today at Mass, my mind was wandering during the homily and I looked at the crucified Jesus sculpture on the wall above the altar. Thinking about Jesus on the cross really made me horny. At home I sometimes think about Jesus on the cross and I lay spread eagle on my bed as if I were being crucified. As I lay there stretched out thinking about Jesus on the cross I get an erection and, I confess, sometimes I masturbate. I know the Catholic Church regards masturbation as a sin. Is it doubly sinful to do this when thinking about Jesus? I wonder if Jesus got an erection when he was being crucified… or ever. What do you think you?

Frank answers: Dear sixteen-year old Catholic boy,

I think some readers might think this is a blasphemous article, although Jesus is not the only person crucified. But I also think it is commendable that you go to Mass and focus on the crucified Christ who was hung on that tree as a sacrifice of atonement to reconcile us to God. In your own way you want to identify with Jesus in his suffering. Christians have done this down through the ages by penitential acts and by participating in passion plays. They’re doing this to identify with Christ in his suffering as an act of devotion. You’re also meditating on the suffering of Christ in an embodied way, but as a horny teenager.

I think it’s not unusual that a sixteen-year old gets erections and has erotic thoughts. Maybe it happens a dozen or more times a day for you, even in math class. Looking at the figure of a nude adult male body fastened to and exposed on a cross for all the world to see may also produce erotic thoughts. And as a devout Catholic you are encouraged to gaze at that figure. That’s why the crucifix is centrally located above the altar. As you act out that scene in your bedroom you become sexually aroused and seek relief. I’m assuming that you might not be the only one, and that’s why I’m answering your question.

Since you are a Catholic boy I should point out that masturbation is still considered a venial sin in Catholic teaching. It is in the category of “objectively disordered sex.” That means that self-pleasure is not what ejaculation is intended for, even in marriage. In Catholic teaching sex is only to be used for procreation. But the Church recognizes the force of biology, habit, and our subjective thoughts in its pastoral counsel. You should really have a discussion with your priest about this. In the Catholic catalogue of sexual sins, masturbation is at the bottom. Scripture says nothing about it and theologians through the centuries gave little thought to it. There’s been more concern about sexual practices between two people than solitary sex except in celibate religious communities. Personally, I do not think masturbation is a sin.

Let’s also admit that bondage and torture can be erotic. Bondage and torture is what was going on in the crucifixion of Jesus. Some people act out bondage and torture as a form of sexual gratification, making it a fetish (a desire that they focus on). It’s not unheard of for little Catholic boys to act out the crucifixion. In the Catholic world some older boys and men actually get to act out the crucifixion in passion plays or the way of the cross (Via crucis) during Holy Week and on Good Friday. In Chicago’s Hispanic Pilsen community, a man gets to play the role of Jesus in its annual Via Crucis, including being hung up semi-naked on the cross. It is considered a great honor to be selected to portray Jesus Christ in the living way of the cross.

It’s not sinful to wonder just how human Jesus was. If he was human enough to go through suffering and to die, we are not out of line to ask exactly what he suffered. Romans crucified their victims completely naked, and part of the humiliation of this public torture and execution was that the victim couldn’t control his bodily functions. That included urinating, defecating, getting an erection, and maybe even ejaculating. Artists usually haven’t portrayed Christ totally naked, especially in art that will be displayed in churches, although Michelangelo carved a naked Christ on a crucifix when he was nineteen and sculpted a naked Christ rising from the grave. But he didn’t give Christ an erection. There was a traditional view that just as Christ directed his own crucifixion so he also contained his biological functions. It was the same in ancient Greek sculptures of athletes. They were in control of their bodies. That’s why they were all sculpted with little penises.

On the other hand, Renaissance artists (especially in the Low Countries and Germany) portrayed Jesus with his loin cloth slipping down, exposing a hip. What kept it from falling off completely? An erection helping to hold up the material? These artists were well acquainted with human anatomy and physiology. They were aware of the “death erection” (also called “angel lust”) that occurred in the victims of hanging and torture. Certainly Jesus’ body functioned in normal biological ways and in death he would have no control over a spontaneous erection. See the painting of the Crucified Christ by Anton Van Dyke above this article. An erection is subtly suggested under the bunched up loin cloth material as Jesus dies.

We have great difficulty acknowledging Christ’s true manhood. Even the Italian gay artist Vittorio Carvelli didn’t give Jesus an erection in his painting of the crucifixion scene, though the two criminals crucified with Jesus were given erections. Getting an erection was a natural response to having their butts resting on an uncomfortable pole to keep their bodies from slipping down the cross. It was uncomfortable and probably required a lot of wiggling around. The eroticism of the situation cannot be denied. In this crucifixion scene the Italian artist Vittorio Carvelli shows men naked on their cross the two thieves have erections. In this scene Jesus is already dead since he is being stabbed in his side by a spear.

This film scene is clearly intended to be Jesus because of the sign the Roman soldier is nailing to the cross says in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew “King of the Jews.” It’s made to look as historically realistic as possible, including nails through the wrists and Jesus sitting on a an upright pole that granted the victim a partial seat, called the sedile, which was nailed to the upright post that would probably induce an erection. Carvelli had many Roman crucifixion scenes which I decline to show here because they are pornographic.(As I’m sure you know, erections sometimes result in ejaculations!) But, in a sense, isn’t crucifixion by its very character pornographic? Maybe that’s why in church art Jesus’ genitals are always covered out of deference to the modesty of beholders.

I think as you grow older you will also be able to control your erections and hopefully you will also move in your thoughts from the physicality of Christ’s crucifixion to its spiritual depths, although we should never forget that what Christ did “for us and for our salvation,” as we say in the Creed, he did in his body, as St. Athanasius taught in his little book On the Incarnation.

There’s nothing wrong with you embodying your meditation on the crucifixion of Christ. It can be a powerful experience to be actually naked before God—vulnerable and open to whatever arises. You might hang a crucifix on your bedroom as a focus for your meditation. God’s blessing on your devotion to the crucified Christ.

Pastor Senn