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The Problem of Consensual Sex
Back in the early ’80s when I was young and stupid, I drove my car up Beach Boulevard and went into an adult theater for the first time. I thought I was in heaven.
Establishing context, my father never talked to me about sex and my mother simply handed me a book about frogs mating and between that and some vague postulations from a science teacher, I was supposed to somehow draw my own conclusions. What I saw on the screen brought it all together for me in a very powerful way.
I heard about escort services and the free adult papers distributed outside post offices and on my third try relinquished my virginity to someone whose name was likely not hers.
Over time, perhaps by stumbling across the adult ads confined to the sports pages of the Orange County Register, I learned about Asian massages.
Behind those shadowy doors, I never pursued anything that wasn’t offered. There was a childish language while on the table where the masseuse would “accidentally” brush too close and you would “accidentally” brush her back. Then the towel would “accidentally” fall off and you would get down to business.
By today’s standards, there is absolutely nothing I did that was wrong (though it warred against my Christian morals and grieved the Holy Spirit within). The lone holdout of sexual morality in culture today is that of consent. All parties agreed to do this. Being single, I was hurting no one. And since I lacked the self-confidence to initiate a sexual encounter with a person I knew and was friends with, this vending-machine arrangement kind of worked.
Over the years, much has changed in my thinking from the confused, self-loathing adolescent I was. I no longer see these encounters as consenting but predatory. A horrific exacerbation in our culture is our tendency to objectify others – to reduce someone down to their most banal characteristics. We hate so-called cancel culture because it reduces a human being down to a single belief or a social media misstep. So pornography and the whole sex industry that surrounds it reduces people down to their sexual organs and the pleasure derived. Further, at the time, I was unaware of the sexual slave trade that permeates these industries.
I remember in one encounter before the session began, the masseuse had her children with her. Her friend, likely of the same trade, took them out to go swimming while we had our time together. I found this incredibly disturbing because it pointed out to me something that should have been obvious – this was a woman with a family, with aspirations, with spiritual longings, with talents and skills, with daily problems, with political opinions, who cheers at sporting events and helps her children with homework and saves up money to buy Christmas presents for those she loves. She is not merely a shoeshine machine that spins when I deposit my nickel.
The Christian worldview on this is not to curtail fun and pleasure but to promote human flourishing. It is to help us build a society that protects ourselves from ourselves and protect the more vulnerable in society such as women.
- All people are created in the image of God.
This is why humans are treated with more respect and care than, say, fish. Defacing a human is defacing the person of God just like peeing on the American flag is more than just defiling a piece of cloth. This is why it is unthinkable to say that black people are not persons and can be slaves or the unborn are not persons and can be eliminated and women are sex playmates to fulfill my fantasies.
- Marriage is that commitment that protects the casualties of sex.
I remember talking to a young couple who were living together who said, “Why do we need marriage if we have a committed relationship?” I pointed out to them that this was precisely what marriage is. Marriage is that commitment. Aside from fancy dresses and a big reception dance, marriage is fundamentally a public commitment that two people belong to each other and if either the husband or wife is seen acting out of line, the witnesses have every right to get in his face and hold him accountable. Without marriage, any spoken commitment is an unenforceable handshake.
Honoring marriage vows protect the woman from suddenly being stuck with a child while the abandoning husband goes off to pursue his career, the primary reason given for the woman’s right to an abortion. However, the bigger reason women are asked to make this act of violence within their own bodies is so that men can continue on in their promiscuous, objectifying, commitment-less ways without interrupting their career by being called to account for the offspring they produced.
- Sex fundamentally is about children
In our pursuit of sexual pleasure, our culture has succeeded in decoupling sex from marriage, sex from children, and sex from biology. The only guideline left is that sex, in whatever form you choose, should at least be consensual.
We may think the Catholics have gone too far in their prohibition of contraceptives but their point needs to at least be appreciated: The sexual act is to bring forth future generations raised in the context in which they are most likely to flourish – with a mother who possesses the skills to mother and a father who possesses the skills to father. It is a contribution to society and the future of the race.
Gay marriages, though a context for sexual pleasure, are by their very nature sterile relationships. Visits to Asian massage bring sexual pleasure as well. If we view sex based solely on personal fulfillment and consent, then these practices are just one of many ways to do sex with a partner. Love is love, after all. Many secular-minded people think this way because it has captured the cultural imagination.
But if we believe that there is a greater order and social responsibility in the universe and that marriage is a divine gift that allows us to sacrifice ourselves to create the best and most secure environment for future offspring so they, in turn, can be nurtured, grow, prosper, and build their own in-tact families, then my rational for slipping into the Asian massage so many years ago begins to look shallow, short-sighted, and selfish.
Published in General
Great post. Spot on.
My theology on this subject has always been Catholic. But it’s only in recent years that I’ve grown to believe that past generations’ greater involvement of law in defense of marriage and sex is advisable.
Laws are generally a practice of ethics and not merely practical arbitrations. But that something is immoral does not mean it should be illegal. I prefer the maximum legal liberty that’s feasible.
Societies are immeasurably complex and many changes are not easily explained. But in hindsight it seems fair to say that our country was in better shape before conservatives adopted a libertarian stance on divorce, contraception, pornography, etc. Pope Paul VI predicted the consequences of such legal changes.
Even he would have shocked how far the Sexual Revolution tumbled, from claims of self-direction to claims of self-creation. We no longer debate the roles of men and women, but rather — in absence of explicit roles — we debate the basic significance of the sexes. Whereas once that significance was understood with regard to nature and morals, now it primarily regards political advantage.
My leftist friends sometimes complained that we should be more wary of fictional depictions of violence than of sex. But sex is the temptation to which people more commonly succumb. No human power is greater than procreation. Yet so casually we can play around that gift.
Thank you for this wonderful, heartfelt, and thoughtful post.
Congratulations. Some time after “the early 1980s,” you grew up. Not all have been so lucky or so smart.
Predatorial maybe, exploitive maybe that too. But you seem to view yourself (male) as the predator or exploiter. But if view objectively it is the men that are being exploited, they are the ones being separated from their resources.
David, thank you for treating a subject so fraught with peril so honestly. Yours is the first post on sex that I’ve read on Ricochet. Congratulations.
If I commented on your post without going beyond the vaguest of generalities, I would have to lie or giggle. So I’ll keep my mouth shut.
Besides, at 82 years of age, I’d just creep everyone out.
You’ve broken the ice. Now let’s see who will follow.
Well, there’s the human trafficking aspect of it too. But leave that aside. The reduction of sex to a loveless, mechanical orgasm degrades both the man and the woman doing it. He’s just seeing a whore, and she’s just seeing a john. Each has reduced the other to a means to an end.
Yes, that is literally all things.
My lawn guy. Great Guy. At the end of the day, he shows up and cuts my grass and leaves. If he didn’t cut my grass and blow my leaves I would literally never talk to him.
We all sell our bodies and time by the hour.
I like that turn of phrase. What you are saying, I think, is that we have gone from “I can do with my body whatever I please” to “I can decide what I am in spite of my body.”
I think you are saying that I was a victim in the sense that no one prepared me for the sexual world and I had to find it on my own?
I made a very scant reference to it and probably should be taken to task for that, but I definitely didn’t know about it until years later. That is another major reason in the sexual revolution, women always lose.
I suppose you have a point there but I wonder if it is really the same category. There is something about the sexual bond that is greatly lost when it is reduced and cheapened to an impersonal recreational activity. On the other hand, there is something still honorable for honest pay for an honest hour’s work even if there is no friendship that develops in the process.
Do you really think there’s no difference between grass clippings and sex? I’m not asking you to marry the lawn man.
I suppose I should state the premise clearly. There exists a qualitative difference between human relationships based around economic transactions and human relationships based around love, family, and friendship.
Not really; human trafficking is a strong contender for the greatest evil on the face of this Earth, but it’s not the only thing out there. It’s possible to address more than one facet of a problem.
I don’t disagree with most of that. I just disagree with the entire concept of objectification.
Discussions of “consent” also generally fail to account for the consent of the future spouse. Sexual intercourse is a unique interaction between two humans that has an emotional component that other physical contact does not. A person who has sexual intercourse outside of marriage deprives his or her spouse of the exclusiveness that emotional connection.
I think both are being exploited and exploiting. This, of course, as David B. Sable says, is the main problem. We are exploiting each other rather than sacrificing for each other.
What I was trying to say @hankrhody but more articulate.
I would say that the lawn guy is selling the work that his body can produce. A prostitute is literally selling his or her body.
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.”
TS Elliot “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Sure.
There is a lot of stuff in the world that is sub-optimal.
I just can’t get worked up that a lonely widower may get a contracted handy. Or that the armies of leftover men may employ a rent-a-girlfriend. Everybody knows what this game is. Nor am I rending my garmets that sex-bots are increasingly a thing. So, happy news, we are going to automate the prostitutes out of a job.
And honestly in the pantheon of sex-problems I would rather a guy paid an honest prostitute for a [redacted] than simp for a Twitch e-thot that doesn’t even get naked. That particular para-social relationship is straight up evil, and needs a healthy application of deus vult.
There is definitely work involved, and performance art.
When I was a young, but legal, adult, I went all out libertarian. I was against state involvement in sex and marriage. And the Catholic stance on any birth control seemed over the top, and I did not get their argument at all.
But I have seen the harm the “sexual revolution” has wrought. And without easy and effective birth control, starting with “the pill” there would not have been a “sexual revolution.” Cheaper automobile availability to young adults and teenagers also was a factor.
Probably it’s the World War II generation that best saw the change in culture that it wrought. Us boomers were too young and too far in the middle of it to see what changes came about, and to care.
We seem to be entering a puritan era where sexual activity is way down, and less young men and women are engaging with each other. It’s getting downright hostile for men who act like men, even in a kind, moral way.
The economic environment has actually given women a leg up, but as their status has increased, they’ve become less interested in lower status men. And it’s always been the case that most young women aren’t interested in lower status men.
And just as technology has put us in this pickle, technology is likely to make it worse. Social media has made things worse, and we’re not very far away from sex robots, which women aren’t likely to be interested in, but young men will probably be. Those men won’t approach real women.
And coming back to the Judeo-Christian argument, and even other mainstream religions that world wide and throughout history have supported traditional family marriage, it looks like they had it right, and my 20-something libertarian self had wrong.
And here we are, going back to a puritan society, but we no longer have — manners, courtesy, how men and women respect each other — a social structure in place to deal with it.
The result is yet more hostility.
And it doesn’t help that our society is atheistic, and not in a benign way. Add hostility to religion, especially muscular orthodox Christianity, to the mix.
It’s no wonder that varying degrees of Benedict Option Christians are withdrawing from the mainstream culture.
A few observations in no particular order:
That is all.
Love,
She
I think we should have sex robots in order to vent our lusts. Prostitution will never go away unless we can really advance human genetically to be something different from what they are. Asian massage parlors are the least damaging forms of the world’s oldest profession.
I don’t understand how prostitution is different from cleaning toilets or flipping burgers. All the work we do reduces us to a certain set of actions with monetary value.
This conversation feels familiar, right down to the same blurring of the same lines. The de ja vu is strong, but the OP’s profile says that he just joined in January 2021.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that human trafficking is anything but horrific and wrong. It is and should be illegal for good reason. More should be done to combat it.
It does not follow that no one chooses to be a prostitute, that all are doing it against their will. When we’re talking about consent I think we’re presupposing that we’re not talking about trafficked or enslaved people.
Consent doesn’t make prostitution or even adultery right or good. However, to talk of predation in a consensual framework implies lack of agency on the part of the prey, and I think that is simply incorrect. It’s even more incorrect to imply that this agency and corresponding responsibility is gender-based.
On this we disagree.
The Bible teaches, and I believe, that honest work elevates the worker and brings glory to God, and that fornication, adultery, and perversion lower us by abusing the gift of sex that God gave us for procreation and for his glory; they are like murder except that both parties are doing the killing instead of just one.
Whether you think that prostitution should be legal or not, know this.
It’s demeaning. It’s harmful to the person who engages in it. A very few prostitutes come out of it richer, because they were very beautiful, very cultured, and had a high class clientele. Most men cannot afford a prostitute like that.
The vast majority of prostitutes don’t come out of it unscathed. They usually deal with men who have no respect for women, they risk beatings, disfigurement and even death.
And even in places where it is legal and monitored — some counties in Nevada come to mind — they still don’t come out of it unscathed or with their dignity intact.
They age quicker, losing their beauty before middle age. And they are unable to shed their predatory instincts towards men, which is why they are psychologically unsuited for a loving relationship with a man.
For the vast majority of men who have daughters, they would be ashamed if their daughters went into prostitution. Leaving out insufferable snobs, no man would be ashamed of his daughter flipping burgers and cleaning toilets, especially if she were young and starting out in the work force.
That’s probably because of drugs. Prostitution attracts ladies who are already hard on their luck and are used to making bad decisions. Like drugs, prostitution doesn’t make people do bad decision. People who already make bad decisions go into drugs or prostitution.
I do a fair amount of counseling as a psychotherapist. Whenever I counsel unmarried couples with issues, the aggrieved party is always — let me emphasize, ALWAYS — the woman. It’s because intimate relationships are more intimate for women than men when they occur outside of marriage, and the woman invariably becomes more attached to the man than vice versa.
Is there replicable data to back up your personal experiences? Not to be a jerk about it but it would be super fascinating to see a study on this.