[Topics]

“Sex is natural, sex is good”

Written: 2019-10-16
Addition: 2020-01-20
Addition: 2021-03-10
Addition: 2021-03-20

Quote by Vox Day (from his blog). And utterly wrong, at least the latter part.

Sex is degradation.

I wrote about this earlier, but given how much violence, strife, ugliness and death sexual relations have produced and still produce, calling it “good” really begs the question. And “sex” means the “whole package,” not just the act itself – which, again, is certainly not neutral, cannot be performed in front of children; while we don’t defecate in front of them either, it wouldn’t be as shocking and psychologically damaging, at worst they would chuckle or blush.


(2020-01-20): [Topic]

The only contemporary Christian I’m aware of who sees sex in a similar way is Andy Nowicki. Especially in his Confessions of a Would-Be Wanker and Notes Before Death.


(2021-03-10): [Topic]

Chesterton, despite his theological flaws, understood this as well. For he wrote:

It is this difference between new English and old English ethics in the matter of verbal delicacy of which I wish to speak here. The subject is difficult, it is even emotional and painful; and I think it will do no harm to begin with some of the general human principles of the problem, even if they are as old and obvious as the alphabet.

There is not really much difference of opinion among normal men about the first principles of decency in expression. All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane. There are people, indeed, who maintain that they would talk of this topic as coldly or openly as of any other; there are people who maintain that they would walk naked down the street. But these people are not only insane people, they are in the most emphatic sense of the word stupid people. They do not think; they only point (as children do) and say “Why?” Even children only do it when they are tired; but exactly this tired quality is most of what passes in our time not only for thought but for bold and disturbing thought. To ask, “Why cannot we discuss sex coolly and rationally anywhere?” is a tired and unintelligent question. It is like asking, “Why does not a man walk on his hands as well as on his feet?” It is silly. If a man walked systematically on his hands, they would not be hands, but feet. And if love or lust were things that we could all discuss without any possible emotion they would not be love or lust, they would be something else — some mechanical function or abstract natural duty which may or may not exist in animals or in angels, but which has nothing at all to do with the sexuality we are talking about. All the ideas of grasp or gesture, which to us make up the meaning of the word “hand”, depend upon the fact that hands are loose extremities used not for walking on but for waving about. And all that we mean when we speak of “sex” is involved in the fact that it is not an unconscious or innocent thing, but a special and violent emotional stimulation at once spiritual and physical. A man who asks us to have no emotion in sex is asking us to have no emotion in emotion. He has forgotten the subject-matter with which he deals. He has lost the topic of the conversation. It may be said of him, in the strict meaning of the words, that he does not know what he is talking about.

(Emphasis mine.)
It shows a mature Chesterton I did not expect. Why? In Orthodoxy, he claimed suicide to be the sin. (Do not click the previous link if shallow views upset you. I just did and need to calm down again.)

I may disagree about sex being spiritual — it is as base as it gets. Here though, he shows that he at least understood that sex is everything but an innocent instinct, and this only strengthens the case against sex. With against, I am only implying, like Andy Nowicki writes, that we need to return to a society where it is again put into the proper place, and where celibacy is seen as best. Clearly, we are far, far more removed from such a society now than ever before.

We cannot, unfortunately, rid ourselves of it, even castration won’t do, for our origins would still be lowly and vulgar. However, no one should be allowed to boast about let alone live a sexual promiscuous life. — Something even degenerates-turned-Christians still cannot let go of. Monogamy needs to be enforced, celibacy praised and laws against indecency are to be put into place again.

C. S. Lewis wrote something of a similar nature in Mere Christianity. Some quotes (from [fadepage.com]):

[…]
But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.
[…]

[…]
Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.
[…]

(Emphasis mine.)
I add, again, that even old men can be lustful; Picasso or Mick Jagger still had children in their seventies. Disgusting.

Also, it is clear that this drive is so strong, as I wrote somewhere else on these pages, because otherwise no one would bring someone here. After all, people do everything not to conceive a child, they just want to indulge in their base, animal desires. Schopenhauer already wrote as much.

Why is that? Is it not clear that God knows man would never bring someone else into this vale of tears by an act of pure reason alone, and therefore sex is a curse that befell man after the Fall? Luring him into having children? Of course it is. And you idiots praise it even!

So the evidence is piling up here. Therefore, Christians, too, need to accept their defeat in defending sex. It cannot be defended. It is there, just like defecation and urination, but hardly as necessary — we could all live as monks and nuns and it would be perfectly okay, even much, much better than what we have now.


(2021-03-20): [Topic]

In The Genius Famine, Bruce Charlton, who does not share my views on the nature of sexuality, writes:

In a society of declining intelligence, we would expect: rising crime and corruption; decreasing civic participation and lower voter turn-out; higher rates of illegitimacy; poorer health and greater obesity, an increased interest in the instinctive, especially sex; greater political instability and decline in democracy; higher levels of social conflict; higher levels of selfishness and so a decline in any welfare state; a growing unemployable underclass; falling educational standards; and a lack of intellectualism and thus decreasing interest in education as a good in itself. We would also expect more and more little things to go wrong that we didn’t used to notice: buses running out of petrol, trains delayed, aeroplanes landing badly, roads not being repaired, people arriving late and thinking it’s perfectly okay; several large and lots of little lies …

(Emphasis mine.)
Not that people in the past weren’t lustful or acting on base desires. Nowadays, though, everything is done to even incite it. As if that were necessary!
The sex positive outlook and sex obsession our society forces on us should no longer be tolerated. It has even reached Christians, especially many of the Alt-Right or woke variety.

Even those who don’t share my critical views on the nature of sexuality itself have to admit that sex is hardly a noble activity.
Charlton’s remark about education is worthy of consideration as well. We are living during an age where even supposed Christians refer to Latin and Greek as “dead” instead of ancient languages.

Our times aren’t looking rosy for people of good taste. We are drowning in vulgarity, sex obsession; crude, rude and bad language is getting normalized, too. Unseemly behaviour no longer offends people, because we have gotten used to it.

Done. So … done. Like a dead battery. That is how I feel. I could lay myself down to die, and it would be perfectly okay. I felt like that at age nineteen. Now, around fifteen years later and despite having become a Christian, I still feel the same. The only “hiccup” has been my conversion to Christ, my Damascus experience, which lasted around a year. Now I have to endure this horrible existence, suicide, after such an experience, naturally being out of the question. As Hamlet cries out: Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst self-slaughter!
These pages are now turning into a broken record. Why? Because people just don’t stop being imbeciles. At the very least, don’t be one regarding sex!
Since this is not the case, though, I do have to raise my voice from time to time.


And here we go again with the obligatory escolios by our favorite thinker: Gómez Dávila:

Men can be divided into those who make their life complicated to gain their soul and those who waste their soul to make their life easier.

Sex does not solve even sexual problems.

In the end, there is no area of the soul sex would not succeed in corrupting.

Sins that appear “splendid” from afar are from close up nothing more than small sordid episodes.

It is not worth talking about even one erotic topic with someone who does not feel the unalterable baseness of erotism.

It is above all against what the crowd proclaims to be “natural” that the noble soul rebels.

What we discover as we age is not the vanity of everything, but of almost everything.

Despite what is taught today, easy sex does not solve every problem.

By merely looking at the face of the modern man one infers the mistake in attributing ethical importance to his sexual behavior.

Modern man’s life oscillates between two poles: business and sex.

Modern society is abolishing prostitution through promiscuity.

Sensuality is a cultural legacy of the ancient world.
Societies where the Greco-Roman legacy is being wiped out, or where it does not exist, only know sentimentalism and sexuality.

To liberate man is to subject him to greed and sex.

This century has succeeded in turning sex into a trivial activity and an odious topic.

When the modern consciousness suspends its economic routines, it only oscillates between political anguish and sexual obsession.

Sexual promiscuity is the tip society pays in order to appease its slaves.

The problem is not sexual repression, nor sexual liberation, but sex.

Sex and violence do not replace transcendence after it has been banished.
Not even the devil remains for the man who loses God.

The 19th century did not live with more anguish because of its sexual repression than the 20th century with its sexual liberation.
Identical obsession, even when the symptoms are the opposite.