One of the most prevalent topics on campus is sex. Students distribute flavored condoms on the Plaza, my professors get an easy (if slightly uneasy, I think) rise by saying anything related that could be construed as funny. Everywhere I'll hear about sexual experiences, partners and practices; all the lovely disgusting things people have done and would have liked to do. Legends about dirty, degrading, impossible things-some shocking and violent; most unnatural, mixing latex, hormone pills and incompatible orifices.
British philosopher Roger Scruton observed that sex is an act of either desecration or sanctification. But if my views on sex were informed solely by the profligacy of popular culture (otherwise known as Friday night at Duke), I should think it was always the former.
The only thing I don't hear regarding lust is not to entertain it; the only thing I don't hear regarding sex is not to indulge in it. But even in hearing about doing it, I never hear about doing it in a manner that seems in any way enjoyable. It's always a blur of body parts and confused adolescent passions masquerading as "freedom" or "love," as if the words themselves justify.
Let's assume what I circumlocutorily stated in my first article: human life has inherent worth. With inherent worth comes inherent dignity.
We humans are unique among all the animal kingdom in recognizing at once our dignity above the animals and our ability to descend below the animals.
And if Scruton was right, we are capable not just of debasing but also of magnifying our dignity-through sex. To make sex sanctifying requires exercising temperance and restraint so that we keep ourselves apart from the animals. That means, for most of us, abstaining from sex while in college.
This is not to prudishly flee from sexual feelings, but rather to elevate sex to a place more special, important and pure than the sewer in which typical "liberated" society places it; and thereby to treat the act respectfully, carefully and humanly.
Here, then, are some reasons to avoid premarital sex:
- Authentic love demands it. Many people engage in premarital sexual activity because they want to feel loved. There's nothing wrong with wanting that. But numerous recent studies (e.g., by the Population Research Institute and National Institutes of Health) have found that sexual activity leads to and is correlated with considerable teenage depression.
Why still do it? Premarital sex is a way of lying to each other with your bodies by pantomiming a beautiful gift of self that is never really given. Many desire that gift, and lies do work for a little while. But authentic love lasts: it demands fidelity, responsibility, selflessness and fertility. In loftier terms, the inherent designs of sex are oriented toward a total, fecund, mutually reciprocal self-gift. Premarital sex is a way of feeling loved without really loving, like drunkenness is a way of feeling carefree while often being the opposite.
You love your spouse. Now how can you love someone you don't even know? By recognizing that your actions have repercussions, of course. Will you offer your spouse a pure and unblemished gift of self, or will it arrive unwrapped and devoid of mystery? What a future show of love you can make if even now that gift is "re-wrapped" and safeguarded.
You love your significant other now. As you should protect your future spouse from present indiscretions, so should you protect your present boy- or girl-friend. Men, this is where we really need to step up. Let's protect the women we love from our lusts, so that we won't cause them pain in the future. And ladies, you know you're not object at which to be gawked (however much we may make you feel otherwise). So don't dress like you are. Demand more from us.
You love yourself. Need I remind you of the physical and emotional risks premarital sex presents for us too?
You love children. One of the rotten fruits of premarital sex is abortion, the act by which mothers choose to kill their own children in the womb. Hormonal birth control can also act as an abortifacient; to be pro-life and use it is surpassingly hypocritical.
Your moral ideals compel it. In the romantic Arthurian legends, honorable knights protect their fair maidens from harm. This is virtually impossible today because there are very few maidens or chivalrous men left. (And there are some unfortunate social strictures against carrying the swords and the riding of noble steeds.) Nevertheless, by resisting lechery and exhibiting the probity of our rolemodels and heroes, we can become the honorable men and virtuous ladies we know we ought to be.
And when we keep our minds and bodies pure, we begin to dignify and sanctify ourselves in everything that we do.
Justin Noia is a Pratt junior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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