What religious traditionalists can teach us about sex
Modern notions of sexuality are here to stay. But traditional strictures on sex served a profound purpose.
The culture war isn't really about culture, and it never has been.
It's about sex.
Leading social conservative Rod Dreher conceded as much last week — and I think he's absolutely correct. Writing about what divides traditionalist religious believers from those who are more liberal or progressive, Dreher posed a pair of questions: "Take sex out of the picture, and what do you have? If we're not talking about sex, what are we talking about?"
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The answer is: nothing. We are talking — and fighting, and slinging mud, and spewing bile — about nothing but sex. And in particular, about two competing, largely incompatible visions of the proper place of sex in a good human life.
On one side — the losing side — stand the traditionalists, the last (or nearly last) links in a chain stretching back decades, centuries, even millennia. Yes, their side's outlook has changed, shifted, evolved in various ways over the years, but it has also been marked by considerable continuity, at least since Christianity triumphed over paganism during the centuries following the death of Jesus Christ.
From that time, in the fourth century, down to roughly my grandparents' generation, the vast majority of people in the Western world believed without question that masturbation, pre-marital sex, and promiscuity were wrong, that out-of-wedlock pregnancy was shameful, that adultery was a serious sin, that divorce should either be banned or allowed only in the rarest of situations, and that homosexual desires were gravely disordered and worthy of severe (often violent) punishment.
Of course there were exceptions. In cities, and in certain eras, greater sexual freedom was sometimes possible. But that was not the norm. When people engaged in deviant behavior, they did it covertly, concealing it from others, aware that they were defying communal standards and expectations, and strongly suspecting (and fearing) that they were transgressing God's will.
Not any more.
For an ever-expanding number of people born since the mid-1960s, the sexual world is radically different. Sex before marriage is the norm. There is comparatively little stigma attached to promiscuity. Masturbation is almost universally a matter of moral indifference. Even if there's some dispute about whether private businesses run by religious conservatives should be forced to pay for every form of contraception, birth control is available everywhere, and it can be used without stigma. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy is becoming increasingly common; and for women who become pregnant and don't wish to carry the baby to term, the pregnancy can be terminated. Divorce, meanwhile, is common and considered perfectly acceptable to most people.
Most of this was true a generation ago. More recently, we've also witnessed the rapid-fire mainstreaming of homosexuality and the transformation of the institution of marriage to accommodate it. But that's not all. Thanks to the internet, pornography has never been so freely available and easily accessible. Websites like Ashley Madison facilitate extramarital affairs. Others help people find various kinds of "arrangements," from traditional prostitution to a more informal exchange of financial support for sexual services. Smart-phone apps put people (gay or straight) in touch with each other for no-strings-attached hook-ups. Then there's the push to normalize polyamorous ("open") relationships and marriages, a movement that seeks to remove the stigma from adultery and even positively affirm the goodness of infidelity.
Welcome to sexual modernity — a world in which the dense web of moral judgments and expectations that used to surround and hem in our sex lives has been almost completely dissolved, replaced by a single moral judgment or consideration: individual consent. As long as everyone involved in a sexual act has chosen to take part in it — from teenagers fumbling through their first act of intercourse to a roomful of leather-clad men and women at a BDSM orgy — anything and everything goes.
All of our so-called cultural conflicts flow from this monumental shift — and the fact that some of our fellow citizens (religious traditionalists and other social conservatives) are terrified by the new dispensation.
Those who feel most at home in sexual modernity tend to dismiss this traditionalist terror, writing it off as an expression of ignorant bigotry or a simplistic refusal to question authority. When traditionalists try to defend their views on pre-marital sex or homosexuality, what their opponents think they invariably hear is some version of: "I disapprove because it's icky — and anyway, God/Jesus Christ/Scripture/The Church says it's wrong."
Traditionalists do sometimes talk and think this way. But I submit that underlying such views is something deeper and more worthy of reflection — namely, a series of contentious but not implausible assumptions about human beings.
What are those assumptions? That we are flawed, weak, needy, sinful creatures. That we can't be trusted — especially when it comes to sex, which arouses our most intense physical longings and desires, and insinuates itself into our imagination and emotions, badly warping our judgment in the heat of the moment. That these longings and desires, left untamed by firm strictures on our behavior, will lead us to wreck our lives, our culture, our civilization.
That sex is profoundly dangerous.
I am not a religious traditionalist (at least not anymore). I don't think sex is profoundly dangerous. I usually feel at home in sexual modernity. I don't think sexual pleasure outside of wedlock is inherently sinful. I vastly prefer a world in which people have been liberated from sexually inspired suffering, shame, humiliation, and self-loathing.
But I also take the traditionalist critique of sexual modernity very seriously. The objections aren't trivial. Western civilization upheld the old sexual standards for the better part of two millennia. We broke from them in the blink of an eye, figuratively speaking. The gains are pretty clear — It's fun! It feels good! — but the losses are murkier and probably won't be tallied for a very long time.
Is the ethic of individual consent sufficient to keep people (mostly men) from acting violently on their sexual desires?
What will become of childhood if our culture continues down the road of pervasive sexualization?
Do children do best with two parents of opposite genders? Or are two parents of the same gender just as good? Or better? How about one parent of either gender? What about three, four, five, or more people in a constantly evolving polyamorous arrangement?
Can the institution of marriage survive without the ideals of fidelity and monogamy? What kind of sexual temptations and experiences will technology present us with a year — or a decade, or a century — from now? Will people be able to think of reasons or conjure up the will to resist those temptations? Will they even try? Does it even matter?
I have no idea how to answer these questions.
What I do know is that the questions are important, and that I respect those who are troubled by them.
And maybe you should, too.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.
-
Ecuador's cloud forest has legal rights – and maybe a song credit
Under the Radar In a world first, 'rights of nature' project petitions copyright office to recognise Los Cedros forest as song co-creator
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Today's political cartoons - November 3, 2024
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - presidential pitching, wavering convictions, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Why Man United finally lost patience with ten Hag
Talking Point After another loss United sacked ten Hag in hopes of success in the Champion's League
By The Week UK Published
-
US election: who the billionaires are backing
The Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published