Answer to this post
I don’t like to follow up with my comments in blogs because I don’t like to participate in debates and, even less, with a guy as you, who are bright and whom I have learned a lot from. Because of my childhood, I tend to avoid conflict, even such a mild way of conflict as an Internet debate. So I usually write my comment and I don’t read the post again, just in case somebody else has replied to my comment and I end up being in a middle of a debate.
But, since the post is about my comments, I think I have to set the record straight. I don’t think I have expressed myself well in my last comment. This is not unusual, because English is not my native language and I am always struggling to find a way to convey my thought in English. I see that I failed miserably in the last comment and I will probably fail in this message.
You explain my comment as an example of traditional thought and I don’t recognize myself in that. I agree with much of the things you have said: that traditional Christianity has seen sexuality with a deep mistrust. I don’t agree with this mistrust. It is hard to follow the rules even inside marriage, a thing which I am painfully aware of in my own marriage. I think that the fact that the ones that make the rules are celibate causes an unnecessary rigidity (which they don’t always apply to themselves, as the last scandals have manifested, in which mercy has been freely provided to the most aberrant actions).
(I am not that sure that this is a gnostic corruption of Christianity. It seems baked into the faith. Saint Paul speaks about the flesh as bad and the spirit as good and says that it is better to be celibate. But this would be a different discussion for a different time)
Me: «The Bible never talks about consent. And even less about consent being the basis of the morality of sexual intercourse. The basis is marriage. [ED]»
TSP: «But what’s important to note here is that any dimension of desire [Eros] is not even factored into the analysis.»
It is because desire is never factored into the analysis in moral duties, not in sex, not in anything else. When you have the duty to provide to your children:
«Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.» (1 Timothy 5:8)
It does not say: «You have to provide for your household only if you feel like it. Everything else is exploitation». Of course, there is flexibility. Let’s put a husband in a traditional society as an example. Maybe the husband is sick or there is something that prevents him from working today or for long periods of time. But, imagine that, one day, a husband gets home and says: «Honey! I have decided that I will only work when I feel like it, which is once in a blue moon. Don’t tell me to go to work if I don’t feel like it, because this is exploitation». Wouldn’t be this a severe breach of the sacrament of marriage in this case? It is assumed that you acquired the duty of providing for your family when you got married. Trying to get you to fulfill your duties is not exploitation.
The same way, when a person gets married, he commits to monogamy, not to celibacy. Let’s say, the wife is not in the mood today. Everybody can understand that. Or the wife has health conditions or something like that. This is completely understandable. But let’s imagine a wife telling: «Honey! I have decided that I will only have sex when I feel like it, which is once in a blue moon. Don’t tell me to have sex if I don’t feel like it, because this is rape». (There are men in your country that spend months without sex because their wife is never «in the mood»). Wouldn’t be this a severe breach of the sacrament of marriage? It is assumed that you acquired the duty of having sex when you entered marriage. If you don’t want to get sex or you are not attracted to the guy, then don’t get married.
(On a side note, I have never understood why women have this problem in your country and in the country I was born. In the country I have lived for the last 20 years, we men are the ones that have to say: «Not tonight honey …»)
I know you will criticize me depicting sex «as a duty». Where is the Eros? Where is the play? This seems legalistic and dry. Of course, there is Eros and play in sex, but we are talking about *moral* issues. *Moral* issues are expressed in terms of duties, not only in sex but in anything else. «Thou shalt ….»
If you say «Honour thy father and thy mother», this is a duty (and a right for parents because the duty of a person is the right of another person). Does this mean that the relationship between fathers and children is only a duty? That «the child’s right to resist against care for his parents is grounded in legal terms of caring about elders, not in the lack of facilitation of the affection between fathers and children. It’s as if we were having a discussion about contracts of elderly care and not about affection inside a family. The underlying approach being predicated on the notions that desire of caring for your parents is irrelevant to the act or that the desire of not wanting to care is evil and should not be factored in.»
Of course, not! The relationship between fathers and children is a constant source of happiness and joy. But moral duties are predicated for the times we don’t feel like it. If we feel like caring for our parents, no commandment is necessary. It’s for the times when our parents need to be cared for and we don’t feel like it, that there is a duty.
I get that American way of life is based on feeeeelings. So a marriage can finish if one of the two spouses is not feeling it. I guess that talking about duties instead of romanticism is counter-cultural. But the Bible never says that the moral law is based on feelings.
The opinion that marriage does not give a right to sex (and the right of a person is the duty of another person) is not Biblical and, in fact, it is a very strange idea in all cultures of history and in the Western culture until some decades ago. You can tell me that I am wrong when I say that it is a feminist idea, but you haven’t given any reason of why it is not. Historically, it is a feminist idea: it is born inside feminism and it is only present in feminist cultures. A dismissal is not an argument.
I am exhausted after having written such a long wall of text. I have reviewed. I hope I have not messed with possessives and pronouns, as usual. I hope this is my last comment of this topic. This is your blog and it is fair that you have the last word.