Category: Sex, Love, Lust

A Question About Marriage

For many years now I have been an occasional reader of your blog, and I greatly appreciate your insight on many subjects, particularly your criticism of the Left. I am, I hate to admit, an aspiring academic who is taking on enormous debt to finish a Ph.D. in sociology of religion, and am immersed in the poisonous Higher Ed world of the SIXHIRB musical litany, but that is another story for another time.
 
My question concerns choosing a wife: Can the marriage between a non-religious person and a religious person be successful and a happy state of affairs? 
 
I am an incorrigible INFP, and I thought your logical precision and holistic perception as an INTP would aid my thinking process, which is mostly intuition/feeling. You have been married quite awhile, and I respect that greatly. You say that your wife is religious, a practicing Catholic, and that you believe that to be a good thing. I agree, and thus I am in this dilemma.
 
My Romance Story: 
 
I come from a devout Mexican Catholic family from Texas, with a very religiously devout mother who is never found without a rosary, and I consider myself 'religious' and Catholic, i.e. I go to Mass every Sunday, I pray, I believe, I read the Bible, and so forth. Now, I am certainly not a saint, as the rest of my story will show.
 
I met, during a study abroad this year, a stunning young woman  who works for the United Nations. One night, our date over red wine at a cafe quickly escalated into dozens of nights of passionate, indulgent sex, and then into several trips throughout Europe in which we brought our negligent sexual passion into the creaky beds of many hotels. Sex crazed, we were.
 
Now that I am back in the States for the holidays, free from the physical presence and temptations of the Woman, the big question of our future is at hand. Should we continue or not?  
 
We have been dating now for five months, and she is wonderful in all things, successful, an excellent conversationalist, and best of all, not a feminist! But, she has no faith, does not go to church, and largely thinks religion is oppressive, and most painfully for me, she does not believe in Christianity. I would also add she is more of an agnostic than a militant atheist, since she believes in some vague afterlife, and respects my religious beliefs. 
 
'Listen to your heart' is what they say, but my heart is confused at the moment, and the damned sex monkey does not help. The Woman is wonderful, but long term speaking, once the infatuation is over through the sobering, cold water of marriage, will religion be the stone upon which we stumble? Will I be happier instead with a practicing Catholic woman? What will my Mexican-Catholic mom say when I bring home a non-believer? She won't like it, that's for sure.
 
In my opinion, I am skeptical that it will work long term, but she thinks there is no problem. What do you say?
 
Your question is:  Can the marriage between a non-religious person and a religious person be successful and a happy state of affairs? My answer is: Yes it can, but it is not likely.  And in a matter as important to one's happiness as marriage, and in a social climate as conducive to marital break-up as ours is, it is foolish to take unnecessary risks.  I would say that career and marriage, in that order, are the two most important factors in a person's  happiness.  You are on track for happiness if you can find some occupation that is personally satisfying and modestly remunerative and a  partner with whom you can enjoy an ever-deepening long-term relationship.  Religion lies deep in the religious person; for such a person to have a deep relationship with an irrreligious person is unlikely.  A wise man gambles only with what he can afford to lose; he does not gamble with matters pertaining to his long-term happiness. 
 
So careful thought is needed.  Now the organ of thought is the head, not the heart.  And you have heard me say that every man has two heads, a big one and a little one, one for thinking and one for linking.   The wise man thinks with his big head.  Of course, it would be folly to marry a woman to whom one was not strongly sexually attracted, or a woman for whom one did not feel deep affection.  But a worse folly would be allow sex organs and heart to suborn intellect.  By all means listen to your heart, but listen to your (big) head first.  Given how difficult successful marriage is, one ought to put as much as possible on one's side.  Here are some guidelines that you violate at your own risk:
  • Don't marry outside your race
  • Don't marry outside your religion
  • Don't marry outside your social class
  • Don't marry outside your generational cohort
  • Don't marry outside your educational level
  • Don't marry someone whose basic attitudes and values are different about, e.g., money
  • Don't marry someone with no prospects
  • Don't marry a needy person or if you are needy. A good marriage is an alliance of strengths
  • Don't marry to escape your parents
  • Don't marry young
  • Don't imagine that you will be able to change your partner in any significant way.

The last point is very important.  What you see now in your partner is what you will get from here on out.  People don't change.  They are what they are.  The few exceptions prove the rule.  The wise live by rules, not exceptions, by probabilities, not possibilities.  "Probability is the very guide to life." (Bishop Butler quoting Cicero, De Natura, 5, 12) As I said, it is foolish to gamble with your happiness.  We gamble with what is inconsequential, what we can afford to lose.  So if there is anything about your potential spouse that is unacceptable, don't foolishly suppose that  you will change her.  You won't. You must take her as she is, warts and all, as she must take you.

 
There is also the business about right and wrong order.  Right Order: Finish your schooling; find a job that promises to be satisfying over the long haul and stick with it; eliminate debts and save money; get married after due consultation with both heads,  especially the big one; have children.

Wrong Order: Have children; get married; take any job to stay alive; get some schooling to avoid working in a car wash for the rest of your life.

 
I think it is also important to realize that romantic love, as blissful and intoxicating as it is, is mostly illusory.  I wouldn't want to marry a woman I wasn't madly (just the right word) in love with, but I also wouldn't want to marry a woman that I couldn't  treasure and admire and value after the romantic transports had worn off, as they most assuredly will.  Since you are a Catholic you may be open to the Platonic-Augustinian-Weilian thought that what we really want no woman or man can provide. Our hearts cannot be satisfied by any of our our earthly loves which are but sorry substitutes for the love of the Good.
 
 
Related articles
James Anderson on POMO Marriage
The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage
What Does Abortion Have to Do with Religion?

Some Points on Homosexuality in the Context of the Culture War

RobertsonA few days ago I was blissfully unaware of Duck Diversity Dynasty, the reality show on the Arts and Entertainment channel.  I still haven't watched even one episode, nor am I particularly inclined to; the antics of rednecks are not  my thing.  I have gathered, however, that the series falls more on the entertainment end of the Arts and Entertainment spectrum. One of the characters whose reality is depicted, Phil Robertson, shown on the left, has made comments on homosexuality  that have drawn attention, to put it mildly.  I won't rehearse the details of a brouhaha about which my astute readers can be expected to be familiar.  I will simply make a few comments bearing upon the contretemps that strike me as important.

1. To have the homosexual disposition or inclination or proclivity is one thing; to exercise it in homosexual sex acts such as anal intercourse is quite another.  You may be born with the proclivity, and stuck with it, but you are free to exercise it or not.  The proclivity may be part of 'who you are,'  ingredient in your very identity, but  the practices are freely engaged in.  Acts done or left undone are contingent and thus no part of anyone's identity.  Moral criticism of  homosexual practices is not criticism of anyone for who he is.

2. It follows that rejection of homosexual sex acts as immoral is consistent with acceptance of homosexuals as people. In a trite phrase, one can hate the sin but love the sinner.  The sinful and the immoral, however, are not quite the same, though I cannot expatiate on the distinction at the moment.

It is therefore very bad journalism to describe Robertson's comments as 'anti-gay' for that elides the distinction I just drew.  Opposition to homosexual practices is not opposition to homosexuals.

And of course there is nothing  'homophobic' about Robertson's comments.  I don't reckon  that the good old boy pictured above has any irrational fear of homosexuals.  'Homophobic' is a coinage of leftists to prevent one of those famous 'conversations' that they otherwise call for.  It is a question-begging epithet and semantic bludgeon meant to close down debate by the branding of their opponents as suffering from a mental defect.  This is why only a foolish conservative acquiesces in the use of this made-up word.  Language matters.  One of the first rules for successful prosecution of the  Kulturkampf  is to never  let the enemy distort the terms of the debate.  Insist on standard English, and always slap them down when they engage in their notorious 'framing.'  As for 'gay,' that too is a word we ought not surrender.  Use the neutral 'homosexual.'   Same with 'queer.'   'Queer' is a good old word.  Nominalists think abstracta are queer entities.  There is no implication that the analysis of such is in any way proctological.

3.  Whether or not Phil Robertson and people like him can cogently defend their opposition to homosexual practices, they have a right  to hold and express their opinions in public fora,  and a right to be tolerated by those who oppose their views.  To tolerate is not approve of, let alone endorse; it is to put up with, to allow, to refrain from interfering with the promulgation of distasteful ideas.  Without widespread toleration it is hard to see how a nation as diverse and pluralistic as the USA can remain even minimally united. 

4. There are solid arguments based in theology and philosophy for rejecting as immoral homosexual practices.  And they are available to Robertson and Co. should they decide to lay down their shotguns long enough to swot them up.  These arguments won't convince those on the the other side, but then no argument, no matter how well-articulated and reasonable, no matter how consistent with known empirical fact and free of logical error, convinces those on the other side of any 'hot button' issue.

5.  As a corollary to (4), note that arguments against homosexuality needn't presupose the truth of any religion.  They can be purely philosophical.  The same goes for abortion.  If I argue against late-term abortion on the the ground that it is sufficiently like infanticide to inherit the moral wrongness of infanticide, then I argue in a way that makes no use of any religious premise.

6.  The A & E Network has every right to fire Robertson and Co. By the same token, a baker or a florist has every right to refuse service to a same-sex couple planning a same -sex 'marriage' and it is simply wrong for government at any level to force the baker or the florist to violate his conscience.

7.  In the interests of comity,  homosexuals and their practices ought to be tolerated.  Whether or not the practices are immoral, they ought to be legally permissible as long as they are between consenting adults.  But this right to be tolerated does not translate into a right to be approved or applauded or celebrated or a right to impose their views on others, or a right to change the culture to their liking.  In particular, it does not translate into a right to have their 'marriages' legally recognized.

8. Given the obvious distinction made in (1) above, the following sort of argument is invalid.  "Tom didn't choose to be homosexual; he was born that way, so his practice of homosexuality via anal intercourse is morally acceptable."  That sort of argument obviously proves too much.  Pedophiles, sadomasochists, necrophiliacs,  and so on down the list of sexual perversions are most of them born with their proclivity, but that fact does not justify their engaging in the corresponding practices.

For more on this delightful topic, see Jim Goad, When Ducks Cry.

Related articles
The Infertility Argument for Same-Sex Marriage
What Does Abortion Have to Do with Religion?
The Genuine Conflict Being Ignored in the Duck Dynasty Debate
Homo-fascists are overplaying their hand with Duck Dynasty
Rabbi Shmuley on "Duck Dynasty" and Biblical Homophobia

A Cure for Infatuation

Marriage is an excellent cure for infatuation.

It is also a test whether the infatuation was something more. If the marriage lasts and deepens, then it was; if not, then it wasn't.

To be infatuated is to be rendered fatuous, silly.  Not that infatuation is all bad.  A love that doesn't begin with it is not much of a love.  The silly love song That's Amore well captures the delights of love's incipience.  But fools rush in where wise men never go/But wise men never fall in love/so how are they to know?

Related articles
Conquer Desire or Misdirected Desire?

The Role of Concupiscence

The role of concupiscence in dimming our spiritual sight has long been recognized by many, among them, Plato, Augustine, and Pascal: "There are some who see clearly that man has no other enemy but concupiscence, which turns him away from God." (Pensées, Krailsheimer #269, p. 110)  One wonders how much of the atheism of a Russell or a Sartre or an A. J. Ayer  is the theoretical reflex of an inordinate love of this world and its flesh pots.

Frequent the flesh pots and it may turn out the best you can do by way of a conception of God is that of a celestial teapot.

 

Related articles
No Resting Place in Any Earthly Desire
Man's Greatness Deducible From his Wretchedness
Made for Thinking
Pride and Concupiscence

Feminism as Masculinism

I just heard Dennis Prager say that feminism is misnamed and ought to have been called 'masculinism.'  He continued, "There is no celebration of the feminine in feminism."  I remember having a similar thought back in 1973 when Playgirl Magazine first appeared.  My thought was that there is nothing liberating in women imitating the worst features of men. 

One ought to distinguish, however, between equity and gender feminism.  See The Absurdity of Gender Feminism.  There are undoubtedly good aspects of the former, pace certain conservative extremists.

Sex and the ‘Sixties

London Ed writes,


Another thing from that era [the '60s], now surfacing in  England, is the rampant promiscuity disguised as 'alternative' and  'liberation'.  Jimmy Savile (I assume you have been following this case)  was one of them. But I remember John Peel, who was an icon of English  counterculture, boasting of sleeping with girls as young as 13, and there is a  splendid passage in Playpower, by Richard Neville (editor of IT and OZ) about  bedding a 'cherubic' fourteen year old, after smoking pot with her.  It was  meant to be liberated then, but in retrospect … ?

Monterey Tom sends a link that provides a response, The Sexual Revolution and its Victims.  The piece concludes:

At every step of his life, though, the sexual revolution wrought its harm.  It perversely rewarded the irresponsible behavior of his parents and his stepparents.  It had, even by then, made sexual activity among young people something to be expected, so that a lonely kid like Danny would constantly have to wonder about himself.  It had corrupted the popular culture, so that well-chaperoned and innocent CYO dances were a distant memory.  It set him up for a short-circuited sexual relationship with a mother-substitute, depriving him of the children that might have sweetened his advancing years.  It swept away all the institutions that used to bring boys together, as boys, to train them to be decent and well-adjusted men.  It raised him up in an anti-culture of faithlessness, as he would witness one sexual “relationship” after another dissolve by ill-will or boredom.

It has brought us a world wherein people sweat themselves to death in the pursuit of unhappiness.  Some of those people, by the grace of God, miss their aim. 

Merton, Marilyn, and David Carradine

Today, August 5th, is the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death.  What follows is a post from 13 June 2009.

………………..

Thomas Merton, Journal (IV, 240), writing about Marilyn Monroe around the time of her death in 1962:

. . .the death was as much a symbol as the bomb – symbol of uselessness and of tragedy, of misused humanity.

He’s right of course: Monroe’s was a life wasted on glamour, sexiness, and frivolity. She serves as a lovely
warning: Make good use of your human incarnation! Be in the flesh, but not of the flesh.

The fascination with empty celebrity, a fascination as inane as its object, says something about what we have become in the West. We in some measure merit the revulsion of the Islamic world. We value liberty, and rightly, but we fail to make good use of it as Marilyn and Anna Nicole Smith failed to make good use of their time in the body. Curiously enough, a failure to make good use of one's time in the body often leads to its early destruction, and with it, perhaps, the possibility of spiritual improvement.

Curiously, Merton and Carradine both died in Bangkok, the first of accidental electrocution on 10 December 1968, the second a few days ago apparently of autoerotic asphyxiation.  The extremity and perversity of the latter practice is a clear proof of the tremendous power of the sex drive to corrupt and derange the human spirit if it is allowed unfettered expression.  One with any spiritual sensitivity and depth ought to shudder at the thought of ending his life in the manner of Carradine, in the heteronomy and diremption of the flesh, utterly enslaved to one's lusts, one's soul emptied out into the dust.  To risk one's very life in pursuit of intensity of orgasm  shows a mind unhinged.  Thinking of Carradine's frightful example, one ought to pray, as Merton did thousands of times: Ora pro nobis peccatoribus.  Nunc et in hora mortis.

Coitus Reservatus and Beyond

It is a decidedly unpopular thing to say these days, but I'll say it anyway, echoing a conviction of William James: Much profit comes from avoiding sensory indulgence.

A much more difficult practice is to enter into it with cool detachment. Coitus reservatus, for example. But it is no more difficult than playing blindfold chess, which is not that difficult. One experiences the sensations attendant upon sexual intercourse while remaining indifferent to them: one regards them as mere sensations. (In my lexicon, coitus reservatus requires non-ejaculation, whereas coitus interruptus allows it, but outside the partner.)

Moral Responsibility in Dreams

I had a lucid dream the other night in which I lost my cool to an extent I would consider morally reprehensible in waking life.  But was there any moral failure in the dream?  And then there are the dreams in which I am having sexual intercourse with a woman not my wife.  I'm aware I am dreaming and I think to myself: "Well, this is just a dream; I may as well enjoy it."  So on occasion I grant nocturnal permission to a nocturnal emission. 

Was there real, not merely dreamt, moral failure in the dream?      (Augustine discusses this or a cognate question somewhere in his pelagic pennings, but I have forgotten where.)

Lucid dreaming while asleep is not the same as fantasizing while awake.  But they are similar.  Suppose I am entertaining (with hospitality) thoughts about having sex with my neighbor's wife.  That sort of thing, I have argued, is morally objectionable.  I mean the thinking, whether or not it results in any doing.  Jesus just says it (MT 5:28).  I argue it here and here.  (Of course if he is God, he doesn't need to argue it, and because I am not God, I do.)  Does the similarity support the claim that the nocturnal permission is as morally impermissible as the diurnal permission?