Facing the Facts and the Hypocrisy

Perhaps you have heard the bru-ha-ha about Randall Tobias. Tobias was the deputy secretary of state and the first global AIDS czar. Appointed by President George W. Bush, his policies concerning AIDS reflected the president's values. The czar's approach was abstinance education first, including marital fidelity, and the use of condoms only as a last resort. Such an approach is largely untested, showing success only in Calcutta, India because it has only been tried there (by Mother Teresa for the sake of family planning rather than AIDS).

It was discovered that Tobias has been ordering the service the services of a local brothel, probably comitting adultery (though Tobias won't admit to anything more than getting massages for $300 a visit). Another politician has let us down. No surprise, there, really - politicians live in a world of power and money and constant temptation and they fall to it no matter what their political bent. Still, it certainly hurts the cause of promoting public morality to have one of its spokesmen fall to sin.

Of course, the modernists jump all over it. Another hypocrite claiming moral superiority while living a secret life of debauchery! Of course, political commentators rightfully should call politicians on hypocrisy. However, modernists are not content to call out a hypocrite. To a modernist, hypocrisy and any failure to live up to an ideal as proof that all ideals are worthless. Take Ellen Goodman's judgment of Tobias' downfall:

ELLEN GOODMAN: It's The Hypocrisy, Stupid

But there's something worse than hypocrisy, surely worse than finding another bureaucrat who can't practice what he promoted. It's an administration willfully rolling out programs that don't work. It's policymaking that's evidence-proof.

Ms. Goodman does not save her venom for the man who falls, but shares it with the entire ideal of abstinance and self-control.

The believers continue to insist that abstinence is the only 100 percent sure way to prevent pregnancy and disease. But 95 percent of Americans have sex before marriage. In real life, that's a 95 percent failure rate.

Let's examine that claim. We live in a culture that promotes recreational sexuality, that ostracizes virgins, that tries to abolish marriage, that holds a pornographic myth as reality, that relegates the practice of chastity to moralizers who are deep down unable to practice what they preach. And the reason that 95% of Americans have sex before marriage is that abstinence education has failed? I would say rather that 95% of Americans have sex before marriage because America has never tried abstinence education.

Goodman says of Tobias,

The price he'll pay for his "gals" is humiliation. But the biggest flaw in the world of this president and his enablers is not hiding their eyes from human frailty. It's refusing to face facts.

What facts are not being faced? According to Goodman, the facts are that human beings cannot control themselves. Human beings are incapable of saving sex for marriage or of remaining faitful to a spouse. I guess, according to Ellen Goodman, we are nothing more than rutting animals.

Modernists need to face the facts. Human beings have an intellect and a will. They are therefore capable of giving sexuality deeper meaning. They are also therefore capable of exercising self-control and self-determination. Another fact that modernists have to face is that failure to live up to ideals does not invalidate the ideals. Ideals call us to become better than we are. When we fail to live up to them, their presence reminds us of our failure to draw us into compunction, and then to conversion. When we succeed in living up to them, they enoble our lives and protect us against sinful desires.

Removing the consequences for our sins and giving up on our ideals does more damage than exposing us to the danger of AIDS. It destroys our humanity - making us into animals that use each other and that live only by the dictates of power. Face the facts - ideals are necessary and good, including chastity.

Promiscuity is Natural, Right?

LiveScience.com - Animal Sex: No Stinking Rules

Biggest Playaz
Animals flout established rules when it comes to the game of love and sex. In fact, the animal kingdom is full of swingers. Bonobos are highly promiscuous, engaging in sexual interactions more frequently than any other primate, and in just about every combination from heterosexual to homosexual unions. Mothers even mate with their mature sons (Everyone: Eeeeewww!). Bonobo societies “make love, not war,” and their frequent sex is thought to strengthen social bonds and resolve conflict. This idea could explain why bonobo societies are relatively peaceful and their relatives, chimpanzees, which practice sex strictly for reproduction, are prone to violence.
Photo Credit: H. Vannoy Davis © California Academy of Sciences.

The post for this site is being sent around as an email forward. Apparently, the point that people are trying to make is that the animal world is so much more enlightened and relaxed about sexuality than human beings are. "Hey, animals actually benefit from promiscuity. What's our hang-up?"

First of all, the claim made above that Bonobo societies "make love, not war," and that sexual promiscuity strengthens social bonds and resolves conflict is a completely unscientific statement. How could such a claim be proven? I suppose one could intervene whenever members of the Bonobo society began to sexually engage with one another and see if sexual tensions led to conflict. However, the claim made above is not based on any research at all. It is an interpretation of a correlation. Perhaps Bonobos are simply more temperamentally placid.

Secondly animals can "throw out the sexual rule book" exactly because they are animals. For animals, sex is at most a physical pleasure. Animal sex does not communicate love. Animal sex does not promise commitment. Animal sex is not an act of vulnerability and trust. Animal sex is boring. Human sexuality adds all of these elements that make sex an act of love. Animals do not "make love, not war" because without an intellect to give sex meaning and a will to make sex a choice, animals are incapable of love in the human sense, and are really incapable of war (they may conflict and battle, but they do not sustain battle into war that involves entire societies).

If human beings throw out the sexual rule book, we will become Bonobos - simple animals with active but meaningless sex lives.

Everyone: Eeeeewww!

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Oxytocin Verified

Thanks to Susan Kuchinskas for her wonderful comment on "The Myth of Chastity?" I encourage all of my readers to check it out. Susan verifies that there is some scientific verification of the effects of oxytocin, but not on any tolerance effects. However, even if extramarital sex would not create a tolerance effect to oxytocin, I still think it is possible that it could damage our overall ability to bond with our spouse. Susan proposes that perhaps a change in cultural norms have led to changes in parenting, resulting in choices and behaviors that do not promote bonding. My reasons also turn from biological to psychological. Again, I have no actual scientific proof, and would love input from anybody more cognizant than I am.

An unmarried couple engaged in sex has a lot of bonding being communicated on various levels. Oxytocin contributes a biological and emotional bonding effect. Being naked and vulnerable to each other creates a strong emotional and cognitive bonding effect. The meaning of the sexual act - which is more than simply, "I love you," but also, "I love you and commit myself to spending the rest of my life with you to raise a family" - contributes an intellectual and fully human sense of bonding. All of this works together to make sexuality an incredibly powerful communication of love and commitment.

Now that couple breaks up, or moves on from a one-night-stand, and perhaps experiences the same sense of bonding with another partner. Especially if this is repeated over and over again, doesn't it seem likely that a person may experience a psychological tolerance to the bonding effect? A person would come to consider the emotional sense of bonding - cognitively or subconsciously - as just part of the sexual thrill. Or perhaps the person would start to believe the lie he or she has told with his or her body over and over again that the sexual act really means nothing. "Tomorrow or next year I'll just find someone else to experience this with, and it will mean nothing more with him or her than it did with the person I'm having sex with now."

Again, even without scientific proof that such an effect actually exists, it seems logical that making choices that oppose the natural tendency to bond during sex would have detrimental psychological effects. It makes enough sense to make Ellen Goodman's scoffing seem ridiculous, at least until science can prove it wrong.

The Myth of Chastity?

Ellen Goodman thinks that chastity is nonsense. She didn't say it directly, but you certainly can't miss the point when you read this article:
The Cincinnati Post - Rejecting a middle ground.

She criticizes Eric Keroack, the new head of the Office of Population Affairs, for resisting measures that promote contraception rather than abstinence. Goodman seems to think that promoting contraception would be a rational way to minimize abortions. She also seems to think that abstinence education is an unworkable solution proposed by naive, repressed religious nuts. Look at the quote below:

Keroack's PowerPoint lectures should be regulars on "The Colbert Report." In the most infamous, titled appropriately "If I Only Had a Brain," he teaches that "premarital sex is really modern germ warfare." His unique ''scientific explanation" of why multiple sex partners are bad has to do with, uh, oxytocin. "People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual." More sex leads to less bonding? This ranks with old-time warnings that you-know-what leads to warts.

The effect of oxytocin ranks with the mythology surrounding masturbation? Ms. Goodman is using here one of her favorite argument techniques - ridiculing the opposition whether you understand them or not. Is the idea of oxytocin-induced bonding so absurd?

Unfortunately, my only source of knowledge on oxytocin is second-hand. Chastity speakers often describe oxytocin in the same way Mr. Keroack did. I have not yet found scientific verification of these claims. If I do, I'll be sure to follow up on this post. So, at first it seems that Ms. Goodman is right to criticize Mr. Keroack's claims as invalid. However, are they absurd?

Here is what I do know for sure. First, oxytocin is a hormone that is present in human beings during childbirth, breastfeeding, and sexual activity. Second, we know that hormones do affect human emotions. Women's hormone cycles cause women to experience emotional cycles. The extent of these cycles is different from individual to individual, but women do generally experience greater desire to be social when their levels of estrogen rise, and a desire for solitude with the rise of progesterone. Thirdly, we know that the very nature of sexual intercourse lends itself to bonding. The act requires vulnerability to each other. It requires trust with each other's bodies and dignity. The possibility of procreation leads to the need for the growth of familial love. Is it so outlandish to believe that a hormone produced by sexual activity may have an emotional effect on us that would promote bonding in preparation for the acceptance of new life?

What about the idea that extra-marital sex wastes the bonding effects of oxytocin? The emotional effects of hormones are very similar to the effects that drugs have on our bodies. Our bodies tend to build up a tolerance to certain drugs, especially those that cause euphoric responses. While I do not know for certain if we can build up a tolerance to hormonal effects, it does not seem outside of the realm of possibility, especially when the emotional response created by the hormone touches on a reality as complex as human relationships.

Finally, we also know that the divorce rate in the first five years of marriage has increased proportionately to our culture's acceptance of pre-marital sex. Correlation does not mean causation, but isn't it possible that part of the reason for such a pattern could be the loss of emotional bonding? Again, the conclusion may be unproven, but it certainly isn't absurd.

There is one final difference between the claims about oxytocin and the masturbation myth. The myth that masturbation causes warts on your hand was created by a segment of a culture of prudishness. People who could not bring themselves to talk openly about sexuality needed a way to keep people from performing undesirable sexual acts. In contrast, chastity advocates today are far from prudish. Notice the difference between this blog post and Ms. Goodman's article. She refers to masturbation as "you know what," while I am not afraid to name the act. Chastity advocates do not see sex as dirty. We do not want to repress sexuality. Instead, we see human sexuality as a glorious act of life-giving love that has the power to create and to sustain a family. Sex outside of marriage degrades the dignity of human sexuality by making it an animal act for the purpose of pleasure. Chastity advocates like Mr. Keroack are not in the habit of creating myths to avoid discussing sex. The worse they can be accused of is overstating their case. Ms. Goodman likes to ridicule her opposition without truly examining their arguments. If she has proof that oxytocin is a myth, she should come forward with it. We don't need oxytocin to know that extra-marital sex is bad for us. However, the evidence in favor of oxytocin does exist, and it does support our case.



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TV Bites Back

Summary: Newsweek's online front page for May 27, 2005 featured an interesting story about a program called TV-Watch. It's a program sponsored by members of the entertainment industry to attempt to keep government out of the censorship business. Instead of governmental censorship, it promotes equipping people (especially parents) to make wise media choices.

This program promoted educating parents on how to use devices like the V-chip and strategies such as family TV watching and family discussions about what is watched. The surprise is that this program is sponsored by television network moguls. The key here is that they don't want the government sticking its nose into private business, even if that private business is broadcast on public air waves.

Putting aside my skepticism about big-business, I have to day that at first blush I agree with the tenants of this program. The principle of subsidiarity is too often ignored by the Right and the Left in American politics. Here is a group that is promoting subsidiarity and media morality. It deserves some thought. However, I do have some questions that may just challenge this program.

First of all, the people quoted in the articles seem to assume that government cannot come up with universal standards of decency. Is this because no universal standards for decency exist, or is it just because government is too inefficient to think clearly about it? I may agree with the latter statement. However, my guess is that the article is actually intimating the former. For example, here is one quote from the article:

Why should we trust government to come up with the standards? Standards for who? I can’t even agree with my wife about what we ought to watch on television. Do you really think government is going to be able to come up with a standard for all of us?

This quote seems to reflect the typical attitude of modernist and post-modernist thinkers. These are philosophers that I want to more deeply explore this summer. One of the main assumptions of these philosophies is that no universal standards exist. Standards are personal and are for the most part useless. This is one of the most difficult areas of impasse between Christian believers and "modernist" and post-modernist" thinkers. Catholics especially believe in a universal human nature, and in universal standards that can be drawn out of a careful study of human nature. Universal standards such as "decency" are possible.

However, sin and fallen human nature sometimes make it difficult to judge what those standards are. The documents written by our country's founding fathers make it clear that they expected government to have the ability to make such judgments. However, those same documents clearly show that the founding fathers disagreed about to what degree government should shoulder such a responsibility. It was also up to the people to decide on such standards through the public square and in private settings.

I have no problem putting the responsibility of judging standards of decency into the hands of parents. However, I question how effective such an approach will be without the support of either the government or (better yet) the willing support of the networks. Even with the V-chip and other technologies, even with better education, would we and our children be protected? Would young children be protected against immoral advertisements? Such advertisements come on even during "family-friendly" programming. Would parents be able to know when a certain episode of an otherwise "safe" program may contain offensive material? How would a V-chip or a ratings system have protected young eyes from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl? No one watching the Super Bowl expected to be subjected to an act - accidental or purposeful - of exhibitionism.

If the answers to these questions would be "no" then this solution is insufficient. When networks are driven to "push the envelope" because of the erroneous yet viral belief that "sex sells," the ability of families to protect themselves from indecency, violence, and harmful attitudes is seriously handicapped. Exploring options such as better parental training and technology such as the V-chip should be the first step. However, as much as I would like to keep government out of it, it is the duty of government to protect our families when private measures are weakened by greedy and unscrupulous media producers.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas

Help! Help! I'm being (sexually) repressed!

I found this editorial at www.robertscheer.com (see link below). Mr. Scheer makes a claim that is very common among my teenaged moral theology students: "How dare the Church tell me how to live my life when it itself guilty of so much evil."

Click below to read the full post:

Mr. Scheer begins . . .

A Hypocritical Church's Sex Lessons

May 24, 2005 – One of the most sexually repressed institutions in human history has been caught with its pants down yet again but still insists on wagging its disapproving finger at the rest of us.

First of all, to call the Church sexually repressed is unfair. Listen to this quote from Pope John Paul II, written before he became pope in his Love and Responsibility: "There exists a rhythm dictated by nature itself which both spouses must discover so that climax may be reached both by the man and by the woman, and as far as possible occur in both simultaneously (272)." Does that sound sexually repressed? I encourage you to check out some of the Church's writings on sexuality, especially Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. [See Chris West's Theology of the Body web site for more information]

Mr. Scheer continues to address a new bunch of "revelations" regarding priestly sex scandals. He then says,

Despite the horrific drumbeat of child molestation revelations, however,
sensible Catholics hoping for a more transparent and less sexually repressed
church shouldn't hold their breath. The new pope is not only a longtime leader
of vicious church attacks on "evil" gays, he also has shamefully blamed the
molestation scandal on the media.

Mr. Scheer presents a few quotes from Pope Benedict XVI / Cardinal Ratzinger upholding the Church's moral teachings on sexuality. He then makes his point:

The leader of the world's largest religious denomination apparently doesn't understand the essential truth of the molestation scandal: It was the church's breathtakingly systematic cover-up over many decades that so horrified followers and outsiders alike.

When it comes to matters of poverty, immigration and peace, the Catholic Church is a major source of enlightenment. It is a serious loss to have the church's work in those areas undermined by its Dark Ages attitude on sex. And, as is so often the case with the most severely judgmental and repressed, this stance is rife with moral hypocrisy.

How else to explain an institution that refuses to accept responsibility for the lives it has violated through sexual abuse, even as it incessantly condemns same-sex couples for wanting to form stable families? If you are gay and want to get married you are "deviant and a threat to society," according to the Vatican, and if you adopt a child – the irony is dark here – it is tantamount to abuse.

The problem with Mr. Scheer's assumption that the sex scandals were caused by the Church's "repressive" sexual morality has one problem: at the time most of the offending priests found guilty of sexual misconduct were in the seminary, during the 60s and 70s, the Church's repressive sexual morality was by-and-large not being taught. In fact, this was a time when many seminaries embraced the kind of morality that Mr. Scheer advocates. Homosexuality was not seen as an impediment to the priesthood, and indeed was even embraced as a healthy lifestyle. Throughout their formation, these seminarians were told that their homosexual tendencies should be embraced. So, they followed the teachings brought to them by post-modernism and humanistic psychology, and they embraced their sexual desires and acted on them.

In contrast, the present-day Church is filled with priests, religious, married couples, and single people who love and live the Church's moral teachings. They see great beauty in the Church's vision of sexuality. They see great freedom in the Church's call to chastity. They see great meaning in the Church's call to celibacy for those who serve the Church outside of the sacrament of marriage. I would be willing to bet a small fortune that this generation will not see their young people grow up to be molesters. Sure, some will fall to sin - but not on the grand scale that we saw in the previous generation.

The Church's teachings on homosexuality are not repressive, oppressive, or intolerant. The Church preaches love and understanding toward men and women who suffer under the burden of same sex attraction. The Church calls such people to chastity, the same as she calls all of us to chastity. It also preserves the meaning of marriage, both for the good of human society, and for the good of the Covenant.

It's time to return to reasoned dialogue. If people are going to criticize the Catholic Church and her moral teachings, then in the name of intellectual honesty they should first learn exactly what the Church teaches. I agree with Mr. Scheer that some bishops failed when they refused to take responsibility for priests they knew were abusive. I agree that the cover-up was most likely done due to some old-fashioned notions of Church politics. However, to blame it on the Church's moral teachings is not logical once one learns what the Church actually does teach.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas