A book about sex by J. Budziszewski uses natural law arguments to persuade young adults of the moral benefits of purity.
How should we respond to the hookup culture? A
number of concerned parents, pastors, and professors from all sides of
the religious and political spectrum have expressed concern about the
sexual culture that today’s young people inhabit. Some scholars, such as
sociologists Mark Regnerus, Jeremy Uecker, and Kathleen Bogle, have
published value-neutral analyses that aim to assess current trends and
save us from common misperceptions. In empirical terms, they tell us how
and why the sexual economy hurts its actors. Others, such as Laura
Sessions Stepp and Donna Freitas, have offered more personal—and, for
Freitas, spiritual—analyses of problems and possible solutions in modern
sexual culture. Interestingly enough, these authors don’t write as
traditionalists or social conservatives. They aren’t advocating purity
rings or “modest is hottest.” Instead, they seek to help young people
make more responsible sexual decisions. Not surprisingly, though, their
counsel often aligns with a traditional conception of sexuality and
monogamy, even if not perfectly. The science shows that more commitment
and fewer sexual partners tend to make people happier.
But what about those who think that morality requires a bit more of
us? How can they persuade young people that reserving sexual intimacy
for marriage is the right thing to do? In his book On the Meaning of Sex,
popular author and political philosopher J. Budziszewski attempts to
make such an argument on the basis of human nature and natural law. He
begins with an anecdote from teaching. During a classroom discussion of
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, one of his students, Harris,
said he found the characters disgusting. When pressed, Harris clarified
that he had no problem with their sexual habits: “Sex doesn’t always have to mean something,” he insisted. What he found disgusting was their factory production of human beings.
But, Budziszewski argues, holding those two positions is not logically consistent:
It shouldn’t have bothered Harris unless
procreation is something that ought to take place in the loving embrace
of the parents. . . . Moreover, since Harris was revolted that the
aspiration to children could ever be separated from the aspiration to
union, it would seem that he recognized that these two meanings aren’t
merely sometimes joined together, but that they are joined whenever we
have sex. . . . Apparently sex means something to us even if we don’t
admit to ourselves that it does.
That last sentence conveys Budziszewski’s goal and style of
argumentation: He wants to draw attention to the reader’s gut feelings
and instincts that may have been trained away by education or social
conditioning. He wants to help them see what they know, even if they
don’t know that they know it.
After some well-laid-out arguments about function, purpose, and
natural law, Budziszewski argues that our bodies and actions have
natural purposes. This means that some actions, such as those necessary
for sexual union, mean something, whether we want them to or not. To put
it another way, they say something, even if that is not what we want
them to say: “A bodily action is like a word; we mean things to each
other no less by what we do than by what we say. . . . To crush your
windpipe with my thumbs is to say to you, ‘Now die,’ even if I tell you
with my mouth, ‘Be alive.’ To join in one flesh is to say, ‘I give
myself to you in all that this act means,’ even if I tell you with my
mouth, ‘This means nothing.’” What sex means is total gift, a union of
selves instantiated through bodily union, and it cannot but help mean
that. By acting against this nature, which we cannot change, we do
damage to ourselves and others.
Budziszewski further argues that human nature entails complementary
differences between men and women. He notes that these differences are
similar across cultures, both in terms of what people think they are and
what they think about them. “Mark it up as another victory of
quantitative social science,” he writes: “We can now confirm by counting
that what everyone used to know without counting really is true.” He
then explores how the particular characteristics of men and women make
them attractive—in short, what we mean when we say that someone is sexy.
Budziszewski thinks we mean that we find their manliness or womanliness
desirable. Womanliness, for instance, “isn’t something she contrives,
but something that glows from her. . . . The most compelling and
believable signs of being a nice person to marry, make love with, and
have children with are the ones that arise spontaneously. They are an
outward glory given by an inward and invisible reality. A beautiful
woman cannot help giving off such radiance, because it is an effect of
what she really is.” Beauty conveys something deeper and more holistic
than raw sexual appeal.
Similarly, spousal love is not a matter of feelings but an act of the
will. Enchantment is a feeling of emotional infatuation, the moment of
“wow” when she enters the room. Love, by contrast, is really about
charity, which Budziszewski defines as “a permanent commitment of the
will to the true good of the other person.” Erotic charity is a mode of
charity bound to one person, and sexual intercourse is a particular act
of this charity that fuses two selves together in the union of their
flesh. Because love is not about enchantment, but charity, it is an act
of the will, not a feeling. Therefore, Budziszewski argues, “it is
something that one decides to do, and it can be promised.” To the many
young people who claim that permanent, exclusive marriage is impossible
because you can’t promise feelings, he would say yes—but marriage is not
a promise of feelings.
Not surprisingly, Budziszewski calls for embracing sexual purity,
which, he makes clear, is a matter of pursuing goods—goods that will be
useful and helpful for marriage—not fleeing from them. Its temporary
“no’s” enable one to give a full “yes” at the right time. He sees sexual
purity as coming in both masculine and feminine flavors: “One awakens
the feminine intuition of something that must be guarded; the other, the
masculine sense of something that must be mastered.” And he extols the
virtues of purity: decorum, “the conduct befitting the dignity of man as
a rational being”; modesty, which “expresses respect for the fragility
of this dignity . . . [and avoids] provoking appetites that people
should be trying to moderate”; and temperance, finding order and the
mean in one’s actions.
Throughout the book, Budziszewski resists invoking God or anything
beyond rationally accessible premises. More accurately, he hints at such
ideas without developing his hints, nor has he explained why every
chapter begins with a quotation from John of the Cross. In the
conclusion, though, he argues that sex points to and is ultimately about
God: “Nature points beyond herself. She has a face, and it looks up. . .
. ultimately, human love makes sense only in the light of divine love.
The point is not that divine love means something and that human love
doesn’t. Human love means so much, because divine love means still
more.” In a variation on C.S. Lewis’s argument for the existence of God
based on desire, he notes that even when we love well, mortal love is
not enough. Since no human longing is made in vain, this unfulfilled
natural desire must point toward a supernatural lover.
But taking this argument into religious waters poses the question of
which audience Budziszewski hopes to reach. And that poses the larger
question of how effective his efforts—not to mention the broader efforts
of like-minded religious believers—actually are. If he wants to
strengthen the faithful as they navigate young adulthood, he might well
succeed. To be sure, far too many young religious men and women have
followed the cultural lead and abandoned chastity. If On the Meaning of Sex
gave them better reasons for it, that alone would be a great feat. But
how is he to persuade students who press with further questions or
actively oppose his views on principle? Budziszewski’s occasionally
chivalric language might go over well with young Chestertonians, but
many young adults would balk at passages like this one:
When we do attempt the journey back to
the commonwealth of sense, we will meet trolls and enchanters on the
way. They will obstruct passage, demand tribute, and try to lure us into
byways and bogs. But why should that discourage us? We are already
begrimed and bewitched. The first thing to do is open our eyes, grasp
hold of the nearest branches, and pull ourselves out of the ooze. Odd
knights we! Having made ourselves muddy and ridiculous, we may as well
journey with a smile.
Likewise, the Arthurian metaphor of the Siege Perilous for a woman,
her sexuality, or her reproductive organs is not going to fly outside
more traditional Christian circles, and even there it might receive
tenuous support.
Inquisitive students will desire more proof that sex has to mean what
Budziszewski thinks it means—and why it cannot mean what they might
want it to mean. His passages about sexual beauty offer an attractive
vision of what it means to be human, but can they pierce the carapace of
wounded, ironic disdain? He discusses sexual differences with nuance
and care, and many young adults would no doubt find resonances of his
words in their lives, but, albeit unfairly, a good number will dismiss
it as patriarchal and outmoded.
How then can those who agree with Budziszewski try to show young adults a more excellent way? There are few easy answers, but On the Meaning of Sex’s
strengths show where to begin: by offering an eloquent, engaging
description of the beauty of men, women, and sexuality. Moreover, it
seeks to show young people the wisdom of their desires and repugnance.
It tries to preserve good intuitions and gently check misunderstandings,
to show them what their hearts know, even if unwittingly. It also hands
on the wisdom of our forebears with care and winsomeness. Of course,
those who believe that chastity leads to flourishing must also
demonstrate it with their lives. But arguments are necessary as well,
and both the style and the content of On the Nature of Sex offer a good place to find them.
Nathaniel Peters is a Ph.D. student of theology at Boston College.
