Chastity as second innocence

"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  Let anyone accept this who can." (Matt. 19:12)

"I am still a virgin!", "I am no longer a virgin!"
By the tone of voice and the emphasis used when a young man/woman affirms: "I am still a virgin", or "I am no longer a virgin" we discover immediately the way he/she conceptualizes and lives his/her sexuality. Regardless of them being said with sadness or pride, these two expressions point out the various misunderstandings in regard to sexuality and virginity.

The first sexual intercourse marks a woman physically, psychologically and even culturally differently compared to a man:
Physically - The woman loses her hymen, by which she is no longer physically or technically a virgin; for the man nothing is lost and nothing is gained in this respect.

Psychologically - For both, the act may have been positive, if it took place within the context of love, or negative, if it was sought only for pleasure, and even traumatic, if it was induced by violence.

Culturally - The patriarchal culture, still dominant throughout the world today, regards the first sexual act in an innocuous way or even positively in the case of a man, but negatively or even stigmatizing in case of a woman.

For many people, virginity or chastity is something that is as permanent as a castle in the sand, waiting to be surrendered to the waves of marriage, 'defended' until this takes place or simply to avoid problems. With marriage, the castle ceases to exist and therefore no longer needs to be defended.

Virginity, as synonym of chastity, is a value and a virtue both for men and for women, and is lived by both in the same way; it is therefore not physical, nor something one has at birth and soon to be lost and never to possess again.  The values and virtues that distinguish us and give shape and meaning to our life are not innate, nor are they possessed naturally, on the contrary, they are the result of rigorous discipline and personal efforts with the help of God's grace.

Sigmund Freud proved that the so called chastity, purity or virginity, of children is a myth; far from living in a state of purity, an infant lives in a habitat of lust, without censure, in very subtle ways of sexual self-gratification. It is only by the fourth, fifth and sixth year of life that, through education, the child learns to conform and to live within certain standards of decency.

From that moment on, until the age of 12, 'chastity' appears to be the natural dwelling of children. With the onset of puberty, little by little, nature appears to return in full force claiming its rights.

Slaves of sexual freedom
With the studies of Freud, Wilhelm Reich and others at the end of the 19th century and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, in a short time we went from a negative vision, puritanical and Manichean, of sexuality to a vision of sexuality free from all and any moral constraints. The present day society prostituted sex, understanding it as a consumer good and using it subliminally to advertise anything; in this way, it managed to disconnect sex from reproduction, from love and even from responsibility, spreading the idea that making love is like drinking a cup of water. Not even the risk of AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases of the 1980s, managed to stop this permissive liberal tendency.

The society is so eroticized and permissive that most find it difficult to be chaste, especially those adolescents and young people who are awakening to the vicissitudes of sexual desire, or 'libido', as Freud called it. The first sexual experience occurs increasingly earlier and many, despite being physically ready for it, are not psychologically, morally and spiritually prepared.

The results are there for everyone to see: an elevated degree of promiscuity that leads to breaking of existing ties, divorce rate of 51% in Portugal, 43% in Canada and 40-50% in US, as well as to choosing to live together, instead of marrying.

There are fewer and fewer people who manage to pass from the purity and innocence of childhood to the matured adult chastity without going through negative, traumatic and stigmatizing sexual experiences; increasingly are those who learn from mistakes they have committed, like in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son. They undergo a similar experience to that of Adam and Eve, banished from the paradise of innocence because of their disobedience. However, the saving power of Jesus available to all secures them a second chance, a second innocence.

From prostitute to virgin
"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3)

There are values and virtues that children have naturally and that we adults, at Jesus' command, are called to acquire in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; for this to occur, in some way, we need to be born again, like Jesus advised Nicodemus. When Jesus says blessed are the poor, he is not referring to those who are born poor and live in poverty, due to their economic and financial conditions, but rather to those who are rich and decide to be poor; that is, exchanging material wealth for spiritual wealth.

The same applies to the value of innocence, virginity, or chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven; it is not a question of innate innocence or virginity, because of ignorance and lack of experience at a time when the sex hormones, testosterone and progesterone, were not at their peak of production; but rather it deals with a conscious virtue acquired by the grace of God, by prayer and by daily efforts.

The prodigal son and Mary Magdalene both learned what ‘true love’ is after having experienced something that appeared to be love, but was not. After knowing Christ, Mary Magdalene whom some scholars referred to as being a prostitute, becomes a virgin because she followed the Lord. In the same way the prodigal son, only understands what true love and freedom are after having abused both values, and having suffered the consequences.

The virgins for the Kingdom of Heaven are those who, whatever may be their past, choose to live and to love without the physical expression of love, which leads to the formation of a small human family, in order to be placed at the service of a larger human family. They choose to be and to live like Jesus, their master and their Lord, who was also a virgin so to dedicate the best of themselves, their entire being, their time and energy to the Kingdom of Heaven.                               

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Chastity as energy sublimation

The formula of human life
My passion to simplify things, led me to think of a formula for human life; using Greek, which traditionally has been the language of Science, I came up with the idea that human life is the sum of four different elements or dimensions: Eros + Thanatos + Cronos + Logos

Eros & Thanatos - Life Instinct and Death Instinct, affection and aggression, are in Freudian language the positive and the negative poles of human energy.

Cronos - Is the dimension of time; we are spatial and temporal beings; we occupy a space for a duration of time, which corresponds to the years we live.

Logos - Refers to the awareness that we are alive and free to do whatever we want with our lives. In the case of animals and plants, their time and energy are regulated by nature, since they are not aware that they exist they have no power over their existence. Logos is our fundamental option; it is what we decide to do with our lives; to what and to whom we are going to devote all, and each one, of our days.

The energy of human life
Eros & Thanatos are, instincts of life and death, affectivity and aggressiveness, ying and yang, centripetal and centrifugal forces, love and hate, positive and negative poles of the electricity or energy with which we do everything that we do. Without energy nothing works, in society, the same applies to human life.

In human beings all their actions should be inspired and decided by Logos, by reason; but the truth is the instincts, of Eros and Thanatos, not only provide the energy to perform all acts, which reason decides upon, but they also motivate, nurture and direct many other acts which reason seems unable to control. In spite of millions of years of evolution from irrational animalism, our behaviour is still more influenced by instincts than we would like to admit.

All human acts are a mixture of affection and aggression, even the most polarised ones; for example, one would think that the education of a child would be exclusively a matter of affection but, as we all know, a good education should consist of a balance of rewards when the child behaves appropriately and punishments when he doesn’t.

If affection has to do with unconditional love, supporting, nurturing, caressing and praising the child’s achievements, aggression has to do with punishment, discipline, setting limits and regulations, and enforcing them. Too much affection would patronize and spoil the child; too much discipline without affection would impact his self-esteem and eventually make him violent.

Sublimation
In his book, "Civilization and Its Discontents", Freud states that when aggression and affection are unrestrained, that is, left to their own devices, they have an immeasurable potential for destruction; they can destroy what they have helped to build. Human beings abandoned animalism when they won control over these two forces, when they succeeded to tame, or managed to put restraints on them in order to be used in a positive, constructive and cultural way.

The taboo of incest – Throughout the ages this taboo has been acting like a "bridle" on Eros. For the majority of people it has become almost a second nature as they don’t feel sexually attracted to those with whom they have blood ties. But in the beginning it was not like that, it had to be enforced and even today for some. Without this prohibition the inbreeding would in time wipe out the human race.

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" – Belongs to the Hamurabi code of laws, the first that ever existed. It seems very negative the way it is quoted in the scripture and yet throughout the ages it has acted as a bridle for Thanatos because it sets limits and regulates the instinct of aggression and vengeance that tends to escalate and spread uncontrollably leading to destruction as we all know.

Sublimation consists of the substitution, modification or transformation of the natural expression of an impulse or instinct into one that is socially and culturally, more acceptable and constructive. An example of a destructive energy transformed into a constructive energy is the transformation of a bull in bullfights, into an ox that plows the land and pulls a cart.

Looking at things from this perspective, human civilization can be considered as a history of sublimation of Eros and Thanatos, which has been the intelligent use that humanity has made of these forces or basic instincts. In the very same way, our own personal history also consists of the efforts to divert our natural affection and aggression from their natural and primordial target, in order to promote human values.

Chastity as diversion of energy
Now we can better understand the religious vow of chastity; it consists of diverting the natural affection of a man and a woman from its primordial objective, to marry and have children, channeling it towards a more cultural goal. Priests, nuns and religious choose not to have spouse in order to establish a broader fraternity; they choose not to reproduce biologically, and not to have children themselves, with the goal to amplify and extend their fatherhood and motherhood beyond blood ties.

The giving birth of a child, or the contribution of genetic material, makes a person a progenitor, not, per se, a true father or mother. There are authentic parents who are not the progenitors of their children, since they are adopted, and progenitors who are not good parents. True fatherhood or motherhood involves the complete dedication, the gift of self to the children, the continuous and constant following up until they become adults, and also the courage to cut off “the umbilical cord” and give the children their space and freedom, when they eventually become adults. In this respect, no one would deny the motherhood of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, even though she never gave birth to any of her children.

Considering the fact that, over the course of evolution, family ties have had more to do with instincts than with pure affection, we can conclude that a society, in which the social interaction is based solely on family relations, will always be very fragmented and weak. A kinship that extends beyond the limits of blood ties, can be a link or cement that unites families; more specifically, it can help to resolve conflicts that arise between rival families and contribute towards peace and understanding among all, just like the cartilage between bones allows for the smooth articulation of joints, preventing pain that arises when bone touches bone.

To summarize, the natural course of amorous instinct is the formation of a family, where the relationships are based on blood ties. Chastity sublimates, or diverts, the same instinct from its natural goal to give it a cultural goal - the universal fraternity. The love between people who are not related, by blood ties, acts as a unifying element of society.

Marcuse called this, "diffuse eroticism" and Freud called it "an amorous instinct cut off from its primordial objective”, and gives the example of St. Francis of Assisi as the man who best sublimated his Eros energy; the one who got the most benefits out of spreading his eroticism by treating everyone and everything as brothers and sisters: brother sun, sister moon, even addressing his enemies as brother wolf and sister death.

Some would say that this concept of love is not natural. In truth, it is not because it transcends nature, but, in the same sense, human culture or civilization itself is opposed to nature. In fact what is truly natural in Man is not what is given by nature, but what he himself achieves through his creative mind.

Chastity is like a dam
The Love within the vow of chastity can be compared to a dam. The water from lakes and rivers is not useful because it occupies or flows in the lowest part of the land. Unless you have an engine you cannot use that water. When you build a dam you elevate the water and level it with the land so now you can irrigate the fields and transform a desert into an oasis, creating and nourishing an agricultural and rural society; it can also be used to generate electricity, creating and nourishing industrial cities where the urban culture blooms.

It is true that dam represses, and compresses, obstructing water from its natural flow to the sea; that is why its walls have to be strong and concave. On the other hand, within the limits of what is possible, the added value and the benefits we get from the power of water to produce energy, and the use of it for irrigation, fully justify the repression.

Just like the concave walls of a dam, sublimation of Eros requires that the person possesses a strong and robust character, to contain the natural impulse of Eros which is manifested in sexual desire and in natural parenthood, and thus be able to channel his or her energy towards a kinship that is more universal.

The good that is done to others, as the results of this universal fellowship, fills the heart of the chaste person with joy; to realize that others are better off thanks to his or her actions, greatly compensates for the effort and the sacrifice involved in the process of sublimation.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC