The politics of purity

The decision to live chastely has significant social repercussions, argues Joseph Evans.

A young Catholic woman I know told me how, in a conversation with some of her non-religious friends, they were all shocked when she said that she and her boyfriend were not having sexual relations. They genuinely found it hard to believe.

Practising Catholics – and some evangelical Christians too – understand that living this way is what is expected of them. It is part of their faith and, therefore, they believe, God’s will, as much as this might go against contemporary western mores.

Practising Catholics who truly know their faith also know why they live this, how it is not a repression of love but a deeper expression of it. Love must be built up brick by brick, through talking, listening, sharing. Sexual union in marriage – the full gift of one’s body as part of the gift of oneself for life – then cements the bricks. Without this building up of the relationship, without the commitment of marriage, sex risks being a lot of cement and few bricks.

Informed Catholics are aware of Pope St John Paul II’s teaching on sexuality – now known as the Theology of the Body – in which he explains that sex is body language. Without the full commitment of marriage and openness to life within it, the gift of one’s body in sex is at least incomplete.

One is giving one’s body in an intensely intimate physical and emotional union without wanting to give oneself fully to the other, without full commitment, and usually without openness to the children which, if allowed to, could arise from this act. The body is ‘saying’ “I give myself to you” but in fact one is saying, “I won’t give you my whole life, forever; I won’t give you my fertility.” There is a contradiction written into the very act.

The English poet Elizabeth Jennings, herself a Catholic, expresses in her beautiful poem ‘The Way They Live Now’ the value of going slowly in courtship. She writes: “You make love and you live together now/ Where we were shy and made love by degrees.” She talks of ‘The little gestures that would mean so much’, showing how ‘Our love was growing’.

“Tokens and little gifts, the gaze of eye

To eye, the hand shared with another hand.”

She continues: “You take the whole of love. We lived by touch/ And doubt and by the purposes of chance” and then concludes:  

“And yet I think our slow ways carried much

That you have missed – the guess, the wish, the glance.”

Catholics and other Christians who actually practise this know they are being called to be rebels and not to conform to what everyone does. They know how much lived-out Christian morality can be a shock, and even a slap in the face, to contemporary society.

But what they might not realise is how much their chastity could be a political act, and one which could have a profound effect on society.

In all sorts of ways, many of them very demeaning of women, virginity has been politicised in the past. Hopefully they are now far behind us. Princesses have been scrutinised – I mean physically – to make sure they were virgins, the real McCoy, before being ‘delivered’ to their royal husband-to-be. 

But for a more recent expression of this politicisation, one only has to look back to the 1990s and the phenomenon of chastity movements which arose in that decade, mainly in the US.

A number of movements, like True Love Waits, tried to make virginity a public statement. Not surprisingly, these tended to arise from fundamentalist Protestant sectors – where politics and faith have long been (pardon the pun) bedfellows.

There were rallies and other initiatives for young Christians to proclaim their chastity as a public statement and as a refutation of contemporary moral corruption.

They certainly ruffled feathers and caused a hostile backlash against them, frequently involving statistics or cases showing how many of those young people then failed to keep their virginity. Or there would be stories of people who felt damaged by the movement and were now ‘liberated’ from its puritanism. The intention of the gainsayers was to show that living virginity was impossible or unhealthy, or both.

But these didn’t give statistics – because the figures are so enormous it would be impossible to do so – of the harm, physical and psychological, caused by promiscuity. It’s hard to measure a tsunami when you’re caught up in it.

However, in hindsight, it’s probably true that these movements didn’t work and didn’t help. In fact, it isn’t good to politicise sexual activity, or its avoidance, explicitly and deliberately. A 20^th century Catholic saint, Josemaria Escriva, had these wise words to say:

“Never speak of impure things or events, not even to lament them. Remember that such matter is stickier than pitch. Change the subject or, if that is not possible, continue with it, speaking of the need and the beauty of purity – a virtue of men who know the value of their souls” (Way 131). 

Am I going against his advice by writing this article? I think not. I think he is referring to entering into specific examples. And above all, I want to speak of ‘the beauty of purity’ and how living it out can be a truly society-changing action – if we do so appropriately.

Trumpeting one’s purity – apart from putting oneself dangerously close to the temptation of falling into pride, an even greater evil than sexual promiscuity – is in some way to speak publicly of what is best spoken of discreetly.

But neither am I encouraging its opposite, that we should never speak of sex. This can easily lead to Victorian prudery, which in fact often involved a somewhat pharisaic attitude – give an appearance of moral (and sexual) probity, even if in fact, behind closed doors, and closed mouths, a lot of immoral actions might be taking place.

And yet, I repeat, living chastity is a political action for all sorts of reasons. First of all, it trains one’s own body in self-restraint and this has social consequences. How can we hope to maintain a virtuous body politic – which surely must involve a certain self-control – if we can’t control our own body?

We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that living promiscuous and selfish lives, even if in the privacy of one’s bedroom, will not have an effect on the functioning of our society. If we get used to using other people for pleasure – albeit it consensual – in our sexual activity, it will necessarily spill over into other areas of our life.

St Josemaria was right again when he said “among the chaste are found the finest men in every way. And among the lustful predominate the timid, the selfish, the treacherous and the cruel – characters of little manliness” (Way 124). And, we could add, little womanliness too.

Living chastely – as long as one does so with humility and as an expression of love (and not out of pride or priggishness) – is a great way to prepare oneself to serve society in other greater ways, because one learns to control oneself in order to give oneself. Self-control for self-gift. How can we give ourselves if we are not in control of ourselves?

Another reason for which purity is such a political action is because, in time, it leads those living it out to fruitful marriages open to children. Those who live chastity before marriage do so knowing that their sexual activity is precisely for children in marriage.

Probably the biggest threat western society is facing at present is not the Russian or Chinese aggression we are being told to fear. It is demographic decline. (Though it also happens that Russia and China are facing the same decline).

Nothing threatens our body politic more than a declining birth rate.

And nothing more than having children contributes to it because it gives that body the very members it needs to survive and thrive.

In Britain some people complain that Muslims are having numerous children and so, they claim in apocalyptic tones, threaten to take over and change our society. Whether this threat is justified or not, one cannot blame Muslim parents for having babies, as all married couples would surely want to do.

The contraceptive culture which has infected our society – including, it must be said, numerous Catholics and other Christians – only leads to decline, to an ever greater percentage of grey heads on our streets (for as long as they can venture out), to shrinking church congregations, and of course to ever greater demands on an ever more stretched health service.  

Those currently putting up national flags in Britain as an anti-immigration statement (see my article on this) have to ask themselves how they hope to maintain the standard of living we are used to in this country without people to do the jobs – often humble and unpleasant ones – which make it possible. And if they’re using contraception and not having children, they don’t really have a right to complain about the arrival of the immigrants we need to do these jobs.

So, having or not having children is a profoundly political action which will significantly affect the future of our society.

Three other very politicised areas linked to sex are abortion, the gender issue and LGBT+ activism. Each would need a separate article but here we could simply say that, in the present climate, to affirm that sexual activity should always be with someone of the opposite sex (seen as a biological fact which doesn’t depend on personal opinion or social convention), in marriage, and that any child arising from this union should be treasured and not destroyed, is not only a moral but also a political stance which goes against current western orthodoxy.

We don’t need demonstrations and rallies to virtue signal our chastity. Rather, we should try to live it out humbly and discreetly and only refer to it when questioned in personal conversations or small groups, like that young woman mentioned at the beginning of the article. No trumpeting but yes, the willingness to express our convictions when challenged.

And people are moved. A young lad told me recently how much his refusal to go back to the room of a young woman – who, like most young people in western society today had no qualms about pre-marital sex – impressed her, and favourably so. Here at least was one man who wasn’t desperate to take her to bed at the first opportunity.

Such stands, though small, have real social and political consequences in that they help to build up a new society.

Ultimately, we have to keep on insisting that the best structure for society is the traditional family and the best way to make these families happen and survive is by chaste courtship beforehand.

I think of a virgin mentioned in the Bible, the Blessed Virgin Mary. As Christmas approaches and we see delightful pictures of this beautiful girl holding the baby Jesus, it might help us to remember that this sweet little virgin is actually a very political creature, even a revolutionary.  

In her song of celebration, known as the Magnificat, she proclaims how God “has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

We might not be surprised to find these words in a socialist manifesto. We need to be convinced of the ramifications of our decisions and that, yes, personal faith is a profoundly social action. Because living chastely does not simply help to purify our own hearts and relations. It will help purify our whole society.

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