ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Good morning.

The relationship counselling service, has set off a bit of a spat - you may have heard something of it on yesterday’s programme - by supporting the notion that there is such a condition as sex addiction. We are familiar enough with the idea of drug addiction, and we all know of the struggles which people can go through to give up smoking or to curb their drinking or even to stop gambling. But is sex or pornography like that? – is it the sort of thing which we start by choosing but which can end up controlling us?

This looks remarkably like a debate which Christians had between themselves, if not exactly in these terms, more than 1600 years ago. There were many voices and opinions, but essentially three sides to the dispute.

On the one side were those who said human beings were first of all spirits, that bodies were a mere encumbrance, even downright evil – and that it was best, therefore, not to touch sex with a barge pole. On the other side there were those who said that God had made humans male and female, had told them to go forth and multiply and to fill the earth, and that when they did so they were simply fulfilling these god-given and worthy desires. Sure sexual desire could lead people to do bad things, but so can many a desire – even for apples. But that’s no reason to speak ill of apples – or of sex.

And then, trying to hold a course somewhere between these two was Augustine. On the one hand Augustine agrees that those who insist that bodies and sex are evil are guilty of impugning the goodness of creation. They overlook the fact that sexual union belonged in the earthly paradise imagined in the book of Genesis and still belongs in human life now. But then again he wants to remind those who say that sexual desire is straightforwardly good, that sexual desire is an unruly thing. Even a desire for an apple might indeed lead you to steal one, but the overwhelming desire which can drive our sexual attractions is a real force to be reckoned with. We talk about people falling madly in love – and madly is the key word, for desire can sometimes drive us past all sense and close to unreason.

As was true in Augustine’s day, anyone who holds that sexual desire is the sort of desire which can be easily mastered, not the sort which is in danger of mastering us, is likely to be a stern moralist on these matters. ‘Get a grip’ will be their only counsel, and they will naturally view with cynicism the obsessive user of porn, for example, who, when found out, seeks treatment. But, so Augustine would reply, such cynicism ignores the fact that sometimes sexual desires really do afflict and overwhelm all reason and self control. Of course, in the best fairy stories, after the prince and princess have fallen madly in love they quickly marry, and we hear no more about any extreme and over-powering passions. But I guess Augustine’s point, and Relate’s point too, is just that outside the rose-tinted world of fairy tales, passions don’t always obey such a happy script, and can be as dangerous as more familiar addictions.

Show less