Ugly Christmas Trees

     It might be a demonstrable fact, if I had the time and discipline to do a real study, that the "cultures" with the most pervasive sexual disorder are those which have the weakest or most dysfunctional families.  In any case, I shall theorize that individuals are more prone to sexual disorder the fewer personal and intimate connections they have with other people.

     Vice and addiction can best be described not as a disease (you can't "catch" perversion) but as a disorder; things are not working properly.  One should be in control of his actions, he should understand the purpose of his actions, and most of his actions should be directed by conscious decision rather than emotional impulse.  Every conscious decision is a moral decision because it contributes to our moral formation:  Our actions define our character, and our character influences our actions.  Not all decisions are completely 'free', though.  A typical alcoholic is not free to choose just one drink, a chain-smoker is not free to smoke just one cigarette, and a porn-addict is not free to browse Wikipedia until midnight when nobody else is around.  Freedom of choice is a state of habitual control over one's impulses and passions (consider that 'passion' is to 'passive' as 'action' is to 'active';  if you are overcome with passion, you are not the one acting, but are being acted upon.)  You cannot control impulse with impulse:  Something "above" your impulses needs to step in and take the reins, as it were.  This is where reason comes in:  Your mind, or intellect, needs to assess the intent and nature of your desire before acting on it in order for it to be considered fully 'free'.  When we can assess our desires, before choosing whether or not to act on them, we are in control.

     The ability to assess an action depends in part on one's understanding of it.  Say, for example, that my car breaks down; I check under the hood and realize that it's really hot and that it smells burnt, but I know nothing about mechanics.  Am I free to fix my car?  I might guess that it needs coolant, but because I do not understand what is in front of me, I might do more harm than good if I decide to try something (and from experience, I can say it would be a bad idea to add coolant in that instance).  So, if you do not properly understand the nature of an action, it is unlikely that you are free to do it well.  The better one understands something, however, the easier it will be to act on it freely:  A repressive alcoholic who thinks that he drinks because he is a bad person and therefore must punish himself will not be as free to change as one who has learned the psychology of addiction.

     This brings us to the topic at hand - sex.  I think most people do not understand it.  I am no longer talking about mechanics, mind you.  I am referring to its proper place in the family:  To put it plainly, you cannot understand sex outside of the family.  To adapt the words of Pope Paul VI, sex can be accurately described as "the free, total, and exclusive expression of love between spouses which is the renewal of their life-long vows and the human collaboration with God the Creator."  Anything else is perversion and depravity.  This probably seems like too strong and rigid a stance for the average person to accept, but consider it in a thoroughly human context.  Remove institutions, corporations, screens, machines, and fantasy.  Imagine society as it was before social engineering, before high-rises, and before automobiles (bear in mind that this is all of human history minus 200 years).  Human beings, being social animals, do not move far away from their family and friends unless pressured by lack of freedom.  Without a pretended need to limit the amount of children a couple creates, children abound.  After just a few generations of blessed fecundity (let's say an average 4 or 5 children per generation), a married couple can expect to have about 20 grandchildren in their lifetime.  The children of the 3rd generation could have 10 uncles and aunts and 19 cousins. The uncles or aunts who married into the family have their own families which, if they are of similar size, have their own siblings who probably married into other families of like size.  A town with just a dozen family names could thus boast of over 600 citizens; citizens of varying ages, roles, occupations, and relationships.  One living in a relatively new town (of just 3 generations or roughly 100 years) could walk from one side of it to another and know everyone he sees on the way; his name, what he does, where he lives, and how he is related.

     There is no internet or television or magazines in that town.  The only people you could see were people you knew and who knew you.  Now consider sex.  Would fornication be common in such a village?  How many people could one “sleep around” with before they need to leave town by the sheer amount of relationships they have damaged on the way?  Now consider a bigger and older town, one more than a few centuries old:  There are thousands of inhabitants, which still might only have a dozen or so family names, but the inhabitants are very distantly related, albeit steeped in their heritage and family tradition.  Even if one does not know everyone in town very well, they might guess a few things about him merely upon learning his name.  Even in such a place, every person one meets is a face, a name, a story, and a relationship.

     This is almost unimaginable in the developed world today.  We are accustomed to seeing droves of people without even caring about who they are or what they are up to.  We are trained not to make eye contact with people in real life, but to follow the intimate details of lives we have nothing to do with.  If one gets married and has children, it is not unlikely that he lives more than 20 miles from his nearest relative, and he can expect to watch  his children move far away from him as soon as they are able.  Homes typically contain two permanent residents per generation.  When one travels to his job every day, he works beside people he sees only at work.  When one goes to the store, he is greeted by strangers.  If he, for some reason, decided to walk down the street from his home, he might pass by several people he might have noticed in passing but whose names he does not know.

     Sex is one dimension of a unique relationship, a relationship which is at the heart of society and which is related to every other family relationship.  Today, intimate relationships are rare (especially true friendship), so it should be no surprise that sex is commonly misunderstood.  It is still possible, however, to come to a better understanding by deepening the relationships one has.  Spend less time watching TV and more time with your family (not watching TV).  Call up your sisters or brothers, if you have any.  Get in touch with your cousins; send a message to your uncle or your grandmother who you might not have seen since last Christmas.  You probably have known these people for your whole life, so there is probably a deep-seated inclination to treat them in a unique way:  For example, there are probably things you would only say to your brother or things you would only do for your grandmother.  These are key to understanding any basic relationship:  Brotherly love is not motherly love, your affection for your mother is not the same as for your sister, you do not treat your uncle like you treat your wife, etc.

     Now consider something disordered; fornication.  When one decides to have “relations” with someone who is not his wife, with whom he has made no vows, for whom he has no responsibility, with whom he has no real relationship (besides, perhaps, a facsimile of friendship), he is pretending at something for the sake of his passions.  It is not truly free and so it is not true love.  With whom has he decided to copulate?  It is not his wife and I would hope it is not his sister, his aunt, or his cousin.  It might be a mere acquaintance, in which case there is a very thin relationship and one which would be damaging to more substantial relationships if they were at all associated.  When one asks himself, “why do I not seek sex in the context of marriage?” his answer will likely expose an anti-social and egotistical malformation.

     This all being said, it is Gaudete Sunday and Christmas is at hand.  We are preparing to celebrate the pinnacle of human history, the moment when humanity itself was elevated unto kinship with God, when God entered into the human family by becoming one of us.  Many of us have put up and decorated an evergreen, evocative of eternal life and the family tree that has Christ at its summit.  While we prepare to rejoice at the Word having become perfect man, we should keep in mind that the rest of humanity is imperfect, including our own family.  One reminder of this is Christ’s own genealogy, recorded in Matthew 1:1-16 and in Luke 3:23-38 (the apparent discrepancy between both Gospel genealogies is explained by Eusebius in his Church History, book I, chapter 7).  Another reminder is the unavoidable ugliness of family Christmas trees whose mismatched diversity of ornaments is directly proportional to the size of the family.  Living life near one’s family can be difficult precisely because of unique differences and imperfections.  But if the Creator of the universe can deign to mingle Himself with our fallen nature then perhaps there is something to gain from sharing His experience.  After all, He decided to re-enlighten our darkened existence, not by divine command from on high, but by joining us in our misery.  If it is not beneath the Almighty to form an intimate, complex, blood relationship with us, it is not beneath us to build relationships with others on the same principle, forgetting ourselves and cultivating society in the bond of family and true friendship.