"When we're together darling, every night is Halloween" --Gomez to Morticia AddamsBy my current approximation, the audience for my blog so far is 50% progressive acting friends and 50% my mother. Alright, this should be super awkward; let's talk about God and sex.
I did not want to write this article for several reasons. First, human sexuality is such an emotionally and politically charged topic, I have no idea how to keep the focus on that which is relevant to Halloween. In order to show maximum love and respect for my brothers and sisters who disagree with me on the Theology of the Body without being misconstrued (either as a cafeteria Catholic or a puritan), it might be wise to backtrack so far that I would never get to the parts that relate to Halloween. Secondly, unlike most of the other desires, I'm not certain that I have anything to say on the topic that is wasn't said better by St. John Paul II. Thirdly, I think the best way to discuss theology with love is to talk about personal experience, and I have no interest in doing so for this particular topic. Fourthly, I usually write these articles on my work laptop because it is small and portable.
As you can see, our filters were flagged when you used the word "sex" 27 times.
So I beg of you to be forgiving of this articles many flaws. I will do my best in the time I have. If you know me personally and this article upsets you, feel free to talk to me about it over a cider.
Okay, let's focus on 3 things: modesty, dualism, and candy.
Modesty: Anyone who thinks Eros isn't relevant to Halloween (for adults at least), hasn't been paying attention. From sexy vampires to sexy, well, everything else, the point of Halloween for a certain subset of the population seems to be to show as much skin as possible. Now, before I am accused of “*^&% shaming” (gosh, I find that term crude), let me say that it is extremely unjust that only women are called out for what they wear by society. If we are going to call for greater modesty, it cannot be based on gender at all. I also do not believe that it is my business what people who are not under my care wear at all (outside the realm of indecent exposure laws). And since I am not a father and my goddaughter is 2 years old, there is really no one on the face of planet earth whose dress habits are any of my business. If someone upsets me by what he or she wears, the only thing relevant is what in me caused me to be upset by it.
That being said, I do believe that each of us has a call to dress modestly. What does modesty mean in a theological sense? Within the norms of our society, we are called to avoid dressing in such a way as to deliberately incite a non-spouse to lust. This means that what is immodest in Romania might not be immodest in Mexico. It is our motivation while taking into account cultural norms that determines modesty. Not some universal principle like “ankles are okay but knees are not.”
Dualism: When it comes to Catholic teaching on human sexuality, most people (in my experience) get about 80% of the “what” right and about 80% of the “why” wrong. I believe this is due to the constant tendency towards Manicheism that infects all branches of American Christianity. Manicheism (whether it's called that or puritanism or a dozen other names) is a dualistic heresy which believes that the body is evil and the spirit is good. In its extreme, even legitimate pleasures are suspicious and must be eschewed. When Manicheism seeps into Christianity, people are told from the pulpit they must either starve the desires of the body or be damned. For most of American Christianity, people were content to either starve or laugh at the preachers and pursue their own interests covertly. Around the 1960s, however, they got tired of the convert part, and left the pews in droves.
Candy: Now modern society espouses a different falsehood—an oversimplify version of hedonism--what Christopher West calls “The Fast Food Diet.” (“The Starvation Diet” and “The Fast Food Diet” are from his book Fill These Hearts, which heavily influenced this article). But since this is a Halloween article, let's call it "the Candy Diet". The candy diet says have as much of any type of candy you want without stealing someone else's candy. Darn, that sounded dirty. Oh no wait, this an article about Eros. I guess it was supposed to.
However, this is deeply unhealthy for the human person, as much so as if we really only ate candy. It will kill us eventually.
According to West, a Catholic is not to subscribe to either diet. We are to live in the discomfort in between the two. (This is not saying "lust and then don't do" or "lust and then do", but rather an acknowledgement that there is both richness and challenges enough in the proper use of our sexual faculty.) Our desire for one another prefigures our desire for Christ himself, and we should thus treat it with the dignity it deserves.
Whether we are a monk in a monastery or a married couple, we must walk the difficult balance of using our sexuality properly, neither trying to bury it or indulge it, but surrendering it to God for his use at every moment. Misuse of sexuality blocks us from a full relationship with God. We cannot relate to God if the relational faculty God gave us is misused. But if we align our sexuality with God's will for us, then all our relationships require a peace and richness that foreshadows the banquet of heaven. In other words, we need vegetables and protein, not candy.
Writer's-Cramp Conclusion:
The Church's seeming list of "don't" is not an effort to curb self-expression or limit our freedom, any more than a hang glider limits our freedom if we were to jump of a cliff.
The goal of theology of the body is to align us fully with our true selves as beings who love. Human sexuality, like everything God created, is good. But also like everything God created, it can be misused.
I don't think modern culture disagrees that it can be misused, it just disagrees the how. Everyone wants to be the most fully good, beautiful, and true human he or she can be. Conscious of the many sins and flaws of those in the Church (including myself), I still believe that the Catholic Church provides the most accurate road map.
See, I barely got to Halloween at all, and I didn't explain the Church teaching other than in the most cursory way. Let me conclude a different way then: be Morticia and Gomez, not Buffy and Spike.
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