Matt Walsh on the Unrealism of Casual Sex
A reader brought this gem to my attention. Someone should put it to music and make it our anthem as we drive the yahoos into the sea.
I will try to resist the temptation to quote the whole thing, so as to persuade you to read the original, but Mr Walsh has so many gems of truth and clarity, I must include them:
Abstinence is unrealistic and old fashioned
Posted on November 9, 2013 by The Matt Walsh BlogFrom my inbox, an email from a high school student named Jeremy:
“Dear Matt, first I want to say I really like your blog. One of my teachers actually mentioned it in class once after you wrote something (she didn’t mention it in a good way lol) and I went and looked you up so I’ve been following you ever since. I know you get so much email so I don’t expect you to see this but in case you do I wanted to get your opinion about something. You write a lot about relationships and everything so I’m wondering if you think abstinence should be encouraged in school?
“Reason I’m asking is because we are doing our sex ed lessons in health class now and the topic has come up. Yesterday my health teacher was talking about safe sex and someone mentioned abstinence and she said it wasn’t realistic. She said it was an out dated way of thinking and the people who push for it are out of touch because they were probably kids a long time ago. She said sometimes sex can be more casual and isn’t always a part of something serious. Then she asked how many people in the class are sexually active because she said it was important for people not to be ashamed. Almost all the guys in class raised their hands but I didn’t. They were all talking about how sex doesn’t have to be something for marriage or long term relationships. I always wanted to wait for marriage and I hope it’s not weird for me to say that. They said in class that we should be more accepting of sexual expression that doesn’t conform to older ideas. But I still always wanted to wait for marriage. But at this point I feel like an outcast or something.
“I read something you wrote about dating once and it seemed like you were saying that people should wait for marriage [to have sex]. What do you thinkabout what my teacher said? Am I weird for not really wanting to go out and hook up with girls and stuff and instead wait for marriage?”
Dear Jeremy,
Yes, it’s weird for you to want to wait until marriage. In spite of the hyper-sexualization of our culture; in spite of society’s decaying moral sensibility; in spite of all of the messages that bombard you every day through every available medium; in spite of the pressure from your classmates; in spite of the bullying from that fool of a “health teacher,” you STILL stand tall and resolve to save yourself for your future wife.
Man, that is weird. It’s also awesome, inspiring, courageous, and extraordinary. Not to mention, Jeremy, you’re doing the RIGHT thing. You’ve got more character than most adults in this country, and you should be commended for it.
Speaking of adults without character, please ignore everything your “health teacher” says on this subject.
I have to put quotes around her title because it doesn’t sound like she’s doing much in the way of teaching, and whatever she’s blabbering about has very little to do with “health.” She seems to think there’s a “safe” way for emotionally immature juveniles to have casual sex. Maybe she’ll follow up this performance by advocating “safe drunk driving.”
[…]Our culture tells a lot of lies about sex. Your teacher is one of the liars.
[…]
You could ask any married person who slept with other people before meeting their spouse (I wouldn’t recommend actually asking this, I’m just trying to illustrate a point here): are you happy about it? Are you glad that you gave yourself to someone other than the person you now love eternally? If you could go back to those times, would you stop yourself?
[…]
Casual sex proponents are the ones who have turned sex into something trivial, banal, utilitarian, pointless, joyless, one-dimensional, lifeless, lonely, and disappointing. How could the ones who hold it as sacred also be the ones who make it “boring”? No, it’s mainstream culture that’s made sex boring.
[…]
We’re told that we are sexually “liberated” if we throw ourselves at strangers and give ourselves over to people who couldn’t possibly care less about us. This is yet another lie. If modern attitudes about sex have “liberated” us, what, precisely, have we been freed from? Security? Commitment? Trust? What, we’ve broken the Shackles of Purity and Love and run gleefully into the Meadows of Pornography and Herpes? Because that’s all that our sexual liberation has wrought.[…]
It doesn’t surprise me that your crackpot health teacher pulled out the “sexual expression” line. She teaches in our schools yet she doesn’t even understand the words she speaks. To “express” means to SAY something. It means you are indicating something of meaning. When you “express yourself” you are conveying a message about your thoughts, feelings, and character. So shouldn’t we, rather than encouraging sexual expression for the sake of it, encourage MEANINGFUL and POSITIVE sexual expression? In the context of commitment and loyalty, sex expresses something. It expresses: “I love you. I give myself to you.” But what does casual sex express? “Use me and I’ll use you.”
That’s an expression, alright. An awfully sad, pitiful expression. You’re right to have no interest in going down this road.
It sounds like you want to express a different message: self-respect and maturity; honesty and integrity; patience.
And, when the time comes, you’ll express love. […]
ADDENDUM:
Segue to the next topic! Mr Walsh also speaks words of burning truth about the issue of Gay Marriage. His opinion is exactly the same as mine. Gay Marriage is not the issue. Divorce is the issue. The Heterosexuals, not the Homosexuals, destroyed the ancient and sacred institution of matrimony.
And then I remembered how many Christian churches gave up on marriage long ago, allowing their flock to divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry, and each time permitting the charade of “vows” to take place on their altars. And then I remembered that churches CAN lower the divorce rate simply by taking a consistent position on it — which is why practicing Catholics are significantly less likely to break up — but many refuse because they are cowards begging for the world’s approval.
[…]
Divorces are as common as flat tires, and they often happen for reasons nearly as frivolous.
The institution of marriage is crumbling beneath us; it’s under attack, it’s mortally wounded, it’s sprawled out on the pavement with bullet wounds in its back, coughing up blood and gasping for breath. And guess who did this? It wasn’t Perez Hilton or Elton John, I can tell you that.
This is the work of divorce.
I am an opponent of gay marriage, but we here in the “sanctity of marriage” camp are tragically too afraid to approach the thing that is destroying marriage faster than anything else ever could. Gay marriage removes from marriage its procreative characteristic, but rampant divorce takes away its permanent characteristic. It makes no sense to concentrate all of our energy on the former while all but ignoring the latter.
Hear, hear. I recall where I have on one or at most two occasions said two men in a homosexual couple are not biologically equipped to copulate with each other, a matter that seems to me to be both trivial and not controversial; that one’s emotions and passions should follow reality, which is equally trivial and not controversial, and that includes the sexual passions, i.e. passions of copulation; and for saying I would prefer if peer pressure was not applied to me to write science fiction stories where this particular false-to-facts neurosis was treated as true, which is as trite as saying I’d like my freedom of speech respected — an idea which is not only commonplace, but obligatory for any citizen in a republic.
For saying these things, I was cursed, and wished dead, and called a bigot and worse, and at least one person wanted to organize a movement to stop me and my legion of Sardaukar terror troops from conquering the Earth and imposing my Nazilike Heterotopia.
This is all quite a surprise to me, since it is not an issue in which I regard as pressing. It is simply not a civil rights issue, and there is no use pretending it is: We simply do not have water fountains labeled ‘Straight’ and ‘Gay’ where folk of one persuasion or the other are not allowed to drink.
However, I have written several vehement and prolix jeremiads against the evils of no fault divorce, which I hate as I hate the gates of hell. I have also written passionate screeds against the culture of sexual permissiveness which sprang from the 1960’s, and led to more misery than any other social movement since the lemming tribe in a Disney documentary was pushed into the sea. One of my essays took a month to write and went on for six parts.
For saying these things, nothing. No hate, no screams, no pushback. No one called me a divorcophobe, or explained I had a psychotic and irrational antipathy to divorced people. Sound of crickets, even though divorce is the real issue, and the Christians who did not defend marriage are the real villains.
I am not saying the Homosexual advocates do not have a mote in their eye. For them to demand we change our laws to suit their sexual malfunctions is absurd. What I am saying is that we Christians have a beam in our eye. Let us remove it before we talk about that mote.
I am glad to read someone who agrees with me here.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
