Two must-read articles on sexuality and porn | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: mary eberstadt, pornography, roger scruton, sex

In an article in the latest issue of First Things, What Does Woman Want?, Mary Eberstadt brilliantly exposes the link between the rising tide of pornography (and the social pressure among secularists to treat it as a harmless, if vaguely embarrassing, pastime) and unhappy, sexless marriages.

Yet the explanation from imposed gender neutrality does not by itself go far enough. Something else lurks under the rocks picked up by the fashionable writing about marriage these days—something that crawls away from the light even as it squirms just under the surface of much of the new confessionalism.

“Don’t eat too many snacks, or you’ll ruin your dinner.” Every woman issuing the new literature of complaint and heartache will understand just how meaningful the saying is—at least when it applies to kids and dinnertime. Yet sexual satiety, of the kind that oozes by other names from so much female confessional literature these days, is almost never recognized the same way. In particular, pornography is the invisible ink of many of these essays and lives—obvious one minute, unnoticed the next, and the bearer of a message no one apparently sees. Understood or not, however, it appears to be leaving a mark on at least some of these publicly lived lives.

In Loh’s essay, for example, a husband—as it happens, one of those husbands no longer interested in sex with his wife—bookmarks his pornography on the computer; his wife knows all about it, even reports it to her friends who are also commiserating about their sexless marriages—and no one seems to connect the dots at all. Another writer for Salon, reflecting on Loh’s essay, similarly nudges up against this obvious if missing piece of the puzzle (in a piece called “Why Your Marriage Sucks”), noting, “I write this article from a hotel room in New York City, where nearly a dozen porn movies are on offer”—a fact the author uses to highlight what she thinks of as an irony, when it might instead suggest something else: a possible causal relation between all those movies on the one hand and, on the other hand, a loss of romantic interest on the part of those who think them inconsequential.

The article brought to mind Charles Williams’ novel, Descent into Hell, which I read many years ago, after learning that Charles Williams was one of the Inklings and that Tom Howard had written his dissertation on his novels. In it the lead character, by preferring a fantasy to reality, gradually cuts himself off from everything, becoming in the process less and less human, less and less real and good and true.  More and more this seems to me the prime temptation of modern existence: reality avoidance.

Roger Scruton, in a paper given for the Witherspoon Institute: The Abuse of Sex eviscerates the utilitarian myths about sex that dominate our culture.  And he does it phenomenologically (i.e. starting from the data of moral experience), and via personalism, in a way reminiscent of Josef Pieper and Dietrich von Hildebrand. 

[Sexual desire] is rooted in animal instincts. But in a person desire is re-centered, self-attributed to the I, so as to become part of the inter-personal dialogue. Hence sexual desire, as we know it, is peculiar to human beings. It is an interpersonal emotion, in which subject and object confront each other I to I. In describing sexual desire we are describing John’s desire for Mary, or Jane’s desire for Bill. And the people themselves will not merely describe their desires, but also experience them, as my desire for you. ‘I want you’ is not a figure of speech but the true expression of what I feel. And here the pronouns identify that very centre of free and responsible choice which constitutes the inter-personal reality of each of us. I want you as the free being that you are, and your freedom is wrapped up in the thing I want.

...This is not a state of the body, even though it involves certain bodily changes. It is a process in the soul, a steady awakening of one person to another, through touches, glances and caresses. The exchange of glances is particularly important here, and illustrates a general feature of personal relations. People look at each other, as animals do. But they also look into each other, and do this in particular when mutually aroused. The look of desire is like a summons, a call to the other self to show itself in the eyes, to weave its own freedom and selfhood into the beam that calls to it….Likewise the caress and the touch of desire have an epistemic character: they are an exploration, not of a body, but of a free being in his or her embodiment. They too call to the other in his freedom, and are asking him to show himself.

...Persons are individuals, not merely in the weak sense of being substances that can be reidentified, and which undergo change, but in the strong sense of being identified, both by themselves and by others, as unique, irreplaceable, not admitting of substitutes.

...It follows from this that, in those relations between persons in which self and other relate as subject and object, each is viewed as unique, without a substitute. As I try to show in my book, this has an immediate impact on sexual desire. John, frustrated in his desire for Mary, cannot be offered Jane as a substitute – someone who says ‘Take Jane, she will do just as well’ has not understand what John wants, in wanting Mary.

His conclusion about the effects of pornography is remarkably similar to Mary Eberstadt’s:

Like all cost-free forms of pleasure, porn is habit-forming. It short-circuits that round- about route to sexual satisfaction which passes by the streams and valleys of arousal, in which the self is always at risk from the other, and always motivated to give itself freely in desire… It exhibits in addition, however, a depersonalizing habit – a habit of viewing sex as something external to the human personality, to relationship, and to the arena of free encounters. Sex is reduced to the sexual organs, which are stuck on, in the imagination, like cut-outs in a child’s picture. To think that this can be done, and the habit of doing it fully established, without damage to a person’s capacity to be a person, or to relate to other persons as one sexual being to others, is to make a large and naïve assumption about the ability of the mind to compartmentalize. Indeed psychologists and psychotherapists are increasingly encountering the damage done by porn, not to marriages and relationships only, but to the very capacity to engage in them. Sex, portrayed in the porno-image, is an affair of attractive people with every technical accomplishment. Most people are not attractive, and with only second-class equipment. Once they are led by their porn addiction to see sex in the instrumentalized way that porn encourages, they begin to lose confidence in their capacity to enjoy sex in any other way than through fantasy. People who lose confidence in their ability to attract soon become unattractive. And then the fear of desire arises, and from that fear the fear of love. This, it seems to me, is the real risk attached to pornography. Those who become addicted to this risk-free form of sex run a risk of another and greater kind. They risk the loss of love, in a world where only love brings happiness.

More on Christopher West | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: christopher west, phallic symbols, prudishness, sex

For those interested in the Christopher West/TOB/prudishness discussion, don’t miss this comment box, which has seen some substantive new contributions from Fr. Geiger, Josef Seifert and others in the last few days.

Bishop Sheen on sex and marriage | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: fulton sheen, marriage, sex

I found linked today at the Dawn Patrol this treasury of free audios by Bishop Fulton Sheen.  I listened to two of them.  “Marriage Problems” and “Sex as a Mystery.”  Both are very good.  I take them as representing the best of pre-John Paul II Catholic thinking on sex and marriage.  They contain much wisdom.  But, it seems to me, they lack a depth dimension present in the Theology of the Body and in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s philosophy of love and marriage.  They are not the “new thinking about mankind” that, as I said in my last post, we need to meet the crisis of our day. 
I would love to know what others think.

A thought about personalism | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: einstein, personalism, sex

This morning I came across this 1964 quote of Albert Einstein, whom Time Magazine named “Man of the [20th] Century.” It comes from an article about nuclear war prevention:

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our ways of thinking.  Thus we are drifting toward a catastrophe beyond comparison.  We shall require a substantially new way of thinking about mankind to survive.

It strikes me that the same thing could be said about other lately-unleashed catastrophic powers.  I am thinking specifically of the unleashing of sex that has been happening across the course of the last 100 years. The other night I watched part of an excellent PBS program on the history of Jazz that made clear how much the power and appeal of Jazz had to do with its sexual connection.  Allan Bloom (I think it was) later said the same thing about rock and roll: “Young people know that rock has the beat of sexual intercourse.”  (Speaking for myself, I didn’t know it when I was young.  Now I think it’s true.  And whether we knew it or not, it had the effect of setting loose a primitive power of sex in society.  Rap music strikes me as a evoking a consciously loveless sexual force.) There was the legalization of birth control, radical feminism, the sexual revolution…

This unleashing plainly calls for “a new way of thinking about mankind.”  It strikes me that we have that new way of thinking in personalism.  It strikes me further that, in the mysterious economy of redemption, personalism was taking shape at almost the very same historical moment as the scientific, economic and cultural developments and disasters that led us to our present moral condition.  We were never bereft of a solution.  The turn toward liberalism in morals and religion that coincided with the beginnings of industrialization and scientism, was personalistically addressed by John Henry Newman in the 19th century.  Max Scheler’s value philosophy and his analysis of shame came early in the 20th.  Dietrich von Hildebrand’s books on Marriage and Purity rehabilitating the role of love in marriage and in human life and deploring artificial contraception on grounds of love were written in the 1920’s—before Margaret Sanger became a household name.  Gaudium et Spes, Humanae Vitae, Love and Responsibility all came out in the 1960’s, just before the sexual revolution exploded on the scene.

It seems to me that in John Paul II’s personalist anthropology and his Theology of the Body, we have the new thinking that is more than capable of meeting and overcoming the power of evil in our present generation.  The old ways of thinking won’t cut it.

Fr. Geiger’s latest on the West debate | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: christopher west, phallic symbols, prudishness, sex

Yesterday a friend sent me Fr. Angelo Geiger’s latest guest post at the Dawn Patrol on the controversy surrounding Christopher West. I have less sympathy with it than I did with his first piece. I think he is unfair to West and his defenders.
For instance, in his first paragraph he identifies part of the debate as being over whether CW’s approach is “out of step with Catholic tradition.” I find this an unhelpfully ambiguous phrase. It seems clearly meant to indicate unsoundness. But there are ways of being “out of step” with the tradition that are thoroughly legitimate. Wasn’t Joan of Arc’s taking on the role of a soldier rather out of keeping with tradition? Couldn’t Dietrich von Hildebrand’s emphasis on love as the meaning of marriage be seen as in some sense novel? Doesn’t Mass in the vernacular represent a certain break with the past? Don’t many people dismiss the charismatic renewal as a whole on the grounds that it is unlike what we are used to in the Church?

In other words, to show that a person’s methodology or “line of thought” is heterodox and “dangerous” (as David Schindler implied of CW’s), it is not enough to show that it is new or unusual or “out of step” with the tradition; you have to show (it seems to me) that it is incompatible with the tradition. I don’t think either Schindler or Fr. Geiger comes close to doing that.

Even if we grant that the Easter candle is primarily meant to symbolize the light of Christ; even if we acknowledge that its form follows its function, why should that preclude the possibility that it may have other connotations as well? If the conjugal union is an icon of the Holy Trinity and the source of new life in the world, why should we be startled or offended by the idea of phallic symbols? Why should we see them as in themselves vulgar or prurient? Does noticing a phallic aspect in a thing mean we are dirty-minded? Is sex something dirty? I think anyone who thinks so DOES (sorry) betray an element of prudishness.

Then there is Fr. Geiger’s strange treatment of Janet Smith. He “rolled his eyes” as she “confessed” to her prudery and says that “she tells us we should all be ashamed if we don’t like the idea of the Easter candle being a phallic symbol.” Where does she tell us anything of the kind? Why must he twist and belittle her remarks? What is wrong in her saying that she has felt challenged by this discussion to consider whether her own reaction might not be somewhat prudish?

Then, I dislike intensely his derisive-sounding use of the term “copulation” in reference to liturgical symbolism. Here I am with Damian Fedoryka. Among persons there is no morally indifferent physical act. There is only either the marital embrace or sexual sin. Hence the dousing of the Easter candle in the holy water font, if it has sexual connotations, would be a symbol of self-giving, procreative spousal love, not “copulation.” Copulating is for animals.

Finally, Fr. Geiger seems to take it for granted it that his own reaction against the idea of sexual imagery intertwined with liturgy and prayers is the normal, natural and right one for all Catholics. But I’d like to know how he can be sure of that. Is it not at least possible that CW is right that we are all much more under the influence of prudishness than we realize; that we are missing a depth dimension in a lot of liturgical symbolism because of it; that we are lacking altogether an adequate appreciation of the centrality and greatness of human sexuality in God’s plan of salvation for the world? Or, if you think that goes too far, what about this: Isn’t it possible that some people are just much more sexually charged and alert than others, so that they notice “signs and symbols” that others miss? And if so, isn’t it great that they find those signs and symbols in their religious life, and not separated from it?

Prudishness | Josef Seifert
Tags: christopher west, hefner, prudishness, purity, sex

I believe that “prudishness” can have quite different meanings and refer to different phenomena:

1. It may consist in a kind of exaggerated or overly great sense of shame and pudor, such as the “insuperable or insurmountable feelings of shame” of a virgin or nun not to undress for a gynecological exam or surgery even at grave risk of her health or life which “horror ingens” some traditional moralists regarded as valid reason for refusing life-saving operations or necessary medical exams. This does not have to imply per se any negative attitude towards sex but is an exaggerated and in this sense “prudish” sense of its intimacy or sacredness and disproportionate fear of the danger of desecration through revealing one’s body to others; another example might be being shocked by or blushing on even the most reverend speaking of sexual matters.

2. It may mean a hypocritical “social” negative attitude towards sex which eliminates or represses, or feels outraged by, or reacts hysterically and negatively, to any even noble speech on sexual matters while (like Queen Elizabeth) one’s private hidden life is full of impurity.

3. It may mean a non-hypocritical and sincerely negative approach to sexuality even in the context of married love because the prudish persons rejects all sexual acts because she feels sexuality as such to be something bad or dirty and something to be shunned or reduced in all its forms.

4. It may mean a kind of “mental cramp” and psychic inability to allow even one’s husband or wife intimate expressions of tenderness or to reveal one’s nakedness to him or her even in married life except to a minimal degree. This can have many roots including a fear of the power of sex and a wish to remain always in cool control, a fear to give oneself fully to any human person, a false sense of piety or purity, an unfounded fear of being touched impurely, a psychic disorder, a confusion of purity with frigidity, a lack of spousal love, disgust of overweight of one’s partner, etc.

There are also many phenomena misnamed prudishness:

4. The caution, appearing ridiculous to Waldstein and perhaps to most of us, taken by a person tempted through masturbation or other impurity, not even to look at his own body or to throw ashes in his bath tub, or to shun looking at Titian’s Venus, Michelangelo’s Adam, etc. This may be prudishness but if it is an action or caution taken for a legitimate fear of offending God through impurity to which one truly is tempted by such sights, it is not prudish at all.

5. The reluctance or refusal to allow truly impure looks, touches, or lustful abuses of one’s body even in marriage. (Rejecting what Wojtyla calls the partner’s “adultery with one’s marriage partner” belongs here). This is purity that has nothing to do with prudishness.

6. Feeling offended by what Alice von Hildebrand calls Chr. West’s vulgar or irreverent language or by his claims that oral sex or anal sex are OK in the foreplay, or that we must be grateful for Hugh Hefner’s, the hero of impurity’s, fight against prudishness (all of which points I for one think deeply false in West’s remarks and on which I do not agree with Waldstein’s, Healy’s or other whole sale defenses of West, but rather with Alice von Hildebrand, even though I think West is basically very good and Schindler’s critique goes completely overboard). Any feeling offended by the many impure, shameless and irreverent ways people demonstrate sex publicly, speak of sex, portray it in movies or pictures, etc. has nothing to do with prudishness, but with purity and a sense of appropriate acts and proper language, wherefore I think that West’s suggesting that a person questioning him on some of these points must have problems of sex is deeply wrong and grounds for his apologizing to the questioner. In spite of some justified criticisms all of us ought to thank West for his many tremendously strong and good points and forgive him is faults such as his “love for Hugh Hefner” or uttering his name in the same breath with Pope John Paul II (of course his true charity for H. and his insisting that his pronorgraphic sexual revolution very wrong, are very good).

There are still many other possible distinctions but I wrote too much already.

Audio and video coming soon! | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: christopher west, recordings, sex

We’re working to get the audio and video versions of Healy and West’s talks the other night up and available. Stay tuned.

Christopher West: A Von Hildebrandian’s Perspective | Michael J. Healy
Tags: christopher west, purity, sex, von hildebrand

As professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, I have been teaching a course on the nature of love, using Von Hildebrand, Wojtyla, Pieper, and Kierkegaard (among others) for nearly three decades. I have known of Christopher West’s work more indirectly through the decidedly good influences his works have had on my children. However, this past Wednesday, June 3, I got the chance to finally meet Mr. West. It was my privilege to put on a joint presentation with him on purity and sexuality sponsored by the Personalist Project. Nearly two hundred were in attendance, including a great many young people, most I’m sure drawn by the prospect of hearing Christopher—who is a bit more well-known than I.

My approach to sexuality has been fathered by Dietrich von Hildebrand and deeply enriched by Wojtyla. In the midst of the recent controversies surrounding Christopher’s work, or presentation of the material, including criticism from Alice von Hildebrand herself, I was very interested to meet Christopher and see him in action. After our presentation together, I want to join with Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein in a hearty endorsement of Christopher’s work and presentation.

He did a masterful job of going back to acknowledge Von Hildebrand as one of the heroic pioneers (in the face of considerable opposition and misinterpretation in his day) who laid the groundwork for the achievement of Wojtyla, both men offering an interpretation of the sexual sphere that strives to do justice to the personalist element. He interpreted the gradual victory of purity in the commitment of the will, in the making of that commitment organic in the heart, and finally in the victory of genuine love in the whole person in light of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of the spiritual life.

In content, he was right on the mark; in presentation, he was terrific! While I gave a lecture, he conducted an enamoured interaction with his audience. Thus, I too am distressed at the critical pieces recently penned by Alice von Hildebrand and David Schindler. I wish to offer my perspective on some of those criticisms.

As an approach, let me detail a couple of points in Christopher’s presentation Wednesday night, or the question and answer period that followed, that might seem to support some of the attacks against him, but which really do not. First, knowing what was already blowing in the wind from the Nightline interview, Christopher at one point in the talk announced “Hugh Hefner is gold.” This seems rather overbold and undifferentiated, quite possibly misleading (if taken out of context.) But in the midst of his talk, affirming the fundamental value of each person, the destructive effects of sin, yet the antidote available to us in Christ, all the clues and evidence and perspective in which to take his bold statement properly were there. Moreover, a short time later, he amended his description of Mr. Hefner to “tarnished gold” (as are we all.) Moreover, when I affirmed in the Q&A session the greater clarity of the second statement, he went on to elaborate that the “tarnish” may involve yards and yards of dirt and dung that stand between us and our true redeemed selves. So when you look into the full facts and the full context, all is perfectly in order. But then, one might ask, why does he do this? Why does he speak the way he does?

Some might call it sloppy or needlessly opaque, but I think there are deeper things going on here in terms of content in relation to style. First, as to content, whether Christopher consciously intends this or just naturally does it, I think he at times practices what Kierkegaard (a favorite of Alice von Hildebrand) describes as his own approach of “indirect communication.” Soren Kierkegaard, radical Christian existentialist, was of the opinion (especially in his early years) that just stating the truth to others on the level of direct intellectual communication often merely remained on that level and never penetrated any deeper. So Kierkegaard began to state things in extremes, yet in such a way that the clues and the evidence were there for the mind of the reader to see through the extreme statement itself and bring it back into balance as an insight and a “work” that the reader did for himself. Thus the truth was more actively seen by the reader, as an achievement, not just passively absorbed. Now I think Christopher West does the same (whether as a consciously chosen technique or not is irrelevant.) It is effective. When he says, a half hour into his talk unfolding the real truth about JPII and human sexuality, that “Hugh Hefner is gold,” everyone there knows darn well he doesn’t mean that the way Larry Flynt might mean it. Christopher means it in light of all that he has said before—but the listener has to think through it all himself in a more active way to get at the truth, after his initial shock wears off at what appears to be a simple statement. This is a way of presenting content that forces the reader or listener to think and get more actively involved. It works. Especially when Christopher himself clarifies as he goes along (which, as has been pointed out, he surely did in the Nightline interview but the context and clarifications never made it off the cutting room floor.)

However, also on just the level of style alone, I think we have to give each speaker a certain freedom and leeway in terms of how he presents his material. Christopher’s approach is so dynamic, so in tune with his enthusiastic personality, so evocative for his audience that I would sooner put a beautiful Bengal tiger in a tiny cage than nitpick Christopher to death on his presentation. He comes as a powerful package all at once! It would be a tragedy to reduce him to a “tame” lion. He may have to backtrack and clarify later, but let him hit people right between the eyes in the present.

Now, let me turn to a second example from our joint presentation that might seem to exemplify one of the criticisms launched at Christopher yet which I think can be defended in more than one way. In the question and answer session, one gentleman questioned whether explicit descriptions of private acts ought to be used in public and that he himself found this offensive. Did that make him a prude? In point of fact, in my opinion, the question did seem to imply too narrow a perspective: as if even those speaking on the topic of integrating sex properly into love are not allowed to be specific. For instance, in my own talk, following Von Hildebrand discussing how the power of sex as a sheer physical act has the danger of swamping the spirit unless “informed” by a spiritual act of even greater power (betrothed love transformed in Christ), I referred to the “power of the orgasm and its thrusting.” So, in reply to the gentleman, Christopher asked him to consider why he felt the way he did and to consider whether he wasn’t being oversensitive to the matter rather than just properly sensitive. Did he have some problem with accepting his sexuality? I did not see this as illegitimate pressure on the questioner but as a reasonable consideration. Nonetheless, I had a slightly different take on the matter in my own response. I said the fellow may in fact have a healthy sensitivity to the crudeness of our culture in addressing this most private sphere, so he might be defending the depth and intimacy of sex in not wanting public display, even verbally, about it. However, I pointed out that such an event as this lecture was precisely not a normal everyday situation, but an educational presentation about the sexual sphere. Thus we as speakers had a right and an obligation, in this special educational context, to discuss matters openly (although here too of course a deep reverence for this intimate sphere should prevail.) Christopher had no problem with my answer as I had no problem with his. But, someone might ask, why didn’t Christopher make or allow for my point from the beginning? Why start in with the idea that the questioner might have a problem with his sexuality? Well, of course, in the future maybe Christopher on his own will allow more clearly for a point like mine, because as Janet Smith and others have observed, he is clearly a very humble man, always ready and eager to learn and improve (would that we all were). However, secondly, it may in fact be true that such a questioner does have a hidden problem with his sexuality: so this should at least be addressed. Why might Christopher come to this conclusion? To quote Janet Smith:

I think it important to keep in mind “who West’s audience is.” It is largely the sexually wounded and confused who have been shaped by our promiscuous and licentious culture. People need to think long and hard about the appropriate pedagogy for that group. Yet, as West himself knows, his approach is not for everyone. An analogy that pushes the envelope may be “offensive” to one person and may be just the hook that draws another person in. (See her recent article on Christopher West at catholicexchange.com)

I think Christopher West has more experience on the front lines of our sexualized culture than most of us; thus, we can respectfully let him follow his own “instincts” (probably not the best “personalist” word here) in these matters.

One of the commentators to Michael Waldstein’s defense of Christopher West, demands an answer to each of the charges leveled against West by David Schindler. I think Janet Smith has largely done this in her article cited above. Much depends on the context and situation, but nothing I see in that list is inherently wrong. It just needs proper explanation and application. Even the “anal penetration as foreplay” reference would seem to be parallel to the discussion of the status of preparatory oral-genital contacts discussed extensively by Frs. Ford and Kelly in their two-volume moral theology book from the 1950’s for seminarians (future priests in the confessional) with similar conclusion and this is referenced as the authority to consult by Germaine Grisez in his great ongoing compendium of moral theology. (See The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. II, p. 641, ftnt 176 where Grisez mentions only oral-genital contacts, but as I say Ford and Kelly treat this in such a way that anal-genital contacts would seem to be parallel). Again, no one is recommending such acts, and they have their dangers both physically and morally, and many find them physically and aesthetically repugnant, but the thinkers in question are just discussing the technicalities of what is and is not strictly forbidden. Priests have to know this for the confessional; it is not out of idle curiosity that such things are discussed. So I think the list of “charges” is really answerable.

I have but one regret about my evening with Christopher West. After my talk (“Von Hildebrand on Sexuality: 3 Ways of Attraction, 3 Dangers in Action, 3 Reasons for Renunciation”) and Christopher’s fine and lively commentary, I was invited up to join him for questions and first to offer some reflections on his segment. At that point I felt so at one with him in our approach and so “at home” with him in general, that I just offered one or two minor clarifications of his talk and then opened the floor for questions. But this was ungracious of me. I should have first expressed how deeply grateful and appreciative I was of his remarks, of his insightful use of Von Hildebrand’s contributions, and of his kindness toward me in referring to my own remarks. I regret forgetting to explicitly show my thanks to Christopher and my admiration for his commentary. Please accept this written piece as my filling in of that lacunae. (By the way, our joint talks, and the Q & A session that follows, should be available online shortly at thepersonalistproject.org)

(EDITORS UPDATE: the talks are up by now, and can be downloaded for free from this page  We have also posted four short audio clips from the question and answer session.  Look for them under the “The Christopher West controversy:” series on the right column of the Linde page page).

The problem of projection | Katie van Schaijik
Tags: christopher west, projection, sex

I agree whole-heartedly with the substance of Michael Healy’s evaluation of Christopher West’s presentation last night. But I’d like to press one point of (perhaps) contention a bit.

In the course of his talk, Christopher made this very true remark:

If someone realizes he is in bondage to alcohol, he shouldn’t go where people are drinking. But he has no right to project his own bondage onto our freedom (to condemn us as imprudent because we go into a bar.) Similarly, if a person’s entire idea of sex is skewed by lust, he will have a tendency to project his own distorted attitude onto others. He will interpret any discussion of sex as salacious in itself. In such cases, his accusations against frank, but morally wholesome talk of sex only serve to expose his own impurity.

That’s true. It happens all the time.

But I thought CW might go further than this. He seemed to me to suggest once or twice (including in his response to the last question) that anyone who reacts negatively to his explicitness thereby exposes his own impurity. If that’s what he meant, then I think he goes too far.

Is it not more than possible that some of the criticisms come from a place not of prudishness, but of deep reverence for the sexual sphere and deep sensitivity to its intimate and morally delicate and dangerous nature? Objections in such cases have nothing to do with a projection of salaciousness onto Christopher West or a cramped uptightness in ourselves. They are motivated rather by a true Christian concern for how such talk might hit the ear and affect the imagination of a young teenager or of a person who is struggling with concupiscence or striving for heroic purity—or with a concern for safeguarding virtue and cultivating a sense of the essential mysteriousness of sex.

For instance, I have a friend who comes across as morally balanced and solid in his faith. He was dedicated to God from youth. He went to Franciscan University, dated girls, and expected to enjoy marriage someday, until the moment he unexpectedly heard God calling him to the priesthood. He said yes, though with natural fear and trembling. In seminary, he had to struggle to “change his mind” from that of a man looking forward to marriage to that of a man ready to renounce sex for life. He told me that Christopher West’s presentation at his seminary was an unhappy experience—not because he disagreed with his basic message, but because it was too graphic. It put images in his head that he didn’t want—not because they were ugly or impure, but because they were too vivid. He said, “I really didn’t need to be picturing him and his wife like that.”

Now, this was probably 15 years ago. It may be that West has dialed down the graphic factor since. I hear that he has. Certainly there was nothing objectionably explicit in his talk last night. Mike Healy (that von Hildebrandian intellectual) was much more explicit than CW was. But I think the anecdote serves to make my point. Discomfort with explicitness may be evidence of a hang-up in the person who feels it. But it need not be, and if we assume it is, we are committing a projection of our own.