Traditional Sexual Morality
by Eric S. Fallick
“...but which things make not a small difference, and are hard to persuade about,
are especially the work of a god, if somehow it were possible for injunctions themselves
to come to be from that (god), but now there is likely to be need of some daring steadfast
person who, exceptionally honoring frankness of speech, will say the things seeming to be
best for a polis and citizens, among corrupted souls enjoining the fitting and pursuant
thing for the whole constitution, saying things opposite to the greatest desires, and not having
any person helping, alone following understanding alone.”
Plato, Laws, 835c
Sexual desire, in its broadest and most comprehensive sense and in all respects, including romantic love, is one of the principal things that binds us to the wheel of birth and death and repeated reincarnation and misery. It is the love and desire of the soul turned completely the wrong way, turned totally away from the Divine, the soul's true desire and love, and turned completely to becoming and sensate existence. It moves us further and further, only and always, into becoming and delusion and suffering and defilement, and further and further away from the Divine Absolute and re-union therewith and release from transmigration and individuated sensate existence in space-time. Complete celibacy, again, in its fullest and truest sense, and abstinence from any and all sexual activity whatsoever is required without question to tread the Path to freedom, release from becoming and divine union. It is an absolute ultimate soteriological necessity. It is an uncompromising requisite to even truly begin the Path and practice of true contemplation of the higher hypostases and to progress along it. At the end, at the telos, sexual desire in all its manifestations is, and must be, completely destroyed and eliminated. The true philosophos, the true Platonic contemplative ascetic and renunciant, clearly and intimately understands this and practices it to the best of his ability. Of course, he is in no sense free from sexual desire, this occurs only in accomplishment of the Path, and struggles with it constantly, but he always and without question maintains his physical celibacy and never willingly indulges his sexual desire in any way. Not being cloistered, he struggles continually with restraining his eyes and thoughts, and is always failing, but would never dream of compromising or abandoning his celibacy or of thinking or acting like an ordinary deluded worldling, and always picks up the battle again as soon as he realizes a slip of the eye or mind. The true philosophos, the true Platonist contemplative ascetic and renunciant, always views things from a transmigratory perspective and from an understanding of the actual spiritual nature and working of Reality, not from the superficial perspectives of the sense world and of worldlings. He is a stranger and alien in this world, always directed in every moment to transcending it and ascending to the Divine. He views the world and worldlings and their pursuits from apart, as a lonely outsider, looking down on this world and life from a transcendent, divine and metaphysical perspective and understanding. This is very much the case with the realm of sexuality and worldly love that so preoccupies the world and ordinary worldlings, to the horrible corruption and bondage of their souls and their continued re-becoming.
The real Platonic ascetics, the philosophoi, are, however, even in the best of times, let alone now in these darkest times, always very few. Real and full renunciants truly striving for release from the cycle of birth and death, genesis, and for divine re-union and actually knowing how to do so are rare and lonely outsiders in this world. This Path is not for the many (as upsetting as this may be to many in this democratic, egalitarian, relativist, naturalist age which denies the natural and divine spiritual hierarchy and won't accept, in the spiritual realm, that any way of life or practice or understanding is better than another and relentlessly works to level everything and everyone to the lowest common denominator). So what for the rest? The second and next best approximation, and which is a very good step indeed in a given birth and is to be greatly respected and admired and welcomed in fellowship, is a celibate religious vocation, clerical or monastic, eremitical or cenobitical, within one of the institutionalized religious traditions or systems—Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Jainism, Daoism, etc. This, of course, involves taking on the burden and tie to this world and becoming of a muthos, historicity, understanding of spiritual reality through religious symbols and doctrines, limited and approximate spiritual and metaphysical understanding and praxis, and, usually, at least some amount of institutional and administrative structure and forms and involvement, in contrast to the direct, correct and unmediated understanding and practice of the Platonic contemplative ascetic or philosophos—a burden that sometime in a future birth along the Path will have to be shed—but is nonetheless greatly to be encouraged and applauded and stood shoulder to shoulder with.
In better and more traditional times, and even until the middle of the twentieth century, many, though still, of course, a, usually small, minority, did follow, though, of course, with very varying degrees of sincerity and true vocation and practice, this Way of the celibate religious vocation within the various systems. Now, however, in this ever more deluded secular, naturalist, materialist, post-sexual revolution brave new world, hardly anyone, or very few, are willing or want to follow even this second level celibate religious vocation Way—celibate ascetics and renunciants and religious of any type as a whole are an endangered species. So what about the many, most people, the vast majority even in the best times and almost everyone now? Here we take a much greater quantum leap downwards from the distance between the first two levels of celibate religious ascetics above, to the third level approximation for the many. This third level is the farthest we can go from and the most distant acceptable approximation to actual spiritual reality and practice and understanding and the way things are, as shocking as this may be to the present day. This, the law for the many, the nonnegotiable moral and spiritual standard for the masses and majority of people, is traditional sexual morality: that the only legitimate, lawful, acceptable, allowable, divinely sanctioned form of sexual activity is heterosexual intercourse in an indissoluble monogamous traditional marriage between a man and a woman in the context of the family and procreation. Everything else is proscribed—non- and extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sodomy, masturbation, transgenderism, etc., etc.--everything else. “What!” cry the modern naturalists and the masses that follow them, “Impossible, ridiculous, bigoted, discriminatory, authoritarian, the unenlightened relic of a bygone age, regressive puritanism!” Remember that the present day is the darkest and most deluded age in at least the last 25 or 30 centuries (at least since the 'axial age'). This is the nadir, not the zenith, of human history and development. In most all better, wiser times, in traditional societies more in tune with actual spiritual reality, this traditional sexual morality was, in general, the standard. Of course, always, many honored it more in the breach than the observance, but it was still the officially accepted and respected position, originated by those who understood the true spiritual welfare of the populace and what was truly most helpful to them. It is, in fact, quite possible for most people to observe this traditional sexual morality when it is clearly and definitely understood to be the inviolable norm and is strongly supported by the sanctions of society and culture and religion. Good, decent people did generally observe it for many centuries, even up until the mid-20th century. Just because one has desires, however strong, doesn't mean one has to act on them. Indulgence in sensual desire only strengthens it and begets more desire. Restraint and discipline becomes habitual and lessens desire and makes it more manageable. As the divine Plato points out, it is the acceptability and indulgence in unlawful forms of sexual activity that increases the desire for them. Just as moral people are generally not tempted by and are repelled from incest and other forms of sexuality that everyone considers unholy and morally repugnant, so when this traditional sexual morality is the universally honored norm and everything else is considered unholy and repugnant, it is possible and easier for people to reduce and restrain and abstain from their other sexual desires outside of the acceptable, lawful channel. This is greatly to their spiritual and ultimate and genuine benefit in that as far as they restrain their sexuality and sexual desires and limit their sexual activity to the sanctioned form, to that extent are they in accord with actual divine spiritual reality and are moving slowly towards freedom. On the other hand, to the extent that they freely indulge and increase their sexual appetites of various sorts, the more they move deeper into becoming and bondage and create karma binding themselves ever tighter to the wheel of birth and death. This, of course, requires the turning away from the naturalist, materialist and post-sexual revolution dogma that is the dominant weltanschauung of the present day and is enforced by the institutions of society. But this dogma is actually totally implausible and illogical and is easily refuted—it is only its current prevalence and official enforcement and all pervasiveness that makes it seem plausible and accepted unquestioningly by most people. For most people, re-acceptance of this traditional sexual morality will require acceptance of the muthos of their particular religion that this sexual morality is revealed divine law or the revelation through the superknowledge of the founders or sages of their tradition and that violation of it incurs divine penalty, but this is certainly much truer and closer, if symbolically expressed, to the truth and spiritual reality than the modern naturalist myth and misunderstanding that actually has no connection to Reality whatsoever. For a few, understanding of the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual reality underlying the injunction to traditional sexual morality will be possible. Even when people do violate the standard, as they still often will, they will be ashamed and know that they are acting non-optimally, which will conduce to their spiritual benefit and ultimate progress in passing through the round of reincarnations. Those who still feel that their desires are absolutely homosexual or otherwise not possible to channel into the acceptable avenue can rejoice in that they have an unequivocal call, therefore, to holy celibacy and complete continence and the religious life.
The only thing that determines the well-being of a person is the closeness or distance of the soul from the Good or the One. Sexual desire, sexuality and sexual activity pulls the soul away from the Good and rivets it to this body and this world and binds it to misery and endless reincarnation. Restraint of sexual desire and continence in the context of a spiritual life moves the soul towards the Good and release from the cycle of birth and death. For the many who aren't going to follow the way of a celibate ascetic renunciant life, the only acceptable alternative is the traditional sexual morality of limitation of sexual activity exclusively to traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage. The sexual revolution and the naturalist worldview that spawned it is wholly pernicious and one of the greatest calamities of human history. (One wonders if Wilhelm Reich has much chance of ever obtaining another human rebirth anytime soon.) A return to a real spiritual weltanschauung and hierarchy and traditional sexual morality and respect for the celibate religious vocation is the only hope for the soul of the modern world.
© 2016 Eric S. Fallick
