Yes, if we’re comparing it to promiscuity, I’d say promiscuity’s more serious.
The Catechism is quite clear about modesty. What is problematic for me is the non-factual assumption that a proper form of modesty leads to anything problematic. Oversexualize? You missed my ‘never going to the beach’ again example? Bikinis were forbidden in the past. As a beautiful woman told me about competing in beauty contests: “I’ll never wear a bikini. Bikinis look like underwear and I don’t want people to see me in my underwear.” Which is why she only wore one piece bathing suits at competitions. That’s my complete answer to this wacky idea.
I don’t think anyone is saying that modesty itself leads to problems. But when we take it to extremes, it can lead to the same kinds of problems as a lack of modesty- objectifying women and eventually lusting after them.
My point is that you misunderstand what people are saying on this thread. Nobody is saying that modesty leads to oversexualization. What they are saying is that when a person becomes overly focused on the importance of those who tempt them to remove the temptation can cause them to begin looking on these others merely as sexual temptations rather than as human beings, which is just as bad and problematic as looking at them as sexual objects. Yes, modesty is important. But becoming overly focused on it to the point that it prevents one from seeing the humanity of others and makes one begin to objectify others in a different form is a real problem that needs to be avoided by those who wish to follow Christ. Again, unless you just misunderstand what people are trying to say here I truly cannot understand how you would have anything against warning Christians of a very real and hugely problematic way of thinking.
“hugely problematic”? According to who? Seriously, I never, ever had a problem with this. What I do have a problem with is the hypersexualization created by the media. THAT is a real problem and it needs to be dealt with - by Catholics. The problem isn’t me - it’s everywhere you turn - in your face or coming from the car radio that is next to you at the stop light. I had my TV thrown out. My radio is tuned to only Catholic radio. And I roll up my car window the moment I hear *itches and ho’s from the car next to mine.
I really don’t understand why you think I need to “deal” with anything. I never claimed that you personally have had the problem being talked about in this thread, nor have I ever claimed that the hypersexualization that exists in the media is not a problem. I agree with you, it is a huge problem, and it is definitely a problem that Catholics need to address, but that doesn’t mean it is the only problem that Catholics need to address. I know I’m repeating myself, but I really don’t understand why you have a problem with warning people against viewing people as being simply sexual temptations. Dehumanizing a person by viewing them as simply a sexual temptation is just as bad as dehumanizing them by viewing them as a sexual object. What is wrong with pointing that out from time to time?
Why the hostility? No one here is rejecting the principles of modesty, and no one here is out to get you.
Justify this proposition.
What do you mean? That you think its ok to look on someone as if they are less than what they are so long as you don’t look on them as a sexual object? Its ok to think of and treat others as though they are things rather than people with eternal souls so long as you are not deriving sexual pleasure from them? That is a very anti-catholic position to take.
I meant the “just as bad” qualification. I am not convinced that it falls under the same degree of moral condemnation as deliberately consenting to venereal pleasure.
If one dehumanizes a person to that extent I cannot see how it would be anything but grave matter. Every sin is sinful insofar as we act without due charity. To treat or view another human being, someone whom Christ died for, who has an eternal soul, as though they are just a sexual temptation rather than real individual people is unacceptable. We are to treat everyone we meet as though they are Christ himself, a person to be loved. Honestly, I get tired of the way people in the Latin Rite tend to view all sexual sins but practically nothing else as grave matter. The reason sexual sins are wrong is because they involve the dehumanization of a person. It is wrong to treat a person as an object. Period.
I don’t know which is more harmful to the sinner, but I know that both can be very harmful to the woman or girl who is being objectified. The fact is, people do fall into thinking about women’s bodies as primarily “stumbling blocks” for men. They forget that women have bodies for a reason, that our bodies are used for much more than just sex, and that women do not have an obligation to hide every bit themselves and their natural shape. They forget that we are human, just as they are.
I don’t know, maybe, but that’s because the idea that anyone would actually think that way is so absurd that I doubt any serious names in moral theology have written about it. As I said, it is a distinct act to treat someone as only a sexual temptation vs. obsessing and over-focusing on the fact that someone can give sexual temptation.
The reason sexual sins are wrong is because they involve consenting to venereal pleasure outside of its natural end. Thus one perverts the sexual faculty by using it while at the same time denying the actualization of its purpose, rejecting the good toward which it is directed. This is analogous to lying, where one perverts the speech faculty by using it while at the same time denying the actualization of its purpose, which is to communicate the truth. This is what natural law ethics and Scholastic moral theology (i.e. the way it has been done for hundreds of years) tell us. I am not convinced of the utility of the “objectification” and “dehumanization” form of ethics. I’m not saying it’s wrong but it’s not what I am going to use.
Its really not that absurd and it absolutely happens. Its not as if you look at a person and consciously say “you are not a person, you are not a living thing, you are merely a temptation”, If asked they would certainly say that it was a person. But they would not think of or treat them as though they are people and instead would react to them and think of them as a temptation.
I am familiar with the scholastic terms you choose to use. However they are not the only aspects of morality. So, yes, sexual sins are wrong because they pervert the sexual faculty, but what really makes it so terribly sinful is that, because of the nature of the sexual faculty, it is impossible to pervert it without dehumanizing other people and treating them as objects. That is the reason perverting the sexual faculty is grave matter whereas perverting the faculty of speech is often only a venial sin. It is possible to pervert the faculty of speech without dehumanizing another person.
Great post!
Ok, that sounds reasonable.
I think the two systems are just different, and I use the Scholastic one because I prefer its precision. Aquinas’ argument for why they are so sinful is, “The more necessary a thing is, the more it behooves one to observe the order of reason in its regard; wherefore the more sinful it becomes if the order of reason be forsaken. Now the use of venereal acts, as stated in the foregoing Article, is most necessary for the common good, namely the preservation of the human race. Wherefore there is the greatest necessity for observing the order of reason in this matter” (ST II-II q. 153 a. 3)
The advance of theology did not stop with Aquinas. There is a reason why sexual sins are as serious as they are, and it is because they dehumanize other people. Blessed John Paul talked about this. This is not a separate moral Theology, it is an expansion on the foundation which Aquinas has already put in place. It is not an either/or. It all fits together as part of the vast moral Theology of the Latin Rite Church.