Drugs & Chastity

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Various drugs I have taken (legally, of course) inhibit sexual drive. The sleep aid Ambien inhibits sexual arousal. The anti-depressant Fluoxetine also seems to reduce sex drive. If you read through a a prescription drug guide, you will see many pills for the treatment of all kinds of conditions have this effect.

Single men (and some single women) often struggle with chastity, especially for those who have habituated themselves to impure habits (fantasies, masturbation, etc.) prior to their conversion. Now it is the teaching of pre-Vatican II moral theologians that any deliberate consent to sexual (venereal) pleasure constitutes grave matter, and if done with knowledge of this prohibition, represents a mortal sin. Many Catholic students in the 1950’s were taught this.

Putting the two together, why doesn’t the Church recommend young men struggling with chastity to take libido-reducing psychotropic drugs? If such a drug with the express purpose of reducing sexual drive hasn’t been developed, many with this known effect could be used off-label, and cheaply at that.
 
Wow, yes, that’s a great idea. Take dangerous drugs for black label purposes instead of training your will and practicing virtue.

No, I don’t think so.
 
1ke said:
Wow, yes, that’s a great idea. Take dangerous drugs for black label purposes instead of training your will and practicing virtue.

No, I don’t think so.
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Drugs are very often used off-label. In fact, I think such use accounts for the majority of prescriptions in the U.S. today (for example, I was prescribed Zoloft - new at the time - for a bout of scrupulosity). It doesn’t have to be dangerous.
 
tvdxer said:
Various drugs I have taken (legally, of course) inhibit sexual drive. The sleep aid Ambien inhibits sexual arousal. The anti-depressant Fluoxetine also seems to reduce sex drive. If you read through a a prescription drug guide, you will see many pills for the treatment of all kinds of conditions have this effect.

Single men (and some single women) often struggle with chastity, especially for those who have habituated themselves to impure habits (fantasies, masturbation, etc.) prior to their conversion. Now it is the teaching of pre-Vatican II moral theologians that any deliberate consent to sexual (venereal) pleasure constitutes grave matter, and if done with knowledge of this prohibition, represents a mortal sin. Many Catholic students in the 1950’s were taught this.

Putting the two together, why doesn’t the Church recommend young men struggling with chastity to take libido-reducing psychotropic drugs? If such a drug with the express purpose of reducing sexual drive hasn’t been developed, many with this known effect could be used off-label, and cheaply at that.
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How can you grow in Holiness if you take away the struggle? How can you grow in physical fitness unless you work out? It is not intended to be an easy road, but we know that Christ will be with us always. Did not Christ say to take up our cross and follow him? Did he get drunk before His passion and death to eliminate his pain?

Were this to be an option I would accept my cross and carry it and work very hard to love myself as God loves me. God made me how I am and called me to chastity. My struggle with chastity is one of my crosses and I accept that God has allowed me all the graces and all the sufferings necessary to get me to heaven without stopping in purgatory. Should I accept all the Graces offered me by God I should be a saint. Sadly my heart is hard, the evil I do not wish is what I do and the good which I wish is what I do not do. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

One could also say “We can prevent adultery by chaining our husband/wife to the bed” but that would not be just. We cannot follow Christ unless we have to make the same choices He made.

But that is just my rambling opinion. I am sure someone will come along far more eloquent than this humble (or not so humble depending on the day) servant.

FSC
 
FidesSpesCarita said:
How can you grow in Holiness if you take away the struggle? How can you grow in physical fitness unless you work out? It is not intended to be an easy road, but we know that Christ will be with us always. Did not Christ say to take up our cross and follow him? Did he get drunk before His passion and death to eliminate his pain?

Were this to be an option I would accept my cross and carry it and work very hard to love myself as God loves me. God made me how I am and called me to chastity. My struggle with chastity is one of my crosses and I accept that God has allowed me all the graces and all the sufferings necessary to get me to heaven without stopping in purgatory. Should I accept all the Graces offered me by God I should be a saint. Sadly my heart is hard, the evil I do not wish is what I do and the good which I wish is what I do not do. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

One could also say “We can prevent adultery by chaining our husband/wife to the bed” but that would not be just. We cannot follow Christ unless we have to make the same choices He made.

But that is just my rambling opinion. I am sure someone will come along far more eloquent than this humble (or not so humble depending on the day) servant.

FSC
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First, I actually don’t agree with this proposal myself. I should have put that in the original post.

However, I see it as a seeming contradiction between the church’s teaching and real life. I do not struggle with chastity as much as some people (although I have had defeats in the past), but I do sometimes struggle with the church’s teaching on this point. I assent to it, but I have trouble believing it my heart (which I don’t really believe is obligatory - your emotional reaction to a teaching is not as important as your intellectual reaction). It seems almost impossible for some men (and a few women) to control their urges in this area. As a famous saint (I don’t know which one) once said, in all other temptations, we should fight; but with temptations against chastity, we should just flee. The male’s young adulthood is a particularly tempting time of life for him, and drug therapy for those who need it could be discontinued upon marriage.
 
Drugs should never be taken unless under the care of a doctor. I spent 13 years working in a drug rehab prison with kids who just took pills to relax and ended up taking 20 Xanax at a time. The drugs you’re talking about can be addictive and a tolerance will build. Not to mention a list of possible side effects as long as your arm. People who try this could exchange one addiction for another. Best to exchange one addiction for God.
 
tvdxer said:
First, I actually don’t agree with this proposal myself. I should have put that in the original post.

However, I see it as a seeming contradiction between the church’s teaching and real life. I do not struggle with chastity as much as some people (although I have had defeats in the past), but I do sometimes struggle with the church’s teaching on this point. I assent to it, but I have trouble believing it my heart (which I don’t really believe is obligatory - your emotional reaction to a teaching is not as important as your intellectual reaction). It seems almost impossible for some men (and a few women) to control their urges in this area. As a famous saint (I don’t know which one) once said, in all other temptations, we should fight; but with temptations against chastity, we should just flee. The male’s young adulthood is a particularly tempting time of life for him, and drug therapy for those who need it could be discontinued upon marriage.
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But he might never find his spouse without the alarm bells of his sexual nature to direct him to her.

After all, how many of us would pursue the often discouraging, if not humiliating, path of pursuing romantic relationships if our bodies didn’t make this an apparent need?

Also, I might be wrong, but I seem to understand that the Church disapproves tampering with the human body’s natural functioning unless there is a medical need (by all means, correct me if this is wrong). Damping down the sexual drive is certainly tampering, while struggling with temptation is not a medical need. Many saints made that struggle with no chemical assistance at all.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.
 
I agree with those saying this is a bad idea and we should practice virtue. I would note though that there would be an exception to this rule in the case of people with truely abnormally strong sex drives, in which case a drug could help heal a person just like anxiety medication and so forth. I assume there are clinical definitions for when sex-drive becomes excessive though, and accepted treatments for it.
 
there’s two ways to look at this.first if a person can’t control his sex drive but its constantly praying and trying to serve God and overcome this strong urge then it might be a good idea to take some kind of drug .However to take a drug to control this urge without givving an effort to what I explained above then its definitely a bad idea.People can’t take drugs just because they don’t want to face the struggle that faces them.Some people with real addictions of the flesh can be can become very depressed if they can’t seem to be able to overcome them.If this depression is very servere they do need drugs to help them recover.Today we have drugs for everything.Overweight,smoking,you name it.Underlieng these addictions is what we really have to get at.Since we are all sinners we all have addictions of one kind of another that we have to face everyday.the problem of course is once we handle one addiction we find we have another.Then we have to work on it.
 
If men didn’t have strong sex drives then the world would have come to an end a long time ago. What is going to force people to come together and start a family if they don’t desire one another?
 
tvdxer said:
Various drugs I have taken (legally, of course) inhibit sexual drive. The sleep aid Ambien inhibits sexual arousal. The anti-depressant Fluoxetine also seems to reduce sex drive. If you read through a a prescription drug guide, you will see many pills for the treatment of all kinds of conditions have this effect.

Single men (and some single women) often struggle with chastity, especially for those who have habituated themselves to impure habits (fantasies, masturbation, etc.) prior to their conversion. Now it is the teaching of pre-Vatican II moral theologians that any deliberate consent to sexual (venereal) pleasure constitutes grave matter, and if done with knowledge of this prohibition, represents a mortal sin. Many Catholic students in the 1950’s were taught this.

Putting the two together, why doesn’t the Church recommend young men struggling with chastity to take libido-reducing psychotropic drugs? If such a drug with the express purpose of reducing sexual drive hasn’t been developed, many with this known effect could be used off-label, and cheaply at that.
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Because the system is designed so that people can’t help but fail (experience lust, have impure thoughts, etc.).

You are supposed to* try* not to sin, nobody ever said anything about giving people a realistic chance of conquering their desires. Besides, if Lust died (universally) the human race would die with it.
 
FidesSpesCarita said:
*How can you grow in Holiness if you take away the struggle? *How can you grow in physical fitness unless you work out? It is not intended to be an easy road, but we know that Christ will be with us always. Did not Christ say to take up our cross and follow him? Did he get drunk before His passion and death to eliminate his pain?

Were this to be an option I would accept my cross and carry it and work very hard to love myself as God loves me. God made me how I am and called me to chastity. My struggle with chastity is one of my crosses and I accept that God has allowed me all the graces and all the sufferings necessary to get me to heaven without stopping in purgatory. Should I accept all the Graces offered me by God I should be a saint. Sadly my heart is hard, the evil I do not wish is what I do and the good which I wish is what I do not do. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

One could also say “We can prevent adultery by chaining our husband/wife to the bed” but that would not be just. We cannot follow Christ unless we have to make the same choices He made.

But that is just my rambling opinion. I am sure someone will come along far more eloquent than this humble (or not so humble depending on the day) servant.

FSC
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Exactly.

Conquering lust is supposed to be hard, and frankly achieving complete victory (in a society) would be worse than failure. Because then the society would die out (unless they kidnapped children from more lusty and fruitful societies or something).
 
GEddie said:
But he might never find his spouse without the alarm bells of his sexual nature to direct him to her.

After all, how many of us would pursue the often discouraging, if not humiliating, path of pursuing romantic relationships if our bodies didn’t make this an apparent need?

Also, I might be wrong, but I seem to understand that the Church disapproves tampering with the human body’s natural functioning unless there is a medical need (by all means, correct me if this is wrong). Damping down the sexual drive is certainly tampering, while struggling with temptation is not a medical need. Many saints made that struggle with no chemical assistance at all.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.
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Precisely.

The Catholic Church might hate lust but the Church has always needed it to replenish its ranks. Without lust (on the man’s part at least) procreative sex cannot take place.
 
tvdxer said:
First, I actually don’t agree with this proposal myself. I should have put that in the original post.

However, I see it as a seeming contradiction between the church’s teaching and real life. I do not struggle with chastity as much as some people (although I have had defeats in the past), but I do sometimes struggle with the church’s teaching on this point. I assent to it, but I have trouble believing it my heart (which I don’t really believe is obligatory - your emotional reaction to a teaching is not as important as your intellectual reaction). It seems almost impossible for some men (and a few women) to control their urges in this area. As a famous saint (I don’t know which one) once said, in all other temptations, we should fight; but with temptations against chastity, we should just flee. The male’s young adulthood is a particularly tempting time of life for him, and drug therapy for those who need it could be discontinued upon marriage.
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But if a man’s normal sex drive is completely suppressed, why would he want to get married in the first place?
Why would his relationship with a woman ever move beyond the platonic?

Moreover, we no longer live in a society where the sexual desires of women can be completely dismissed or ignored.

Why would a woman with a normal sex drive have any interest in these chemically castrated males?
 
Even if one should take a drug, then come off it when married, implies that there is no chastity within marriage. There is. Also when married, the habit of the roaming eye should still be kept in check. There is no end to people who are not dressed modestly and we all should not ‘take in an eyefull’ of exposed skin, as we shouldn’t be looking at porn. There is a LOT of struggle in this culture!
 
stevekehl said:
Drugs should never be taken unless under the care of a doctor. I spent 13 years working in a drug rehab prison with kids who just took pills to relax and ended up taking 20 Xanax at a time. The drugs you’re talking about can be addictive and a tolerance will build. Not to mention a list of possible side effects as long as your arm. People who try this could exchange one addiction for another. Best to exchange one addiction for God.
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Or just act like an intelligent and rational human being and try to deal with the sex drive in a mature and realistic way (regardless of Church teachings to the contrary).
 
KostyaJMJ said:
If men didn’t have strong sex drives then the world would have come to an end a long time ago. What is going to force people to come together and start a family if they don’t desire one another?
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Well to be fair, the woman’s desire (or lack thereof) has often been a non-issure, because the men in her life (usually the father) would decide for her (often without consulting her) who she was supposed to marry and have sex/breed with.

This was formerly the case in the West, and is still the case in many parts of the world. You’re right about the male sex drive though.
 
I take an antidepressant daily for extreme anxiety and ocd which substantially reduces my sex drive as a side effect (this drug works wonders for my anxiety problems) . It doesn’t reduce it enough to make me a chaste person however. It doesn’t take much of a sex drive to still want sex.

It does take away a lot of my energy. A high sex drive gives you lots of energy. why give this up?
 
AngryAtheist8 said:
Well to be fair, the woman’s desire (or lack thereof) has often been a non-issure, because the men in her life (usually the father) would decide for her (often without consulting her) who she was supposed to marry and have sex/breed with.

This was formerly the case in the West, and is still the case in many parts of the world. You’re right about the male sex drive though.
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A non-issue in who she marries but maybe not a non-issue in who she chooses to have children with.
 
KostyaJMJ said:
A non-issue in who she marries but maybe not a non-issue in who she chooses to have children with.
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Historically, they were the same, as civil societies were hard on the children of unwed moms, as well as the women themselves.

There is still an English word used as a severe insult that once meant “child born of fornication.”

The idea of women having babies without marriage as “self fulfillment” is extremely modern.

ICXC NIKA.
 
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