SEE the interesting comment by Sebastian C., who argues that it’s wrong to lump the transgression of former Gov. Mark Sanford, who had an affair with a woman he loved, with the soulless indiscretions of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. It’s not that the former is right, but that the latter are much more disturbing. Sebastian writes:

Consider that Weiner must be the first man involved in a sex scandal that never involved sex! No touching, no caressing, no intimacy: just lust, vulgarity, profanity and pornography. Virtual sex for a virtual soul. This is what sex means to men like Weiner and Spitzer. In my view of the world, that is a much greater transgression, and shows a consciousness and soullessness that makes a man more unfit for leadership and respect than one who had a passionate, romantic affair with one adult woman. 

                                                            — Comments —

Stewart Griffin writes:

Apropos Sebastian C.’s comment, we find that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

I answer that, In every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend. Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting. This may be observed both in speculative and in practical matters. Wherefore just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as determined by nature. Therefore, since by the unnatural vices man transgresses that which has been determined by nature with regard to the use of venereal actions, it follows that in this matter this sin is gravest of all…”, Q.154, article 12, Summa Theologiae

As Sebastian finds Weiner’s “virtual sex” worse than a “passionate, romantic affair with one adult woman,” Aquinas finds more generally that the unnatural vices are acts against nature, in which “injury is done to God, the Author of nature,” and thus worse than all other sins of lust.

Laura writes:

If I am reading Aquinas correctly, he includes masturbation among the “unnatural vices.” Virtual sex is masturbation, but an especially low form of it because the participants use each other the way they might use objects or images for stimulation.

Texanne writes:

Somewhat related to the comment by Sebastian C., I have been considering the idea that much of the activity currently identified as sex (phone sex, sexting, homosexual sex, sex with objects and devices, self sex with pornography, maybe even contraceptive sex) is not really what for many (most?) of us used to be thought of as “having sex”. These other activities are all essentially sterile — focused strictly on stimulating the libido and satisfying it with an orgasm — free from the undesirable consequence of creating life. Much of it is free even from the experience and challenges of a real human relationship. 

At the same time, it is becoming quite commonplace for female couples and single women to purchase sperm from a catalog of “donors” and have it professionally administered in a sterile lab by certified professionals, in order to have their own babies. And for some years (beginning long before Sir Elton and his friend announced the birth of their son) it has become increasingly popular for male couples to procure a “carrier” to incubate their “offspring” for them. Why mess with sex when you can have your own baby without it? 

Sex without life, life without sex. Where’s the joy?

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