Alice von Hildebrand (5)

The chocolate cake argument
Have a look at the following argument and see if you see what I see  (my emphasis added):

Another mistake West makes is to assume that pornography is an understandable—if sinful and misguided—effort to quench the sexual impulse: “God gave us that desire,” he told an interviewer. “When we go to pornography to satisfy that desire, its like eating junk food. It’s not going to satisfy the legitimate hunger and need of the human heart.” But here, West ignores an obvious fact, all too prevalent throughout human history: many people like “junk food”—in this case, pornography and illicit sex (this is why brothels will never go out of business)—and often prefer it, even when a healthy alternative—in this case, authentic Catholic teaching—is presented to them. That is because Catholic orthodoxy-as enriching as it is, and even within the context of a loving, sacramental marriage—entails sacrifice and self-control, rather than the “hunger” of self-indulgence.

My friend Thomas first drew my attention to an interesting aspect of the way some Catholics think about sexuality thirty years ago when we were both at university. You can see it here: Hildebrand honestly believes that given the choice between sex in line with Catholic teaching and the alternative as offered by the larger culture that people will choose the latter. Not because they want to sin but because they believe that sex will be better.

That is quite an admission.

If our arguments is that the junk food sex is actually more pleasureful than loving sex between a married couple we may as well give up.  Does anyone arguing for quality food over cheeseburgers believe that cheeseburgers taste better but argue that we should eat quality food because it presents us with an opportunity for sacrifice? Dump that cheeseburger and eat this wheat germ sandwich. That is Hildebrand's argument for her kind of sex.

And it isn't true in any case! Married sex is wonderful.

So why is Hildebrand tying herself in knots here? Years ago one of my sisters called it the chocolate cake argument. It goes like this. If we believe that the primary purpose of eating is nutrition and that all other purposes should be subservient to this primary purpose then it follows that eating chocolate cake is wrong. There is some nutritional value in chocolate cake but there is a lot more in other foods so throw away the cake and bring out the oatmeal.

But suppose we say some other purpose is not subservient to but equal to nutrition? Suppose we say that in addition to nutrition eating must (not "can" but "must") serve the purpose of bringing people together so they can bond as friends, families and communities.  That it is our blessed duty to use our shared desire for the pleasure of eating delicious food prepared with love as an occasion for us to come together. After Sally moves out of the house she shows her love for her parents by inviting them to her new apartment and serving them a  delicious meal with wine and chocolate cake she baked herself for dessert.

Well, although you'd never guess it from reading Alice von Hildebrand, the official position of the Catholic church is that bringing the couple closer together is just as much the legitimate end of sex as procreation. That husbands and wives are to do the metaphorical equivalent of cooking and serving each other delicious meals by giving one another sexual pleasure. That's right. Pleasure!

Hildebrand knows this but wants to somehow neuter the impact of this aspect of Catholic teaching so she can keep all the hard-line strictures anyway. You can see this in the circuitous way she approaches the subject. The lone paragraph where she talks about the "unitive" aspect of sexuality is her way of acknowledging this blessing before moving back to the dangerous aspects of sex. 

Now there is a legitimate point to be made that this pleasuring of one another should involve self control and that we should make sacrifices for one another.  The pursuit of instant gratification is not a good way to do anything. But sacrifice and self-control are not ends in themselves and they are certainly not the end of married sex. The reason to practice self control and sacrifice in marriage is to make sex even better for both you and your spouse. It is not to impose pain and denial on yourself as if pain and denial are good things in themselves.

Try as I can to read her in a charitable way, I don't get that from reading Hildebrand. To the contrary I read someone who is constantly trying to scare people away from sex. She says that sexual pleasure is a  trap, an "extreme danger", to be approached with great caution. She's wrong. It should be approached with prudence, with reverence for the person you are doing this with who is God's special creation and your spouse and both this person and sex itself should be seen as gifts from God. Most importantly, sex should be an occasion for you to give your spouse pleasure and for you to surrender to their efforts to give you pleasure (and your surrendering to their giving by enjoying their efforts to pleasure you is not optional).

And here is the  thing that no one tells you. Sex is an aggressive physical activity. Your pulse increases, all the get-ready-for-action hormones fire, your awareness of pain goes down and everything builds to a convulsive climax. No one thinks of cuddling, kittens, peace, love, understanding or about self denial in the seconds before orgasm. They are thinking about feeling, touching, staring at and possessing their spouse's body with an increasingly aggressive desire. And the thing to do is to keep doing that until you have satisfied her by quenching her desire and she has satisfied you by quenching yours. That is not some aberration or disorder but the way it is supposed to be.

It's not just a matter of self indulgence (although there is legitimate self indulgence in loving sex), it's also a matter  of indulging one another and that is way of loving one another. It's a gift from God and not a horrible trap created by Satan to trip you up.

This series starts here.