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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1700 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 4, 2025

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Are their any non-religious organizations whose members take vows oaths of celibacy, a la the Night's Watch or the Maesters from ASOIAF?

(I'm pretty sure the answer is "no," but I'd like to double-check my bases so I can be more certain in replying as such the next time someone "advises" me to "go join the Night's Watch" or similar.)

(Edited per @FiveHourMarathon's fine pedantry.)

Not that it answers your question, but technically the Night's Watch doesn't take a vow of celibacy. They promise to take no wife and father no children, not to abstain from sex.

Celibacy is no marriage, chastity is no sex. Don't worry even Catholics get it wrong a lot (and rise of the incorrect term Incel has furthered that misunderstanding)

My understanding is that chastity is no sex outside of marriage, but inside marriage is fine. i.e. all Christians (married or not) are called to chastity but they are encouraged to enjoy sex with their spouse.

Then again my understanding might be mistaken. I definitely don't claim to be an authority on that. Fair point about celibacy, I got sloppy and was just using the common sense of the word even though I should know better.

They're not exactly "encouraged to enjoy sex with their spouse", that's new age degeneracy. It's better to abstain and pray according to the church fathers. But because humans are so weak, the married are supposed to occasionally close their eyes and think of canaan so their spouse does not engage in sexual intercourse with lucifer or other people, which would be like, so much more disgusting.

1 Corinthians 7: 1 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

They're not exactly "encouraged to enjoy sex with their spouse", that's new age degeneracy. It's better to abstain and pray according to the church fathers.

That's not true at all. For one thing, the Song of Solomon (in the Old Testament!) is really sexual (I mean, by biblical standards) and is a good example that the Bible considers sex between married couples to be a praiseworthy thing to be enjoyed.

But also, your cited verses directly work against your claim. Paul never claims that sex is disgusting or bad, and in fact explicitly says that couples should engage in it! He does say it is better to be single and focus on God, but acknowledges that not everyone is equipped for that. If you choose to read disgust into that, that's your interpretation and not something supported by the text.

I read it as: it's one spouse's duty to release the other's demons. It's not about you, it's not about having fun, it's a means to an end. I have my own biases, but I don't buy the christian counseling websites spin of 1 corinthians 7 to be a 60s hippy pro-sex message. Cite me some pre-20th century catholic authority that encourages sexual pleasure in marriage.

Aquinas views sexual pleasure in marriage as necessary, natural and good. Going to the sex act with one’s spouse strictly for the pleasure is a sin, but sexual pleasure within marriage and the marital act is a positive.

For Augustine every sex act not for procreation is a sin. Augustine never left any space for healthy sexual desire after the fall. Thomas Aquinas follows Augustine’s opinion when he says that sexuality exists for the sake of propagation and for the strengthening of the marriage bond between a man and a woman. So here again there’s the idea that sexuality is just an instrument, and there’s no inherent value in physical sexual enjoyment itself.

But then Thomas also borrows from Aristoteles’ view that the spiritual and the physical are closely related to each other instead of in conflict, and that reason should ‘coach’ our desires instead of suppressing them, and so accepts that the physical-sensual part of the person has its own longings and joy. Sensual pleasure is good for the physical-sensual and therefore for the entire person.

So I think it's pretty confusing under what circumstances you're allowed to enjoy yourself. As a byproduct mostly.

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