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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1727 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.

I read it as: it's one spouse's duty to release the other's demons.

You should read it like this: It’s one spouse’s duty to help the other fulfill their sexual needs, so that they aren’t tempted to have sex outside the marriage. Millions of dead bedrooms, affairs, resentments, and divorces speak to the wisdom of this provision. If you hate the idea of a sexless marriage, like most people do, St. Paul is simply agreeing with you!

It’s true that Christianity places a high premium on celibacy. But the married have their calling and their vocation, which Paul, though he advises celibacy to those who will accept it, also praises in the highest terms, as an image of Christlike love. And the superiority of celibacy over marriage is also a provision confirmed by experience: not all wish for marriage, not all wish for the responsibility of a relationship. And where the celibate are not celebrated, they are vilified, rejected: see hatred directed towards spinsters, incels, communities not knowing what to do with single people with no interest in marriage, etc.

You can view the Christian approach to sex, particularly historically, as repression. You can view it that way, and even twist yourself into knots interpreting the holy text through the most uncharitable angle, rather than trying to grasp, with sincerity, what was meant and what is understood by it. You’re free to do so. But given what has happened — the conflicts, social upheaval, bitter divorces, mass loneliness, party culture, hookup culture that has resulted from unrestrained sexual norms — I would rather advise looking at Christian sexual norms as a bulwark against grave danger.

You can disagree, or you can even offer a more refined ethic that prizes sexual restraint without restricting sex to marriage, but what I often see is people criticizing Christian moderationism towards sex and offering as its alternative the spirit of the 60s, which is facing mass rejection because it holds up a carrot of free love and sexual pleasure, but gives few people what they actually want. St. Paul, by contrast, says: “you should love one another as yourself, and you should make it an important part of your life — even a duty! — to aid your spouse in fulfilling their sexual needs.” In what sense is this not wisdom?

To the degree that the christian sexuality norms can work for a society, they do so in the compromises, between the cracks, of the true christian vision, which is just anti-sex asceticism. Like paul’s ‘ok fine, if you have to, I guess you can fuck your wife’. Or Thomas aquinas borrowing of pagan aristoteles’ sexual ideas rather than augustine’s. Or all the priests who looked away when young people had sex, or when married men went to prostitutes. That was christian sexuality norms’ finest hour, when they did not insist upon themselves, but accomodated human nature.

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