Udolpho on The Thrill of the Chaste
Posted by: tony on 03/23/2007 12:35 PM
Updated by: tony on 03/23/2007 12:44 PM
Expires: 04/23/2007 12:00 AM
Dawn Eden is one of my favorite bloggers. She has a message that desperately needs to be heard in our modern, sex obsessed culture. Another thing that endears her to me is that she is a living, breathing example of redemption, that we are not permanently defined by our prior choices. At any point in our life, we can turn things around and begin living a life of holiness.
Some of her detractors, of which there are many, claim she's a hypocrite. "After all of the things you've done, how dare you tell us when, where and with whom we can have sex!". Well, the truth of the message is not changed by prior (or current actions) of the person delivering the message. If Bill Clinton told us all that adultery was wrong, then adultery doesn't automatically become right because he was or is an adulterer.
For those of you who have been living in a cave, Dawn is the author of The Thrill of the Chaste where she offers suggestion on how to find fulfillment while keeping your clothes on. I read one of the finest reviews of the book on udolpho.com. The whole thing is worth a read, but I'll just warn you that (he?) uses the f-word not gratuitously, but for fabulous effect and within the context of the article.
Part of chastity is the discipline not to allow sex - including its obsessive, destructive, and dehumanizing varieties - to crowd everything else out of our relationships. It is not only or primarily a discipline, although this is close to its popular connotation of meaning abstinence or self-denial. Inherent in the chaste life is the understanding that placing undue emphasis on the pursuit of sex endangers our pursuit of happiness.
Eden defines chastity as intrinsically related to the divine. As she puts it,
In a larger sense, chastity is seeing your sexual nature as part of a three-way relationship - and no, that isn't what it sounds like. The relationship is between you, your husband - or, if you're not married, your future husband - and God. That means if you have sex without one corner of that triangle in place - with a man who isn't your husband, or with your husband but without faith in God - the act becomes disconnected from its purpose.
I propose that chastity has relevance even or especially for the irreligious, as it is an aspect of virtue, thereby belonging among the universal aspirations (much as kindness, constancy, compassion, and so on are not essentially religious ideals).
This is striking. Even without God in a person's life, virtues remain virtuous. It seems like a really obvious statement to me, but without God in the picture, atheists have to think about it more carefully to come to the obvious conclusion.
udolpho also addresses the irrational hatred of Dawn's message.
The Thrill of the Chaste has much to offer today's single men and women; its message truly is radical, in that it gets at the very root of our modern sexual neuroses. Its message, that in trivializing and commoditizing sex we have made ourselves incapable of experiencing the joy that a union between a man and woman is supposed to bring, is so counter to that of our popular culture that it has earned scorn in predictable corners. One such corner is Radar Magazine, which published an interview with Eden filled with sneering, incurious questions about chastity. They didn't forget to make a crack about chastity belts, and their readers didn't forget to say that chastity is a HATEFUL, FASCIST MESSAGE.
Another is, surprise, Gawker, which chronicles the obsessions of New York media world wannabes. Just search for "Dawn Eden" on their website and you will find one hysterical attack after another, written in the snarky patois that they believe conceals their ugly jealousy and insecurity (they also pretend to be shocked that books are promoted by their authors). The hostile outrage these fools feel over a single person extolling the virtue of chastity is quite telling. They live in a world drenched in frivolity and libertinism (amplified by their own abject stupidity) with all the machinery of modern commerce and entertainment behind it, yet all it takes is one modest, unassuming Christian to throw them into an uproar!** Why is this? We may never know, but it is an infinitely hopeful sign that people like Dawn Eden exist. Sensible men and women will delight in her extraordinary book. Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - 10:35 PM
--
** Naturally they strain for the pose that they can hardly be bothered to notice such people except to amuse themselves - and amuse themselves they do, repeatedly, compulsively, never missing a single opportunity, teeth clenched together, eyes screaming "HA, HA, HA" in a desperate simulacrum of laughter...
My family watched Nanny McPhee, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember a scene in that movie that struck me as very germain to the attitude I perceive in many of Dawn's detractors. In this scene the terribly naughty children have gone into the kitchen and have tied up the cook and are terrorizing her. They are swinging from the pan holders, and have set up a see saw affair and are flinging vegetables and other things into this pot of goo they have boiling on the stove. This sort of naughtiness appears to be "fun" for these particular kids.
Nanny McPhee sees them, and taps her cane on the floor, and the kids are forced to continue their naughtiness against their will, faster and faster. The "fun" turns to horror as they realize they are trapped. Then they notice their baby brother is in line to be catapulted into the boiling goo, but they are powerless to stop themselves... unless they ask nanny McPhee to let them stop, and say "please". It gets closer and closer to the baby being boiled, and finally the big brother relents and they are allowed to stop.
This appears to be how those who are on the promiscous sexual merry-go-round are behaving. They are causing damage, but they don't understand how the damage is affecting them. After all, they practice "safe sex" and they can abort any little inconvenience that comes along. But more and more, they start to realize that they are trapped on a nasty merry go round of infatuation, sex, boredom and dissolution.
Dawn's book is a road map of how to get off that particular merry-go-round, but like the naughty kids in the movie, their pride won't allow them to say: "I've been wrong, I want to stop. I want real joy in my life instead of fleeting pleasure". Sad. To paraphrase Christopher West, there is a sumptuous feast waiting for them, but they continue to eat out of the dumpster.
I have to give Dawn a huge thank you for braving the lion's dens of these hostile venues to bring her message to the people who so desperately need it.
