There is, in the opinion of many thoughtful moral advocates, no such thing as homosexuality considered as a fixed and permanent condition. Even believing in the freedom to make whatever choices make sense to the individual, the distinction between good and bad choices can’t be over-ruled by the popular and distorted notion of moral equivalency between consenting heterosexual and homosexual acts. The morally neutral, hypothesis that assumes that preferences are variants of normality rooted in some assumed bifurcations of nature or genetics is just that – an hypothesis – and all hypotheses await proof. There is, at the root of everything, the biological imperative to “get off” in varying degrees of intensity. You choose how you deal with your sexuality and with whom or what – and that is where the moral rub, so to speak, is. It is a choice.
If you leave the choice up to your genitals it will go with that scalliwag known as preference. What happens if your preference is for animals, dead bodies or even a bit of death or torture as a side order? Preference is not a moral guide; it is only an indication of a certain kind balance or imbalance–it is the speaking of your appetites. Appetites are appetites and as such are never entirely rational. We want what we want. Call such evil the Id or demonic influence, or reptilian biology but call it something. Appetites are not all benign. We are all called by biology – more often than not – to do the wrong thing.
Masturbation, for example, is same sex sexuality – it doesn’t matter what you might be fantasizing about or if the sexual impulse seems irresistible. You are, if you will be honest about it, having a gay time in the oldest sense of the word. You are engaging in same sex sexuality. There is no one there but you and yours. This is why homosexuality might be described as masturbation on steroids.
Masturbation and homosexuality are on a moral continuum and despite the difficulties that some may encounter in guiding their natural appetites and inclinations, they can (if not subject to internal scrutiny) be acts rooted in a profound kind of moral laziness or negligence. This neglect of moral duties used to be called sloth.
Modern psychology is entirely wrong on the matter of the inconsequentiality of masturbation. Hydraulic pressure is only an indication that the proper partner should be found. If you are hungry, for example, you can eat anything but some foods are better than others. In the same way, truly healthy sex is between a man and a woman, not between you and you.
Resistance to sexuality as sublimation is at the very root of moral and spiritual self-determination. What you do or do not do with your genitals does make a difference in the larger scheme of things. To pretend that sublimation does not exist is as intellectually irresponsible as claiming that bad natural impulses do not exist.
Gay advocates who argue for the legitimacy of their preferences and unions are not very different from those who might want to make the claim to marry themselves or their pets. Where does the magical mystery tour of preferences stop? The more closely the notion of preference is examined, the more it appears to be appetite dolled up in the language of invincibility
The profligates who are straight are in the right groove but on the wrong spiritual channel. We are, as Katherine Hepburn told Humphrey Bogart in the African Queen, intended to rise above nature [i.e., not just to embrace what is natural but to change and ultimately transmogrify it with God’s grace and our good efforts.] The wholesale embrace of impulse that seems to be fostered by American culture in general is the anti-thesis of the western tradition handed down to us by the Greeks and Roman moralists. According to Plato, the good man rides the horses of passion by keeping them under the reins of intellect. The intellect had two functions for the Greeks. One was the ability to see patterns, which are essentially ratios and the other was the moral function–the ability to control the appetites.
Atheistic morality embraces nature with little criticism. Our culture engages impulse with same casual grace that a man or woman might pop the tab on a soda can. We can see the results of the kind of non-impulse management that our culture espouses by simply reading the daily crime statistics of any major newspaper. What we call crime is largely a result of very poor impulse management. In short, without the calculus of some sort of moral code of virtue and vice, society is held hostage to every whim and impulse that preference may generate.
God-based morality always seeks to build on nature–to make nature more than just nature but super nature. What you do with your sexuality does matter; it ultimately determines your entire moral outlook.
A quick look at the list of perversions below should convince most reasonable people that there is a continuum of bad desires and every one of the items on the list should be resisted if found attractive. The issue of why some of these activities are attractive to some individuals and not others is another story and one that will be explored in a future editorial.
What Is A ‘Sexual Orientation‘?
Page numbers are from “Paraphilias,” Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (Washington: American
Psychiatric Association, 2000), pp. 566-582
- Apotemnophilia – sexual arousal associated with the stump(s) of an Amputee
- Asphyxophilia – sexual gratification derived from activities that involve oxygen deprivation through hanging, strangulation, or other means
- Autogynephilia – the sexual arousal of a man by his own perception of himself as a woman or dressed as a woman (p. 574)
- Bisexual – the capacity to feel erotic attraction toward, or to engage in sexual interaction with, both males and females
- Coprophilia – sexual arousal associated with feces (p. 576)
- Exhibitionism – the act of exposing one’s genitals to an unwilling observer to obtain sexual gratification (p. 569)
- Fetishism/Sexual Fetishism – obtaining sexual excitement primarily or exclusively from an inanimate object or a particular part of the body (p. 570)
- Frotteurism – approaching an unknown woman from the rear and pressing or rubbing the penis against her buttocks (p. 570)
- Heterosexuality – the universal norm of sexuality with those of the opposite sex
- Homosexual/Gay/Lesbian – people who form sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with members of their own gender
- Gender Identity Disorder – a strong and persistent cross-gender identification, which is the desire to be, or the insistence that one is, or the other sex, “along with” persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex or a sense of the inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex (p. 576)
- Gerontosexuality – distinct preference for sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with an elderly partner
- Incest – sex with a sibling or parent
- Kleptophilia – obtaining sexual excitement from stealing
- Klismaphilia – erotic pleasure derived from enemas (p. 576)
- Necrophilia – sexual arousal and/or activity with a corpse (p. 576)
- Partialism – A fetish in which a person is sexually attracted to a specific body part exclusive of the person (p. 576)
- Pedophilia – Sexual activity with a prepubescent child (generally age 13 years or younger). The individual with pedophilia must be age 16 years or older and at least 5 years older than the child. For individuals in late adolescence with pedophilia, no precise age difference is specified, and clinical judgment must be used; both the sexual maturity of the child and the age difference must be taken into account; the adult may be sexually attracted to opposite sex, same sex, or prefer either (p. 571)
- Prostitution – the act or practice of offering sexual stimulation or intercourse for money
- Sexual Masochism – obtaining sexual gratification by being subjected to pain or humiliation (p. 573)
- Sexual Sadism – the intentional infliction of pain or humiliation on another person in order to achieve sexual excitement (p. 574)
- Telephone Scatalogia – sexual arousal associated with making or receiving obscene phone calls (p. 576)
- Toucherism – characterized by a strong desire to touch the breast or genitals of an unknown woman without her consent; often occurs in conjunction with other paraphilia
- Transgenderism – an umbrella term referring to and/or covering transvestitism, drag queen/king, and transsexualism
- Transsexual – a person whose gender identity is different from his or her anatomical gender
- Transvestite – a person who is sexually stimulated or gratified by wearing the clothes of the other gender
- Transvestic Fetishism – intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving cross-dressing (p. 575)
- Urophilia – sexual arousal associated with urine (p. 576)
- Voyeurism – obtaining sexual arousal by observing people without their consent when they are undressed or engaged in sexual activity (p. 575)
- Zoophilia/Bestiality – engaging in sexual activity with animals (p. 576)
Reference: How To Manage Your Destructive Impulses with Cyber-Kinetics by Sean O’Reilly
