God, Gender, Sex and Marriage by Mandy Ford

Author:Mandy Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784508609
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2018-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

Questions

• How do you understand desire and desire for God?

• What should the church say about desire and self-control?

Reason and desire: science and ethics

In the relatively recent past, a sexual relationship was seen as the culmination of a romantic relationship and sexual desire as something that would be enhanced by being disciplined, at least for a while, before being fulfilled. This view was undoubtedly influenced by cultural Christianity, but also by the need to avoid unwanted pregnancy. It seems as if the idea of ‘saving yourself’ for the right person, or abstaining from sexual activity in the early stages of a romantic relationship, have largely disappeared from people’s thinking.

This change, at least in people’s behaviour in the Western world, has been partly brought about by the availability of contraception, which has separated sexual activity from the likelihood of pregnancy and the responsibilities which might be associated with parenthood. On the other hand, research into promiscuity (defined as casual sex with a number of partners) seems to suggest that for the majority of people there is still a strong link between the desire for sex and the desire for companionship and a life partner. Although there is anxiety that promiscuity will lead to unwanted consequences including teenage pregnancy and the increase of sexually transmitted disease, the evidence for this is not conclusive.5

Recent research, in particular by Helen Fisher and her colleagues, has shown how the elements of desire, which she characterises as lust, romantic love and attachment, are connected in our brain chemistry. She has shown how not only lust, but romantic love, produce changes in the most primitive part of our brain, the reptilian or limbic system, over which we have no conscious control. Romantic love creates feelings of craving for another person, which becomes addictive. The dopamine rush which their company produces quickly needs to be topped up with more contact, and still more! However, she has also shown that the cravings increase when you can’t get what you want, so that the dopamine rush is increased after an absence of the loved one. Second, and perhaps with consequences for our moral or ethical behaviour, she demonstrates that although casual sex can be separated from romantic love, orgasm creates chemical reactions which stimulate the areas of the brain associated with romantic love and attachment. Fisher suggests that we are biologically hard wired to connect sexual pleasure with romantic love and attachment. We might also wonder whether her research implies that delayed gratification actually improves or enhances the qualities of a relationship, including building up the attachment (i.e. staying power) within the relationship.6

Whatever the personal and social value of stable relationships, we might also want to ask about the quality of the relationship for the individuals within it. The ethics of personal relationships in the Western Enlightenment tradition have been heavily influenced by Kant’s development of the Universal or Golden Rule. Kant suggested that we should understand the teaching to love our neighbour as ourselves to mean that we should

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