The Adulterer’s Lack of Desire
Here’s a pretty weird post for you, let’s say that up front. I need to stop thinking about things, it takes me to some pretty stranger places.
I’ve been thinking a little bit about adultery lately. Someone in my extended social network has had a problem, so its been on my mind a bit.
You can think of all the good reasons why someone wouldn’t commit adultery. Maybe they are just afraid of the unknown, which would be a bad reason. Much better reasons might be that they love their family or their spouse or even themselves too much to put any of those things at risk. Or maybe they care about their promises and covenants too much. Maybe they love God too much to disobey Him. Maybe they just have an absence of the factors that drive people towards adultery, such as boredom or anger at their spouse or a sexual itch. Some or all of those explain why most people don’t get involved in adultery, including me and I assume basically everyone I know.
But, my brain suggests–here’s the weirdness–what if some men don’t commit adultery because they desire women so much. You are thinking about how some men might not have affairs because they just don’t have a lot of sexual desire. What if some men don’t have affairs because they do? What if adulterous men are attracted to women, but not enough?
We think about this, the brain and I. OK, what’s attractive about women? Well, the flesh obviously, let’s not be too ethereal about this. But also some kind of feminine presence–something womanly and eternal that is expressed in this woman in a unique way–something that is only partly expressed as of yet. Hints at what she could be in her full flower. And all of that is fully contradicted by her having an affair. This something they could be is what is lovely and beautiful about them and its not just abstract, not just spiritual, in some way its expressed in the beauty of their bodies and the joy of sex, its all part and parcel, its all one thing. So then an affair would destroy what is sought.
Its probably so paradoxical that even Chesterton would turn up his nose at it, but one can imagine a man who desires women so wholly that he would never sleep with a woman he could not fulfill in marriage and children.
That such a man exists among us mere mortals I misdoubt. But it was fun to think about.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
ben
October 24, 2022
I think you’re right and this gets at a general misunderstanding of the effects of testosterone.
Fornication has been increasing as testosterone in men has been falling by mutation accumulation (with Northern Europe presumably being most severely affected, with infant mortality having been lowest for longest there) and dysgenic reproductive patterns.
Despite this, Northern European men are highest in the world for indicators of testosterone; highest rates of left-handedness, highest rates of autism, lowest rates of schizophrenia, non-verbal IQ tilt, greatest physical strength.
So the low rates of non-consensual sexual criminality practised by Northern European men relative to the rest of the world’s men would align with there being high testosterone among Northern European men relative to the rest of the world’s men.
It’s very useful to point to men with Down Syndrome; they’re genetically afflicted in a way similar to a hypothetical person with very severe mutation accumulation. Primitivization is caused, low general fitness, presumably anti-adaptive behavior having to do with ‘mutational suicidality’ that used to be set-up to cause individuals to be socially rejected for the fitness of the group. In short, they’re more like modern Northern Europeans compared to how Northern Europeans used to be (which would include extremely high testosterone in men to the point of widespread ‘Aspergers’ type traits). Men with Down Syndrome have low testosterone and are inclined to sexual aggression.
Anonymous
October 24, 2022
Well as someone whose husband did commit adultery (paying prostitutes) while I was sexually starving at home I don’t know exactly how to take this post. His excuse was that he didn’t want the emotional problems of an affair, but he wanted to live vicariously–never did figure out what that meant.
I can testify to the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in allowing me to forgive him, and not be eaten up by hatred and anger.
G.
October 25, 2022
I am horrified by what happened to you. How you should take this post is however suits you to take it. Dismiss it as typical JG gas if you want. Your real, raw tragedy speaks louder than my speculation at the edges of plausibility.
Thank you for your witness of the atonement.
Vader
October 25, 2022
Amen.
I have an acquaintance who has not been sexually active in twenty years. He discovered early in his marriage that his wife had been sexually abused as a youngster, and it was beyond his ability to make physical intimacy pleasant for her. He has nonetheless been faithful to her, and did what was necessary to give her the children she desired. I do not know if this is apropos the original post, but for some reason it came to mind.
John Mansfield
October 25, 2022
I am reminded of my reaction to the Billy Wilder movie Some Like It Hot. That’s the one with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as musicians in drag hiding from gangsters by joining an all-girl band. Most of the plot is Tony Curtis maneuvering to get his bandmate Marilyn Monroe into bed. It’s all a silly comedy admittedly, but the part that seemed weird to me was that Curtis’s plan was very much a once-and-done scheme, and if he were that infatuated, then how would once and never again have such appeal?
bobdaduck
October 25, 2022
I have been mulling this over a bit also, lately. I think what the post describes, a sort of numbness, is probably much closer to the root of most adultery than actual lust. Not exactly how you describe but definitely a numbness to the divine parts of marriage. The best taste in the world is useless (and not just theoretically!) to a man who’s just melted his tongue with hot sauce.
Zen
October 26, 2022
Brigham Young has a quote to the effect of, you have never met someone with too much temper. This reminds me of that. Too much fixation on the temporal and temporary. To misquote a Bond movie title, Mortality is not enough.
Ellen Olenska
October 28, 2022
If we act any other way [i.e. have an affair], I’ll be making you act against what I love in you most. And I can’t go back to that way of thinking. Don’t you see?
Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty
October 28, 2022
We know it’s wrong for us to meet
But the fire’s gone out at home
And there’s nothin’ cold as ashes
After the fire is gone
Love is where you find it
When you find no love at home
And there’s nothin’ cold as ashes
After the fire is gone
Your lips are warm and tender
Your arms hold me just right
Sweet words of love you remember
That the one at home forgot
Each time we say is the last time
But we keep hangin’ on
And there’s nothin’ cold as ashes
After the fire is gone
Love is where you find it
When you find no love at home
And there’s nothin’ cold as ashes
After the fire is gone
Zen
October 28, 2022
It is morbidly fascinating, that as society has become progressively more obsessed with sex, that people are having less and less of it. There are ways of approaching things that always leave you further from what you want.