What is Chastity?

This is a difficult virtue to review, due to the significant differences between various ethics philosophers on sexuality. For some religious or traditional virtue ethicists, they may claim that any sexual relation outside of marriage is problematic; others may think extra-marital relations are acceptable in some circumstances, but not polygamous ones; others may accept any consensual interaction. Pornography and masturbation are similarly split: some believe it is all problematic, while others think there can be ethical usage, while others may deny any problem whatsoever. Due to the differences in approaches, this app will simply focus on providing resources for those who do consider their porn usage to be problematic, allowing those who think otherwise to skip this article.

Might scientific studies shed some light on these questions? Unfortunately that is difficult to say. There is significant disagreement and inconclusiveness in scientific literature about the effects of pornography, masturbation, and so on. While there are studies suggesting negative outcomes for pornography usage (add footnotes), there are other studies suggesting the opposite (add footnotes), as well as general critique of the above (add footnotes), leaving us without much consensus on many of these questions from a strictly evidential point of view. That's not the case for every question on the topic: there are documented maladaptive behaviors regarding sex, porn, and masturbation compulsions, as well as programs that help treat these behaviors (such as the twelve-step program that's well established for alcohol treatment). However, as this 2024 review notes, there are relatively few studies about sex-related compulsion treatment programs, and so there isn't much consensus to be had regarding their effectiveness.

That is all there is to say regarding this virtue from the perspective of evidence-based studies; such students of virtue ethics can safely skip the remainder of this article. For those who are interested in a more religious-focused perspective of this virtue, we will turn to Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical 'Deus Caritas Est', where he writes on the nature of love.

We can use the word 'love' in many ways; a virtue of Love can describe a 'life of love', one focused on willing the greatest good for all. But we might ask: where does eros, erotic love, enter into this picture?

While many perceive erotic love as being opposed to the kind of selfless life of love described above, Pope Benedict argues otherwise. Rather than being opposed to erotic love, the selfless life of love includes the basis for erotic love as well. We so often perceive erotic love to be a dirty and selfish thing, and so we consider 'eros' to be dirty and selfish by nature; but Benedict argues the opposite. Eros is fundamentally selfless. Indeed, it is itself an expression of the selfless life of love we spoke of before. The problem is that we so often lack love when we engage in erotic acts, and so we have come to associate the loveless pursuit of pleasure with eros.

If we want to grasp this fact, let's first consider how we, as children, viewed romantic love. Unfortunately, some children were exposed to human selfishness regarding sex too early in life, whether through pornography or through sexual abuse; these may have been robbed of the innocence which allows children to view romantic love as it truly ought to be. But for many children, romance is approached with an innocent mind. The thought of venereal pleasure is nowhere to be found, unknown to them; instead, what does romance seem to be? It is the opening of a new horizon to life: a realization that there exists another person, another heart like your own, which like your own is guarded and hidden. It is only romance that opens this door to the heart—only romance where our vulnerable self is exposed to another, only to find that they have exposed themselves to us. Erotic love, for these innocent souls, is about intimacy.

So let us consider here a man and a woman who approach each other, opening their hearts to one another, in this true intimacy we find so beautiful and beloved. Let's consider two approaches to sex here: first being the way the world views sex. These two, feeling desire for that venereal pleasure, seek it out in the other. They have nights of pleasure, yes, and intimacy, but we still feel dirty in the end. They were dirtied because they fed both the desire for intimacy and also the desire for pleasure. Does this make it wrong, necessarily? Not necessarily, no; but it does seem to dirty it. It taints selfless love with self-centered desire, and so we cannot help but think that selfless love, agape, charity, as being a greater and more perfect love.

What, then, is the other view of erotic love that binds it to charity? Here we have this intimacy again, two hearts opened to one another. But they focus on selfless love for the other. They offer even their pleasure to the other; they might say, 'even if I were never to attain that venereal pleasure, so long as they are happy, so long as they attain their greatest good, so shall I be satisfied.' This is the love in their heart that they expose to the other in the intimacy of romance. And what do they find? They find that the other has that same love for them. In giving himself wholly to his beloved wife, the husband finds that the wife has given herself wholly to him. When they engage in sex then, it is free of this dirtiness of selfish desire; they have both given it up. It is instead with tears of love that they are unified into one body. Who can claim that this love is dirtied now? Each has died for the other; each has opened their heart and sought only the other's happiness. Each would be happily celibate for the other, and that is why their love is fruitful: even as each gives themselves to the other wholly, so each receives the other wholly.

In this vision of erotic love, we find erotic love complete: a total gift of the self, in love, only to receive a total gift of the other in return. This is the vision of love without lust. This does not mean a love without desire; it means a love that gives even its desire, only to find the desire of the other offered back in return. They sacrificed their fulfillment, and so found themselves fulfilled. It is not contradictory with a selfless love for each person on the planet, as the virtue of Love describes; it is instead a singular instance of that same love, found in a mutual self-gift between husband and wife. If this vision of love appeals to you, then it is the virtue of Chastity, founded upon the virtue of Love, that you seek.

How do we develop Chastity?

Given the noted lack of an evidenced-backed plan for developing this virtue, how should we approach this for users who struggle with porn or other sexual maladaptive behaviors? First we'll review some factors feeding into maladaptive behavior, followed by a simple calendar-tracking approach to try and reform the behavior long-term.

When you make the choice to try and stop or limit porn usage, feelings of desire, longing, and a lack of satisfaction can arise. We can feel like we're missing something, like we've thrown away part of our happiness - as if the world has less color and life than it did before. We can come to believe that we need that compulsion in our lives to feel happy and satisfied.

This is a lie!

There are studies on the reward system in the brain that could explain this: how the compulsion can trigger the reward system, so in the absence of the compulsive behavior, we feel like we're lacking the 'reward' for our behavior. Other things may feel less rewarding than that behavior, making it more difficult to quit.

Thankfully, this kind of reward association can change over time. Even if we have been stuck in some kind of maladaptive behavior that feels very rewarding, whether sexual or otherwise, by replacing that behavior with another rewarding behavior, we can reinforce a healthier behavior in place of it over time.

However, this replacement takes time. As such, boredom, and with it a sense of unfufillment, will be a primary blocker for establishing this virtue. We need to determine what we want to replace this compulsive behavior with, and then mindfully identify this preferred behavior when temptation comes. For example, a user may desire to stop their pornography usage in order to pursue a better life: a romantic relationship, better fitness, excellence in their job, and more time to spend on their hobby of composing music, or developing games, or learning a second language. If the user keeps this 'better life' in mind, and specifically tries to replace their pornographic usage with exercise and practicing their hobby, they can gradually find those activities more rewarding as their dependence on pornography lessens.

As such, this is our focus for developing this virtue:

1. Identify and visualize the kind of life you want to live.

a) In particular, for those with heavy porn usage, try to identify at least one habit you want to form in place of the pornographic behavior.

2. When temptation arises, or when bored and feeling unsatisfied, think on that life you want to live and choose to engage in a positive behavior associated with that life instead of the compulsive behavior (e.g. choose to exercise or practice your hobby and engage in other rewarding activity, such as playing games with friends, in place of the maladaptive behavior).

3. Begin tracking successful days on the calendar tracker and use any failures to reflect on how to better reinforce the new, positive behavior in place of the porn use. Think of concrete actions you can take. For exmaple, if you forget often, consider posting reminder notes; if you fall often in certain situations, like at night, then consider planning a routine for that situation to counter that scenario, like always reflecting on the life you want to live once you get in bed to avoid temptation.