Thursday, November 18, 2021

Acting Upon Sexual Jealousy Out Of Legalism

Not everyone, contrary to what some films or common cultural assumptions imply, experiences jealousy at the thought of someone finding their romantic partner sexually attractive, seeing them in minimal clothing or wearing nothing, or flirting with them.  With or without societal pressures, some people might just naturally not be bothered by this even if they have never thought rationalistically about sexuality, romantic partnership, and introspection.  It is objectively easier for someone to never have to experience this jealousy and wrestle with whether they will be petty and legalistic or not, and yet this ease is not always chosen.  Just as this lack of alarm is a subjective state of mind a person might not be able to choose, so, too, is sexual jealousy.

Some people feel naturally distressed when their partner is thought of as sexy by someone else of the opposite gender, look at admiringly, or spoken of flirtatiously.  The jealousy itself is not something that justifies a person actually thinking that flirting is infidelity or that there is anything morally problematic about opposite gender friendships or publicly displaying one's body while dating or married.  Literally nothing other than physical adultery or the desire to disrupt a relationship to take someone's spouse from them (which is what the Bible means by the word lust, in spite of relentless claims to the contrary) is actually unfaithfulness and thus there is nothing else to inherently object to no matter how one feels.

No boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife can act on baseless jealousy and still behave in accordance with logical truths about romantic relationships and sexual attraction.  However, if someone in a romantic relationship truly does feel distress at the thought of someone else of the same gender nonsexually or sexually appreciating their partner's body, they have not become irrational.  Involuntary feelings or preferences do not make someone irrational.  It is what someone believes, whether or not they believe it because of logical proof, and how they act that make a person rational or irrational.  They must deviate from reason in one of these ways to be irrational.

Still, it is very irrational to mistake nonsexual things for things of a sexual nature or think that preferences dictate how someone else should live.  Ironically, the Bible itself allows many things people would incorrectly associate with cheating on a romantic partner, whether a married or not.  All one has to do to show this is read Deuteronomy 4:2 and then think of which things the Bible does not condemn in other passages.  Biblically speaking, a person's body is everyone's to admire but only their partner's to have sexual intercourse with if they are in a committed, consensual relationship with someone of the opposite gender.

Conceptually speaking, the only difference between a close friendship and a dating relationship is whatever sexual and romantic components are a part of the latter.  This means that it is simply untrue to attribute any further special characteristics to a dating or marriage that merit acting based on jealousy except when true adultery is involved--not sexual talk or expression where someone else sexualizes one's romantic partner without committing adultery or vice versa.  Not everyone, even if they know all of this, will be able to live in light of it with no emotional difficulties at all, though some people certainly would.  Instead of trying to change certain emotional preferences that are not always controllable, those in the former category, like those in the latter, can opt to follow reason where it leads and not act in a way that conflicts with any fact about the nature of sexuality or marriage.

No comments:

Post a Comment