Sexual Self-Control

Self-control is one of the handful of possible evidences for a person's moral transformation as a Christian according to Paul in Galatians 5, the "fruits" of the Spirit, as they are called.  This trait could come naturally to someone or require intense focus to develop.  Paul does not say that either men or women have a greater need for self-control or that any sins, including sexual sins, are the natural inclination of anyone because of their gender.  He presents self-control alongside several other virtues as morally positive characteristics to strive for regardless of gender and regardless of whether a situation triggers sexual feelings or not.

It is true that not everyone necessarily has sexual desires or that those who do are not automatically attracted to almost every person of the opposite gender, much less that they are even attracted to someone enough to want to act on it.  It logically follows that sexual self-control is not something every person even needs in the sense that not everyone has the kinds of desires which self-control cannot be developed or experienced apart from.  In addition to this, neither sexual feelings nor reactions to those feelings have anything to do with gender, nor does the Biblical prescription of self-control.  Evangelicalism holds to lies about this, attributing sexual eagerness, promiscuity, and lack of sexual self-control to men and random or practically nonexistent sexual feelings to women.

Men are not naturally attracted in a sexual sense to every attractive woman they see or automatically sexually attracted to a beautiful woman; women are not naturally uninterested in men sexually or unmoved by the male body.  All of these traits are purely individualistic or acquired by submission to cultural expectations rooted in stereotypes of men and women.  Beyond having a certain body--quite literally having certain genitals or chromosomes--men and women are just individual minds.  No psychological trait makes someone a man or woman because they are neither logically tied to the concept of having certain genitals and physiology nor would there be even a single example of men and women having diverse nonphysical traits if their bodies dictated their personalities.

How some sexual desires, degrees of sexual attraction, or a general gravitation towards sexual eagerness wrongly became culturally associated with men or women is a matter of individial people failing to understand reason, themselves, and the epistemological invalidity of social conditioning.  I found it ironic as I embraced rationalism six and a half years ago that not only are gender stereotypes both logically fallacious and disprovable by pure reason, but women in my life were the best examples of people who loved sexuality and did not hide this part of themselves.  It is not even that I have not met men with minimal interest in sexual expression or who have self-control when needed, but that the only people I have met who both are very open about their sexual attractions and say they have very intense sex drives are women, and rationalists and Christians at that.

Thus, these women, including my best friend Gabi whom I have mentioned so many times, are the best examples of sexual self-control I have ever seen!  This completely contradicts the evangelical ideas that people have little to no capacity for self-control, that every person struggles with actually committing sexual sins like having noncommittal sex (which is not identical to premarital sex), and that there is some special sexual status that one has by being a man or woman.  Men and women are equally sexual beings and equally capable of exercising or not needing sexual self-control.  Evangelicalism distorts these truths as it does so many others.