Cultivating Sexual Desire
As noted earlier in this volume, for much of its history Christianity (mistakenly) viewed celibacy as the sexual ideal for all humanity, not just for those with a special calling to it. Consequently, routine sexual abstinence and celibacy was encouraged even in marriage, when its mutually agreed upon practice didn’t lead to masturbation or infidelity.1 Martin Luther rejected such commendations because he viewed them as unrealistic and, hence, unwise counsel, but he did not reject celibacy as the moral ideal. Over the centuries Protestant and Catholic theologians concluded that because there would be no sex in heaven, if and when desire wanes, as long as its “loss” was mutual and not a problem for one’s spouse, it might well be ignored or even considered a blessing. This inattention to the loss of desire was reinforced by the stigma associated with it. It was often considered so emasculating that its admission by men was rare.
However, if as I have argued sexual desire and delight should be envisioned as sanctified in the life to come, then any decline in the experience of desire should be considered prima facie problematic, even among those who are called to renounce its genital enjoyment here and now. Properly formed sexual desire ought to be nurtured and celebrated, not only because its reciprocal enjoyment may serve marriage but as a holy sign of the life to come. The development of ways—disciplines, in the technical sense—to foster virtuous experiences of sexual desire becomes an important Christian moral task. (I argue from this perspective in the final chapter that the use of pornography should be seen as problematic not because it stimulates desire but more precisely because the erotic desires it enlivens are malformed.)
In this chapter I explain why the nurture of sexual desire is an important moral task for those who experience no or low sexual desire. Initially, I review why teachers of the church have hesitated to discuss the cultivation of sexual desire. Then I highlight often ignored insights about the cultivation of desire from several sources of moral wisdom such as the Bible, tradition, and the experience of faithful Christians as well as scientific studies. I conclude that we need to expand our very conception of sexual virtue. Chastity should connote practices that strengthen and intensify, that nurture and humanize expressions of sexual desire, as well as disciplines that curtail its lustful expression.
A significant number of individuals and couples experience the decline and/or absence of such feelings as not only a sensual and interpersonal loss but also as a spiritual loss. While Christianity has had much to say about the wild and wicked ways of sexual desire, theologians have had relatively little to say about the waning or absence of sexual desire. In fact, the silence on this point continues to be deafening in some denominations. Though they do not consciously conflate sexual desire with lust as was typical of their predecessors, most contemporary theologians still do not address seriously the questions of whether and/or how sexual desire should be cultivated. Why is Christianity relatively silent about the absence of sexual desire? Why do we overlook the need to cultivate, but not to curtail, sexual desire?
There are many interrelated reasons for this. Ultimately, the waning of sexual desire is ignored by theologians of the church, perhaps even met with a pastoral “sigh of relief,” because its absence per se is often not viewed as a spiritual or moral problem, certainly not in the long term. Why? First, like other passions, sexual desire has a tendency to flame out of control, so its cultivation is considered too risky by some. Second, like other passions, sexual desire is often presumed to have no eschatological future. Let us examine critically each of these traditional reasons for neglecting to cultivate sexual desire.
First, as noted earlier in this volume, sexual desire was often simply conflated with lust. Hence, its remission—for whatever reason—was generally welcomed. Indeed, one might well translate the silence about the absence of desire as a quiet celebration. From this traditional perspective, it goes without saying that all efforts to cultivate sexual desire were seen as morally too risky, if not evil per se.
Few theologians consciously hold this viewpoint today, but remnants of this perspective still survive and shape what are considered ethical priorities. The cultivation of sexual desire is seen by many pastors as so fraught with moral danger that it is foolhardy to try and talk seriously about the need to foster it. Like anger, sexual desire has a worrisome tendency—once fired up—to flame out of control. As discussed in the previous chapter, many expressions of sexual desire can be wounding. This makes commending the cultivation of sexual desire very tricky business. Some may welcome the waning of desire simply because of the relief it brings from the very real struggle we all have with its potential for vicious expression.
But to neglect cultivating sexual desire for this reason is an overreaction to the moral dangers posed by lust. It is the ethical equivalent of “throwing the baby out with the bath water.” It fails to recognize the multiple ways virtuous expressions of sexual desire—the many ways “that loving feeling,” as the Righteous Brothers crooned—can be good. It fails to reckon with the ways the loss of “that loving feeling” can be problematic.
I would argue instead, as did Catholic moral theologian Christine E. Gudorf, that generally speaking, it is bad for spouses to lose sexual interest in each other. Of course, there are important qualifications to make about such a claim and notable exceptions. But mutually pleasurable sexual activity can create and multiply love and bonding. It can school us in love. According to Gudorf, “As we learn that giving ourselves fully in sex is rewarding, we feel encouraged to give ourselves fully to the spouse in other non-genital ways as well because we trust that these other gifts—of time, effort, confidences—will also be returned multiplied.”2 Sexual activity can be love making. In such grace-filled relationships partners are rewarded with both pleasure and intimacy. This joy spills out from the couple onto others. It enables couples to reach out in love and trust to friends, children, neighbors, and their wider community. When so formed, sexual desire is a tremendous source of overflowing, loving energy. It is for this reason, Gudorf notes, that grace-conveying, sexual activity is the sacramental symbol of marriage for Roman Catholics.
Given such convictions about the important role sexual desire plays here on earth, Christians must begin to have serious conversations about faithful ways to cultivate virtuous expressions of sexual desire, even if such cultivation is risky. Obviously, this moves the focus of Christian sexual ethics into a relatively new, if not for some disturbing, direction. Undoubtedly there are many expressions of sexual desire that need curtailment and many experiences of desire that might well be idolatrous. Our moral task as Christians is to cultivate in ourselves and others expressions of sexual desire and delight on earth that bear witness to experiences of the transfigured sexual desire that we glimpse here and now and will enjoy fully in the life to come. Despite the real limitations on the human capacity to do so, Christians are called with God’s grace to transform our experiences of sexual desire in light of its eschatological destiny. As the analysis of internet pornography that concludes this book will make clear, Christians must try to identify various virtuous ways of nurturing sexual desire. Otherwise, without such much-needed guidance, people will turn to alternatives like pornography to stimulate desire.
The questions of whether and how to cultivate sexual desire are often ignored by teachers of the church for a second reason. As the first four chapters of this volume detail, sexual desire was presumed (mistakenly, I have argued) throughout much of Christian history to have been left out of the new heaven and earth. Though Christian ethicists conceded the proper formation of sexual desire to be of real temporal concern, they did not see any longer term spiritual or moral value in “growing” sexual desire. Without much careful consideration, many theologians still presume that everyone’s eschatological future will be asexual.
One reason why many contemporary theologians hesitate to argue seriously for the cultivation of sexual desire stems from their mistaken conviction that sexual desire—like anger—is only of interim value. While sexual desire may serve procreative purposes (at least for some heterosexual couples prior to menopause) and foster intimacy here and now, some Christians believe there will be no need for sexual desire to fuel either human capacity in the life of the world to come. From such a purely asexual eschatological perspective, concern about the cultivation of sexual desire probably seems prurient. Let me unpack this argument in more detail and explain why it is mistaken.
In the preceding chapter I argued that despite what we may have heard to the contrary, our feelings—including our sexual desires—can be good or bad, morally appropriate or not, in specific situations. We can even make some ethical generalizations about our emotions. I suggested, for example, that while rage needs to be curtailed for obvious reasons, a strong case can be made that generally speaking, it is good to be angered by injustice and that it is morally problematic to be unmoved by evil. Given the tendency of some people to be “bystanders” when faced with evil, I suggested that there may well be a moral obligation for people to cultivate their capacity to respond to evil with prophetic or righteous anger.
And yet, I would add now that our sense of the goodness of anger should remain qualified. Here and now on earth as we know it, righteous anger can be truly good. Without it we can become complicit (albeit by omission) with evil as it unfolds. As noted previously, anger does have a real place in the work of love now.3 But anger has no eschatological future. As Christians envision the life to come, there will be no injustice and hence no need for righteous anger.
The author of Revelation gives voice to the Christian vision of the peace and justice that will be the new heaven and earth:
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them [as their God]. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3–4)
The old order, marred as it is by injustice, will no longer exist. There will be no need for righteous anger in our coming life together. There will be no need to confront injustice prophetically.
Our eschatological vision qualifies our sense of the goodness of anger and rightly so. Anger has a rightful place in this world but not the next. Anger is of only interim value. Pleasure and delight, not wrath, mark the world to come. For this reason, moral efforts to cultivate anger are dampened not only by its worrisome tendency—once unleased—to explode into rage but also by its purely temporal value.4
Unlike anger, however, I have argued that we will continue to feel a transfigured, fully holy form of sexual desire in the life to come. While several contemporary texts in Christian ethics critique the conflation of all sexual desire with lust, this book moves beyond that worthy agenda and offers a sustained and critical deconstruction of the assumption that there will be no sexual desire or delight in the new creation. I hope I have established at least as plausible an alternative, imaginative reconstruction of Christian speculations about sexuality in risen life. Though certainly we will not feel the ache of loneliness that stems from unmet emotional needs or the need for sexual relief from physical tensions, nevertheless glorious expressions of the affective warmth, energy, and joie de vivre that are embodied in sexual attraction and expression may well be part of our experience of the communion that is our holy destiny in Christ.
Let me expand on this last point. Consider how we might feast together in the life to come. We will eat in the new creation not out of a need for nutrients in order to survive, but because the sensuous process of sharing food together is delightful and richly embodies our communion with one another. How, or even whether, we will digest food and/or eliminate its waste products are questions that are irrelevant to belief in the resurrection of the body and its feasts to come. In like manner in the new heaven and earth, we will not hunger for human touch. But just as we will feast together and enjoy sharing food, we will be drawn by one another’s beauty into each other’s arms in the life to come. Not all of these sensuous expressions of erotic touch will be sexual (genital), but some might well be. Again what these sexual activities might be, I have no clue. There will be no individual isolation or interpersonal alienation in the new heaven and earth for sexual desire to bridge, as it does here and now. Only depth and intensity will characterize our joyful connections in glory. But unlike anger, I think we might best imagine that erotic (including but by no means exclusively sexual) desires will continue to fuel the pleasurable expression and intensification of loving intimacy in the life of the world to come.
I have shown the premises that support the contemporary silence about the need to cultivate sexual desire to be false. It may well be mistaken to presume that sexual desire is of only temporal value. Likewise, it may be wrong to conclude that its cultivation is morally too dangerous to undertake. Let us turn to various sources of moral wisdom and explore whether there might be positive warrants for cultivating sexual desire to be found in the scriptures, in tradition, and in the experience of the faithful.
The scriptures are far from silent about the import of nurturing sexual desire. In the Bible the sexual drive for pleasure and intimate companionship is repeatedly portrayed as good. We know from the second creation account found in Genesis 2:18–25 that we are designed to be totally at ease in our own skin and blissfully unashamed of our nakedness before God and one another. The Bible suggests that it is precisely sexual desire that fuels our inclination to move into each other’s arms and lives. Sexual desire enables some partnerships to become extraordinarily intimate, “one flesh” unions.5
It is of such a union that the woman sings in the Song of Songs: “I belong to my lover, his yearning is for me. Come, my lover! Let us go out to the fields, let us pass the night among the henna. Let us go early to the vineyards, and see if the vines are in bloom. If the buds have opened, if the pomegranates have blossomed; there will I give you my love” (Song of Songs 7:11–13). The biblical witness to the import of sexual desire continues. Among marital responsibilities, mutual sexual endearment was so important that the book of Deuteronomy recommends that newly married husbands be excused from military service and other public duties, so they could stay home and fulfill the Lord’s command to make their wives happy.6 Within Judaism the so-called laws of onah were technically directed toward men and required the husband to give his wife pleasure during their sexual activities, rather than think just of himself. But this emphasis in the scriptures on sharing sexual pleasure was routinely understood to be mutually obligatory.
Paul implies this in his first letter to the Christians at Corinth when he writes: “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3). This talk of “marital duty” here may well have been meant to address precisely the issue of the decline or absence of sexual desire in one or both spouses. Though such talk might well prove counterproductive vis-à-vis the cultivation of desire, notions of duty and law underscore the recognition of its importance. In that same letter Paul noted as well that the practice of sexual abstinence within marriage—even just for a brief period of prayer—required mutual consent (1 Corinthians 7:3–5).7 Again, this underlines the importance of sexual activity. Far from forbidding people to marry, the author of 1 Timothy reminds us: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).
Additionally, across the ages some more pastoral theologians recognized that among spouses a decline in desire (at least if unilateral) spelled trouble. These practical theologians continued to speak—if only briefly—of conjugal “duties.” We cannot be certain, but Augustine may have thought that male impotence, as well as unwelcome penile erections, were both expressions of the “unruly” nature of sexual desire he found so disturbing.
Thomas Aquinas’s approach to this issue is worth noting. In his discussion of lust in the Summa Theologica Aquinas wrestled with the question of whether the excessive desire for venereal pleasure (commonly known as lust) had—like other such vices—an analogously sinful opposite. His answer was a quiet “yes.” Aquinas labeled this excessive aversion to venereal pleasure “insensibility.” Though Aquinas mentions this sexual vice, he clearly did not think such “insensibility” to be of much moral concern. He presumed it was “not found in many, since men [sic] are more inclined to pleasure.” It “occurs in one who has such a dislike for sexual intercourse as not to pay the marriage debt.”8 Because of his (inaccurate) presumption that it was extremely rare, Aquinas paid the vice of “insensibility” little notice thereafter. It must be conceded that, overall, the direct mention of no or low libido in itself was infrequent. Nevertheless, its recognition as a moral problem implies that its cultivation might well be good.
Aside from a few references like those previously noted, there is little direct theological comment about the absence of sexual desire. Even less is said about the moral significance of nurturing or cultivating sexual desire. And yet, today a significant number of faithful individuals and couples experience the decline and/or absence of such feelings as not only a sensual and interpersonal loss but also a spiritual loss. In another wonderful essay Gudorf summarizes well the experience of sexual desire as a real grace: “For many persons in our society, sexual intimacy is their primary experience of inclusive love, of openness to another, of being accepted and enhanced, and of being empowered by love to reach out in love to others.”9 The lack of sexual desire is experienced as a spiritual loss because the sweetness of desire and its energy—the joie de vivre that accompanies its delight—are recognized by many as great gifts from God.
In light of this fairly common experience among the Christian faithful of shared sexual pleasure as a gracious gift, the diminishment of desire should be understood to leave life impoverished, even when it is judged adaptive and understandable in particular circumstances. Similarly, speculative accounts of our life to come strike many as impoverished when they fail to envision a place for sexual desire. While many people of faith might be grateful for the “passing away” of particular, morally problematic sexual desires, the prospect of a risen life altogether without sexual desire strikes many as lifeless. An asexual vision of glory seems at best to be an incomplete expression of the promise of bodily transfiguration.
Theologians need to pay careful attention to such affective experiences among the faithful. They may signal the need to revise our eschatology. I use the word “may” because every feeling we have should not be presumed trustworthy. But such feelings should not be presumed untrustworthy either. Rather than automatically dismissing such disappointment as a product of ignorance or the undue influence of a secular, hypersexualized culture, why not test such a feeling? Upon reflection, I found such feelings of dismay to uncover insights that occasioned needed developments in my imaginative conceptualization of life in glory.
Though I do not think he had this particular issue in mind, Edward C. Vacek in his essay on why “Orthodoxy Requires Orthopathy: Emotions in Theology” stated the matter succinctly: “Put simply, change in doctrine happens when a standard belief no longer coheres with the evaluations given in affective experience.”10 To those for whom sexual intimacy and joy have been gracious blessings here and now—truly experiences of transfiguration—it doesn’t make sense to imagine the life to come as altogether devoid of them. Surely, the fullness of the new creation to come will be characterized by even more blissful, loving, fruitful experiences of sexual desire. Likewise, if this joy is “already” to some degree present, it makes little sense to ignore or neglect the decline or absence of sexual desire here and now on earth.
When we take seriously the scriptural affirmation of sexual desire and delight, and the experience of dismay over the waning of sexual desire expressed by many of the faithful, then it becomes clear that the brief remarks about “insensibility” and “marital duties” to be found in the margins and footnotes of Christian tradition warrant development. But the fact is that many of us know (or admit to know) very little about the waning of sexual desire. Indeed, this is so much the case that we do not “see” any need for its cultivation. My aim in this section is to summarize some of what we can learn from various scientific disciplines about the loss of sexual desire, some of the practices associated with faking desire, and both the extent and the correlates of no or low sexual desire. This will necessitate that we consider, even if only briefly, the contemporary debate among sexologists about whether asexuality (itself a contested label) is a disorder or variation.
Human sexual dysfunction takes many distinct forms, from vaginal dryness to anorgasmia to erectile dysfunction (popularly called ED), to name just a few.11 Here we are interested in the experience of no or low sexual desire, which can affect both men and women. Despite cultural narratives to the contrary, many people know their sexual desire to fluctuate. Often, the waning of sexual desire can be accounted for in one of two ways. Sometimes, a drop in desire is due to a specific issue like physical or emotional exhaustion, to health problem(s), and/or to the side effects of medications used to treat those problems. The loss of sexual desire is a well-known side effect of a common class of antidepressants (specifically, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, hereafter SSRIs). Studies indicate the lack of libido correlates, not surprisingly, with depression itself. It is also frequently associated with diabetes, ED, thyroid disorders, and medications for high blood pressure, as well as low levels of testosterone. It is also the case that low or no libido has been clinically shown to stand alone, apart from these and other conditions.
Happily, in some instances, the waning of desire is comparatively short term and relatively easy to address. There are other times, however, when people experience a precipitous and extended loss of sexual desire. Interest in sexual activity sometimes does more than just wander off, or go “underground” for some “R and R.” Indeed, sometimes it disappears altogether. In such instances, the plummeting of desire can leave people suddenly asexual and trying to cope with this dramatic change.
While this chapter focuses mainly on the experience of women in this regard, ethicist Howard L. Harrod, a beloved mentor and friend of mine, gave poignant and brutally honest voice to the impact of the loss of sexual desire on men in “An Essay on Desire.” Following surgical and hormonal treatments for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, Harrod wrote, “the sudden loss of libido produced forms of suffering I had not anticipated.” He described himself as “tormented by memories of desire,” even though through the experience he eventually learned that the socialization process that shaped his experience of sexuality had been “excessively genital” in focus and “goatishly” (his word) reduced his experience of sexual pleasure to orgasm.12
In our culture it is at least embarrassing, if not humiliating, to be without sexual desire. To lack this sign of vitality over a long period of time is almost unmentionable. The steady decline or long-term absence of sexual desire is often “closeted” both by individuals and couples. Many find speaking about this “secret” very difficult, even with their sexual partners, close friends, pastors, and/or physicians. To reduce the threat of isolation and stigma, many couples—and men and women individually—try to “pass” as consistently and highly libidinous.
Since neither genuine desire nor pleasure is requisite for their sexual activity, women especially can and do fake both.13 The capacity of women to fake orgasm was made famously “public” when Meg Ryan (who played Sally) faked an orgasm during a lunch scene at a New York City delicatessen in the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally. In that same film, the fact that not all women are routinely orgasmic was humorously underscored by another woman at the deli who said to her waiter: “I’ll have what she’s having!” While humor sometimes helps us face difficult issues, the whole truth about “passing” as passionate is not so funny.
In her book Performing Sex: The Making and Unmaking of Women’s Erotic Lives, Breanne Fahs documents in concrete detail the stories of ordinary women who routinely fake both sexual pleasure and interest.14 The studies she examined and the interviews she conducted suggest that young heterosexual women not only fake orgasm but also pass themselves off as bisexual—that is, as interested in other women sexually—and engage in “bisexual” threesomes in order to please their male partners. Similarly, heterosexual women of all ages pretend to favor penile-vaginal intercourse, even though it does not consistently lead to orgasm for most women. Why would heterosexual women do this? All these behaviors facilitate and prioritize men’s pleasure over women’s. Fahs concludes that women do these things because that priority is central to the cultural narrative about sexuality in the United States.
The social pressure on women to be steadily libidinous, if not “wanton,” is currently so high that women with low or no sexual desire often seek “off-label” prescriptions for testosterone or “share” their male partner’s prescription. Fahs reports: “In 2006 alone, doctors wrote over a million prescriptions for off-label testosterone.”15 Obviously, women who use testosterone in this way hope that it might increase their sexual desire, but there is no clinical evidence it will do so. There is, however, clear evidence that such use of testosterone by women will significantly increase their risk of breast cancer. Women feel pressure to “perform” sexual desire this way both in order to please their partner and/or to avoid facing the personal identity issues posed by the absence or loss of sexual desire.16
Because of this capacity (especially among women) and pressure to “fake” not only orgasm but also pleasure and desire, it has been easy for theologians to ignore the question of whether sexual desire needs cultivation. To complicate matters, like many other topics in the relatively new field of sexology, even the “experts” do not yet know very much about low or no libido. Let me rehearse briefly some of what scientists are saying.
The absence of desire is more a mental, than a physical, issue. More precisely, it is not a physical issue typically located below the neck. Almost all women with no libido respond to sexual stimuli with increased vaginal blood flow. It seems that it is the mind (not the genitals) that is the control center for sexual desire. The key driver (neurotransmitter) for sexual desire appears to be dopamine. It radiates out from two centers in the brain. Sex hormones (both testosterone and estrogen) fuel the production and release of this erotic impulse, while serotonin is thought to organize and calm (inhibit) it. The neural networks for this process are only vaguely understood, though the neuroplasticity of the brain explains how it is that the social construction of sexuality might result in this being a condition that affects mostly females.17
Early studies done in North Atlantic countries made the disruptions in people’s experiences of sexual desire, arousal, or orgasm seem like a problem unique to developed Western countries, but a more recent global study showed that it is of concern worldwide.18 Still the estimates of the number of people who experience no or low libido vary tremendously. We know it affects both men and women, though overall it is more prevalent among women. One early study suggested 39 percent of women in the United States experienced diminished desire.19 But in her book, Fahs reports that in a cross-cultural study only 10 percent of British women reported low sex drive.20
A 2004 study suggests about 40 to 50 percent of adult women and 20 to 30 percent of adult men have at least one form of sexual dysfunction. For men, the most common problems are early ejaculation (14 percent) and erectile difficulties (10 percent), while for women the most common are lack of sexual interest (21 percent), inability to reach orgasm (16 percent), and lubrication difficulties (16 percent).21 A more recent study of women between the ages of twenty to sixty suggests that “only” 10 to 15 percent of them are indifferent to (or repelled by) sexual activity, but Daniel Bergner suggests that rate rises to 30 percent “when you count the women who don’t quite meet the elaborate clinical threshold.”22
The absence of libido has been “associated” with aging, sexual exclusivity, and egalitarianism. While it is associated with the aging process, some young women and men suffer from no or low sexual desire as well. But a lack of sexual desire is certainly more common among the elderly, both male and female. A recent study found that sexual desire generally decreased by late menopause. However, in addition to age many other factors have been associated with desire’s decline in women: race/ethnicity, marital status, change in relationship, and vaginal dryness.23
Though this might well prove to be a consequence of other illnesses or of the aging process itself, a testosterone deficiency (popularly labeled “Low T”) has been associated with the depression of sexual desire and fewer spontaneous erections in men. At least this is the claim of the pharmaceutical companies marketing “off-label” testosterone replacement therapies for men. In some cases, however, hormone replacement itself may actually have no significant impact on a person’s libido. One small, but random and double-blind, study has raised serious questions about the efficacy of testosterone therapy. Both the men who received “T” replacement therapy and those who received a placebo experienced an improvement in sexual function and mood, but no differences between the two groups were distinguishable. No significant statistical difference was found between depressed older men who were given testosterone and those who were given a placebo.24
Furthermore, while there have been small studies of the risks accompanying testosterone therapy, the results of these studies have proven indecisive. Though the stakes are high for the men who are taking the drug—testosterone therapy might well significantly increase the risk of sleep apnea, pulmonary embolism, heart attacks, and stroke, among others—we have no data yet from a large-scale, clinical trial to settle the current disagreement about these risks among medical researchers. In sum, we have little sound clinical evidence about either the benefits or risks of testosterone replacement therapy.
Some studies suggest a flagging sex drive among married couples is the result of monogamy itself. This line of thinking is reinforced by studies that suggest a lack of libido frequently accompanies any long-term practice of fidelity. Other studies report that when couples adopted egalitarian approaches to housework and child-raising activities, even though they reported feeling closer and happier overall, their sexual activity declined. According to this study a reduction in gender differentiation correlates with a reduction in desire.25 Pepper Schwartz, infamous for describing “lesbian bed death,” suggests that sexual partners who become committed best friends experience less frisson or excitement/thrill in sex. Contrasting conclusions have been reached by others. Marie M. Fortune argues that neither commitment nor friendship need reduce desire.26
And, of course, even if expressions of power and control are currently eroticized in many countries that border the North Atlantic, such a trade-off between justice and eroticism is not written in stone. Expressions of mutual respect and shared pleasure could be woven into what is culturally identified as “hot” in our sexual socialization. If the script for what is sexy were to be rewritten, then egalitarian friendships could well correlate with sexual heat. Such a reimagination of what would count as good sex is precisely what Marvin M. Ellison called for in his fine book Erotic Justice.27
It is also important to note that not all people—especially women—with no or low libido are troubled by this “disorder.” One survey suggested that only about 24 percent of heterosexual women suffer from—that is, not only experience but are also distressed about—low sex drive.28 In a later study, only about 12 percent of the women surveyed reported being subjectively distressed.29 Currently, low sexual desire is defined by most clinicians as the consistent and enduring (for a six-month minimum) experience of no or low libido (defined as the lack or absence of sexual fantasies or desire for sexual activity). This interpretation is presently a matter of considerable controversy. The question is whether the absence of libido should be treated as a “clinical problem” or simply recognized as a sexual difference or normal variation.
This is not as easily resolved as the language in the fifth edition (2013) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (popularly known as the DSM-5) might suggest. I would argue that while the way a subject “feels” about an experience like the loss or absence of sexual desire is certainly relevant to its normative analysis, those feelings should not be treated as self-evidently decisive. Not every feeling we have is “trustworthy.” Sometimes we “internalize” unwarranted biases. Consider again the way many of us absorbed for the most part the racist, sexist, and heterosexist biases afloat in the culture in which we were raised and how that has been, and perhaps still is, reflected in what we find comfortable and what we experience as distressing. This is why there is at present a vigorous debate among sexologists about how to evaluate no/low sexual desire.
On the one hand, when it is accompanied by “marked distress and interpersonal difficulty,” it is defined in the DSM-5 as a clinical problem and labeled Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (hereafter HSDD). Why is this controversial? It is very difficult to determine how much of a person’s “dis-ease” with their lack of sexual desire is the internalized by-product of a socially constructed narrative about what is a normal experience of desire. In North Atlantic countries the adult sexual script says that wanting to be sexually active much of the time is what is normal. Thus it is quite possible this discomfort with no/low sexual desire is a consequence of having internalized this script. It might disappear if an individual’s sexual socialization recognized as normal both fluctuations in desire and variations among adults.
This question is further complicated by the way cultural messages about sexual desire inform the culture’s gender ideals and standards for vitality. According to one such myth, “real men” always elicit sexual desire from their partners and “real women” are at least always sexually available and responsive, if not libidinous. And though it poses challenges for both, low libido is certainly a sexual trait far more acceptable in North American culture for women than for men.
On the other hand, some of the men and women who experience low or no sexual desire over the course of their lifetime report that they are not uncomfortable with their nonsexual orientation. It is not personally disturbing. They note that people have long recognized that changes (often, though not always, decreases) in sexual desire commonly accompany women’s hormonal fluctuations around pregnancy, birth, lactation, menopause, and aging. They ask: why presume the lack of sexual desire itself to be problematic? For them, it does not trigger relationship difficulties because they are not interested in having (or apparently in maintaining) sexual relationships. They report that they otherwise enjoy many intense, even “romantic,” friendships. They self-describe as content with their asexuality.
Why is this perspective controversial? Again, it is very difficult to determine how much of a person’s “ease” with their lack of sexual desire is the internalized by-product of a socially constructed anti-sexual script that encourages sexual repression. Though North Atlantic cultures are in some respects hypersexualized, there remain many sex-negative forces at work in the socialization process that could result in individuals having poor body images and that could produce sexual repression. Included among these is the traditional Christian notion that sexual desire is among all that which will be “left behind” in the life to come, and so leaving it behind here and now—far from being problematic—actually embodies proleptically the future in glory.
Though I would not in principle rule out the development or use of pharmaceuticals in the treatment of the loss or absence of sexual desire, I agree with much to which “The New View Campaign” seeks to draw our attention. John Bancroft reminds us that there are situations (for example, following sexual trauma) where the absence of desire should be recognized as an understandable, even adaptive, response.30 As Leonore Tiefer argues, a host of even more particular issues affect desire. When a partner is untrustworthy, hostile, or sexually inept, a decline in desire is an understandable consequence.31 As Fahs summarizes the viewpoint of many feminists, “women should reimagine their interest in sex as having normal fluctuations in response to life events, biological changes and partnered relationships.”32
And yet, even though it is not a matter of life and death, I would contend that low or no sexual desire is not a trivial, bourgeois health issue. Whether personally bothered by the problem or not, a growing mound of evidence strongly correlates healthy sexual functioning with better rates overall of health, well-being, and happiness. There is a strong correlation between staying sexually active and staying healthy, even between sexual activity and longevity.
On the one hand, my argument suggests that asexuality—like being deaf from birth—might well be a defect healed in risen life. Some for whom decline proves intractable might well find their patience taxed while awaiting the resurrection of the body, even as they are consoled by its promise. On the other hand, many who have been asexual their entire life do not report that they experience their lives as wounded or deficient simply because they have never enjoyed an intimate relationship fueled by sexual desire. I do not know how they might respond to the prospect of such a heavenly possibility, but I suspect they (like many in the deaf community) would not welcome their present life being labeled “disabled.” Most human relationships are not sexual. The absence altogether of this particular thread in portions of the human tapestry both now and in the life to come might well simply be a difference, part of the dappled beauty that is our life together, rather than a defect.
Honestly, I do not think sexologists know enough about the experience of asexuality to say much more than this at this time and it is not my goal in this chapter to resolve this controversy. We need to learn a lot more about all the various factors that affect sexual desire. Still, I hesitate to recognize asexuality as simply a different (perfectly normal) “sexual” orientation because at least some people clearly experience the absence of sexual desire as problematic. Those in previously satisfying sexual relationships who experience a drop in their level of sexual desire that is not only precipitous but long term might well view this as a condition for which they eagerly seek healing. While they certainly hope and pray for its transformation in the life of the world to come, they rightly seek to cultivate the healthy and holy expression of sexual desire here and now.
The need to cultivate desire results in an expansion of our notion of what constitutes sexual virtue, traditionally known as chastity. As always, though a gracious gift, the practice of sexual virtue is conceived of as a moral task, commended to all people regardless of whether they are dating, married, single, or avowed celibate. I would argue however that despite its present connotations to the contrary, sexual virtue should not be thought of as exclusively, or even primarily, about the suppression or denial of sexual energy. The work of chastity includes the nurture of sexual desire as well as its simultaneous education.33 Chastity should denote both the “chastisement” of lustful experiences of desire and the correction of deficient experiences of desire through its cultivation. Sexual desire requires both restraint and nurture. One mistake Aquinas made in this regard was to assume that the nurture of sexual sensitivity is rarely necessary. We now know that its nurture is of moral concern to a significant number of people at least at certain times in their life.
Gudorf was among the first theologians to recognize sexual pleasure in itself as a gracious gift. She identified it as “a premoral good,” by which is meant “that it is, in the normal scheme of things, good, before we morally evaluate its role in any particular situation.” She argued that we all need bodily pleasures and that for some—depending upon their lifestyle and commitments—this will include sexual pleasure.34 In an article entitled “Sex without Shame,” Mennonite Keith Graber Miller details a list of sexual “do’s” (instead of “don’ts”), which includes the suggestion that Christians should “talk openly and directly about sexuality in our homes and churches” and “help younger people and each other say ‘yes’ to some shared bodily interactions.”35 He goes on to affirm self-pleasuring for some, especially if such masturbation is not associated with lust. But that is exactly the heart of the matter, isn’t it? How does one kindle the fire—stimulate erotic desire—without schooling it in ways that are lustful? The final chapter of this volume assesses the capacity of internet porn to nurture sexual desire.