Pornography: The Virtual Challenge to the Virtue of Chastity

I. INTRODUCTION

Chastity is the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of

man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and

biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the

relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a

woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality

of the gift. (CCC, #2337). In the Christian view, chastity by no means signifies rejection of human

sexuality or lack of esteem for it: rather it signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love

from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full

realization. (FC, #33) Chastity

Pornography has become one of the most lucrative business in the whole world – a multi-billion

dollar business generated from movies, cable and dish network television, magazines, books, and

other materials. Pornography has become a part of current culture of millennials to the point that,

even on Social Media, people are talking casually about it and are even making “memes” or jokes

out of it. These “memes” become so viral that you can conclude how familiar the people on

Facebook or social media are about it. Pornography has been a taboo in the past, but people are

now embracing it as something normal for young people and for teenagers going through puberty.

Today, pornography became so popular and easily availed because of the technology that we have.

The internet is the cheapest, fastest, and most anonymous pornography source. More than a

decade ago, New York Times was reporting that pornography was an industry “estimated to total
between $10 billion and $14 billion annually in the United States in America.” 1 The pandemic even

made it worse. “Excessive use of the internet during these psychologically trying times, fueled by

physical isolation as a result of lockdowns, has translated into dysfunctional behaviors. A growing

body of evidence suggests an unprecedented increase in internet use and consumption of online

pornography during the pandemic, and possibly even directly caused by it.”2

It is very evident that Internet porn is both plentiful and easily accessible to both adults and

children who log onto computers and their smart phones without screening controls. Such

widespread and

easy availability of pornography constitutes a temptation to considerable moral errancy.

Pornography is against chastity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church 3 points out that offends

against chastity . . . [and] perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of the spouses to each other.

It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one

becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in

the illusion of a fantasy world. (CCC 2354)

John Grabowski, in his book , Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics , points out that

“one of the most maligned and misunderstood virtues in contemporary culture is chastity. The word

often evokes connotations of inhibition, prudery, dysfunction, and perhaps even neurosis. This is

1
Frank Rich, “Naked Capitalists: There’s No Business Like Porn Business,” The New York Times, 20 May 2001
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/magazine/20PORN.html?=pagewanted=all).
2
Hashir Ali Awan et al., “Internet and Pornography Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Presumed
Impact and What Can Be Done,” Frontiers in Psychiatry 12 (2021),
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.623508, 1.

3
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Second Edition Revised in Accordance with the Official
Latin Text Promulgated by Pope John Paul II (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997).
especially true in a culture that sees sexual expression and pleasure as integral to personal health,

happiness, and fulfillment. If one has to be sexually active to realize oneself, then continence or

celibacy can seem perverse and any form of sexual restraint suspect. If sexual expression is not

necessary [sic] limited to monogamous covenantal relationships for it to be seen as good, then even

the notion of fidelity can come to be seen as arbitrary and oppressive.”4

Reinhard Hütter claims that “quite contrary to the contemporary maligning and misunderstanding

of chastity, it is nothing but the virtue of chastity that addresses the particular form of disordered

excess that pertains to human sexuality. For this very reason, chastity is integral to genuine human

flourishing.”

In this paper, we shall discuss how pornography destroys the individual and in turn destroys

relationships and marriages. The paper also aims to present that the proper understanding of the

virtue of chastity would help address and curb this evil of pornography that permeates our society

today.

II. A discussion on Chastity

Thomas Aquinas places the discussion on chastity and lust under the virtue of temperance. Just as

the Church teaches, “the virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which

seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason” (CCC §2341).For Aquinas,

“Chastity takes its name from the fact that reason "chastises" concupiscence, which, like a child,

needs curbing.”5 Now, as virtue consists in being something moderated by reason, we can therefore

call chastity as a virtue. Thomas Aquinas identifies for us two ways in which one can view

4
John S. Grabowski, Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics (Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 71.
5
Summa theologiae II.II 151.
chastity, first, Aquinas distinguishes between the first as ‘properly’ and the second as

‘metaphorically’.6 The former relates to chastity as “a special virtue having a special matter,

namely the concupiscences relating to venereal pleasures” and we can thus identify lust as the

vice contrary to chastity. The second approach states that the “spiritual union of the mind with

certain things conduces to a pleasure which is the matter of a spiritual chastity.” In other words,

the human mind delights in a union with the things of God but when we stray and unite our

minds to sinful pleasures we commit, in effect, spiritual fornication.

As the Church teaches, “the virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance,

which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason” (Catechism of

the Catholic Church §2341). Self-mastery over our unruly passions is vital if we are to be truly

free and fulfilled and the choice is clear, “either man governs his passions and finds peace, or

he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC §2339).

Thomas Aquinas's treatment of chastity "successfully integrates an account of human nature

and its inclinations into a larger framework of virtue. Chastity enables the person's sexual

powers to be exercised intelligently and freely in accord with the goods of human nature-

particularly the inclination to procreate, educate, and care for offspring."

THOMAS AQUINAS ON LUST

When we are "aflame with passion' in lust, we no longer perceive the locatedness of our
sexuality within the broader context of self-giving love in the service of the family (and of the
restored family of God).

6
Summa theologiae II.II 151, 2.