Sexual repression is bullshit After I read Christopher Nichols' feature, the first thing that popped in my mind was:

what kind of special world is he living in? For one thing, he must not have a TV or Internet in this world, because our media diet, despite being run only by a "small demographic", is replete with examples of hypersexuality, crassness, and other forms of barbarism. Has anyone seen Sex in the City? Jersey Shore? Heck, Gray's Anatomy? Have you watched a Lady Gaga video lately? Any hip-hop video? Twilight? Of course, Mr. Nichols chooses to drag the American South into his argument, speaking with such vituperative tones that its almost pathological. The South is an easy target to hit because they're not very media savvy. In fact, the South has little influence beyond their little spheres within their states, and the one federal body over which they have significant influence, Congress, the questions that Mr. Nichols think they are obsessed about barely come into conversation at all. I, a conservative Christian, know full well how lacking we are in media relations. We do not control the movie/TV industry; we can't even make a good-looking website most of the time. All our representatives in the legislatures seem to gain an unusual muteness when it comes to many issues we value. In short, the creeping control of the theocrats is basically a feverish nightmare of Mr. Nichols and his libertine circles. In fact I think the opposite problem is true. Let me tell you something that most people don't want to admit: the Sexual Revolution was a lie. We were promised free love, but all we got were countless hook-ups free from actual love. We were told that women would be liberated, but we only liberated men from having to respect women as partners and companions rather than as objects of free, unconsequential sex. We were persuaded, in velvet tones, that the unshackling of all restrictions, of all taboos, of all "repression" would lead to social peace, a greater sense of amity and selffulfillment, a new erotic dawn. Instead, with sex unhinged from virtue, with copulation separated from intimacy, from romance, we manufactured a culture in which there is neither nor romance. Sex is supposed to be a beautiful, sacred thing. I say this consciously as a Catholic who believes strongly in True Love. Sex is supposed to be loving, compassionate, and intimate, the special sharing of a holy union between two loving spouses. But what has happened is that sex has been cheapened. Sex has become another pastime, a form of

personal, selfish relief rather than an intimate sharing. Sex hasn't just be made frivolous and common. Even worse: sex has become boring. It's very telling that Mr. Nichols chooses to obsess over the sexual teachings of Christianity, as if such things were more important to us in comparison to, say, forming an intimate relationship with God, or helping the poor. In Mr. Nichols' warped worldview, sexual experience is the apex of human living. The ancient philosophers would have disagreed. Aristotle and the Stoics counselled the virtue of self-control, of prudence, so that the passions may not overwhelm reason but be guided by it towards their true fulfillment. That is why, I think, Mr. Nichols is so adamantly against even the token efforts of conservatives to restrict sexuality. He cannot comprehend a world in which the virtue of self-control is actually a good thing. He cannot understand how any would want to restrict themselves to a single, intimate relationship with a faithful lover instead of the puerile adventure of endless, non-intimate "encounters". He cannot, in other words, abide by any world in which raw passion is not the governing principle. In Mr. Nichols' world, he would be regarded as a courageous hero. Meanwhile, in the real world, I am free to regard Mr. Nichols for what he is: a freak.