A SECULAR SERMON - Strait is the gate ......
15th NOVEMBER 2002
The next issue, Number 78, will appear on December15th 2002.
There are a number of highly dubious statements in the Bible. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' which has been cited to justify lynch law. ...... "there is no way to the Lord but by me ...." which sanctifies sectarian intolerance. The text (MATT 7:14) "Strait is the gate, but narrow is the way, which leadeth into life and few there be that find it" .... is the underlying principle of life-chilling puritanism - more especially a life-chilling tradition of sexual puritanism. Sexual puritanism is vestigial in modern society but it still exerts a dreadful influence on the way we think, or pretend to think, even if it does not now count for much in the way we act.
If we alter the words 'narrow' and 'few' to 'wide' and 'many' then the text is, I think, transformed into a fair guide to the realisable sexual ethics proper to the Moderately Moral Mainstream (MMM). This, with the principle of "consenting adults in private" (CAP), seems to me usefully to illuminate sexual ethics in general terms. (The phrase "consenting adults in private" came into common use in the UK in the 1960's in connection with the liberalisation of the law relating to prostitution and homosexuality).
In this essay an attempt is made to further the cause of intelligent sexual morality.
"Strait" is not a misquotation or wrong spelling; it is the word used in standard versions of the Bible. It seems to mean strict, rigorous, exacting. "Wide" is a humanist substitution - for 'narrow'. Ethically acceptable attitudes and acts can take many and varied forms. (Incidentally, "straight", in the sexual sense, is out of place in this essay; it is a word with heterosexual connotation. This essay is meant to be sexually inclusive). "Many" is also a humanist substitution - for 'few'; the MMM comprises a significant proportion of the human race and if this were not so then human society would have collapsed long since. In fact our species is a runaway biological success - so far.
Specifically there is the the notion that sexual activity outside marriage is always morally wrong. This absolute prohibition means that, for example, considering ten heterosexual males and ten heterosexual females, the possibly exists of one hundred affairs 'on the side' and that every one of these hundred possibilities is wrong in itself whatever the circumstances may be. Moreover, in absolute terms, all of the one hundred possibilities are equally wrong.
Let us suppose, with more moderation, that in reality, say, ninety-five of these possibilities are morally wrong. That destroys the rule in its absolute form but leaves it for acceptance as a guideline which it would good to live by - generally speaking. This supposition is an example of 'rule utilitarianism' - which is the way of the MMM in all areas of ethics. Further, we may assume a 'normal distibution' comprising a few (5%) unthinkable couplings, a few reasonable ones (another 5%) and many (90%) somewhere in between these two extremes.
If we continue along this line of thought then we need to consider criteria whereby any particular 'affair' might be deemed to be one of the five reasonable couplings. When I think, at random, of ten women I know and nine other men I know ....... some of the possible pairings are grotesque non-starters needing a resolute imagination even to be contemplated. Some of the one hundred possibilities are at least reasonable even if, after due thought, they have to be ruled out. But there remain the postulated five in a hundred that are not evident non-starters, not instantly unreasonable. It is in such latter cases that criteria appropriate the MMM need to identified.
In connection with sex ethics, each word in the phrase CAP ought to be given full weight.
"Consent" should properly mean wholly voluntary and informed consent. This forbids, rape, fast-talking seduction and one-sided bargaining. It also forbids mere acquiescence and casual permissiveness.
"Adult" properly means not merely restricted to the legally adult but actually restricted to mature people who are capable of complying with this strict notion of consent and also possessing a mature willingness to be fair - even in face of difficulty.
"Private" should properly debar gossip, boasting, publicity-seeking and prying in sexual matters.
A moment's thought shows that such standards are more exacting than what is commonly adhered to in 'conventional morality'. Be that as it may!
There has been in the UK, in autumn 2002, a somewhat surprising revelation of a heterosexual affair in the 1980"s between two formerly prominent Members of Parliament. At the time of writing this essay, the identities of the man and the woman are well known but soon the Nine Days' Wonder will have faded and their identities will have been widely, and deservedly, forgotten. There is therefore no point is naming them here.
But there are known features of this little episode, of a more than a dozen years ago, that bear examination in the light of strait compliance with CAP.
Questions as to consent, in this case, do not arise; nobody is claiming that any coercion was involved in the affair at the time. Also, at the time and until very recently, due privacy was maintained and respected. This has been a very good thing. If the story had 'come out' when the affair was actually happening then, thanks to the unprincipled opportunist standards of the news media, the political life of the UK would have been cheapened by the 'scandal' and serious discussion of genuine public issues would have been submerged. Media practice is shallow enough at the best of times; we are fortunate that these secret lovers managed to keep their secret for so long.
But the secret is secret no longer.
The woman has published her account of the affair. In her own words .... "I seduced him" and "I ended the affair - he did not". Her motives are not obvious and should not be discussed - if discussed at all - without evidence. Two possibilities have to be excluded; she cannot be wishing to harm the man's political career - he has long since retired from politics. Moreover she cannot be, in some way, attempting to further her own political career - that too ended some years ago. The woman says she is disclosing the truth frankly and fearlessly and that she loved him. Candour and love are positive moral values - but so are reticence and respect.
We shall probably never know her real motives and, in the interest of what remains of privacy, we should not even care what they may be. She has flouted the privacy requirement which is explicitly in the principle of CAP. Old hands cannot but remember the story about Mae West who, when asked whether she kept a diary, replied "Yes and one day it will keep me."
The man has also reacted very badly. He has said, of the affair, that "it is one of the most shameful episodes in my life".
This self-indulgent frankness and sanctimonious spite, respectively, are alike rather despicable. Both parties have shown a degree of personal immaturity in their recent statements and have, to that extent, violated the principle of CAP.
Both participants come out of this somewhat badly. How much better it would have been - given the disclosures which cannot now be withdrawn from public attention - if they had felt able to say "We thought at the time that we were contributing generously to each other's lives but we now think we acted wrongly". It is of course rather easy to begin affairs with uncritical enthusiasm; the real test of autonomous maturity is to be able to end them with due dignity. It can be done and many of us have done it but when it is done with reticence and dignity it is in the nature of things that nobody very much knows that it has happened. The messy cases are the ones that everybody carps about - for a short while.
Had things ended with less indignity on both sides then the MMM might have felt for them. As things are, there is little sympathy for the erstwhile lovers but there is a measure of ephemeral contempt for the pair of them. To quote a one-time actress, Tallulah Bankhead, they are seen widely as being "as pure as the driven slush". The same actress is credited with saying "There is less in this man than meets the eye".
E.S.
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