(This article is primarily for single men, however, married men read on)

Sex is everywhere today, and I don’t think that there is a man reading this blog who has seen a time in his life when it wasn’t. I remember catching a boob on ShowTime through scrambled cable and age 9, and downloading some pretty bad 80’s porn off Limewire with my friends at age 11, and losing my virginity at 16. Billboards and advertisements everywhere show women and men in various states of undress with seductive looks on their faces, urging you to…buy shampoo? Moreover, finding pornography or casual sex today is as easy as pulling my phone out and either opening my web browser or preferred dating app(for the love of almighty God, delete tinder and repent). From birth it seems, we men are exposed to a constant barrage of sexually suggestive advertisement, entertainment, and interaction pulling us this way and that way, quite literally by the balls. Sex has an incredible power and allure over us that are often times irresistible. So, what are we to do in an era where so much sex and so much deviancy is so readily available, and where all it takes to get us to buy some shitty smelling cologne these days is to show us a video of some guy attracting women? How do we stop letting sex have so much power over us?

The simple answer is to adhere to the virtue of chastity, but that in and of itself is one of the hardest answers to digest. There was a time in my life where I believed that asking me to go without casual hookups, pornography or masturbation would have been like asking me to go without oxygen. Sexual gratification was the absolute penultimate goal, and was admittedly the focus of why I did all other things in my life: to compliment and satisfy a baseline drive to mate. Some of you guys may be living this life right now, and you may be reading this thinking, “yeah, no way in hell I am ever gonna stop getting laid”.

Hear me out, because I stood right where you stand. Think about the number of women you have slept with during your time on the sexual marketplace (game theory guys know what I’m talking about). Some of our numbers will be high, some will be low. Let’s pick an easy, believably average number for a guy in his 20s: ten. So you’ve slept with 10 women. Some you are probably proud of, some you aren’t. Some you may still keep in contact with, others you avoid like the plague. Now, imagine knowing beforehand that if you slept with them, you would father a child with every one of them. This is a possibility, as the only 100% effective birth control is abstinence. Would you still have done it? Any rational mans answer will be no. Mine would. The primary biological functionality of sexual intercourse is reproduction, but in spite of that, all the sex we have so viciously sought after has been conducted in a way to mitigate that possibility. It has been done, rather, for self gratification.

16 To deliver you from the immoral woman,
From the seductress who flatters with her words,
17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth,
And forgets the covenant of her God.
18 For her house leads down to death,
And her paths to the dead;
19 None who go to her return,
Nor do they regain the paths of life

-Proverbs 2:16

What does this mean? First of all, not all women are immoral seductresses who are evil and bad and tricking us into sleeping with them with their magic witchy lady parts. Let’s look at this passage philosophically. The seductress is our sex obsessed culture we touched on earlier, turning our mind at every point to sex and using it as an instrument of control, with the covenant being the Natural Law, or the commandment thou shall not commit adultery. The house is buying into this culture, viewing sex as a casual commodity, a basic need, an itch that needs scratching, etc. How does this lead down to death? This is Spiritual death. Vice begets more vice, and we become obsessed with chasing a sexual high we can never feel through the means we choose to express ourselves sexually, thus abandoning higher order pursuits. I would threaten mortal sin and eternal damnation here, but we aren’t at that point in our relationship yet. Chasing sexual gratification takes attention away from other areas of our life, and achieving instant sexual gratification through other means such as porn and masturbation kill drive and motivation. Porn use also leads to increased sexual deviancy as well as erectile dysfunction due to the constant chase of that initial shock and endorphin rush through more and more violent and extreme sex acts. Let’s be real guys, no woman in the real world is doing the stuff some of you out there have sunk to watching. And if they are, gross…

Some important takeaways:

Obsession with bad, unfulfilling sex detracts from becoming the men we should be.
Use of pornography reinforces that sex is about the gratification of the self.
Porn use leads to unrealistic expectations of sex and increased deviancy through “high chasing”

You have probably never had sex. That’s right. You have enjoyed mutual masturbation with another willing partner. And it’s very fun, I agree, but it is nowhere near the ecstasy of what it can be when it’s conducted with the fullness of love, the surrender of the self, without fear and open to life. Sounds lame and weak? Sounds like something a “beta” would say? Well, have you ever tried it? I experienced this when I decided to have a child (out of wedlock) and I am inclined to agree with my own hypothesis. Moreover, it is in line with the teachings of the Church (except for the not married part. Pray for me).

So, if you don’t want to have kids with these women, why are you having sex with them? The answer is only self gratification, and that is not acceptable. I don’t need to go into the myriad of biblical and Catholic teachings on this, and if you don’t know, I’d point you to any reputable source of Catholic apologetics to get learned. Let’s be honest, though. We don’t chase bootleg movies, imitation meat patties, knockoff Chinese tools, or generic music, so why do we settle for things of this caliber in our sex life? On top of that, how “alpha” is it really to be ruled by the pursuit and mastery of disappointing sex with uninteresting women we have no desire to marry? Is it not stronger and more masterful to say no, and to exercise the discipline and self-control required to say no?

When we start to make the conscious decision to dethrone sex as our penultimate desire and focus, we begin to rightly order our souls to God. Our minds are free to pursue constructive fields of study, our physical training becomes more about self-mastery and challenge than looking good for women, and our soul begins to be more open to listening to and having a relationship with God, as getting laid is no longer our object of worship. We begin to be able to look upon our culture with clear vision, seeing just how obsessed and sex centric it has become. And by saying yes to chastity, we begin get the power to resist being “dragged around by the balls”.

So how do you practice chastity in 2018? It’s impossible, right? I would agree it is very challenging though not impossible. I throw down a challenge to any single man who may be reading this to take a vow of chastity for 30 days. That’s 30 days of no porn, no masturbation, no strip clubs, no victorias secret catalogues, and no sex. And if you’re in a committed relationship that isn’t marriage, that still means no sex. That’s adultery, plain and simple and there’s no way around it. Married men, if you’re watching porn or masturbating (what the fuck are you doing?) take the challenge as well, but feel free to have sex with your wife as often as possible. Do your research on the evils of porn, and digest Catholic teaching on sex before marriage and masturbation. Implement small prayers throughout the day, and take time for reflection at night. I think a lot of you will be surprised with what you learn and how you feel, and maybe some of you will even decide to keep going. And if you do, the ranks of the 13th Crusade need stoic, resolute men like you to stand in open rebellion against the culture of instant sexual gratification.

Grand Marshal www.xiiicrusade.com