Atlas Ministry of Purity Crimes Self-Reporting Thread

[TJ in Oregon]

Simfan, all sexuality is not intrinsically disordered, not is having disordered inclinations necessarily sinful. Sin requires knowledge and consent; a fleeting sexual thought you didn't intentionally seek out is not consent. As for the former question, Simfan, we're Catholics not Shakers. While there may be some Catholic thinkers who hypothesize that if man had never fallen he would also never feel sexual inclination, they're first of all far from ubiquitous, and second, are engaging in a pointless hypothetical. We might as well hypothesize about what would have happened if we were instead created on Mars. If man never fell, we wouldn't have had the incarnation either, and the Church goes so far in the Easter Proclamation to declare "O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer." In any case, in Genesis the command to be fruitful and multiply comes before the fall. Indeed, it comes right after the statement that man is made in the image and likeness of God.

When you're walking down the street and see an attractive girl, you aren't sinning just to notice her. I mean, if you start imagining her naked or committing a sex act with her, and consent to that thought, then yes that would be sinful. But just noticing her, or, heck, imaging going on a date with her is not. There is also some degree to which over-scrupulousness will make it harder not to sin. If you start seeing sexual intentions everywhere, you'll start having them everywhere. We get so hung up about sex being sinful without the proper telos (and given our society, for good reason), but don't forget there is a proper telos!