The Case For Chastity
Why men should wait until marriage.
“A key that opens many locks is a master key, but a lock that all keys open is a shitty lock.”
The motto of degeneracy. The motto that men use to justify fornication. You’ve probably seen this statement floating around, especially among the secular “masculinity sphere”. It’s usually accompanied by a smug, prideful look on the faces of the men speaking it, as they find it an effective way to swiftly avoid the guilt that should accompany sexual immorality.
Casual sex is wrong. Period. I won’t go into detail as to the reasons why that is the case —yes, even for men—, because I’ve already written about that. For this article to make sense, we must first agree on that.
So if you haven’t, read the following article first:
And then come back to this one.
Chastity has been a game changer in my life, and as I study more and more about the topic, I keep finding out new reasons why remaining chaste until marriage is simply the best way to approach the question of dating and relationships.
Practical Benefits of Chastity
1: It allows for honest discernment
Beauty mesmerizes us. It intoxicates us, clouds our judgment and even leads us to betray our principles. There’s still a lot that we don’t understand about what the beauty of a woman can awaken in a man. The point is that when we face such beauty, we desperately want to have it. Own it. Make it ours.
You cannot underestimate the lengths you will go to to take a hold of beauty. You are not exempt of it leading you towards the abyss.
Chastity removes the indiscriminate seduction of physical beauty. When you are not practicing chastity, it becomes very easy to ignore red flags and poor values in a woman, because deep down, you know you can end up getting a “reward” if you keep pursuing her.
Think of it this way: you go on a date with a girl. She’s stunning, but she’s superficial in the postmodern fashion. She’s decent enough and you have a good conversation, but you know her values aren’t really what you’d want in a wife.
If you were chaste, you would immediately ask yourself: for me to sleep with this woman, I’d have to marry her. Is this a person I imagine spending the rest of my life with? You would instantly know that she isn’t, and her beauty would lose all power over you.
Alternatively, if you were not chaste, you would start making excuses for her red flags: “oh she’s a little superficial but that can change”. “Oh, her values aren’t that compatible but I can probably teach her”. Deep down, you’d know she’s not a suitable long-term partner, but because there’s a possibility of sleeping with her without needing to commit to her, your lower self would flood you with a thousand excuses to keep seeing her. Her beauty would seduce you because you’d know you could have it.
Chastity makes it nearly impossible for you to waste time with unsuitable women, as it becomes difficult to justify their red flags.
You need to be able to choose your wife with a clear head. Sex confuses you, it creates attachments that cloud your judgment, and makes it difficult to really evaluate the virtues of the woman you are interested in. Don’t underestimate how many clear red flags you would ignore simply to keep sleeping with a beautiful woman.
Remove the possibility of sex unless there’s a lifelong commitment and you remove the power of your flesh over you.
2: It’s a show of self-restraint
This one is pretty self-explanatory. It takes a big man to develop the necessary self-restraint to abstain from casual sex.
A man is only as great as the control he can exercise over his lower faculties. If you can abstain from casual sex, you will be in better control of your emotions, passions, and temptations as a whole.
You will rule over yourself instead of letting your lower faculties rule you.
3: You’re being loyal to your wife
I was talking to a friend about this the other day. Every woman you engage with sexually is either your wife or she isn’t. Anyone that you sleep with is someone you surrender a part of your soul to. And every time that you sleep with someone who isn’t who you’ll be with for the rest of your life, you are leaving pieces of your heart behind, as you are creating attachments that won’t be easy to break or forget.
What does this mean? It means that loyalty to your wife begins before you even know her. It means that to give your future wife the best version of you, you need to avoid surrendering your heart to other women.
For you to have the best possible marriage, and for your wife to have the best possible husband, the most committed and loving one, you need to make sure that she’s the only one that receives your entire heart.
4. You’re protecting your future
Sex outside of marriage carries a lot of risk: unwanted pregnancies, std’s, reputational damage, etc. On a practical level, it’s simply not worth the headache. Will you risk your entire future for a few minutes of empty pleasure? Doesn’t sound like a very wise thing to do.
5. You’re protecting women
Abstaining from sex is not merely for your own sake, but for the sake of the woman you’re with and of women as a whole.
It’s selfish to destroy another’s purity just to get some physical pleasure. It’s a direct sin against the sixth commandment, in which you are called to protect other people’s purity.
Many men complain that women are promiscuous and damaged, and won’t hesitate to seduce and manipulate women, destroy their purity, lead them to sin, and make them into those promiscuous, damaged women they themselves criticize.
You are a man, and that means you are a leader. You can lead others towards virtue or towards sin. That’s a massive responsibility.
You are called to step up and protect the virtue of those you come across, not manipulate them to satisfy some selfish desire, like an immature boy
6. You’re not getting used to breaking bonds
The modern way of dating, in which you sleep around for a few months and then break up when the red flags you initially turned a blind eye to become too big and too bright for you to keep ignoring them accustoms you to building and breaking bonds.
You are getting used to becoming attached to someone and then breaking that bond. Is it any wonder young people simply cannot commit to anything anymore?
When your history with relationships consists in building bonds and then breaking them, what makes you think you’ll be able NOT TO break a bond when it’s time to commit to someone?
Commitment is incredibly hard and it requires great effort and lots of work. You won’t be able to commit properly to your wife if you have a long history of breaking every bond you’ve ever built. Don’t underestimate how deeply ingrained this inability to commit can be, when your experience with relationships has always been that they end.
Chastity is one of the hardest decisions we can make, especially nowadays, in a world where everything around us tries to convince us to give in to degeneracy, sin, and vice.
But it’s the right thing to do. Not only for your own sake, but for your future wife, your kids, the men around you who look up to you for guidance, and most importantly, for the sake of being obedient to God, and pleasing Him above all else. It’s, in my opinion, the final hurdle holding many men back from truly giving their lives to Christ.
Many men believe, many have faith, many pray and perform good works. Very few men have the balls to reject sexual immorality and remain chaste. True faith requires a complete commitment, and it demands that we do not pick and choose which rules to follow.
What do you think about this?
God bless you and keep you my friend.
Simple Man
PS. If you are a single, Christian man, I highly recommend you check out the Unplugged Network, the premier dating platform for traditionally minded singles who are looking to skip out on hook-up culture and actually get married & start a family.
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I went celibate for a year and it changed my life.
This is a perfect litmus test for redemptive ideas: can your worldview conceptualize men and women ennobling themselves through chastity? If yes (a minority) you’re probably alright. If no (most folks) you’ve been a bit degraded by the cloying and corrosive atmosphere of modern consumer culture.