But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be loved? Still I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind to mind--the bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh, and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection from unholy desire.
Confessions II.ii
If you have to ask someone if he'll still love you tomorrow, then he doesn't love you tonight... I know I have never intentionally set out to use anyone. But we are judged by our fruit. The fruit of casual sex is the persistent habit of objectifying sexual partners, to the point of being unable to perceive people except in terms of how they relate to one's own wants and desires.
The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On
Dawn Eden
Here the young Augustine begins to tell of his struggle with sexual sins, a struggle which will plague him for many years to come. In her book, Eden tells us of her own journey, and I suspect she and Augustine might have had a fruitful conversation or two.
What Augustine found himself doing is quite aptly described by Eden: the objectification of the person, seeing him/her only as a means, reducing personhood to body as it serves my desires. In this way, the sexual sins of Augustine are somewhat like the sins of a glutton. The food is there only to be consumed. Yet there is never a point of being satisfied, of saying "I am content".
wandering footnotes:
A] There is so much even in our church culture that points to the sexual experience as the greatest, "highest" and most fulfilling form of relationship - the stuff of which the "Jesus is my girlfriend" sort of contemporary worship music is made.
B] I think a group of young guys were a bit surprised once when I said that they should expect that they will most likely have to practice sexual self control in marriage, most noticeably when and if they decide to have kids... :^) which seems ironic.
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