Is there anything so quaint and slightly nauseating as the pious notion that chastity followed by monogamy is the natural, inevitable, and divinely ordered relationship between men and women, against which all other sexuality is to be measured? What is it that makes us believe that a roiling cauldron is to be calmed with a sprinkling of holy water? The efforts of our foremost advocates of chastity and celibacy in recent years appear mostly to have ended in disaster.
Considerations of morality, public health, social order, and child welfare may dictate the social strictures that shape sexual activity, from sanctifying marriage to criminalizing sexual coercion and exploitation of children. However, as far as I can tell, polymorphous perversity is entirely normal to the human race, and the denial of the wide range, strong nature, and varied tastes in sexual appetite is mere wish fulfilment. It is as though one said that the natural diet of humankind is porridge, and any other craving is entirely unnatural, unacceptable and deviant. Before the banquet of sexuality, let us not pretend not only that every person must eat porridge, but that we actually prefer it that way.
John Winthrop, for example, clearly demonstrated that there is no contradiction between a faithful marriage, a Godly outlook, and a lusty sexual appetite. But to suppose that a Winthrop is necessarily more natural than a Byron is a fantasy (and Byron was a good deal more entertaining). If we insist on trying to stuff sexuality into a bag, let us at least recognize that the bag is bursting at the seams.