Mistress of Her Own Soul

When a friend sent me this article to blog, I thought, “What a great title!  Maybe I can just post it without many of my own words, and let my 3.14 readers see that other people have awesome things to say!”  And then I read it.  And then, about ⅓ of the way into reading it, I realized who wrote it.  And then I realized I would have to post it, but with some of my own thoughts too.

Marc of Bad Catholic and I have an interesting relationship.
 And by “relationship,” I mean “my views on his blog and interactions with his fans.”  I tend to run into people who really like him and recommend that I read his blog or share something of his with me.  So I give it a whirl and realize that while I don’t disagree, I am just not his intended audience.  I feel bad, but I jump off the bandwagon as quickly as I hopped on.

In this piece, however, he hits close to home on one of my pet issues: the use of the word “sexy.”  He leads with the idea that “brains/reading/being smart is sexy”:

The net result of “ennobling” our view of women by saying their “brains” are objects of sexual arousal is to make women more completely and totally sexualized — to further reduce the number of female characteristics valued for reasons other than their effects on genitalia... In our wannabe feminist culture, reading a book, being a nerd, being smart — even this is “sexy.” And thus even the intellectual life of women, a strenuous activity with its own unique sufferings, joys, and worth — even this is reduced to the value-sphere of carnal desire.

Spot on!  And then he goes on a mini-rant against one of my most hated phrases, “Modest is hottest”:

You cannot reassert the virtue of modesty within a framework in which “being hot” is the dominant value. Like the “sexy reader,” the “hot modest woman” is still a sexual object.

Miss E, however, did point out that there is nothing wrong with the idea that modest is the most attractive.  The difference, while maybe too subtle for a rhyming slogan, is still essential.  Being, in a proper way, attractive is much fuller than being “hot.”  Being hot divides the person with a whole range of values from her sexual values and focuses on the latter.  Being attractive allows for an integration of the two.

Then comes the portion of the article where I started shaking my head.  Marc starts ripping on this phrase that is big in Christian youth groups right now: “emotional chastity.”  He claims it is a way of sexualizing women’s emotions, which would otherwise not be sexual.  I want to address his argument from two angles, one that follows from the other.

In defense of “emotional chastity”: first, I want to look at what this phrase is.  It is an analogy.  It is not meant to express that the way in which we exercise emotional control is the same way in which we exercise bodily control.  It is meant to express that there is a similarity between the two in a way that will shed light on one or both.  Therefore, second, we need to look at what these similarities might be.

Both physical chastity (i.e. chastity) and emotional chastity express the idea that one should not give too much of oneself or receive too much other another person, unless the two persons are in the proper relationship for that giving and receiving.  More specifically, they refer to a type of giving and receiving that is appropriate for a marital relationship.  Emotional chastity does not mean “avoid emotional intimacy” any more than chastity means “don’t touch anyone.”  They both mean “keep the intimacy appropriate for the type of relationship you actually have.”  Just as there are appropriate types of physical touch for friendships, for family relationships, for dating relationships, and for marriages, so there are appropriate types of emotional intimacy.

The danger, then, being warned against when young women are cautioned to “emotional chastity” is in fact related to chastity and sexuality.  The idea of integrity, which is all over the Catechism passage Marc quotes, is key to emotional chastity.  A holy marriage requires spiritual, emotional, and physical unity.  When women seek to hurry the emotional component in hopes that it will drag the other two to catch up, that is breaking the integrity of the human person.

What Marc says about other virtues coming into play when exercising emotional control is true, but we can emphasize these virtues -- honesty, prudence, temperance -- along with the central idea expressed by “emotional chastity” -- that our emotions must be a properly integrated part of our whole being.  Only after we reach a point of integrity can we be the women that Edith Stein describes at the end of Marc’s piece, culminating in “mistress of [her soul] and also of [her] body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call.”