When I was first married and settled into a real house, not a student room or jungle hammock, I got a subscription to Playboy. My wife hated it, and to this day I don’t really know why. I did not buy it for “porn,” as, even thirty years ago, Playboy was the softest of the soft. It was, after all, born in the 1950’s, when certain body parts could be shown only if they served a purpose higher than mere titillation (ie, “art”). Of course I’d glance at the photos, but I really, truly got it for the non-censored articles and interviews. The naughty jokes were clever, too, and there was always the great college football review every August. The only things I could see wrong with it were the emphasis on expensive grownup toys (wretchedly materialistic) and the puffy, faux intellectualism of the Playboy Philosophy. It’s not that I disagreed strongly with its luxury-padded libertarianism, but that it went on and on as if it were really about something more than a certain man’s need to explain to himself and to the world, and I think to God, his obsession with sex.
That certain man was the originator himself, Hugh Hefner, who I first read about in an interview in his own magazine. His parents, he said, were Waspish Episcopalians (as I recall) who were the very picture of staunch puritanism, which included, we need not be told, their attitudes about sex. Heff, like most young men, loved sex. At the same time, he didn’t want to outrage his parents over something so venial. I am sure he didn’t want to go to Hell, either. So he made an artsy, tasteful mag for the gentleman of distinction, which he hoped would eliminate the sordid reputation of the sex act itself - no matter that, whatever the class or the financial status of the person, to rut is to rut. Bow ties do not a torrid night make, but Heff thought that the pretty bow would excuse the drooling done once the bow tie came off.
He was a person of his age, as most of us are, with a need to excuse his behavior, a need which went beyond my own generation’s. I, for one, rarely felt guilty about sex before marriage, but rather was concerned if I had engaged in it with proper mutual respect. Today’s youth, it seems, does not even care about that, as free porn videos, many of them self-made, have flooded the internet and made the whole thing almost wearying. The down-grading of sex since the Age of Hefner – the first person in the US, I believe, who sold porn (however soft) right out in the open – has not gone as planned, as men back then got more excitement from a pair of legs than the young folks now get from full and frontal live action, but I precede myself. Rather, I want to return to the reason for Hefner’s magazine, besides profit, in the first place: to normalize his prurient interests to all those on heaven and earth.
As a near- post-war man, I understand his problem. He did not want to be seen as the slimy sex trafficker of his parents’ age, when sex itself was supposed to be viewed largely as a procreative act which was otherwise to be suppressed. He wanted to move us all beyond this notion that was both made and promoted by most of the Christian churches of the day (not to mention most other religions). We baby boomers carried his wish further, and today, many of the Protestant denominations have turned away from the prudery of the past. Not all have, however, and most especially not the original nomination, the Catholic Church. Not that I have thought of it that much, having become an active member in the Church again only well after married and middle-age life. But recently a peculiar set of circumstances sent me back into Hefner’s day. It has bothered me ever since.
It happened while talking in confession to a priest. Besides my general selfishness and orneriness, I don’t really do much of anything anymore. I should have seen that for the sin of omission that it is, but instead I looked for something that might interest the priest. When he mentioned in passing “lust,” I grabbed onto that. Yes, I lust, and the advertisers know it. Every time they show a hot babe next to a product I reflexively lust, and, according to advertiser philosophy, associate that longing with the product, which I then go and buy, never really knowing why and never really understanding why it doesn’t bring me the pleasure I think it should. It was not a good idea to bring this up because I do not feel bad about this occasional lust, only stupid, but the priest grabbed at it (as I should have known he would), and said that, what the heck, it was not of great importance. I agreed. He continued: “except if it led to”…then he said it, the taboo-ed word itself: “masturbation.”
For men – I do not know about women - there is nothing more universally scorned in public and more practiced in private than masturbation. From what I’ve heard, they used to love to rage against “onanism” in the pulpit in the olden days, but now most clerics are (gratefully) silent about it. I think this is because of the Hefner Conundrum – that is, that religion will be avoided if it condemns something that most of us do and will continue to do. People no longer feel they have to go to church, and the church needs people. Driving them away with something so common and, to the naked eye, so harmless, doesn’t make sense in the greater scheme.
I, however, had to know what the Church thought, and so asked the priest if it condemned masturbation as a mortal sin – that is, as a sin that will send you to Hell if not confessed. He said, a little to my surprise, “yes.” I arched my eyebrows in genuine concern, and then shifted the load from us happily adjusted and bow-tied gents to the youth: “But the young guys! They have ready porn whenever they want! What do you think they do? Most are too embarrassed to confess this to you. Are they all going to Hell?” He replied that it is a matter of grave concern, yes, but that it is not a mortal sin if the passion is too great to bear.
That, to me, is about as clear as mud, and Heff must be rolling in his grave. But Heff did not die a happy man. He had a heart attack around age 70, and then went through a period of deep depression. He made the talk show circuit for a while after and told the interviewers that he was over that dark period. Viagra was a part of his new happiness, and he was proud to let us all know that he was now living happily with twin platinum blonds who looked all the world like Vegas gold diggers from the 50’s. Not long after – he was then going into his 80’s – he died. They say he was lonely and confused and in fear towards the end. Apparently, not even Heff thought his explanation to God for his obsession would work.
I think it was Heff’s Conundrum – wanting to have sex without being told he was offending God – that started the whole ball of humanity rolling down the aisle of ‘wokeness.’ Sex is a powerful drive, and young people often have weak ties to traditions that they do not make. Heff helped exploit that, and now we are left with the fruits of it. The list of broken families, confused youth, the tremendous increase in suicide and the unexpected decrease in sexual satisfaction that the young now are experiencing suggest to us the possibility that the expression of certain things – including sexual things - often leads to more problems than their suppression would.
And that is the Church’s conundrum. They do not want to lose parishioners because of excessive rules against sex, but they have known since Biblical times that sex can lead to all sorts of unholy behavior and cultural chaos. It seems to me that they no longer know where to draw the line. If not at masturbation, then where? At heavy petting among singles? At oral sex among married? It is even probable that priests, at least the young ones, are nearly as guilty of onanism as the great unwashed. Does it benefit God, if not the world, if they beat their chests and beg forgiveness each time? Or would it be better if they just admitted to an “overwhelming passion,” said a little prayer for general forgiveness for being human, and then moved on? Would the latter send them to damnation, or would it help to avoid excessive concern over it, something that could cause problems, too?
I have no magical answer for this. That few Catholics know that masturbation is a mortal sin, or that certain sexual acts in marriage are sinful, underscores the Church’s conundrum (I do not know even now which acts within marriage are considered mortal sins, if any). Most would rather let it go, emphasizing holy humility and good works and mutual love and respect, but the rules are there, and according to them, a whole lot of people might be going to hell from an act of common human weakness and from an inability to confess out of embarrassment. If I can declare anything, I would say that if they believe these rules, they should make them clear to everyone, for it is their job to save us from Hell. If not, they should remove them. Otherwise, we can rightly say that they are playing with fire here.
So it comes down to this: the Church has trapped itself in its own conundrum. Fifteen-plus years ago, when I was first going back to church, our local church would bring in a very old, scarlet-faced priest once a year who would tell us in no uncertain terms how sinful most sex acts were. Looking around, it was easy to see that some were embarrassed by the harangue, some were amused, while others simply rolled their eyes, but none looked convinced. It is fairly obvious that most who still attend do not believe in the old-time sex sins, period. The Church nominally does, but…what? Should they recant and join the New Age movement? Admit to centuries-old mistakes?
Might it be that masturbation makes monkeys of us all?
By the rules, mortal sins send us to Hell, but God can do anything, and no one is really deserving of saving grace. It is awarded out of mercy, and anything made or thought of by man is in need of it. Perhaps that should begin the best sermon about this whole conundrum. Maybe that would allow those poor red-faced boys to continue as faithful followers without bringing before them the threat of damnation or the demanding dregs of humiliation for something the Church is, more often than not, too embarrassed or too afraid to talk about.
[As is often the case, today’s liturgy is exactly about sexual acts, including Paul in Romans 12, and the Gospel from Luke 12. In Luke 12:48, we hear Jesus tell us, “Much will be demanded of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be entrusted with the person entrusted with more.” That, I think, makes explicit what the Church warily implies: that some things are beyond the novitiate, but are demanded of the elders or acolytes. This would absolve the young from their solitary acts, while demanding more from us oldsters, which is certainly an easier task – if one is not named Hugh Hefner.]
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