{"id":18241,"date":"2014-03-18T05:55:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T09:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=18241"},"modified":"2014-03-16T16:04:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-16T20:04:09","slug":"j-r-r-tolkien-on-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/03\/j-r-r-tolkien-on-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"J.R.R. Tolkien on Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In 1941, J. R. R. Tolkien did what most fathers tremble to do:\u00a0 talk to his son about sex.\u00a0 He did so in a letter<\/a> filled with wisdom, insight, and a thoroughly Christian sensibility on what he called the devil\u2019s \u201cfavorite subject.\u201d\u00a0 Suggestion to trembling fathers:\u00a0 get The Letters of J. R.\u00a0 R. Tolkien <\/a>and show this particular\u00a0 letter to your sons.\u00a0 Al Mohler quotes from the letter and discusses what he had to say.<\/p>\n

From Father to Son \u2014 J.R.R. Tolkien on Sex \u2013 AlbertMohler.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a fallen world,\u201d Tolkien chided. \u201cThe dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been \u2018going to the bad\u2019 all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the \u2018hard spirit of concupiscence\u2019 has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell.\u201d This acknowledgement of human sin and the inevitable results of the Fall stands in stark contrast to the humanistic optimism that was shared by so many throughout the 20th century. Even when the horrors of two world wars, the Holocaust, and various other evils chastened the century\u2019s dawning optimism of human progress, the 20th century gave evidence of an unshakable faith in sex and its liberating power. Tolkien would have none of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject,\u201d Tolkien insisted. \u201cHe is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones.\u201d Thus, Tolkien advised his young son, then 21, that the sexual fantasies of the 20th century were demonic lies, intended to ensnare human beings. Sex was a trap, Tolkien warned, because human beings are capable of almost infinite rationalization in terms of sexual motives. Romantic love is not sufficient as a justification for sex, Tolkien understood.<\/p>\n

Taking the point further, Tolkien warned his son that \u201cfriendship\u201d between a young man and a young woman, supposedly free from sexual desire, would not remain untroubled by sexual attraction for long. At least one of the partners is almost certain to be inflamed with sexual passion, Tolkien advised. This is especially true among the young, for Tolkien believed that such friendships might be possible later in life, \u201cwhen sex cools down.\u201d<\/p>\n

As any reader of Tolkien\u2019s works understands, Tolkien was a romantic at heart. He celebrated the fact that \u201cin our Western culture the romantic chivalric tradition [is] still strong,\u201d though he recognized that \u201cthe times are inimical to it.\u201d Even so, as a concerned father, Tolkien warned Michael to avoid allowing his romantic instinct to lead him astray, fooled by \u201cthe flattery of sympathy nicely seasoned with a titillation of sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond this, Tolkien demonstrated a profound understanding of male sexuality and the need for boundaries and restraint. Even as he was often criticized for having an overly negative understanding of male sexuality, Tolkien presented an honest assessment of the sex drive in a fallen world. He argued that men are not naturally monogamous. \u201cMonogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas) is for us men a piece of \u2018revealed\u2019 ethic, according to faith and not to the flesh.\u201d In his own times, Tolkien had seen the binding power of cultural custom and moral tradition recede into the historical memory. With the \u201csexual revolution\u201d already visible on the horizon, Tolkien believed that Christianity\u2019s revealed sex ethic would be the only force adequate to restrain the unbridled sexuality of fallen man. \u201cEach of us could healthfully beget, in our 30 odd years of full manhood, a few hundred children, and enjoy the process,\u201d Tolkien admonished his son. Nevertheless, the joys and satisfactions of monogamous marriage provide the only true context for sexuality without shame. Furthermore, Tolkien was confident that Christianity\u2019s understanding of sex and marriage pointed to eternal, as well as temporal pleasures.<\/p>\n

Even as he celebrated the integrity of Christian marriage, Tolkien advised Michael that true faithfulness in marriage would require a continual exercise of the will. Even in marriage, there remains a demand for denial, he insisted. \u201cFaithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify and direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him\u2013as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state, as it provides easements. No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolkien traced unhappiness in marriage, especially on the part of the husband, to the Church\u2019s failure to teach these truths and to speak of marriage honestly. Those who see marriage as nothing more than the arena of ecstatic and romantic love will be disappointed, Tolkien understood. \u201cWhen the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p>\n