The wonderfully articulate and interesting Roman Catholic, and Thomistic philosopher, Ed Feser has written a very valuable blog post about the psychological mechanisms by which sexual revolution has broadly corrupting effects- drawing substantially on the insights of Aquinas.
Many of these observations ring true, and indeed I have often witnessed the way in which unrepented sexual sin has a very generally destructive effect on morality. It is, indeed, so common as to be normal in recent decades.
This helps us to understand the synergy between the sexual revolution and Leftism: since the middle 1960s, Leftism has promoted the sexual revolution as perhaps its primary weapon, and those who have most avidly embraced the sexual revolution in their own lives, tend to become the craziest (most irrational and aggressive) Leftists.
Read the whole thing - but here is a sample:
Aquinas notes that “lust…is about the greatest of pleasures; and these absorb the mind more than any others.” Sexual pleasure is like the pleasure of alcohol use in being perfectly innocent in itself, but also very easy to abuse.
Hence, even in someone with otherwise normal sexual desires, a preoccupation with matters of sex has a tendency to cause him to act foolishly in various ways – to exaggerate the importance of sex, to pursue it in ways that are detrimental to his own well-being and that of people who depend on him, to construct rationalizations for such foolish pursuit, and so forth.
In someone with abnormal sexual desires, the effect is even worse. For what determines the good use of a human faculty is the end or purpose toward which it is directed by nature. Hence a healthy moral psychology requires a firm intuitive grasp of what is natural and what is contrary to nature’s purposes.
Repeatedly taking sexual pleasure in activity that is directly contrary to nature’s ends dulls the intellect’s perception of nature, to the point that the very idea that some things are contrary to the natural order loses its hold upon the mind. The intellect thereby loses its grip on moral reality.
Note: This links in my mind with the way that systematic perverse sexual initiation practices have, apparently, been used to create and sustain a politically leftist, upper class, secret combination within the evangelical wing of the Church of England; which - by its control of appointments and promotions; by blackmail and bribes - has engineered the corruption of Anglicanism from the top. If you wondered why such an incompetent, lying mediocrity as Justin Welby effortlessly became the Archbishop of Canterbury, you need wonder no more...
