The recent string of marriages and long term relationships have got me thinking about some kind of positive view of sex. Obviously, the Christian faith doesn’t teach that sex is dirty. My many theologically minded friends and I have often joked about the bizarre sexual repression of Victorianism. Yet still the other extreme is really not right either. In Atlas Shrugged, I came across something interesting. Ayn Rand (among the mountains of other expositions) dealt with sex in it. Like just about any secular philosophy, I found a lot of good and some things bad. Either way, at least it gives a secular justification to prefer something other than skirt chasing.
The exposition is the in the form dialogue. Two Characters, both super-men in their own rights, have a frank and intimate discussion on the subject: one is Francisco, another is Hank Rearden. The two men already respect each other as equals. Francisco has even gone to the point of telling Rearden that he is “one of the last moral men in the world.” Hank Hearden is confused by this compliment because Francisco is an apparent rich play boy who is always in the company of women -not exactly someone that you would accept a comment on morality from. What makes it even more confusing for Hank has never thought of Francisco as a low-brow kind of guy. Francisco responds to this confusion:
[Francisco asked Rearden] “Do you know of your own first-hand knowledge that I spend my life running after women?”
“You’ve never denied it.”
“Denied it? I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to create that impression.”
“Do you mean it isn’t true?”
“Do I strike you as a man with a miserable inferiority complex?”
“Good God, no!”
”Only that kind of man spends his life running after women.”
Naturally, this is something that is probably grating in our world of rap stars and Hugh Hefner’s. Fortunately for us, Francisco goes on to explain what he means. First, love and the sexual impulse are not blind, uncontrollable, forces in his world. Rather, sex is connected with our minds and our views of ourselves. He says, “A man’s* sexual choice is the result and sum of his fundamental convictions… Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.” In other words, who we are attracted to depends largely on how we subconsciously (or consciously!) view ourselves. A man “will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself.” From here, he either expresses his own value, or he fakes it.
Francisco goes on to describe two types of men. The first is Ayn Rand’s hero. This man, as Francisco says, “will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer –because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut.” In other words, real men don’t chase porn-stars and strippers. These women, at very minimum, act like brainless meat. Instead Ayn Rand’s hero will look for someone as accomplished as himself, as moral as himself, as hard-working as himself and so on.
Someone who is secretly insecure is far worse off. Someone who feels worthless “will be drawn to a woman he despises-because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value.” So the problem with a play boy is this: since they have little value in themselves, and they secretly know it, they try to create through sex with someone equally empty. This is, in Ayn Rand’s terms, is putting the effect (sex) before the cause (self-worth). This is much of fraud as someone who has a college diploma without finishing college, buys a BMW on money they didn’t earn, or takes control of a railroad that someone else built. Most obviously, it may be the attempt to use the effect and expression of emotional intimacy to create emotional intimacy.
Some Flies in the Ointment?
Naturally, there are somethings I don’t like. Ayn Rand believes that sex is a selfish act, and cannot be done any other way. Additionally, what someone admires in another person is all that one sees as good in oneself. Now obviously, people may have sex have their own “rational self interest” but in Christianity I can’t see why it should ever be only this. One’s own interest and the interest of the other need not be disjunctive. Furthermore, Love can never be just a simple extension of narcissism.
Also, in this same conversation, Fracisco decries “charity” as a pitiful response to flaws whereas his idea of admiration is a response to values. It’s evident from the rest of the discussion that this is an implicit criticism of Christian love. What confuses me is that in Christian charity people may respond to flaws, but never because of flaws. Acts of mercy and charity overlook flaws precisely because it sees values -potential values, but still values.
Even beyond that, the type of Love that a Christians have when they take pity or charity on someone in need is different than the kind of love that motivates them to seek out a partner, which in turn is different than the love they have for friends. Ayn Rand is on to a good start, but her look at love here seems very binary, whereas Christian charity is multifaceted.
The end?
So there it is. I really think Ayn Rand had something worth saying here. I like the idea, and am more happy to think of sex and romance being tied closely to my code of values. I like the idea that who I seek out and may be interested in are naturally those who closely reflect those values. I think she is clearly also right about sex and a sense of low self-worth. Even more right that people may use sex to fool themselves.
Naturally though, I think Ayn Rand was off about sex being a purely selfish act. I can’t imagine a healthy sexual relationship can ever happen between two narcissists, and anyone who wants to be lovers to anyone will have to overlook flaws.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment!
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* My apologies to those of you who have the "XX" chromosome set. Obviously, I write from the "XY" perspective. I can't help my gender or what Ayn Rand wrote.
