Get Rid Of Slimy guidelineS: Faulty justification and sexual ethics

I grew up doing lots of reading.  One particular thing I read over and over was Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes, which I still consider to be one of the most masterful uses of the comic art form (right up there with Larson's The Far Side and Opus by Berkeley Breathed).  Spaceman Spiff, deranged mutant killer snowmen, and Calvinball were just a few of my favorite elements of the strip, but one recurring gag that also stands out to me is Calvin's ill-fated G.R.O.S.S. club -- that, of course, is an acronym for "Get Rid Of Slimy girlS."  The club's singular mission: to irritate Susie Derkins, Calvin's neighbor and sometimes playmate.  More often than not, however, Calvin's planned methods of pranking or harassing woefully backfire, largely due to Hobbes' partiality to Susie and his reluctance to be an accomplice to the dubious schemes.

We'll return to that idea.

On Monday, I was reading an online scientific journal (not something I make a practice of doing), but the striking excerpt grabbed my attention:

"Approximately 40 percent of men have experienced inexplicable feelings of tearfulness, sadness, or irritability after mutually consensual sex and 3-4 percent experience it regularly, according to a survey published in peer-reviewed journal."

When I saw the post, I turned to my wife, read it aloud to her, and said, "Hmm, maybe all those Judeo-Christian ethics were on to something after all."

The paper, in its entirety, can be accessed here, and is pretty technical.  In short, the study utilized social media and online polling to research a psychological phenomenon called Postcoital Dysphoria (PCD), which psychologists attribute to any inexplicable, overwhelmingly negative emotional responses after sexual activity that, by all normal considerations, was consensual and fulfilling.  Previously documented in women, PCD is being newly observed in men, and is suspected to perhaps be even more prevalent among members of that gender.  The reason for this is not uniform, but the journal suggests strong connections between the dysphoria and a). childhood abuse, and b). cultural expectations surrounding the sexual activity of Western males -- that is, inflated and often self-imposed pressures to desire, be desired, and perform.  If the latter component is true, then the "condition" is at least partly connected to simple disappointment.

However, the real cause seems to be much deeper than that.  In their own words, men involved in the study described their experience of PCD as "a strong sense of self-loathing about myself," "a lot of shame," "negative feelings which are difficult to describe," and "hold[ing] in the sadness for hours until she leaves as we do not live together."  "Weird," says culture.  Because, under normal circumstances, 2 + 2 should -- from a logical perspective -- always = 4.  Therefore, we must decipher why consensual sexual activity between healthy adults would ever result in anything other than euphoria.  The unspoken presupposition is that dysphoria should only be connected with sexual coercion, abuse, trauma, or any variety of other factors, and is out of place anywhere else.

Calvin repeatedly enlisted Hobbes in an ill-fated and juvenile attempt to rid his immediate context of undesirables -- girls in general, but namely Susie Derkins.  He created a structure for his unwavering presupposition (that girls are gross and intolerable), situated the base of operations in the tree fort (to represent its lofty, enlightened ideals), and operated with overtly aggressive parameters (e.g. water balloons, stuffed animal kidnapping, mud slinging, etc).  Our culture has its own G.R.O.S.S. club in regard to this issue, one not targeting "slimy girls," but rather any form of morals, values, norms, or reasonings that embrace a worldview of personal accountability.  In a society where pedophilia is gaining traction as a sexual preference (as opposed to a criminally punishable psychological disorder), is it really any surprise that we would eventually resort to a DSM classification of "Postcoital Dysphoria" to rename guilt and shame associated with sexuality?  In an evolutionary cosmology, experiences of guilt and shame connected to coitus can only be artifacts of repressive religion or an unfortunate psychological dysfunction -- certainly not the result of "sin."

The point of this post is not to question the legitimacy of this study or the diagnosis, or even to accuse our society of being overly diagnosis-happy (which we are), but rather to point out the subtle/not-so-subtle ways our modern, "enlightened," pseudo-scientific minds are so ingrained with presuppositions that we will blindly create justifications for every type of sinful behavior under the sun.  In other words, because we assume sexuality is natural, animalistic, instinctive, preferential, and any number of other dismissive modifiers, then obviously any negative side-effects experienced must be the result of psychological conditions, or the vestigial artifacts of archaic religious worldviews, or some other inexplicable phenomena -- because obviously God is not real and there are no ethical implications for sex, other than what we ourselves legally ascribe to the acknowledged (but modifiable) list of deviant behaviors.

To be fair, Postcoital Dysphoria is something that even married individuals reported experiencing.  By God's Biblical standards, the legitimacy of their relationship is not in question, so marriage itself is not the only issue -- some other psychosomatic or biological factor can cause PCD.  And the reality is that sin truly does affect the psyche (Jer 17.9; Mark 7.20; Eph 4.17; Rom 12.2).  For that reason, I'm sure there are absolutely legitimate cases of Postcoital Dysphoria where committed, sacrificial, otherwise happily married couples still experience some form it -- because sin has damaged everything.  In fact, even if sexual activity in a marriage is not coerced, degrading, or harmful, other crucial elements of the marital relationship could be crying out against false normalcy: unconfessed sinfulness in other areas, unresolved conflict, distrust or disunity, and any number of other contributing factors could result in every symptom listed that characterize PCD in the study.

For that matter, PCD in cases where adults were abused as children seems to be a completely legitimate psychological challenge.  However, when it comes to unmarried couples -- even the happiest, most committed partnerships -- the legitimacy of PCD as a psychological condition becomes obscured by the fact that sin is at the root of those feelings of guilt and shame.  Why?  Because their lifestyle flies in the face of God's intended design for the most intimate human relationship.  Even the most exciting and mutually gratifying consensual sex is STILL SIN if it is done outside the confines of God's designated parameters.  For that reason, a PCD diagnosis rapidly becomes a quagmire of faulty justification for a culture that wants sex with no strings attached.  "Why do I feel bad after sex?  Well, it's just my condition -- certainly not because I'm doing something wrong.  That possibility doesn't fit my worldview."

While Calvin's plots were usually predictable -- and Susie proved again and again that girls are much smarter than boys -- the major downfall of the G.R.O.S.S. campaigns was Hobbes' non-commitment to the cause.  Unfortunately, the cult of post-truth thinking in our society is comprised of many more dedicated members than simply one hyperactive boy and one stuffed tiger.  Dismantling popular thinking is therefore a daunting task, but it is the mandate for Christians, given them by Jesus Himself:

[Jesus] said to them, “...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1.7-8)

Being Christ's witnesses requires a unified identity that sets us apart from the world -- not only bearing a different message of hope, but also living differently.  In other words, if we as Christians aren't practicing holiness in our relationships, how are we possibly being Christ's witnesses?  It's not very effective to proclaim hope, peace, and holiness if we ourselves are harboring guilt and shame from sexual sin ourselves.  

Christian, have you engaged in sinful sexual activity and found some way to justify it?  Have you made sinful relationship choices, realized they were wrong, but gone on without any repentance or change?  We can't expect gospel truth to really make a difference in people's lives if we ourselves have not been completely, radically changed by it.  So let us carefully evaluate our own hearts in these matters so that we may more effectively step out in faith to accomplish God's gospel incentives.