In desperation and fear I grasped at celibacy when I was 18 and wasn’t able to lie to myself anymore about being bisexual. I have since defaulted to celibacy much of the time, despite trying hard to engage sexually and romantically.That effort continues.
People such as Gandhi have claimed celibacy enhances their spiritual love. But to me, that idea seems to stem from what we find in many religions: the belief that we can be more universally loving if we reduce our subjectivity thru self-denial such as celibacy, fasting or even refraining from having close friends.
I am not sure but maybe this is one of many flaws to theology: the belief that if humans can somehow undue our subjectivity, we’d be more conscious of a sort of God’s eye view of how our actions register in terms of a net benefit or net detriment to all life (on the planet or in the hereafter).
An alternative view is that we improve our moral consciousness not by avoiding close personal ties but by building on our close ties to friends, lovers and family and then expanding that love so as to apply it to those beyond our immediate circles, emotionally and cognitively (the latter involving principles of conduct based on a scientific understanding of how our actions affect the well-being of others.)
By the way, I talk about ‘love ‘ though it’d be more precise to use together the words ’empathy’ and ‘compassion. ‘ That’s because people generally relate to love on a personal level, though many of us don’t apply it to community and political contexts. That is collectively self-defeating, in my opinion.
But to close by summarizing, I suggest celibacy and other forms of abstinence can be useful for spiritual purposes, but I suggest our partiality, which is based on our close social ties, is not something we can root out.
I don’t think such monastic means actually lead one to be more in tune with any sort of universal love or more comprehending of universal justice.
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