On Sex, and Love, and Being ‘Casual’

In the liberal wing of the Religious Society of Friends, we’re pretty liberal about sex (liberal meaning slightly different things in those two cases, so not automatically following one from the other). We aren’t down on premarital sex, we’re fine with same-sex relationships and sex, and I even perceive a growing acceptance of, if not always support for, various forms of ethical non-monogamy (polyamory and suchlike). While we might not be overly judgemental of casual sex, though, I generally sense a certain disapproval, a lack of acceptance of it. I think that is driven by the right motives, there are good reasons that flow from Love for that attitude, but still I think the conclusion is slightly wrong.

We find guidance and thoughts in Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker faith & practice, largely in Chapter 22, “Close Relationships”. 22.11 tells us:

For many, a life-long faithful relationship gives the opportunity for the greatest personal development and for the experience of sexual love which is spiritual in its quality and deeply mysterious. Others may find fulfilment in different ways.

Well enough, and “different ways” certainly allows for a lot of variation. It then goes on:

Whatever the moral climate, a sexual relationship is never purely a private matter without consequences for wider human relationships. Its effect on the community, and especially on children, must always be considered.

Getting a little more dicey, for me, especially given the fact that arguments like ‘the effect on children’ have been used to fight against acceptance of such things as publicly visible homosexual relationships, or on the promotion of the validity of same-sex relationships (such as the now-defunct ‘Section 28’ in Great Britain, or current law in the Russian Federation), or simply equal laws around such things as the age of consent for sexual activity between two men. However, shorn of those associations it is a true enough statement (though I’m not sure it’s an absolute that there are always wider consequences, at least any more than it is true of any other sort of relationship, sexual or not). The same passage continues:

Sexual morality is an area of challenge and opportunity for living our testimonies to truth, nonviolence, equality, integrity and love.

Perhaps this is, in part, a way of glossing over the varieties of opinion that existed when the passage was drafted, in 1994, and certainly there is a range of opinion now – though the range is a different one than it was then. The passage concludes with a quotation from the 1964 version of Advices, the predecessor of our current Advices & queries:

No relationship can be a right one which makes use of another person through selfish desire.

Let’s stick a pin in that; we’ll be coming back to it.

The remainder of the subsection on sexuality is largely anthology pieces – things written for some other purpose at some other time, and which the editors of the book (the revision committee whose work Qf&p represents) felt should be included to give an idea of Quaker understanding, with the exception of the final passage of the subsection. That is an extract of the minutes of London Yearly meeting – now known as Britain Yearly Meeting – from when it was considering the work of the revision committee and looking to approve the result. It also points out the range of thought and experience in the area, and notes that it’s not necessary that everyone agree with every passage – which is well enough said for all the anthology sections of the book as a whole. Three of the passages are excerpts of the seminal Towards a Quaker view of sex, a 1963 work by a group of Friends in Britain (a second edition arriving in 1964) which was likely ahead of its time (the full texts can be found on the LGBT Religious Archives Network, along with background on the work). The passage taken from that work that seems most key to many Friends understandings today is at 22.15:

It is the nature and quality of a relationship that matters: one must not judge it by its outward appearance but by its inner worth. Homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection, and therefore we cannot see that it is in some way morally worse.

Homosexual affection may of course be an emotion which some find aesthetically disgusting, but one cannot base Christian morality on a capacity for such disgust. Neither are we happy with the thought that all homosexual behaviour is sinful: motive and circumstances degrade or ennoble any act…

We see no reason why the physical nature of a sexual act should be the criterion by which the question whether or not it is moral should be decided. An act which (for example) expresses true affection between two individuals and gives pleasure to them both, does not seem to us to be sinful by reason alone of the fact that it is homosexual. The same criteria seem to us to apply whether a relationship is heterosexual or homosexual.

From this, I have found many Friends with the attitude that a loving, committed (and often exclusive) relationship is that criteria that should apply regardless of gender, and I do not fault them for that view. A key criteria in Towards a Quaker view of sex is found a few passages later in Qf&p, at 22.18:

Where there is genuine tenderness, an openness to responsibility, and the seed of commitment, God is surely not shut out. Can we not say that God can enter any relationship in which there is a measure of selfless love? – and is not every generalisation we make qualified by this?

Tenderness, yes, and an openness to responsibility, and the seed of commitment. This would seem to be open to the legitimacy of some people’s approach to modern dating, that sexual compatibility is established early in the relationship but that it is a step on a course that may lead to a commitment. The reasoning, if one reads further in the source work, seems to me to be the idea that sex and love are connected, and that love blossoms most in a committed relationship – and usually an exclusive one, though even in the second edition the authors of Towards a Quaker view of sex decline to state that adultery is necessarily wrong in all cases. Where done responsibly, polyamory is not necessarily incompatible with the principles of that important work.

I join with those authors in the idea that sex, sexuality, the impulse towards sexual activities and interactions, can be both damaging and joyous. That it is not simply a base desire, but that its expression can be base and damaging in some situations. That is can be an amazing expression of sharing, of connection, of love on many levels. That it can be selfless and joyous, or simply a selfish satisfaction of one’s own desires. Indeed, I feel that I must point out that it can even be a selfish satisfaction of desires for both (or all) parties involved in any particular sexual encounter. Whether there is necessarily anything wrong with sex that does not draw on the selfless and loving I shall not attempt to judge, but the deep spiritual rightness that sex can represent is certainly absent there – and sex that is selfish and exploitative, that cares not for emotional or physical consequences, that I will say is wrong.

That is where I see that we, as Quakers, are, and where we have come from and by what route, albeit a very brief summary. All that is prelude, albeit a necessary one, to what I feel moved to say now.

Sex can be sanctified, an expression and extension of the Love that flows from the Divine, where it is selfless and carried out in that Love. Where it represents the love of on person for another, or for all others. Where it is selfless, or at least not selfish, on the parts of all involved – and selfless on the part of at least one. But that does not mean there need be the love of a committed relationship. What works will be different for all, but in the right circumstances and for the right reasons, sex that we might call ‘casual’ can meet those criteria. With the right attitude – a healthy attitude – to sex and relationships, two or more people might share that sort of selfless and joyous sex without any intention to see one another again, but just to share that joy on that one occasion. They can be “making use of” one another, and yet it not be a matter of “selfish desire”. Where there is no breach of trust, no expectation violated, there need not even be harm done if one or other of the people is in a committed relationship with another person. There are those whose experience and temperament fits them to share their love freely, including its expression in sex. Where everyone truly shares the same expectations for the future, there is nothing wrong in itself with such sexual interaction. Perhaps such people are rare, and perhaps it is dangerous to normalise such an idea as it might create expectations, or cause people to convince themselves that they are such a person when they are not – or are not yet. I acknowledge that freely. It does not alter the truth of the essential point. The risks that come from being ‘casual’ with sex that do not come from casually arranging, for example, a game of squash cannot be denied, but are they all truly inherent in the act of sex, rather than the associations our society and morality have attached to it?

There need not be commitment, nor the seed of it, nor love in the sense that most people understand it in such a context, for sex to be wholesome and even holy. There need only be consent, honesty, openness, and selflessness.

Written June 2019