October 18, 2009: Sex and Violence – Michael Hidalgo

Why are sex, greed, and idolatry all in the same list?

Sexuality is something today that has given way to our culture of violence. We live in a culture that has industrialized sexuality in such a way that we have begun to exploit the most sacred of unions. Wendell Berry writes, “Like any other industrial enterprise, industrial sexuality seeks to conquer nature by exploiting it and ignoring the consequences.”

Sex is the ultimate physical expression of love given to us by God to participate in the ongoing process of creation. By design it is about giving oneself to the other. Our culture has reversed this into “getting some” thereby turning sex into something we are getting … when taken further sex is something we are taking from someone else for our own pleasure. When we speak of conquering, getting, or taking we are using a violent language rooted in greed. 

All of this comes from the worship of a false God. (See Hosea’s metaphor of sex, economic injustice, and idolatry). If we turn away from the God who created us we will turn to something else, which is an idol. In the words of John Kavanaugh, “Remade in the image and likeness of our own handiwork, we are revealed as commodities. Idolatry exacts its full price from us. We are robbed of our very humanity.” Which sounds quite violent doesn’t it?