Chastity: The Foundation of Love

Here is a very good (and brief) article by Robert Colquhoun on chastity at:

He defines chastity as:
"The virtue of chastity is a power that controls one’s sex drive to place it in the service of authentic human love according to one’s state in life."

He explains that chastity is more than simply not having intercourse:
"It is possible to technically remain a virgin whilst not living a chaste life. Even within marriage, John Paul II stated that man can commit adultery with his wife if he treats her as an object to satisfy instinct. Catholic acts of morality depend on the object chosen, the intention, and the circumstance. (CCC 1750). "

The Christian virtue of chastity is much neglected even among Evangelicals. Modern people no longer believe that the sex drive is even under rational control and think that promiscuity is inevitable. They do not distinguish between instinct on the level of the body and the rational power to make moral choices on the level of the soul. To speak of "a power that controls one's sex drive" makes no sense to modernists because they do not believe we have such a power. The sad part is that if I do not have the power to control my instincts, then I can never use my body to express authentic love. Even when I want to have sex with you, it just means I have instinctual needs that I want to use you to meet. It can't mean that I choose to love you and give myself to you completely as the one to whom I commit my life. Without chastity, sex is thus separated from true love.