Julian raja Arockiaraj

Ethics

VARIOUS
INTERPRETATIONS OF
THE SEXUAL URGE
Which one is right?

The sexual urge is a motivational state and an attentiveness in sexual

things or actions, or as a desire, necessity, or motivation to pursue sexual
things or to participate in sexual undertakings. 1 There are numerous
interpretation of sexual urge. The religious interpretation states that these
urges must be used to bring forth a new life, love and happiness to us. The
rigorist interpretation explains it as a way to be used for procreation and
building the species rather than seeking mere pleasure. The libidinistic
interpretation states it as a way to ultimate pleasure even by limiting the
procreation to allow human beings to have as much pleasure as possible.
Karol Wojtylas Love and Responsibility deals with explaining in detail about
these interpretations and this paper will explain some the ideas.
Wojtyla opens up with the analysis of the verb use. As human beings
we use the article of action as a means to end and we are the ones who
utilize the article of action. This can be good with animals for as persons we
have a precise inner personality and natural life. This is what separates us
from animals. We human beings have an inner personality and interior life.
When we look into the interpretation of sexual urges, Wojtyla calls this at first
as an instinct but later on argues that it is better to be called an urge than an
instinct for Instinct is a reflection of action which in not dependent on
conscious thought whereas sexual urge is a certain natural direction of
tending, born in all human beings, which develops within and perfects itself. 2
Wojtyla gives emphasis to human beings as a sexual being and that
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_desire
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belonging to one of the sexes be it a man or a woman, entails a certain

orientation of the whole being itself, an orientation that is manifested in a
concrete development of this being from within. 3 This orientation can be felt
both internally and outward.
Wojtyla says that if we analysis sex from an exterior point we can
describe it as a precise mixture of properties that are clearly outlined in the
psychological and physiological construction of man". 4 He considers that the
characteristics of individual hold an importance for them because of the
presence of the sexual urge. Sexual urge is the basic psychological and
physiological qualities of man and woman. These urges in turn gives us the
opportunity of love for these sexual urges has an expected inclination to
develop into love simply because its the very intimacy among two opposite
genders . These are the things which differentiate man with animals as man
functions differently from the urges in animals, where animals instinctive
actions are governed by nature alone. In man it naturally subordinates to the
will as the psychological sense is not bound together with the sexual urges,
which leaves in man a field of operation of freedom.

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 30

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 31

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 32

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The existence of sexual urges in man is very important. For these

urges are needed for the very existence of Homo sapiens. This species could
not exist if there were no urges therefore to preserve human kind these
urges must be in existence. The proper end of the drive, the end per se, is
something supra-personal. Wojtyla doesnt favor the procreative denotation
of human sexuality as something just biological that must be presumed to be
subjective, but rather it is special for these drives cant be used in the
nonexistence of love toward the other. Therefore the order of human
existence does not remain in the conflict with love of persons, but rather in
closely harmonized with it.
The Religious Interpretation of sexual urge gives us pressures of the
love of human persons, who surpass the physical world, while being
productive in the natural intellect because of the sexual urge which is
likewise productive in the divine, ethical, and individual circle. The sexual
urge in man, is related to the godly order as it is understood under the
continuous inspiration of God the Originator of human beings. A man and a
woman, through their matrimonial lifecycle and complete sexual relationship,
connect themselves with that order and approve to take a distinctive part in
the work of creation.5 The group of new human beings is certainly a deed of
procreation. The sexual urge is to be indebted in its independent reputation
to its linking with the celestial effort of conception. And this reputation

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 40

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disappears almost entirely if our way of thinking is motivated only by the

biological instruction of nature.
In the Rigorist Interpretation Wojtyla rejects the interpretation of the
sexual urge in which it states that in by means of using man and woman to
guarantee the survival of the species in which God himself "uses" individuals
as means to an end, with the outcome that marital life and matrimonial
union are only contributory properties. To the conflicting of the unification of
male and female in sexual intercourse, if freely selected and needed by true
marital love among individuals, is to some degree is virtuous in itself, so that
we cannot preserve that in using men and women unified in marriage to
carry on the species for God is using them simply as a means to an end. The
creator intended this joy and bound it with love of a woman and a man,
insofar as this love is correctly formed on the substratum of the sexual drive,
that is, in a way corresponding to man as person.6
The name libidinistic refers to the Latin word libido. When we see the
Libidinistic Explanation Wojtyla outbreaks the interpretation, conjoint to
Sigmund Freud and towards the numerous views nowadays, that the sexual
urge is fundamentally a drive for delight, for inclination. The sexual drive
does not retain a purely libidinistic character, rather it retains an existential
character. Man must take up the full responsibility for the way numerous
ways he uses his sexual urges and this responsibility constitutes the
6

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 45

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fundamental, vital component of mans sexual morality. 7 Thus, man is

proficient enough to understand the part the sexual urge shows in the
heavenly order and comprehends the existential, special significance of the
sexual urge.
When analyzing the various interpretations of sexual urges we find that
martial love plays an important part in sexual desires. Pope Paul VI explains
Matrimonial love in his prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae. In Humanae
Vitae, Pope Paul recognized spousal love as exceedingly human, but rooted
in God's affection for his people. He saw it as the vigorous section in every
matrimony, fetching longevity to the marriage and enabling the pair to make
intelligent, substantial, and liable decisions. Humanae Vitae delivers an
optimistic and stately understanding of sexuality as a talent from God which
develops, and reunites married couples. Through sexual unification, couples
make stronger use of their marital bond and partake in a distinct manner in
God's conception of new life. From all of this we can have reflective meaning
of a life of intimacy as that unity of two individuals whose obligation is to be
open to each other in a conjoint self-contribution that extents its summit in
the affectionate unification which in turn bears fruit into children.
Thus, Sexuality is not simply a substance of natural science and it is
also not simply a foundation of personal desire. For it is the intimate part of
being a human which is recognized in a fundamental fragment of the love by
7

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 47

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which a male and female obligate themselves totally to one another till
demise. Partners are called to rejoice their matrimonial love by becoming
one flesh in the Lord, and to understand their sexual intimacy in the
perspective of God's inspired part and the nature of marriage itself. By
continuing to be open to life every time they come together in the
matrimonial hold, by maintaining "the two implications of the matrimonial
act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning" 8, married couples
respect the existence of God in their unification. And also the Church
explains that there are two characteristics of marital interaction-the
consolidation of personal union between the partners, and the procreation of
new life. These two things are attached and not in the logic that both must
be capable in every act of matrimonial intimacy, but in the intellect that one
may not deliberately act against anything virtuous in any act of matrimonial
relationship.
In his concluding thought Wojtyla expresses the old-fashioned "ends"
of marriage which is the procreation and education of children, conjoint
assistance, and the preparation of concupiscence. These ends must be
understood on the foundation of the personal-self that "sexual ethics and
consequently matrimonial morals contains a steady and established fusion of
nature's perseverance with the pesonalistic norm"9. The opinion on which the

Paul VI, Pope. 1968. "ENCYCLICAL LETTER : HUMANAE VITAE." Vatican website. July 25. No:12

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 51

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appropriate understanding of each of the objectives stated, and of all of

them organized, depends in a way suitable for man as a being. To
comprehend these ends precisely the virtue of love is essential because
"only as a virtue does love fulfill the commandment of the Gospel and the
difficulties of the personalistic norm personified in that commandment"10.

Bibliography
Paul VI, Pope. 1968. "ENCYCLICAL LETTER : HUMANAE VITAE." Vatican website. July
25. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_pvi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html.
Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston
MA: Pauline Books and Media.

10

Wojtyla, Karol. 2013. Love and Responsibility. Translated by Grzegorz Ignatik. Boston MA: Pauline Books and
Media. Pg. 52

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