Confessions of a Constant Adulterer and a Would-Be-Rapist

You may cringe at the thought of reading someone divulge his most loathsome desires as much as I do so in writing such a too-personal and too-honest a confession. Man as I am, there is in me that carnal desire to satisfy a basic biological desire. That is why I got married. In marriage and through the process of siring three children, the sexual desire took a vital and powerful role that I must admit I had not been prepared to properly handle. With all the academic, technical and spiritual education I’ve had, this blinding force could not be easily subdued or disregarded without somehow affecting the very essence of my own personality. I would not be who I am without my manhood and my sexuality as a man.

I guess this is true for every other person alive.

As a child, I remember my cousins and I crawling behind bushes to watch our pretty neighbor making out with her boy-friend on the balcony. The arousal created in a four-year-old was no less overpowering and titillating than the ones I would have as an adult. Kids do such things not because they understand what’s happening but because they already feel the attraction for the opposite sex. Curiosity arises not from the novelty of a thing but from the built-in appeal it has for one who also has the capacity to experience the carnal act. Hence, we all need to satisfy a desire that is there in the first place even before the mind can totally comprehend (if that were possible) the meaning of that attraction. Much less before anyone can even gain the self-control to resist the desire or at least to avoid satisfying it inordinately.

If we were to apply Christ’s definition of adultery even to such “not-so-innocent“ kids, we would have been considered as adulterers. We looked at a woman with lust in our hearts. If lust ranges from a childhood desire to ravish a woman (within the limited scope of a child’s ability to imagine what sex is all about) to that of all-out mental or virtual coitus, I was and still am an adulterer, many times over. A bona-fide violator of the 7^th commandment. For even within a nano-second of the mind’s powerful ability to imagine, I could not escape or be excused from judgment. Who can I? And with movies making it so easy for us to unleash our wildest imaginations, who can withstand this plague?

Not that God is that quick to condemn a person for such lustful thoughts; or that He is ever on the guard to catch us violating the command. For we could easily fault Him for having created the opposite sex to be beautiful and desirable. Why would the natural reaction to His original design be thus considered abominable to Him? As people often say, “It is not wrong to appreciate beautiful women or handsome men.” What is wrong is to desire something that is not rightfully yours. This is the most obvious intent of the command.

Hence, even if the thing desired is willfully given, if it is not proper, then there is adultery. What is proper? Age, ability, maturity, status and propriety are just some of the factors that may come into the picture. Rape falls into that category of not only being improper but also reprehensible. What is not given and not “giveable” cannot and should not be taken. A person who thinks in his heart to sexually possess a woman not only commits adultery but also, in a figurative sense, rapes that woman. This idea will not stand legally though. However, it does have the power to produce the act. Just as Christ said that the lustful desire created the act itself of adultery, the imagination propels the act itself of rape.

One need not interview a real rapist to know that the deed committed in violation of a woman’s dignity began with the person deciding to implement what was first in the mind. A would-be rapist is not any farther from becoming a rapist in reality than a lustful person is from becoming an adulterer. If the lustful person can be branded as an adulterer, the aggressively desirous may likewise become a physical abuser.

But does this apply to those who are married? Some say so; others do not agree. A friend told me he masturbates when his wife doesn’t give in to his advances to make love with her. In the process, is he not violating not just himself but also his wife? Perhaps not but it gives us something to think about in trying to understand how our motives become actions. For we all know that there are many who rape their own wives: a case of legal rape or simply illegal entry?

Which brings us to the nagging question: Who should be blamed, the rapist or the one who led him/her to do so?

Obviously, the wife cannot cover herself sufficiently or behave indifferently in a futile effort to prevent her husband from being seduced to rape her. The mere assumption that she is his wife (though not a willing sexual partner at some point) can bring about a wild sexual drive. So it is with any single woman who may happen to be in a place or situation (whether of her making or not) where a man is throwing away his golden halo in exchange for red horns.

As with a child who has within its mind and its genitals the capacity to conjure and even produce sexual arousal (and fulfillment, if given the chance or time), much more so with a mature person who has the means to force the issue. (Pun is accidental.)

Does this mean I have had such aggressive desires that would have led me to rape someone? Perhaps I have at one time or another. But if I did so, it was not something I feel happy about. Or more precisely, it was because I was not happy about how I was being deprived or how I wasn’t able to respect a woman or to control my own desires at a moment when things were not ideal.

Yes, there may not be an ideal moment in any relationship or any situation involving sexual desires. The honeymoon stage may be the smallest window of bliss given to man and woman wherein they can experience that utopian sex we all constantly dream about from childhood to senility.

As long as women are women and men are men, the sexual stimulus will drive some people crazy enough to do heinous things. Our laws are there to help us subdue our minds, if not soften our hearts and other organs. Death or lifetime imprisonment may be a cruel punishment and deterrent for those who fail to do so, but it is the legally and socially acceptable sentence for the crime. Such crimes happen because some think they can cross the line between the mind and the body, not knowing that the mind overshadows the body. You violate your own mind; you violate your own body. In the process, you may violate another person’s body.

My confession serves me no purpose if I did not express my deep remorse over such evils thoughts that I harbor within me. Knowing that God hears me and that He allows me the grace to move on with a clear conscience daily, gives me enough hope that someday I may attain perfect self-control. I have responsibility for my own purity and my own perfection. A woman who wears tight or skimpy clothes may and will eventually lead me think lustful thoughts but I have no right to rebuke her for leading me to do so. I do have the right to tell her that how she dresses or behaves arouses my manhood. I do have the right to tell those who exploit women and lead them to appear and act seductively on the TV or in print that they violate my freedom. I do have the right to tell people that I am a sinner in the process of perfection by the hands of the Lord and that those who work against it knowingly or unknowingly will have to answer for it to Him.

Now, since I have made it known to all, I expect the same treatment from others that they should expect from me. Cover yourself well or behave yourself well and I will try to control myself as much as I can. This is not too much to ask from women or men, is it?

Finally, I may not totally understand how women feel and why they behave the way they do and vice versa. As such, expressing myself in this manner may be one good way that I can co-exist with women and those who may use them for selfish gains. Social norms and taboos exist to protect every person from pervert acts. As it is, society has loosed all controls and so we reap now the evil consequences.

The mind is the first and final frontier of all human experience. What we imagine or do there has a great bearing upon what happens in the real world. Letting others know who and what we really are may somehow help them adjust their own thoughts and behavior accordingly. I believe that is the only way we can achieve social harmony.

(Photo: Acacia trees and silvery clouds in UP Diliman.)