THE HUMILITY THAT CAN COME THROUGH BEING GAY

'For many high achieving, self-controlled, virtuous and dutiful homosexuals, the gay thing is the first thing that made them admit that they couldn't order their lives through willpower alone.'

Eve Tushnet, Tenderness, p.113.

WE NO LONGER POSTPONE ANY DESIRES

'According to Freud, the full and uninhibited satisfaction of all instinctual desires would create mental health and happiness. But the obvious clinical facts demonstrate that men - and women - who devote their lives to unrestricted sexual satisfaction do not attain happiness, and very often suffer from severe neurotic conflicts or symptoms. The complete satisfaction of all instinctual needs is not only not a basis for happiness, it does not even guarantee sanity. Yet Freud's idea could only have become popular in the period after the First World War because of the changes which had occurred in the spirit of capitalism, from the emphasis on saving to that on spending, from self-frustration as a means for economic success to consumption as the basis for an ever-widening market, and as the main satisfaction for the anxious, automatised individual. Not to postpone the satisfaction of any desire became the main tendency in the sphere of sex as well as in that of all material consumption.'   

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, p. 72. 

A SOCIETY BASED ON SELF-INDULGENCE

'...industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning.'
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, p.209. 

A PASTOR'S SELF-CONTROL

'Can he have a drink without needing  a drink? Can he surf the web without feeling the tractor pull of porn? Can he prepare for his sermon or research a writing project online without surfing the web at all? Can he spend long, unhalting periods of time reading a book or listening to sermon audio? Does he need constant stimulation? Can he take a nap? Can he read a critical letter without becoming sinfully self-defensive and self-justifying? Can he hear of the successes of others and not covet or begrudge? Will he rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep? All these are issues of self-control.' 

Jared C Wilson, The Pastor's Justification,. p.52. 

DISCIPLINE

'Discipline is both popular and unpopular today. On the one hand, discipline is glorified as the necessary condition for physical well-being, intellectual and career development, and spiritual growth. On the other hand, mass media, culture, and some individuals promote immediate gratification and a general flight from pain.' 

William F Kraft, Whole and Holy Sexuality, p.84. 

CHANGE

'Refrain tonight;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence; the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out,
With wondrous potency.'
William Shakespeare (Hamlet) in Tom Wright, Virtue Reborn, p.53. 

SELF-CONTROL

'...the Government of ones own soul requires greater Parts and Virtues than the Management of Kingdoms, and the Conquest of the disorderly rebellious Principles in our Nature, is more glorious than the acquisition of Universal Dominion.'

John Adams in Margaret A Hogan and C James Taylor (Ed.), My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, p.7.