[FretDancer]

I decided to make a blog post while reading Benjamin's Franklin autobiography and Epictetus's The Art of Living since I felt kind of intrigued why usually many great men of the past were such advocators of chastity.

The post is quite long but in both of these men's writings we can encounter how they encourage chastity in men, which is completely opposite of what we encourage and seek as men.

I have extracted some fragments of my post to present this statement:

From Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography:

Quote:

In his autobiography, Benjamin shares a list of virtues that he created and he deemed necessary. In this post, the last virtue from the list, chastity, is the one we shall focus on.

CHASTITY: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

From Epictetus's The Art of Living:

Quote:

Avoid Casual Sex

Abstain from casual sex and particularly avoid sexual intercourse before you get married. This may sound prudish or old-fashioned, but it is a time-tested way by which we demonstrate respect for ourselves and others. Sex is not a game. It gives rise to very real enduring emotional and practical consequences. To ignore this is to debase yourself, and to disregard the significance of human relationships.

In my post I list and expand on the possible reasons for the encouragement of chastity by these men and probably by men of same intellect that also lived in previous times. It comes down to these reasons:

1. Compliance with society's standards
2. Prevention of Unwanted Pregnancies and Bastards
3. Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases
4. Religion
   

Some of the reasons listed above are more easily "discardable" than others.

From my Closing Thoughts:

Quote:

Not all wise and great men were in favor of chastity of course, but is still interesting why, how, and if men who possess great intellect, social skills, diplomacy skills, and virtues like Benjamin Franklin and men who seem to be on a whole other level spiritually and philosophically like Epictetus could really overcome a powerful urge and emotion that is the male sex drive and all the elements that surround it. Furthermore the real question could actually be if this possible fact is somehow related to their genius.

I am curious on your comments and opinions, as I am sure many RVFers here, like me, set great men such as these as examples to follow in many areas of life. Yet we seem to differ a lot regarding how we view sex and what it means to us.

[Tuthmosis]

Cuz bitches ain't shit.

[Beyond Borders]

It's a form of self-discipline. Satisfaction of carnal appetites can be very distracting to the rational mind.

[monster]

(12-05-2014 05:40 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

From Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography:

Quote:

In his autobiography, Benjamin shares a list of virtues that he created and he deemed necessary. In this post, the last virtue from the list, chastity, is the one we shall focus on.

CHASTITY: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Funny that Ben would recommend this when he was a cad. When he was the US Ambassador to France, there are lots of stories of old Ben and the french women.

Typical politician: do as I say not as I do.

[Glaucon]

(12-05-2014 12:04 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

It's a form of self-discipline. Satisfaction of carnal appetites can be very distracting to the rational mind.

So true. Nothing derailed my life like getting a girlfriend.

[jariel]

Don't fuck any bitches, so I can fuck all the bitches.

[Helmutnl]

Maybe American women in his era were as vile and cockblocking as they are today, so he found chastity and refraining from sex with them much more of a pleasure than doing it

[jariel]

(12-05-2014 12:56 PM)Helmutnl Wrote:  

Maybe American women in his era were as vile and cockblocking as they are today, so he found chastity and refraining from sex with them much more of a pleasure than doing it

At that time American women were actually European women living on another continent.

[Sherman]

You can add Saint Augustine who was a major PUA of the 4th Century and wrote the book on "Bang Carthage", and then he gave up and turned to religion.

[Quintus Curtius]

This is a good question, and deserves a full explanation.

We should first note that not every wise man has advocated chastity. You can find just as many wise men who advocated a normal, healthy sexual appetite, as you can find wise men who advocated chastity. Many ascetic philosophers (especially some of the early Christians like St. Jerome, Tertullian, etc.) valued it highly, but I am not sure they would be called wise.

Most philosophers were pragmatic about it (Plotinus, Plato, Aristotle, etc.) and advocated a happy medium of moderated pleasures.

Only a few ascetic zealots condemned sexual relations entirely. Some sects in India advocated celibacy, and in Europe one finds some fringe religious that did as well. But these rules usually only applied to a few.

In fact, a good case can be made that chastity hardly qualifies as "wise." Suppression of normal instincts can have dangerous consequences in the long term. Just as much evil, probably, has arisen from chastity as has come about from excessive sexual indulgence.

But there does seem to be a correlation between what we normally consider wise and what we normally consider chaste. I think this comes about for several reasons. In the first place, people who spend a great deal of time in the pursuits of the mind usually have little energy left over to channel into the fleshier activities. Philosophers may praise chastity because it is easy for them. Men praise what is in their natures, and call it virtue.

Second, I think wise men have a clear appreciation of the dangers of over-indulgence in any voluptuary activity. Whether it be eating, drinking, carousing, or vanity, excessive indulgence quickly degenerates into an evil. And this is the danger.

Wise men are wise because they understand that true happiness can only come from a balanced, healthy life in which all things are in concord. If we could only remember these maxims: "know thyself" and "all things in moderation", we would be so much better off. Unfortunately, they are easy to state, but difficult to practice.

Q

[Kamikaze]

Nikola Tesla was reportedly asexual. But he did in fact have one romantic relationship - with a pigeon.

He wrote about the bird, "I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me... As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."

Dude probably just needed some Zinc tablets to up his low T.

If only he got some pussy, he'd never have developed wireless technology and ushered in the era of the iPhone, destroying human interaction as we know it.

Mostly I just feel sorry for the pigeon, though.

[Giovonny]

In many ways, sex can be similar drugs and alcohol.

These things are fun in moderation but over indulging can be destructive to your life.

Many men have lost their lives in pursuit of sex.

"Pussy Kills"

Centuries ago there was often great religious/societal pressures, little protection and medicine for stds, crude, dangerous abortion methods, etc.

Maybe sex came with greater risk or perceived risk in those days.

I think that as we strived to become more civilized, we sometimes tried to control the "animal urges", because they thought man should not behave like animals.

[Seth_Rose]

Many people are consumed by their carnal desires and let it dictate their actions, whereas to be successful you must be the 'master of your domain'.

[Quintus Curtius]

^^^

There are some amusing stories of Ottoman princes being literally driven insane from too much sex, luxury, and leisure in the harem.

If one of us had an unlimited opportunity to copulate with over a hundred beautiful women on demand, and eat or drink whatever we wanted, we might very quickly destroy ourselves.

"Not me!" say some readers here. "I would be able to handle it!"

But temptation is a devious being...

[Atlantic]

^ Very true

I put myself in bed for a week from over indulgence in sex and coffee my first summer in Canada ha.
I was hooking up with three girls at work and two more out of work.
I was constantly seeing how many I could manage in a day- before, during and after work, and was sleeping less and less.
Before the crash I couldn't see across the room properly and was unable to finish sentences. Day of I nearly collapsed.

[WestIndianArchie]

(12-05-2014 12:07 PM)monster Wrote:  

(12-05-2014 05:40 AM)FretDancer Wrote:  

From Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography:

Quote:

In his autobiography, Benjamin shares a list of virtues that he created and he deemed necessary. In this post, the last virtue from the list, chastity, is the one we shall focus on.

CHASTITY: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Funny that Ben would recommend this when he was a cad. When he was the US Ambassador to France, there are lots of stories of old Ben and the french women.

Typical politician: do as I say not as I do.

He probably realized what all he could do had he not been chasing down them broads.

WIA

[monster]

(12-05-2014 02:55 PM)Kamikaze Wrote:  

Nikola Tesla was reportedly asexual. But he did in fact have one romantic relationship - with a pigeon.

He wrote about the bird, "I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me... As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."

Dude probably just needed some Zinc tablets to up his low T.

If only he got some pussy, he'd never have developed wireless technology and ushered in the era of the iPhone, destroying human interaction as we know it.

Mostly I just feel sorry for the pigeon, though.

Haha, I read that story before. Tesla - what a character! It's funny too because he had a lot of women admirers. I suppose the more he admired them the more they wanted him too.

[FretDancer]

Some great responses so far.

I think we can agree that sex can really ruin a man's life, whether it is because of excess or lack of it.

Now, how is this related to men like us? We value sex. We dedicate portions of our time in order to increase the quantity/quality of our sex. We spend time becoming better man not for the ultimate objective of sex, but sex is still a motivator and consequently a reward, and then consequently a motivator again, and so on back and forth.

Take men like Krauser for example, they dedicate a lot of time, if not their entire lives to sex, or the obtaining of it. This maybe is only true at the beginning of stages (where many of us can identify), since later it probably becomes more about all the social and psychological elements that surround the whole process. I don't know the man, I am only speculating.

We cannot argue that giving up the chasing of women and sex can lead to pursuing better, greater and more meaningful things. Somebody mentioned Nikola Tesla as a good example, although the situation of Nikola Tesla involves many other things regarding the psyche, in my opinion.

Take RVF as an example. How many of us would love to posses Benjamin's knowledge and skills? Yet how many of us here would give up sex in order to do so (not saying that Benjamin actually did this), probably no one, including myself. Most of the men here, we have acquired a different perspective on sex, women and how the world works today. A perspective much different from the ones of these men from the past, many people here like calling this the red pill.

So does that make us superior in some way? We get to pursue our dreams (better women, better quality of life, better locations, better jobs, traveling and adventure, learning and knowledge) and we still get to enjoy the primal feeling of the pursuit of sex, women, and sex itself.

Going back to Benjamin:

Quote:

Funny that Ben would recommend this when he was a cad. When he was the US Ambassador to France, there are lots of stories of old Ben and the french women.

Typical politician: do as I say not as I do.

Good point. As a politician, it is not surprising that he would advocate such a thing as chastity in his own autobiography. I am curious if anyone has read a biography about Benjamin but not written by him?

[pitt]

Actually there are theories of success that believe that having too much sex makes it hard for any guy to succeed. We are driven to have sex, this is our number one motivation, if we didn't have that motivation, we wouldn't have great athletes, great musicians, etc. So when you have sex, you lose the desire to have sex and therefore you lose your inner desire to succeed because you already succeeded (you just had sex).

I feel this all the time, whenever I have sex, it affects my ability to perform well in other areas. Countries where you are very successful with the local women, make you very laid back, you have no enough motivation to chase other things in life. I think someone on here once said that too much success is bad for you, I agree.

[jasond]

There are 2 books that can answer this question very well:

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill: see the chapter entitled "The Mystery of Sex Transmutation". In summary, he argues that all great men channel their innate sexual energy into something other than actually pursuing sex...that's how they achieve great things.

Sex and Culture, by Joseph Unwin: The author takes the above a step further, and presents a very strong case, that ALL successful civilizations channel sexual energy among the entire population into monogamous lifelong marriage. And that once societies start to engage in pre-marital and extra-marital sex, it only takes about 3 generations for them to collapse.

[Hades]

(12-05-2014 02:55 PM)Kamikaze Wrote:  

Nikola Tesla was reportedly asexual. But he did in fact have one romantic relationship - with a pigeon.

He wrote about the bird, "I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me... As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."

Dude probably just needed some Zinc tablets to up his low T.

If only he got some pussy, he'd never have developed wireless technology and ushered in the era of the iPhone, destroying human interaction as we know it.

Mostly I just feel sorry for the pigeon, though.

Tesla was so many standard deviations above the norm he jumped the shark and transcended the possibility of acquiring game.

[Beyond Borders]

(12-06-2014 01:42 AM)jasond Wrote:  

There are 2 books that can answer this question very well:

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill: see the chapter entitled "The Mystery of Sex Transmutation". In summary, he argues that all great men channel their innate sexual energy into something other than actually pursuing sex...that's how they achieve great things.

Sex and Culture, by Joseph Unwin: The author takes the above a step further, and presents a very strong case, that ALL successful civilizations channel sexual energy among the entire population into monogamous lifelong marriage. And that once societies start to engage in pre-marital and extra-marital sex, it only takes about 3 generations for them to collapse.

Fascinating stuff. I may give it a read (Unwin).

I've definitely noticed that constantly chasing tail always played a large role in my destructive drinking patterns. There are ways to organize your sex life better and still be promiscuous, but I find I'm much more centered, focused, and healthy when I've already got something on lock that I actually care about enough to stick with and remain faithful to. When completely left to my own devices, I'm like an uncaged animal in this bitch.

Of course, fighting with someone I'm emotionally-involved with makes it next to impossible to focus on my work too, so maybe it's just that I need to get a better handle on my emotions.

[Glaucon]

(12-06-2014 01:42 AM)jasond Wrote:  

There are 2 books that can answer this question very well:

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill: see the chapter entitled "The Mystery of Sex Transmutation". In summary, he argues that all great men channel their innate sexual energy into something other than actually pursuing sex...that's how they achieve great things.

Sex and Culture, by Joseph Unwin: The author takes the above a step further, and presents a very strong case, that ALL successful civilizations channel sexual energy among the entire population into monogamous lifelong marriage. And that once societies start to engage in pre-marital and extra-marital sex, it only takes about 3 generations for them to collapse.

I just found Sex and Culture can be downloaded for free from Open Libary:

https://archive.org/details/b20442580

[samsamsam]

(12-06-2014 01:42 AM)jasond Wrote:  

And that once societies start to engage in pre-marital and extra-marital sex, it only takes about 3 generations for them to collapse.

I wonder what generation the U.S. is in. First generation was one the one during the 60s I am guessing? What is considered a generation in years. Quick search said around 30. So the 2020s begins the 3rd generation? I find it all very interesting. Thanks for the share.

[Enigma]

This is something I've thought a lot about recently, with the Napoleon Hill reference above being one of the main influences.

Also, this post by Victor Pride is a good one. http://boldanddetermined.com/2011/10/24/...al-energy/

I can't remember where, but there was a study I believe where they analyzed the massive amount of energy you lose every time you cum.

But I think it's not so much the act of sex itself, as it is the chase and overall overindulgence. If I'm not mistaken, Hill references a few men in the book who had steady girlfriends as examples of his points.

Beyond Borders mentions something similar above, which I agree with. I think another option is a small harem.

You have a steady flow of pussy without sacrificing the variety or so much of your freedom. Then you can always grab something on the side when that itch gets really strong.

The point in Victor's post about the other things a steady girl bring to the table can't be overlooked, however. This may be foreign to some of the guys still suffering those lazy ass Western broads, but a more traditional woman will cook and clean like it's her job (and it is). Definitely helps to further free your mind and be able to focus on things that are more productive.

Just the little things also, that help you conserve willpower that could be reserved for something else.

I think full-on chastity would be extremely difficult to maintain. I've done the "no fap" thing, and while I had an insane amount of energy, I was literally going insane towards the end.

Maybe it gets easier with time, but I find it's close to impossible to actually channel the whole of your sexual energy completely away from sex itself, especially if you're living healthy.

Physical pursuits sure, but something requiring mental focus becomes extremely difficult when it feels like your dick is shouting at you through a megaphone.