A Catholic Response to Doug Wilson's 'Rape as Sex'

Something of a furore is buzzing about in the evangelical world. Over at the Gospel Coalition, a haven for arch-Calvinists, a blogger has created a bit of storm. In a post critiquing the recent mega-bestselling piece of erotica, 50 Shades of Grey, Jared Wilson has raised serious ire through his appropriation of a quote by Christian theonomist (and confirmed apologist for the 'humanity' of the antebellum Southern system of chattel slavery), Douglas Wilson.

The offending bit, which comes from a chapter on rape in one of Wilson's books, goes like this:

When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.

 Note here the language of domination, power, and aggression in connection to the role of the man, and the language of passivity, submission, and subordination in connection to the role of the woman. This is, of course, blatant patriarchy and downright misogyny. In an effort to buttress evangelical notions of "complementarianism", which is nothing less than asymmetrical hierarchy and male dominated authoritarianism, the Wilsons have extended their assumptions of female inferiority beyond just the question of who 'rules' the house to who rules in the bedroom too. The upshot, as Wilson continues his quotation of Wilson, is that 'True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.' In other words, the only pattern of male-female relationships, even in regard to the mutual marital act, is an asymmetrical one of authority and submission, dominance and surrender. One wonders, very seriously, how any act of sexuality between husband and wife can be mutual and consensual within this paradigm? Even more, how does this square with the biblical witness of such texts like Song of Songs (where the Bride is quite forthrightly the initiator of amorous activity), 1 Cor., and Eph?


Other evangelicals have been fairly quick to respond. Major bloggers like Rachel Held Evans, Daniel Kirk, Scot McKnight, and Mike Bird have posted.


The Catholic view of this is fairly simple to summarise – not only are men and women equal in all respects, such that any relationship is characterised by the mutual submission called for the Apostle Paul, but most especially in the context of a sexual relationship both partners are responsible to each other in a mutual, reciprocal exchange. Pope John Paul II, in his widely known book, Theology of the Body, outlines this very well. For Catholicism, sex is not an act that is characterised by such unequal (and frankly appalling) notions of dominance and power, surrender and passivity. Rather, both give and receive from each other in mutual, equal reciprocity. Further, although recently castigated by the CDF for a few statements on masturbation and same-sex relationships, Sr. Margaret Farley's book, Just Love, reinforces the basic insight of John Paul II on this issue, providing an ethical framework based on justice and love for the right expression of sexuality in all contexts.


While we are at some remove from this discussion, we would join the chorus of those calling for the removal of the offending post from the website. It most unbecoming that such would be in anyway attached to a forum that claims the gospel. This is decidedly no gospel – certainly not for women, and, we would argue, it is not a word of liberation for men either. In fact, this kind of blatant misogyny harms men and women in strong measure, and besmirches the name of the gospel that is supposed to free us from just this kind of bondage.