A Ramble About Shaming Men for Committing Adultery in the Heart

 “You heard that it was said, ‘You will not commit adultery.’ Yet I tell you that every single person who looks at a woman towards desiring her already committed adultery with her with his heart.” - Matthew 5:27-28

“You heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘You will not murder, and whoever should murder is culpable to the judgment.’ Yet I tell you that every single person who is inflamed with his brother is culpable to the judgment.” Matthew 5:21-22a

     The first of these verses is something which is used to incite and browbeat unnecessary guilt in young churchgoing men from about the age of twelve onward, and has been for a very long time. No matter how much the church might say it’s all about the Grace of God, these verses and the others like them in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 are taught, not only as though Christians are under the Mosaic Law, but that the Law just got a lot stricter regarding murder, adultery, swearing oaths, and loving others. So strict that, quite frankly, it is literally impossible for any human being to keep, and adult male human beings in particular.
     This is something that just about every man knows (and feels ashamed of), and virtually no woman actually believes no matter how much I’ve tried to explain it (where the latter are concerned, it isn’t their fault, the average woman’s brain just doesn’t work this way and most find it difficult to believe that anyone’s could). Males are sexually aroused, biologically speaking, on sight alone. This is a biological, textbook fact. Sometimes it doesn't even take that. Just an errant thought will do the job. A teenage boy in particular is at the peak of his hormones, and it takes hardly anything to get that train rolling. It isn't really a choice for that to start. I guarantee you, a lot of guys are loaded with an enormous amount of guilt for the arousal that gets started with just the sight of a woman's body. Of course it's a choice what the guy does with it once it is started, but the "objectification" of a woman's body isn't a conscious choice at first. It's a deeply rooted part of male neurology, and in order for the guy to even get his wits back, he's got an uphill battle to fight.
     Why? Because this part of his brain is governed by the hypothalamus, and the limbic system in general. The limbic system governs all behaviors and responses which deal with survival. It is a deep, primal part of the brain, and governs the fear and aggression responses to threats, but also governs feeding responses, and of course reproductive responses, that is, the sexual drive. In women, it also governs childbirth. Making these verses in the Sermon on the Mount into stricter versions of the Mosaic Law means that in order to keep those commands at this standard, those basic survival responses would have to be overridden or shut down.
     In other words, by imposing this as a commandment onto young men, and men in general, you are setting them up for failure, guilt, and shame because in order to keep any of them, they would have to have the self-discipline and enlightenment of a monk with decades of experience at the very least. You are asking them to have full self-mastery of their deep, primal, survival biology in their very thoughts from the time puberty hits, and threatening them with hell if they can’t. And many churches do just this. It is very frustrating as well when, quite honestly, there are some women, many of them feminists and atheists for that matter, who hold men to the same moral standard by condemning them for “objectifying women’s bodies” and don’t understand why they can’t just not think that way to begin with. They don’t understand why an attractive woman or certain parts of their bodies draws a man’s eye and seem to believe that the man is always conscious of it. I guarantee you, he is not, and many when they are made aware of it force themselves to stop immediately. That’s why a lot of men, young men in particular, who are trying to remain moral and decent might try to avoid looking at a woman at all.
     And the truth of the matter is that creating a harsher, impossible standard to make men feel ashamed or guilty because they can’t meet it was never Jesus’ intent in the first place. His point was that human beings in general can’t avoid “sin” because it’s hardwired into our brains. It’s the malfunction of the human limbic system as compared to other animals. Just being angry at someone is also a response governed by the hypothalamus; that is, it’s also a survival response. And everyone without exception gets angry or feels aggression when they or their loved ones appear to be threatened. One might make an argument that believing an oath to be necessary is a fear response, also governed by the hypothalamus. He wasn’t trying to shame or guilt anyone. He was trying to level the field by making those hearing him understand that there wasn’t a divide between “righteous” human beings and “sinners” like they both thought and taught that there was (and many churches still do whether they realize it or not). Every human being has this malfunctioning survival part of their brains.
     We need to stop shaming men for being what they are and having the male biology they do, both within and outside of the church. It’s not fair. It’s without compassion. And it’s just as bad as men shaming women for having off days during their menses. Do men need to keep it under control? Of course. Do men need to be made to feel guilty for how their brains work? Not at all. It would be better if some folks understood that just some compassionate understanding of the problem to help those men who have the hardest time with it because of their hormones would go a long ways to solving the problem. No one likes to be judged for what they are.