Preface: I gave some thought to not sharing this essay at all because it is somewhat personal, dealing with topics of sex and sexuality. I am not so much concerned about disclosing my personal thoughts. I am more concerned by all the things that I left unsaid. I did not write this personal essay to capture a complete picture of my thoughts on the topic. Rather, I wrote it as a way of exploring a small part of my thoughts which I needed to look at more closely. I am in no danger of deceiving myself though lies of omission, but when one writes a personal essay and omits the majority of one's beliefs about a topic, especially on such an intimate topic, a personal essay can appear to other readers to be quite dishonest. I am well aware this essay will give the reader the wrong impression of me. Be that as it may, I feel the topic must be spoken about, and therefore I will forebear people's wrong impressions. Everything I say in this essay is true, though it may as well be false for the purpose of constructing an autobiography.
The second caveat I must give about this essay, which is obvious to me when I reread it, though which I suspect people are likely to misunderstand, is that I have written this essay in a framework of virtue and vice which I myself reject. In fact, my rejection of that framework is the entire point of the essay. I believe this fact is abundantly clear from my writing, but I fear that those who embrace that framework may be overly eager to think I embrace it too, and those who do not accept that framework may be put off by my expounding upon it. To avoid causing any confusion, let me make it clear here, at the beginning, that my point in this essay is precisely to reject what I expound upon.
The Temptation of the Brave New World: An Essay on Sexual Remorse
It has been years since I have read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I can still remember a fair amount of the book. It is quite memorable, after all, in its own way. Every once in a while, I find myself thinking, "Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun," and wondering exactly how one moves one's hand to make the sign of the T. It has always seemed to me, however, that of all the dystopian novels, Brave New World presents the weakest argument for wanting to avoid a dystopia. Given the option of living in the Brave New World, or choosing to live on the "reservation," I cannot say for certain I would choose the reservation. It's been too long since I read the book to be able to tell you exactly why the reservation is so unattractive to me, but that is most definitely the impression I have always had.
Indeed, if Aldous Huxley were actually trying to write a book to admonish readers against living in a drugged-fueled, sex-crazed dystopia, it would seem from his own experimentation with psychedelics that he did not find his own advice all that convincing.
In time, Huxley admitted to the weakness of his book. In his forward written some 20 years after its first publication, Huxley stated that the choice between the Brave New World and the reservation was flawed. He stated the choice between the two was a choice "between insanity on one hand and lunacy on the other." (Huxley, pg. viii) He regretted not presenting a third choice, a sensible choice. "If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopia and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity."(Huxley, pg. ix)
Huxley was well aware of his shortcomings in Brave New World, and he openly admitted it. In many ways, I consider his admission in his forward to be a greater literary achievement than the book itself. The very beginning of his forward has one of the most inspiring quotes I have ever encountered, and I come back to it from time to time, just as I have decided to come back to it today while entering the new year.* It opens like this:
Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrong-doing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. (Huxley, pg. vi)
Huxley's warning against remorse feels particularly poignant at this time, on a personal level. My 2024 was a year punctuated by periods of remorse - sometimes rational, sometimes irrational, sometimes shallow, and sometimes deep. If I can speak to that experience in general terms, I can say quite definitively that remorse is not, and never will be, a virtue. Remorse is nothing more than the desire to alter one's past, and in that strict definition, one can be remorseful of one's virtues just as surely as one can be remorseful of one's faults. I have experienced this firsthand.
Here, I will share a story which is hopefully not too personal (though it is undeniably personal) which is fitting for the topic of Huxley’s Brave New World. Towards the end of 2024, I went out and had lunch with a good friend of mine. During conversation, the subject turned towards romantic prospects. I will spare you (and myself) most of the details of that conversation. I will only note here that at one point in that conversation I had vented some frustrations over a friendship I was cultivating with a woman I have some romantic interest in. My friend mentioned that I had been "friend-zoned," and then asked me, in a not at all delicate way, whether I had “ever banged this chick?” I responded no, and it was around this point that my friend, in a jovial spirit but still in earnest, called me a "simp."
I am not interested in moralizing the topic of fornication here. Let my readers keep their opinions to themselves. What I am interested in here is the psychology of being told that if one is not having sex, that is because one has been friend-zoned or one is a simp. There are good reasons, whether moral or practical, for choosing to be abstinent. But it is quite another thing to be told that one is abstinent because one has been forced to be so.
I did not tell my friend this, but I was quite upset by his comments, which got to me much more than they should have. In that moment, I found myself actually being remorseful of the fact that I wasn't sleeping around, even if I didn't want to sleep around in the first place. This was not a question of morality. It is a question of virility. To be celibate by choice may be a virtue, but to be celibate by friend-zoning is emasculating. It hit me in the old toxic masculinity, as they say. And the rest of that day, I walked around with a sense of remorse. The word "incel" rung in my head.
This story provides a good illustration of the danger of remorse - the fact that one can just as easily be remorseful of one's good decisions as of one's bad decisions, of one's virtues as of one's vices. The fact of the matter is that by temperament, I am somebody who prefers cultivating friendships with women over just jumping into bed with them, and this, it turns out, is a great source of shame for me.
In his essay, "On Cruelty" the French essayist Michel Montaigne notes that many of his virtues are the result of his natural disposition, not the result of his beliefs or thoughts. In a quote that very much resonates with me, he states, "I find myself in many things more under reputation by my manners than by my opinions, and my concupiscence less debauched than my reason." This quote much describes myself. Heaven knows, I am not one for moralizing, even if I have a knack for following certain moral standards. It is this disparity between actions and thoughts that leads Montaigne to question whether his good deeds are really even virtuous at all. As he begins his essay:
I fancy virtue to be something else, and something more noble, than good nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the same methods, and represent in their actions the same face that virtue itself does: but the word virtue imports, I know not what, more great and active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition, to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He who, by a natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would doubtless do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and nettled to the quick by an offense, should fortify himself with the arms of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and after a great conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more. The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be called goodness, and the other virtue; . . .
I cannot help but see a little of myself in Montaigne. I often do the right thing out of habit, only to find myself wondering whether I shouldn’t have a better reason for doing the right thing. Montaigne says of himself that he found it quite easy "to pass whole nights, where a man has all the convenience and liberty he can desire, with a long-coveted mistress, and yet be true to the pledge first given to satisfy himself with kisses and suchlike endearments, without pressing any further." If this says something of Montaigne, what does it say about me that for some time now I have tended to pass such long awaited nights in friendly conversation without even the kisses? I am, truth be told, in the terrible habit of conversing with women at late hours of the night without a chaperone, only for absolutely nothing to happen. If you were to ask Montaigne, this natural disposition of mine makes me good enough, but there is no virtue in such abstinence. Indeed, if you ask my friend, this makes me a simp.
So, why is it that my friend's words got to me? Why did I feel upset? I had done nothing wrong, after all. Why let a petty insult like that affect me? Well, Montaigne has an answer to that question. Montaigne can look at his good dispositions and sense that they are not virtuous because he did not feel enough temptation. Push that line of thinking just a little further. If the lack of temptation causes one to lack virtue, then impotence, the complete inability to exhibit vice, is the most emasculating experience possible. Being incapable of sin, in this line of thinking, renders one's virtues mute. And this line of thinking is quite pervasive in our culture.* To see this worldview at work in our culture, we need look no further than Jordan Peterson.
There are several popular videos on YouTube of Jordan Peterson talking about “dangerous men.” In one popular video, Peterson argues that “If you are incapable of violence, not being violent isn’t a virtue.” There is video upon video of Peterson saying this, or something similar. This idea quickly caught on in Christian men’s circles. If you google "Christian men should not be safe," you will get a whole series of articles with titles such as, "Not Safe, But Good: The Men We Desperately Need Today", "Christian Men Should be Dangerous", and "Christianity Doesn’t Need More Safe Men."* You might also come across a video by Jordan Peterson advising you that "A Harmless Man is Not a Good Man." Across a wide range of conservative and Christian resources, the case is made that true masculinity requires the potential of posing a threat.
What is almost never stated, but runs in the subtext of this worldview, are the sexual corollaries to these statements: "Not Fornicating, But Lustful: The Men We Desperately Need Today", "Christian Men Should Be Horny", "Christianity Doesn't Need More Celibate Men", and "An Incel is Not a Chaste Man." I am not being glib about this. If you want to understand why terms like "simp" and "incel" can feel so insulting and emasculating, it is because they buy into this worldview that virtue requires the potential for the vice. As Peterson says in one video, "being able to be cruel, and then not being cruel, is better than not being able to be cruel." What is true of cruelty in general would be, no doubt, true of sexual cruelty. Being capable of rape, but then not committing rape, is better than not being capable of rape.
The best way, of course, to demonstrate that you are capable of doing something is to actually do it. It is no wonder to me, therefore, why Christians in particular, and conservatives in general, have such an easy time congregating around and supporting sexually violent men. Their affinity for Donald Trump, or Andrew Tate, or Connor McGregor, might seem incongruous at first with their sexual moralism. But if we understand that such moralism is rooted in the belief that a violent man is closer to virtue than a harmless man, it makes perfectly logical sense. These moralists see themselves better represented by the sexually violent than by, say, an asexual queer, despite the fact that the former clearly violates their moral dictates while the latter does not.
This is a very contentious assertion I am making, but I am making it nonetheless. If we believe that virtue requires the capability of vice, then we are prone to celebrating the vice, lest our virtue be worthless. We make the vice a condition of the virtue. At the very least, the temptation to vice is a condition of the virtue. And make no mistake about it, people like Jordan Peterson are peddling this worldview.
I am not saying this as a passive observer. I am saying this as somebody who feels the full pull towards this worldview. That part of me, that remorseful part, wishes I could have lived in the Brave New World, even if it flies in the face of my natural disposition. I have long felt a twinge of jealousy towards people capable of vices I was always too bashful to participate in myself. And it’s not like I even want to partake in the vices so much as I want to be a person who would partake. Like Montaigne, I have a certain uneasiness about me, wondering whether or not the lack of debauchery in my life is really a virtue. This is why my friend's words to me cut much deeper than they ought to have.
I suppose this is what the Bible is talking about when it forbids covetousness, though my interpretation of the Bible on this point is miles removed from the standard interpretation which views lust as a passion of the flesh. I believe that lust is a passion of the intellect. To desire pleasure is not lust, but to desire the gift of cruelty to offset one's lack of pleasure is. I would be wary of turning to the Bible or Christianity for a way out from such covetousness. Modern Christianity is full of coveting thy neighbor's sin to gloat in one's virtues. Christians secretly celebrate these vices, which they view as the types of vices good people should be prone to. Make every virtue dependent on some vice, and see whether or not corruption won't seep into the deepest corners of your institutions.
I have much more to say about the impoverishment of Christian sexual morality, but I believe that is a topic for a future essay. Let me attempt to draw this essay to a close by bringing us back around to the topic of remorse. Any decision you make can bring with it remorse, even the good decisions - even the decisions that fundamentally align with everything you believe to be right and true. Our culture is full of sexual remorse right now, and I don't mean remorse among those having sex. I mean remorse among those not having sex. It is this type of remorse that is tapped into when insults such as insel or simp are thrown around. It is this type of remorse my friend tapped into during our dinner conversation. It is, I think, incumbent on us to fight against this remorse.
I would point out that in this essay, I have specifically focused on a particular type of remorse, often associated with feelings of sexual inadequacy. By no means do I mean to suggest that this is the only type of remorse in my life, or even the primary type. I have focused on this type of remorse for three reasons: firstly because it is based on recent events in my life, secondly because it provides a good foil to Huxley’s Brave New World, and thirdly because this type of remorse is currently widespread and growing in our culture. There is a reason terms like “simp” and “incel” are widely used as insults. While Huxley foresaw the sexual revolution, I do not think he foresaw the level of resentment that would follow the revolution. Unless people are willing to talk about this type of remorse, it will never be understood or addressed. Still, what is said here of remorse in this regard is true of remorse in all regards. It is better to eliminate it than to dwell in the muck.
One of the reasons I do not take sides in today's culture wars is precisely because the sides are determined along the lines of the Brave New World on one hand and the reservation on the other, and those in the reservation are full of precisely that kind of contempt and remorse characteristic of the desire to attain vice for virtue's safe. This I cannot bear. There must be a third way, a way of reason. In this, Huxley's advice is well heeded.
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Footnotes:
* I started writing this essay the second week of January, 2025. It has taken me much time and thought to complete it, and in many ways it still feels incomplete.
*I would point out that I have studied Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics under two different philosophy Professors. The second professor, Heinz-Dieter Meyer, absolutely insisted that Aristotle believed the exact opposite from Montaigne. Meyer argued that Aristotle's position was, the more virtuous you are, the more your dispositions (i.e. habits) kick in and make you behave good automatically. The virtuous person experiences less temptation, not more.
*As of a google search I performed most recently on April 8, 2025.
Bibliography:
- Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World," HarperPerennial, 1998
- Michel De Montaigne, "On Cruelty"
- My copy: "Of Cruelty" as appears in Britannica Great Books, 1952 ed., Vol. 25, pp. 200 - 208
- Online: https://hyperessays.net/essays/on-cruelty/