Consent Devours Itself
The most egregious distortion of reality today is manifested in transgender ideology, however the transgender movement is merely a symptom of our civilizations rejection of the natural law. Instead, the Western nations have made an idol of consent, thus confusing what is willed with what is good. This idol is often worshiped on the altar of sex and all things related to sex—family, marriage, divorce, adultery, feminism, contraceptives, fornication, abortion, homosexuality, pornography and transgenderism. While transgenderism is the most easily visible perversion of nature, any sex outside the confines of marriage is a perversion of the inherit purpose and goodness of sex.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes that "every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." Thus every appetite is initially aimed at something good. For instance, when we thirst and hunger, our appetite is directed at the good of nurturing the body. Likewise, the natural appetite for sex is directed at the good of procreation. However, just as the good of nurturing the body can be perverted, either in excess (i.e. gluttony) or in deficiency (e.g. anorexia) so too can the good of sex.
To further understand how sex is perverted, it is important to first understand love. Love, in its fullest essence is to will the good of another for his own sake. This is often called agapê. Now all forms of love—romantic, filial, friendly, collegial, fraternal, etc.—are forms of agapê, but each form of love is manifested in a unique way. Alexander Pruss argues that “the best way to differentiate the forms of love is by means of the union they impel one to.” The union of a marriage, friendship, offspring, employee or sibling are distinct forms of love:
One seeks a real union appropriate to or expressive of the form of love. With a colleague, this union may be an intellectual conversation, but it will not take this form with an infant. One will unite with infant by hugging, but probably not so with a stranger. What differentiates the forms of love is not so much the benevolent or appreciative aspects, nor even the formal union part of the unitive aspect, but the kinds of real union that the relationship calls for. Indeed, we can think of some kinds of real union as paradigmatic of the form of love, and as consummating the form of love.
It is important that our love for people have a form that is appropriate to the beloved, to ourselves, and to the relationship. It is inappropriate to love an adult child with the form of love that one has for an infant—that would be a distortion.
We are well aware of the fact that people can love others in the wrong way, and that creates a problem for an ethic of love. For if doing right is simply acting in accordance with love, then how can one love in the wrong way? If the sum total of morality is found in love, the answer to this question has to be grounded in a demand of love. This demand is, I take it, that the love take a form that is appropriate to the lover, beloved and their relationship. This is one way in which love is responsive to reality: love needs to take a form which fits the reality of the situation.
Romantic love is properly expressed in the procreative union between one man and one woman. This union is called marriage. The union of a same sex couple is thus a perversion of romantic love. Likewise, all sexual perversions are perversions of the romantic form of love. The one sexual perversion that has not been accepted and celebrated is pedophilia, but that is quickly changing. A United Nations report,
…advises lawyers, judges and law enforcement to consider “the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them” when considering enforcement of laws about sex with minors.
The report continues: “Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees.”
In other words… “the report calls for sex between adults and minors to be decriminalized, so long as the minors ‘consent’.
This is a prime example of consent devouring itself. Modern liberals reduce the totality of morality to consent, thus confusing what is willed with what is good. Aquinas defines consent as “the application of the appetitive movement to the decision of counsel” or as Damascene says “after judging, man approves and embraces the judgment of his counselling, and this is called [consent]". Consent is thus the free movement of the will towards a desired good. It is not the will that determines what is good. When the rational will, through right reason and a healthy conscience, consents, the goodness of the consensual act presupposes an objective good.
For example, the problem with pedophilia is not merely that the child has not offered his consent, but that a sexual relationship between an adult and a child is an intrinsically disordered perversion of the romantic form of love. Our basic intuition understands this to be the case. Parents have an obligation to cultivate virtue, educate, nourish and provide authentic catechesis to their children irrespective of the child's consent. These things are intrinsically good, which is why we do not object to them. It would be irresponsible to allow a child to only eat ice cream simply because he has not given his consent to eat his broccoli. That would be a kind of malnourishment. Similarly, pedophilia is intrinsically disordered and evil irrespective of the child's consent.
In normal cases the rational will aligns with the good, which is why in most cases liberals still understand murder, slavery and rape as evil. In other words, most people do not desire or will to be murdered, enslaved or raped. For example the sin of rape perverts the very purpose of sexuality. It is an act of sexual violence. The rapist seeks only to fulfill his own gratification and desire through the objectification of another person's body. In other words, a person is treated as a mere instrument and means. Now a disordered will where a woman consents to this sexual violence, domination and objectifaction, although decreasing the severity of the act, does not change a sexually perverted act into a good act. Likewise, a depressed individual seeking ‘euthanasia’ who consents to his own murder cannot make an act of murder good. Similarly, an individual who consents to selling himself into perpetual slavery — to reject his own dignity as a person created in the image of God to be owned as property — does not make slavery good. All these examples are cases of consent devouring itself.
Another way of understanding consent is an act of the will to authorize a particular act. This presumes that what is authorized is subject to a person's authority. Thus, for example, it is within the proper authority of a property owner to consent to someone borrowing his property or giving his property to charity. It is not within his authority to give someone else's property away. Valid consent, therefore, “requires a preexisting right to authorize a course of action.” Our consent has moral significance only if the authorized act is morally permissible.
The current transgender movement is still recognized by the majority of Americans as disordered. Most Americans understand that what is willed (i.e. consent) cannot magically change a male into a female. However, many of these Americans often view the transgender movement as a minor issue, but this is only because they cannot connect the symptom (transgenderism) with the fundamental cause (liberalism). In other words, all of the nations sexual sins — feminism, divorce, adultery, same-sex ‘marriage’, homosexuality, fornication, abortion, pornography and transgenderism — is largely the consequence of ignoring the natural law. Unlike transgenderism, the sins of divorce, fornication and pornography are so common that a majority of the nation cannot recognize them as sins. We often witness the disastrous consequences of these disordered behaviors, especially in the breakdown of the family, while refusing to recognize the root cause.
Thus rather than being a minor issue, these cultural issues are the most fundamental political issues. This is not a coincidence as it was explained in prophecy by Sister Lucia dos Santos, of Fatima. In an interview with Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Sister Lucia said,
the final battle between the Lord and the reign of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Don’t be afraid…because anyone who operates for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be contended and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue…however, Our Lady has already crushed its head.
Contrary to liberalism, what is willed is not equivalent to what is good. Rather than will ordered to reason, truth and the good, liberalism prioririzes our own subjective preferences and desires, thus turning consent into an idol. It is the primacy of consent that is devouring Western civilization.