RETROREC: an Open Letter.

Retroactive Reciprocity:

The Messiah came too late

Now it’s God who has to wait

For while He cooked up His Great Plan

The burden fell to Common Man.

What we salvage of His Word

Helps us cope with the Absurd.

That which He has careless written

By contrast, our hand at last has

Smitten.

That which He has set in motion

Owes him no longer devotion.

Stronger for his absence leaves

No man naive who lonely grieves.

All the prayers that went unheeded

All because God never heard

Made it clear that He conceded

To us every careless Word.

Dm.A.A.

You know, there is one refuge I have found in all of this. I had forgotten it, but it’s something I must fall back upon. I should be proud of my virginity, since I equate it with moral superiority.

Now, if you disagree, do hear me out. It’s actually very simple and self-evident.

One might wonder: what does sexuality have to do with morality? I mean: clearly if being a good person does not guarantee that I will lose my virginity, then why must losing my virginity make me a worse one? Yet, as an egalitarian, it should be obvious that it must be one or the other. It’s precisely BECAUSE so many good people might go their whole lives without once having known sex, for entirely nebulous and absurd “reasons”, with absolutely no promise of reprieve, that we must retain this one silver lining. The world does not revolve around the ego of the person who surrenders morality in order to have a higher chance at getting laid; that person makes a sacrifice, and that’s what sex should be regarded as. Yes: to the narcissist, it’s only logical that sex and morality should be entirely divorced from one another; recognizing that morality cannot be employed as a means to a satisfying end, the egoist regards it as inferior but seeks thereby to retain it once the end is met. But being fair means that there has to be SOME sort of compensation. Either being good entitles you to having sex, or not having sex makes you better. It doesn’t get more liberal than that. Besides: it’s not like people who ARE moral consistently can be convicted of the same egoism; morality must be regarded as transcendent if it is to be effective, and since all people benefit from being treated as equals, it’s in our nature to be moral.

With Alanna, there was an unspoken understanding, even before she confessed the extent of her sins to me, that the experiential superiority she had to me was counterbalanced by the moral superiority I had to her; in this way, and ONLY in this way, we retained the fundamental equality which we had when we first met, as virgins. The very moment she gained one leg up over me (vulgar pun intended?) she lost the other. Sex was a trade, (pardon the term “sex trade”) and people must remember that it’s called LOSING one’s virginity FOR a REASON. People who try to talk around this problem want to call the loss of one’s virginity a “sexual debut”. But certainly for many people this debut never comes. We don’t have to live good lives DESPITE this fact; we have the right to live good lives BECAUSE of it. The fact is: if being good does not guarantee sex, plenty of people have a better chance at having sex by being amoral, like the traditional depiction of the Joker, doing good things part-time, when it is convenient, and reaping the benefits of an egalitarian society that rewards good behavior even in people for whom bad behavior is a totally relative option.

Calling us equals DESPITE the fact also does no good. Unlike race or gender, (engendered gender, in the original sense of the word) sex is a choice, like goodness. I used to think that being virginal made people more attractive by default, since every person who has ever had sex was a virgin for a long time hitherto. I found you attractive since I thought that you might be a virgin. You still are, regardless, but I know now that not everybody feels and thinks this way. Why should I feel inferior because of it? Simply because in Practice people use their past experience against me, threatening to turn human sexuality into the sort of dominance hierarchy we find tragically in other parts of the animal kingdom.

It is healthiest this way: a balance of extremes. One person may possess an experience which the other may never have, despite the fact that it would only take the other five minutes to change this and set the former on the course to outrageous pleasure and success. The former retains a virtue which the other may never win back in this lifetime, even by avenue of a willful celibacy. Pardon another vulgar pun, but I can’t help it: Man’s Extremity is God’s Opportunity. This way, children will think twice about losing it, and those who do think twice will feel no insecurity in waiting. The Christians were ingenious, and as millennials we can retain what they got right and use it against all that they turned into elitism.

One might ask: but does this not predispose people to needless guilt? In fact, it dispossesses those people of guilt who need the comfort most, for we will feel inferior regardless of your rationalizations, and so long as we are systematically excluded we will find some moral rationalization by which to blame ourselves, once we have realized we can’t blame you for having what we want. At least we need not blame ourselves for wanting what you have!!

Then one might ask: but is this not a gateway to emotional blackmail and spiritual abuse? You might expect non-virgins to be lured into compromising circumstances in such a moral climate, but in fact it is not so. They know they can’t undo their past, so it is up to them whether to drag their fellows to their level. This way, each time a non-virgin rejects a virgin, the virgin may smile, for the non-virgin chose to protect the virgin’s moral superiority, and by the disparity between them there is genuine equality even in separation. And the non-virgin may be grateful that the virgin was willing to give all that up out of sheer love, however myopic the expression might seem (and you must admit that it’s far more grandiose in this light). The fact is: we do betray our virgin friends when we become non-virgins, especially when we reject them later and forbid them to follow in our footsteps. The least one can do is say: it’s for your own good; you are my superior in virtue, and you’re better off this way, though I may hurt you. I start to speak in poetry just thinking it.

Alanna wanted me to cope by believing in God. I did, for some time. But I have someone better now: Myself.

Thanks for showing me the Light.

Now you know that it’s All Right.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]