Chastity can be understood as the virtue of self-possession. Being chaste entails integrating one's sexuality into one's whole life as a human person. Acting in a chaste way means not being controlled by biological urges. Rather these urges or 'passions' are integrated into one's self-understanding as a sexual being made in the image of God and engaging with other sexual beings who are themselves made in the image of God. Being chaste means taking control of one's desires and energies and directing them to those goods that are most rewarding, most meaningful and that most support one's own flourishing and the flourishing of others. It means making conscious choices about how one directs one's sexual identity towards, in, and through intimate relationships expressing a comprehensive understanding of the meaning of love and respect, seeing as God sees. Acting chastely involves treating individuals as human persons in their own right and not as mere objects of desire. Chastity means treating people with respect and care. Being chaste also Includes showing respect and care for one's own body. A person's own body is not an object but rather an integrated entity integrating body, mind and spirit. 'Much emotional pain and chaos is the result of trivializing sex and ignoring the value of chastity and purity. Sexual passion is only something of depth when it is related to chastity and purity. Passion and chastity, sex and purity of heart and mind, must be brought together. … Thus, we are chaste when we relate to others in a way that does not transgress their moral, psychological, emotional, aesthetic, and sexual boundaries' (Rolheiser, 1999 pp. 201-202).
Growth in the virtue of chastity and in sexual integration is a developmental and life-long process. People can practice chastity in different ways at different times of their lives. As a young person this usually means abstaining from genital sexual intercourse before marriage, because only in marriage is the full goodness of the sexual relationship between a man and a woman realized. However, it also means learning to embrace one's sexual identity as a man or a woman and to learn how to relate meaningfully, deeply, intimately and justly with members of both sexes through the development of friendships. In marriage, chastity in relation to sexuality means, above all, faithfulness to one's spouse, respect for one's partner's sexual desires or lack thereof at different times and mindfulness of how genital sexual intimacy serves the unitive and generative ends of marriage through conjugal love and procreation respectively. But here too friendship is an important aspect of living chastely. For some people chastity can mean a choice not to get married and therefore not to engage in genital intimacy either for a time or throughout a whole lifetime. Such a decision may be made to achieve some other good, such as the pursuit of a particular career or committing to a celibate life in the service of Christ and his Church. Chastity involves self-mastery and contributes to our living wholeheartedly as multidimensional beings with body, mind and spirit. In this way chastity helps the individual to integrate various dimensions of the self in the pursuit of the most noble goods for oneself and others especially the good of love, the greatest of the virtues. One cannot be a truly loving person if one is not also a chaste person.
When we look at the Catholic perspective on particular moral issues related to sexual activity, it is easy and tempting to reduce the perspective to a list of rules: do not masturbate; do not have sex outside of marriage; do not use contraception of any form; use only natural family planning methods to regulate the birth of offspring. But such reductionism, whilst seemingly expedient, is really quite useless. Let's face it, for many people, 'rules are made to be broken'. But reducing moral issues related to sexuality to a list of rules is useless for another, far more important reason. It reduces morality to certain actions or the avoidance of certain actions and removes such actions from the deeper context of meaning for which these morals norms (rules) have been developed. It removes moral actions from the wealth of experience of generations of human beings and societies and from the reflection on human experience by some of the greatest minds to have lived. Also, it removes ways of acting from the context of their deeper spiritual and religious significance. As with the rules of the road that exist to keep us safe on the road and to ensure that we don't accidentally kill one another, the moral norms concerning sexual practice serve both to protect us and our societies from the undesirable consequences of irresponsible behaviour, and to help us to achieve the fullness of the good things for which we were created, that is to live wholeheartedly in a community of love and justice. In other words, there is little point in simply telling someone not to do something. We need to explain the reasoning behind the prohibition. We also must offer goals for what one should be doing. Put simply, masturbation, sex outside of marriage, and contraception are proscribed in the Catholic perspective because there are much better ways to live out our sexuality, ways that are better for us and for others. The prohibitions exist not because sex and sexuality are bad but rather precisely because sex and sexuality are good. The Catholic perspective wants human beings to experience the goodness of sex and sexuality in the best way. So, knowing what these better ways are and why we should aspire to them is essential to the formation of conscience. With this knowledge, we are better informed to make free choices about how we behave and the moral meanings of our behaviour. The theoretical background to these 'better ways' has been laid out in detail in previous sections, particularly the idea that human beings are made in the image of God, have inherent dignity and are sexual and relational beings called to form communities of love reflecting God's Trinitarian love in the world. Please refer to these previous sections for more information on the background to what follows.
The rhetorical questions below will help to reveal what is better. Focus for the moment on the actions themselves rather than the circumstances. What would you rather do: i. masturbate by yourself or make love to another person? ii. make love to another person using a condom or without one? iii. ingest chemicals to prevent unwanted pregnancies or do so without the need for such chemicals? iv. have to face the choice of having an abortion, or not have to face that choice at all? v. have to tell someone that you have a sexually transmitted disease, or not have such a disease at all? vi. be in a relationship characterized by fear and doubt, or one characterized by trust and mutual respect? If we are honest with ourselves, the second option in each of the above questions is the more desirable one. The Catholic perspective thinks so too, and suggests that the way to realise the relationship of mutual trust and respect in question (vi) is by avoiding masturbation and by making love without contraceptives in the context of permanent marital bond. The regulation of childbirth can be achieved by natural family planning.