9. Sex and Crime (Remastered)

Sex and Crime

R.J. Rushdoony

Romans 8:5-8, and our subject, ‘Sex and Crime.’ Romans 8:5-8

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

One of the opinions that are most current among many scholars, non-Christian scholars, is that the Fall was due to sex and as a result, the cause of crime is sexual. This opinion is very, very widespread among a tremendous variety of writers and thinkers. It is read into the Bible without any ground whatsoever for this opinion. In essence this is a pagan idea that has been revived.

A popular example of this opinion can be found in a book by former San Quentin Warden, Clinton Duffy in his book entitled Sex and Crime. And he maintains: 

“Sex is the cause of nearly all crime, the dominant force that drives nearly all criminals. After thirty-five years of correctional experience as warden of San Quentin prison, a member of the California Adult Authority and executive director of the San Francisco Council on Alcoholism, I’m convinced that it is a rare crime that can’t be traced to a sexual inadequacy of some sort.…

Criminals are plagued and puzzled and upset by sexual tensions, doubts, fantasies, anxieties and hungers. In my opinion 90 per cent of the men in our nation’s prisons are there because they couldn’t come to grips with the problem. We have had sex as long as we have had life and crime as long as we have had civilization, we can’t wipe out sex because we can’t wipe out crime. Only when we accept the relationship between the two can we make real progress in our everlasting battle against the forces of evil. We must understand that most crime is a result of sex and has to be treated as a sex problem.” ⁱ

Now this opinion is a very obvious absurdity, but it is a very, very popular and extensive one. There is a good reason for this opinion, and the reason is that, if they get popular acceptance of this opinion, which is exactly what they are trying to do through a variety of popular articles, publication of such thesis in newspapers and magazines, and there is scarcely a week where I don’t encounter this opinion either openly stated or implied, then what follows? Well, very obviously, if crime is due to sex, and to our sexual ideas and concepts and rules and regulations, then the way to eliminate crime is to eliminate or radically alter all present existing sexual practice. Do you get the implications now of this opinion? Just do away with our Christian body of laws which still govern, more or less, our sexual laws and standards, and you will then eliminate the cause of crime. This is the thesis. It isn’t always stated that openly, although it sometimes is in some more learned periodicals, but this is the reason for this increasingly popular thesis.

To cure and remove crime, change the sexual standard, wipe out Biblical Law. Then, if you have a humanistic standard, a ‘free love’ standard or whatever term you want to give it, then you can take sex towards a free and humane society. This is the thesis. Duffy’s book is a popular presentation of it, and yet ironically, Duffy’s book gives quite a bit of evidence against it when he does not intend to do so.

For example, in one chapter, Warden Duffy said that Orientals seldom ever ended up in San Quentin because of their strong family culture, and that it was extremely rare for a Japanese to ever be in prison. He stated further that Scandinavians are rarely in prison, the Irish earlier used to be, and when they do it is either because of drinking or fighting. The Germans are rarely in trouble and then because of acts of aggression. Italians because of gang activity, French when they are in prison, not too commonly, it is for sex offenses; Mexicans for crimes of violence and narcotics, but rarely after the age of 40. And he admitted that the overwhelming proportion of prisoners across country are Negro. He tried, of course, to wipe out this fact by stating that it was due to the fact that there is police prejudice against negroes. This might be true on occasion, but there is equally extensive evidence and greater evidence that there is leniency towards negroes. In many areas of the country, where a petty crime is involved, or drunkenness or fighting among negroes, the attitude of the police is to give a warning and to let them go, not to bother them too much. Thus, Duffy’s own experience makes clear that his evidence concerning the relationship of sex and crime is not true. But there does indeed seem to be some evidence of a racial link, although he denies this. 

On the other hand, the racial link is not the answer either. It changes. For example, 50-100 years ago the Irish were very heavily involved, because they were recent immigrants. Earlier the Germans were heavily involved, and then suddenly the German population in prison almost entirely disappeared and so on; you can trace the waves of immigrants as they came over. The first generation, many of them did get into trouble, the second generation this ceased in most cases. But today, with the younger generation, those under twenty-one, all of these groups that previously had no criminal background for sometimes two or sometimes three generations, are suddenly involved again. Is the answer race? Obviously not. It is a moral and spiritual breakdown.

Now, as I said, St. Paul stated the case very plainly. He said that those who go after the flesh, that is, that walk after the fallen human nature, do mind the things of that nature. But they that are after the spirit, that are governed by the Holy Spirit, are mindful of the things of the spirit. So to be carnally minded is death, that is, it works a habit of sin which is destructive of the life of the man spiritually and physically. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

The mind of the natural man, the unregenerate man, St. Paul goes on to say, is enmity against God. Because it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be without regeneration. Therefore those that are in the flesh cannot please God, quite the contrary. They are enemies of God, they hate God, they are not submissive to God's Law, in fact cannot be so apart from conversion. And therefore as Paul makes clear in the first chapter of Romans, such people pursue a course of religious lawlessness.

Now, it is this aspect of man that the humanist refuses to recognize. They are going to cure man’s criminality by eliminating some set of laws, the sexual laws for example. Or with the Marxists, the property laws and religion. But if you were to eliminate all these laws that every set of humanists wants, if you were to eliminate private property, if you were to eliminate all laws concerning Christian sexual standards, or any other set of laws that any group of humanists wants to abolish, you would still have crime because the ungodly are by nature law breakers. No matter how much you lower the standard, they will still break that standard because it is the nature of the unregenerate because he is at warfare with God to break every law, no matter how minimal. When man becomes his own God, it becomes an article of faith with him to assert his claim to godhood by violating all law not of his own choosing. Man then lives to break the law.

As a result, you do not decrease crime by eliminating the laws against crime, you only increase it. Make the situation as easy as you want, in the hope that: “Well, we have eliminated a lot of problems that people resent, laws that they don’t like, now they are going to be much more law-abiding.” Quite the contrary, it intensifies the lawlessness in them. As a result, the more a revolutionary generation breaks the law, the more violent it becomes. Because violations of a progressively lax standard require progressively more flagrant actions.

Thus, in the Roman Empire, when the laws against adultery and the laws against homosexuality were eliminated, what happened? Did the Romans thereafter become more law-abiding in their sexuality? On the contrary. Now, it meant that there were other things, other kinds of perversions, other kinds of depravity they had to explore and develop, so they could break the law because the whole idea was to break the law.

There was a poem about eight or ten years ago entitled the “The Sweet Life,” “La Dolce Vita.” And the key line in that, which dealt with, of course, moral degenerates and perverts, was the statement of two homosexuals. “If the whole world were converted to our position, what could we then do? What would we be sinning against?” Because, of course, their basic desire was to violate a standard, to sin against something. And if the whole world were of their kind, where would the sin be then? It would be their defeat.

Nietzsche said in his last book that the disbelief in God and immortality would create a world of violent men. And he was so right. At that point he mocked the humanists who said that the unbelieving man would treasure this life because it was his only one, and therefore he will be all the more anxious to live in peace. But God and immortality give meaning to life, and without this meaning life becomes cheaper and there is more violence and more murder. And Nietzsche was right; abolish this belief and there will be more warfare, more murder, more violence than man has ever imagined, and he looked forward to it.

The essence of the unregenerate is hatred of God as St. Paul said, a desire to break the law of God. His desire to be unbound, unfettered by law and responsibility, and also to shatter everything that is law abiding. As a result, he is a radically perverse man.

Someone once said, this was in the days of Louis the XIII and Louis XIV, to the Count de Gramont, and he did not deny it: 

“Is it not a fact that as soon as a woman pleases you, your first care is to find out whether she has any other lover, and your second how to plague her; for the gaining of her affection is the last thing in your thoughts. You seldom engage in intrigues but to disturb the happiness of others; a mistress who has no lovers would have no charms for you.” ⁱⁱ

And he agreed that that was right. His whole idea was to conquer somebody, and then to throw them over immediately. And the whole purpose of the gentleman of the day was described: 

“…a desire to seduce, and desert, for malicious sport.” 

And the “crown of victory” for the seducer was to do his work:

“…without the slightest emotional involvement, so that when the woman, conquered and submissive, begged at last; ‘At least, tell me that you love me!’ he could affect a disdainful smile and refuse.” ⁱⁱⁱ

As a result, as one observer commented, as love is judged by most, it resembles hate more than friendship. And this is true of what was called love in the Age of Reason. Such love was really hatred. A desire to break, to destroy; and it began, first of all, with a hatred of God. Natural man is at enmity with God and therefore against the principle of law everywhere, and so his desire is perpetually to destroy. Man as a god wants to be self-sufficient. As a result, to be dependent upon someone, and love is a dependency, is something that must be denied.

We saw a few months ago that the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, reduced women legally to a slave. And it could only wax poetic about a helpless woman. And the romantic poet, for example, that followed after the wake of the Enlightenment, could only see a totally helpless woman as lovable, one that they could take and use and throw aside, as Shelley for example delighted in doing. And Keats at one point in his poetry burbled about one love of his life:

God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats

For man’s protection. ^iv

And of course the idea is that you can cut a lamb’s throat as well.

Now, every hostility has as its other face a new sympathy. If you begin to hate something you previously liked, then you have a new liking for something else. If you hate God, then you are going to love everything that is anti-God, you will hate His Law, and therefore you will love crime.

As a result, one of the consequences of the Age of Reason was, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries what has been called the ‘Age of Pity,’ pity for the criminal. And pity for the criminal means no pity for the victim. It means, therefore, hostility against the innocent and law-abiding. It means a revolt against God's authority and all authority. When the Renaissance came along it unleashed in Western Civilization a revolt against authority and against law which we still have with us. For a time the Reformation set it back, but today the same forces of paganism that the Renaissance saw revived in Europe are again with us.

Let me quote from one writer who glorifies the Renaissance, his statement of the standard of the Renaissance. I quote: 

“The liberty sought by the arts (the notion of beauty is in itself disturbing, the arts have always been the shock troops of true revolution), the liberty sought out by science (this is already more dangerous, for established power as well as for those who idolize the past), the liberty sought out in language and mores were all part of one capital dynamic factor: individualism.

Through individualism, liberty seeks to attain the absolute, that which leads it beyond the concepts of good and evil, to authentic anarchy. The genius of the Renaissance often masks a profound and functional anarchy, which was not destructive, being dominated and held in check by pride. Pride alone permitted this luxurious anarchy which found its morality in art.

The perfect example of Renaissance man is the condottiere. Such a condottiere as Sigismondo Malestesta is the Renaissance summed up in one man. His individualism is equal to that of Bartolomeo Colleonia or Galeazzo Maria Sforza. The ‘anarchy’ of these warlords is based on the rejection of every law, human or divine.

Another famous condottiere, Werner von Usslingen, wore, engraved on his breastplate: Enemy of God, Compassion and Mercy. Men of this calibre, capable of such fierce hate, strongly marked the world arising from the ashes of the Middle Ages.

The violence of the Middle Ages was never free from obsession and cruelty, and above all the need to find a justification in invoking religious pretexts. The violence of the Renaissance did not for an instant seek to justify itself. The sentiment of guilt had disappeared, absorbed by that desperate ‘will to power’ which will be given a name four centuries later.

Nevertheless these condottieres introduced in their society an exterior element which ravaged the continent: the soldier of fortune—mercenary or Landsknecht—lords of pillage and rape. Their example, as well as their crimes’ impunity (war has always been a useful pretext to unleach the most infamous instincts under the cover of heroes’ natural ‘weaknesses’) strongly influenced their contemporaries.” ^v

And so he says that this was the glory of the Renaissance, it unleashed this lawlessness, and we are now beginning to realize the happy fruits of it. We are destroying God's law-order, and so we will be free to create our own society.

All of this points out the total error of the modern perspective, which seeks to base crime on sex, others on property, others on a variety of other causes. It underscores the religious aspect of all criminality. To be carnally minded is death. The carnal mind, the ungodly mind, is enmity against God for it is not subject or submissive to God’s Law, and indeed cannot be so. 

It is this enmity against God which is at the root of all criminality. It is important for us to realize this fact because we are getting through, and a variety of other things the same thesis that Clinton Duffy advocated. “Change sexual behavior, release it from Biblical Law, and you will free man from those forces in his being which have led to criminality.” And to this we must say, you will only increase criminality and lawlessness, because you will enthrone anti-Christian man in all his depravity.

Let us pray. 

* * *

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy Word and for thy government. We know, our Father, that as we are surrounded by a world of men at war with peace, that in this warfare, our Father, thy victory is certain. Make us strong therefore, our Father, in the defense of the faith, in the proclamation of thy Word, and in the extension of thy law-order; knowing, our Father, the certainty of thy victory, and the certainty of thy judgment upon the workers of iniquity. Strengthen us by thy Word and by thy Spirit, that we may ever serve thee in faith and assurance. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes. 

[Audience Member] Could you comment on the change in divorce laws, Dr. Rushdoony? ^vi

[Rushdoony] Yes, first of all, with respect to divorce, the concept of guilt is going to be abolished; this is the gist of the new law. Now, the idea is, why should a court affix blame, why should it affix guilt in a marital situation? Well of course, first of all, the Bible requires it. Secondly, what is to be done with the children and the disposition of the property if no guilt is affixed? In other words, what if the mother is a totally unfit mother? If no guilt is affixed, then the children are hers, automatically. So you see, by refusing to affix guilt, they are going to destroy any possibility of any equitable settlement of any family situation.

Second, this is a toe in the door. If there is no guilt in a marital situation, then what happens to the concept of guilt elsewhere in law? Well, the concept of guilt is a Christian concept. What is the concept with which they are seeking to replace guilt with? It is mental sickness. Already, as a part of any divorce proceedings, both parties must consult a counselor whose basic approach is psychological, mental health. But the mental health concept will be enthroned in marriage. The next step will be to introduce the mental health concept in place of the guilt concept with respect to every other crime.

So you see, this means the destruction of law as we have known it.

Yes? 

[Audience Member] Question about gold or gold miners.

[Rushdoony] Well, unfortunately they do. You referred to this fact of gold kept, of course it has been a chronic fact in gold mines from the beginning of time, and the Soviet Union has been executing those that steal gold from the mines, but they are still stealing it. Now, of course according to these people it is a sexual crime and they need to have their behavior changed sexually. I don’t know how they could change it much for the worse with some miners I have known in Nevada. But at any rate, that is the answer. So what are you going to do with these people? Hand them over to the psychiatrists for a period of psychotherapy. Now, this means of course the whole thing breaks down very quickly.

[Audience Member] Was Nietzsche an out-and-out atheist? ^vii

[Rushdoony] He was, thoroughly. But he was an honest atheist, and of course in his perversity he welcomed the total violence. You will find this statement of what is going to happen in his last book, Ecce Homo. But he very definitely declares and welcomes the coming total anarchy, lawlessness, violence, continual warfare, that he felt his kind of philosophy would produce. And of course we are getting exactly what Nietzsche said, but the humanists don’t seem to like it as much as Nietzsche did.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Question about the cause of crime. 

[Rushdoony] Yes, this is a similar kind of thing, it is a humanistic belief that the cause of crime is somewhere other than in man’s relationship to God. It is going to be in his acceptance basically, of a God-given law-order. This is what they are saying, in one form or another, whether that God-given law-order is with reference to sex or to property, or whatever. It is God’s law-order that is the cause of mental sickness. It is just a question of what area of law they are going to emphasize. So the opinion you cited is a part of this sickness, very definitely.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Surely this lawlessness will not be creative of anything but more lawlessness! ^viii

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, it will only create continuing and perpetual anarchy. However what they do believe is this, and Henry Miller has stated it most plainly, and I refer to this, I believe, in This Independent Republic. He believes that if we have a couple centuries of total anarchy, total lawlessness, during this time, civilization will disappear, the ability to read and write will disappear, all kinds of perversions will so thoroughly prevail that men and women will scarcely know what sex they are. Then after two centuries of that kind of total destruction, the time of the assassins, as it were, then will come a truly free and innocent society. Man will then be able to live like the animals, peacefully without a bad conscience.

Yes? 

[Audience Member] Haven’t they learned their lesson from the French Revolution and its results? ^ix

[Rushdoony] Well, their attitude would be, “The French Revolution was a good beginning, but we need to have something total, worldwide and then this paradise will flower automatically.”

[Audience Member] To my mind there is no great monolithic conspiracy, but rather many groups vying for power within a broad grouping with similar objectives. ^x

[Rushdoony] Right, there are degrees in this, some are grasping for power, but what does their humanistic law involve? It involves a destruction of every kind of godly law. They have no concept of law. So what are they going to do when they gain total power? I think Orwell, who was one of these socialists and one-worlders,- presented it very clearly in Ninety-Eighty Four, it will be power for the sake of power, so that the best picture ultimately will be a boot stamping endlessly on a human face.

This of course is what they propose to do. But God is on the throne, and they are, in spite of themselves, serving God. One of the very wonderful statements of Scripture is:

Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee:

Psalm 76:10.

In other words, even the raging of man against God will serve God and be to His glory. So that, while we do have difficult days, the net result of all of this will be their own destruction.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Aren’t we going to be rescued by the Rapture? ^xi

[Rushdoony] We are not going to be raptured out of it, we are going to work our way through it by the grace of God and by a real dedication to His Law-Word.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Why weren’t they at all concerned that their predictions of what they would find on the moon when they landed, given their evolutionary presuppositions, failed to come true? ^xii

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, of course there has been nothing in the moon landing that has served their evolutionary purposes, and you are true, they were earlier fearful that the first man to land on the moon would sink into thirty feet of cosmic dust that had accumulated over millions of years on the face of the moon. However, none of this is going to weigh at all with them because they are bent on seeing every evidence as evidence of their position in spite of everything.

Our time is just about up; I have one announcement to make. 

On Saturday, August the 16th, at the conference room, 413 North Branch in Glendale, we will have our Chalcedon seminar for college students and college-age students, and the subject will be “The Spirit of the Modern Age.” What is the motive power of the modern age? Why are there drop outs and drop ins? What is the establishment? Are we at the end of an age? Why is Berkeley the inevitable result of Public school education? These are the kinds of questions that Gary North and I will be dealing with. The conference will begin at 9:45 a.m. and continue to 4:30 p.m. The registration fee is $5, and lunch will be provided. So if you know of any college age young people that you would like to see there, this is open to any and all, whether Christian or not. Please come and take some of the registration forms and pass it on to them. Thank you.

i. Clinton T. Duffy with Al Hirshberg, Sex and Crime (New York: Doubleday; Pocket Books, 1965, 1967), p. 1.

ii. Morton M. Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), p. 263.

iii. Morton M. Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), p. 279.

iv. Morton M. Hunt, The Natural History of Love (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), p. 279.

v. Lo Duca, A History of Eroticism (Covina, Calif.: Collectors Publications, 1966), pp. 139–142. Adapted from the French by Kenneth Anger.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.