seducing the New and of America seducing Europe. Italy andrnFrance, it seems to me, have both extremes; pagan licentiousnessrnand medieval Christian chastity. In Eugenio Corti’s IIrncavallo rosso (a novel covering the decades of the 1940’srnthrough the 70’s), young men of different social classes—peasants,rnworkers, industrialists—display a chastity and modesty towardrnwomen that would be inconceivable among the most piousrnChristians in America, where our habit of compromise andrnmoderation makes it difficult to sustain extremes of either vicernor virtue. It goes without saying that the weaknesses of the fleshrnare to be found everywhere, often in the company of hypocrisiesrnof the spirit, but social ideals count for much. Manzoni’s greatrnnovel I promessi sposi includes a masterful portrait of lust, pride,rnand hypocrisy in the Nun of Monza, but the heroine, a simplernuneducated girl, is a study in piety and modesty. The correspondingrnheroines of American literature, from Hester Prynnernto Scarlett O’Hara, are, in comparison, gross and lewd. (I searchrnfor counterexamples of forceful fictional women who are modelsrnof chastity, and the best I can come up with is Simms’rnKatherine Walton. I am sure there are other, better examples,rnbut in French literature, for example, one can find examplesrnfrom Corneille or even la belle prude in Laclos’ vicious novelrnLes liaisons dangereuses.)rnIn America, we have succeeded in making pornographyrnmainstream and prime time, while at the same time persuadingrnour clergy that they are justified, when they are off-duty, inrntelling indecent stories. Even from the pulpit I have heard scatologicalrnand anatomical references that a sailor would havernblushed to make in a lady’s presence, only a generation ago. InrnRome, on the other hand, the contrast was shocking, betweenrnthe convent on the Gianiculo, where we spent a week, and thernlewdness of Italian popular culture that assaults you from everyrnbillboard and TV screen.rnEven the concepts of chastity and virginity are problematicrnin America. They are too untechnieal, too absolute. Chastityrnimplies a cleanliness of habits patiently practiced for years; onerndoes not, in the ordinary course of a life, suddenly see the lightrnand discover chastity at a tent revival; it cannot be sold in prescriptionrnform or patented as a device or acquired through therapy.rnOnly by practicing and thinking chastity, can we become,rnbit by bit, more chaste.rnIn America, however, we do things the easy way, with publicrnpledges to be “Promise Keepers” or second-chance virgins.rnI’m sorry kids, but if you spend five years hopping from bed tornbed, there is no way you can reacquire your virginity, and to pretendrnthat you can is not only an insult to the girls who have saidrnno, but it is positive proof that you have learned nothing. Thernself-deception of the born-again virgins is on a level with the appealsrnfor clemency made by convicted murderers: who, if theyrnreally had repented, would accept the death penalty as just retribution.rnThe Promise Keepers are even more obtuse than the oncernand future virgins. The brainchild of Colorado University footballrncoach Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers brmg togetherrnthousands of epicene sports fans in stadiums all over the countryrnand commit them to keeping seven promises, some of themrnperfectly innocuous on the surface and others that put the PKsrnsquarely in the sublimely loony tradition of American cults. Inrnfact, some conservative Protestants (Herman Often at thernChristian News, in particular) have dissected the various heresiesrnpromoted by the PKs, pointing out that several of therngroup’s leaders, including McCartney himself, claim to havernreceived direct revelations from Jesus Christ.rnOn the surface. Promise Keepers might appear to be just onernmore Evangelical self-help group, asking its members to commitrnthemselves to “honoring Jesus Christ,” and to “practicingrnspiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.” (One wonders howrnCoach McCartney would go about distinguishing the moralrnfrom the ethical.) If these promises sound all too much like thernconfessional statement of a new religion, some Evangelical criticsrnhave suspected exactly that, wondering why a new originationrnis needed to tell men what their pastors are already sayingrnfrom the pulpit. I suppose the PKs would reply (Promise Five)rnthat “a shocking number of pastors find themselves weary,rnwounded, discouraged and struggling with feelings of inadequacy.”rnIf several of the new commandments are boilerplate stuff,rnothers are more original. For example, a PK is “committed tornpursuing vital relationships with a few other men.” If thisrnmeans only that a PK should be a loyal friend, the commandmentrnwould be harmless enough, but, no, the PK can’t just berna friend, he has to be a sensitivity counselor who meets with arnsmall group of men several times a month in a self-criticism sessionrnat which each of the members “willingly grants the othersrnthe right to inquire about his relationship to God, his commitmentrnto his family, his sexuality, and his financial dealings.”rnMost men I know would punch out anyone who presumedrnto make such inquiries, and any married man who talks aboutrnhis “sexuality” (presumably his relations with his wife) ought tornbe horsewhipped and branded with a scarlet “A” for the part ofrnthe anatomy he cannot distinguish from a hole in the ground.rnThe problem here is chastity. What is the difference betweenrnputting your nude wife on a billboard or talking dirtyrnabout her with a bunch of the guys? This is not a trick question,rnnot for a sane man. The trouble is that we have come to seernchastity almost exclusively as a “thou shalt not,” a conscious refusalrnto give into temptation rather than a positive virtue thatrninfuses our soul with radiance. Chastity is not reducible to virginity;rnit can occur in different forms. As St. Ambrose observed,rn”There are three forms of the virtue of chastity, the firstrnis that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third thatrnof virgins,” none of which is to be praised to the exclusion ofrnothers. It is not enough not to cheat on our wives; chastity requiresrnus to avoid pornography, including the domestic manufacturesrnof our own imaginations, but more than an avoidancernof evil, chastity compels a married man to cultivate the good, arnsentiment approaching reverence for his wife, a desire to protectrnher from contamination.rnWithout a sense of shame, there is no chastity. For thernGreeks, Aidos (shame) was a powerful and divine force teachingrnus right from wrong. In Plato’s dialogue that bears hisrnname, Protagoras told a myth of men living like savages, evenrnafter Prometheus has given the gifts of fire and technology. Finally,rnZeus sends Hermes to endow the human race withrnshame (aidos) and justice (dike), which will enable men to livernin political communities. Anyone lacking these virtues, enjoinsrnZeus, must be killed as a plague. The “private parts” werernaidoia (that is, shameful), not because they were a source ofrnembarrassment but because they inspired a reverential modesty.rnGreek women were, for the most part, kept under closernwatch, not because Greek men were particulariy patriarchal—rnpatriarchy is, as Steve Goldberg observes, an “inevitability” tornwhich there are no exceptions—but because their chastity wasrnOCTOBER 1996/9rnrnrn