“A Discourse on Fornication shewing the greatness of that sin, and examining the excuses pleaded for it, from the examples of antient times” by John Turner is a piece written for men of John Turner’s parish outlining the sinfulness of fornication. Turner’s disapproval of fornication and adultery is evident as he condemns fornicators to a life of torment and hell. Turner develops three main arguments regarding the dismissal of fornication; that fornication is against God’s law of marriage, fornication is forbidden by the Bible, and fornication results in other sins. At the center of Turner’s focus lies the danger of women and their ability to lure even the holiest man into the realm of unholy adulterers. Turner’s “Discourse on Fornication” is a piece written for men stressing the dangers of women and their ability to seduce men into adultery.
John Turner, a lecturer of Christ Church in London, wrote “A Discourse on Fornication” at the request of the male members of his parish. The piece is founded on that fact that fornication, although popular with men and women at the time, results in sinfulness and a loss of God. This piece fits neatly within the eighteenth-century scope of male fears of women as bringers of sin and the sin caused by these women because Turner’s devotes countless pages teaching the men of his parish how to resist the sinfulness of women. Turner quotes a bible passage that says, “Keep thee from the Evil Women, from the Flattery of the Tongue of a strange Woman, Lust not after her Beauty in thine Heart, Neither let her take their with her Eye lids; for by means of a Whorish Woman a Man is brought to a Piece of Bread” (Turner, 46). This quote evokes a fear of women’s sexuality, physical beauty, and ability to corrupt holy men with their sinfulness. This passage takes the blame of fornication off of men and places it directly onto women. Turner’s argument is consistent with the argument of many men from the eighteenth century and, unfortunately, today, that women born of Eve are responsible for the fall of man and for all of man’s sins. Turner’s invocation of women as the bringers of sin, as well as a number of arguments about treacherous female prostitutes and concubines, attempts to teach his male audience about the importance of being on guard against women.

In Turner’s eyes, women are dangerous creatures who lead men into adulterous relationships against the Lord. Turner makes a few suggestions to the men in his parish on how to proceed with the temptations of women, saying:

Deliver thy self therefore from the strange Woman, even from the Stranger that flattereth with her Words, which forsaketh the Guide of her Youth, and forgetteth the Covenant of her God. For her House inclineth to Death, and her Paths unto the Dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the Paths of Life. And especially, remember that Faith into which you have been baptiz’d; know what manner of Spirit you are of,* and consider the end of your Conversation.  Turner, 54

In this single passage, Turner equates women to fornication and fornication to death, therefore encouraging his male readers to fear women. Where does Turner’s fear of women originate? Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble touches upon the fact that society often excludes “those who fail to conform to unspoken normative requirements of the subject” (Butler, 6). The women Turner suggests lure men into adulterous relationships are the exact subjects Judith speaks of in her investigation of gender, sex, and desire. Women who participated in adultery do not fit into the traditional, Christian marriage norm Turner urges the men in his parish to seek. Turner fears women who engage in adultery because they do not fit the ideal Christian woman. During the eighteenth-century, women and their bodies were meant to be wholly operated and controlled by men, specifically, husbands. Women who engage in fornication suddenly have bodies with power, the power to ruin a holy man. Butler says, “this association of the body with the female works along magical relations of reciprocity whereby the female sex becomes restricted to its body, and the male body, fully disavowed, becomes, paradoxically, the incorporeal instrument of an ostensibly radical freedom” (Butler, 12). The women Turner fears have bodies that are fully disavowed and demonstrate the freedom associated with male bodies. These women are therefore threats to the societal norm Turner exists within, resulting in the extreme apprehension towards women demonstrated in Turner’s arguments against fornication. “A Discourse on Fornication” is a way for Turner to reconcile the fact that women demonstrate a sort of sexual freedom through fornication and, ultimately, have power that is regularly associated with men.

Work Cited
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Turner, John. “A Discourse on Fornication shewing the greatness of that sin, and examining the excuses pleaded for it, from the examples of antient times.” London. 1698. Print.