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A Discourse on Fornication

A Discourse on Fornication Analysis: The Dangers of Women

“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.

A Discourse on Fornication

A Discourse on Fornication Analytical Response

“A Discourse on Fornication” Response

John Turner’s 1698 text “A Discourse on Fornication” uses Biblical references to center its argument around Christianity and immoral sexual behavior. Similar to other texts regarding sexuality in the eighteenth century, “A Discourse on Fornication” focuses its attention on identifying the deviancy of sexual behavior. Turner goes as far as labeling sexual activity outside of the institution of marriage as an ultimate sin. The text creates its argument by comparing acts of men against God’s “Original Institution”, emphasizing that adultery and fornication violate the Christian ideals of good, and fornicators are refusing their chances at the pure and holy life.

The argument cements itself around the works of God and His approval: there is no discussion of societal assumptions of gender or sex, but an in-depth look at God’s proposed plan and man’s ability to follow his word. Turner blames man’s downfall on their ability to succumb to vice: “the looseness of men’s manners has corrupted their judgments, and defaced their sense of good evil”. Nothing can fall between, no one can be in a purgatory of morality: one is either good, or evil, and sexual deviance leaves you to the “humiliation of God”.

The language of the text is loaded with statements that emphasize patriarchal power structures. Turner speaks on the foul nature of adultery, “especially on the woman’s side, where there is a manifest injury to the whole family”. Women are not seen as their own, but as vehicles that carry their families and are therefore responsible for their moral uplift—or downfall.

Turner’s discourse places emphasis on traditional heterosexual institutions of marriage. It is reiterated through the text that man’s body is not his to own, but it is a possession of God, and one must conduct themselves through the principles of God. Women’s bodies are commodities under male possession and must give themselves to men and become “one flesh”. There is no idea of bodily autonomy; one’s body is not just theirs to own and conduct, but it is a “Servant of God” and must be used to carry out his deeds; bodies are not for individual pleasure, but for servicing those above you:

Christ was raised from the Dead, that he might raise us also to Immortality: and therefore we are bound not to live unto our selves, by giving up our Bodies to Pleasure in the Lusts of the Flesh; but to devote our selves to the Service of that Great God who made us, and to the Obedience of Christ, who died to expiate our Guilt.

Christian morals often center themselves around guilt and the duty of man to obey and service Christ. Man’s existence is validated by spreading the word of God and following the ‘right’ path. By using the Old Testament as the basis of his arguments, all of Turner’s points are his own reconstruction of biblical literature, and how he perceives God’s word: “We are commanded also to be Holy; and Holiness is expressly declared to be that qualification without which no Man shall see the Lord”. There is no salvation if there is no obedience.  Turner strongly emphasizes the evil of all vices, but the language surrounding sexuality places sexual activity in a negative light, deeming it impure and vile. The text stigmatizes sex and any sort of lustful behavior, referring to sexual activity as “vile affection”. Desire is viewed condition under strict religious rule—it is viewed as a problem, not a feeling.

Turner relates vice to uncleanliness; those who indulge their pleasures are not clean to the eyes of God and his disciples:

He becomes in every sence polluted and defiled.*Every other Sin that a Man doth is without the Body, but he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own Body. The Prophane is injurious to God, and the Fraudulent to his Brother, and the Mischief of all other Sins falls first at a distance from ones self. But the Mischief of Fornication falls more immediately on the Offenders own Head; his own Body is debased in the very Trespass he has committed.

Those who succumb to sexual vices are “Harlots, Jezebels, and Whoremongers” who will be denied entrance to God’s kingdom. To sin against the body is to commit an ultimate crime: one is sinning against the gift that God has given you.

The article “A Discourse on Fornication” gave clear insights into the opinions on sexual deviancy during the eighteenth century. As noted in some of the texts we read for class, such as Trumbach and Harvey, the enlightenment was allowing for more leniency regarding the culture around sexuality, but the prevailing ideas of proper sexuality in Christian religions shaped popular notions of morality and created a discourse around sexuality that emphasized it as shameful behavior.

Works Cited

Butler, John. “A Discourse on Fornication”. London, 1698.