[Aquinasfan]

Bottom line, I still maintain, that there is no real rational reason not to sleep around.

Sure there is. A chaste person will be happier than an unchaste person, just as a person who eats in moderation will be happier than a glutton (even though the glutton may claim that he's happier). How can we know this objectively? Because the intellect is the greatest human power, and having control of one's lower appetites so that one can will what one knows, through one's intellect, to be the best for oneself, makes true happiness possible. A glutton or whore is a slave to his lower appetites. His will is not free to choose what his intellect knows to be his highest good, which is, on the natural level, a life of virtue.

Aristotle: Ethics and the Virtues

[Sapirit]

you're making me laugh. now you're trying to redefine happiness for people who have different opinions? you're suggesting there is hard statistical evidence about chaste/non-chaste? happiness is the most subjective thing. Plus, delayed gratification (if they believe living moral life is the best gratification) is not most people's forte. Americans want fun and they want it now. All bruhaha about possible future (and may be present) happiness is only for people who go beyond rationality.

Because the intellect is the greatest human power

for real? Nazi Germany was the most intellectually and academically advanced country of its time... so much for intellectual powers.

[laredo44]

A chaste person will be happier than an unchaste person, just as a person who eats in moderation will be happier than a glutton (even though the glutton may claim that he's happier).

I don't see that a chaste person equates to one who eats in moderation.

[Modernman]

Sure there is. A chaste person will be happier than an unchaste person

ROFLMAO

[JenB]

A chaste person will be happier than an unchaste person

I see you got mocked for this but you're right. I am much happier, even at times when I'd really like to be with someone, than my acquaintances who are out having sex.... one of my friends is pregnant, with no expectation that the guy will marry her. Another is suffering three years later from emotional problems that I think relate to her being promiscuous in her teenage years. And my male friends don't get why none of their relationships ever work out....

It's frustrating to wait but the other choice is much, much worse.