An American philosopher—let us call him a pragmatist of the old school—once remarked on utilitarianism in matters of faith. He said, in essence, that you may adopt any religion you like, provided it makes you successful in life. He was not concerned with which religion was true. The question of capital-T Truth did not interest him. What mattered was subjective utility: choose the creed that makes you feel best, that orients your actions toward flourishing, that delivers measurable results in the only arena that ultimately counts—your lived experience.
I propose we extend this logic to the domain of sexuality. If you want a sexually fulfilling life—and I assume you do, otherwise you would not be reading this—you should adopt an ideology that is likely to give you the best chances of sexual fulfillment. Not the ideology that is "correct" by some external, metaphysical standard. Not the ideology that satisfies a priest, a politician, or a puritanical ancestor. But the one that works. The one that translates into arousal, into confidence, into orgasmic release, into the quiet satisfaction of a body and mind aligned.
It is moot to try to establish what the truth of sexuality really is. The truth, anyway, as Kant reasoned, is only a function of our perception. We do not encounter things-in-themselves. We encounter phenomena—appearances filtered through the categorical structures of our own understanding. Space, time, causality: these are not features of the noumenal world. They are the spectacles through which we see. And so it is with sexuality. There is no raw, uninterpreted sexual act. There is always an ideology, a set of assumptions, a narrative that frames what an erection means, what an orgasm signifies, what a partner owes you and you owe them.
I have long given up searching for absolute truth. I found the search exhausting and, more importantly, irrelevant to the only question that ever truly moved me: how to live well. I am now comfortable with considering any set of views as truth that serves me the best. This is not nihilism. Nihilism says nothing matters. This is pragmatic constructivism: many things matter, but they matter to me, and I get to choose which maps guide my navigation. A map that leads to sexual fulfillment is better than a map that leads to shame, dysfunction, or compulsory celibacy—regardless of how well the latter map corresponds to some imagined divine blueprint.
The utilitarian calculus of sexual belief
Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, famously dismissed natural rights as "nonsense upon stilts." He would have said the same about natural sexual laws. For Bentham, the only measure of an action or a belief was its tendency to produce pleasure and prevent pain. Apply this to sexual ideology. A belief system that generates guilt, performance anxiety, and suppressed desire is a bad system. A belief system that generates confident arousal, mutual pleasure, and post-coital contentment is a good system. We need not inquire further. The proof is in the orgasm—or, more precisely, in the pattern of orgasms over a lifetime.
Of course, one must consider long-term utility versus short-term pleasure. Hedonism is not the same as utilitarianism. The utilitarian sexual ideology is not simply "do whatever feels good right now." It asks: what set of rules, habits, and interpretations will maximize my sexual well-being over the entire arc of my life? For some, that might mean monogamy and emotional bonding. For others, it might mean strategic variety and emotional detachment. The correct answer is not universal. It is deeply individual. And that is precisely the point: a pragmatic sexual ideology is one you adopt, not one that is imposed. You are the sovereign of your own erotic life.
Kant and the limits of sexual truth
Immanuel Kant, the philosopher of the Critique of Pure Reason, drew a hard line between the phenomenal world (what we can experience and know) and the noumenal world (things as they are in themselves). We never access the noumenal. We are forever trapped inside our own perceptions. This is not a limitation to be lamented. It is a liberation. If we cannot know the thing-in-itself of sexuality—if there is no "true" way to fuck, no "correct" orgasm, no "authentic" desire—then we are free to construct our sexual realities according to what works.
Kant himself was famously austere about sex. He called it the "free use of another's sexual organs" and argued that it reduced persons to objects unless sanctified by marriage. I find that view unhelpful—not because it is false in some ultimate sense, but because it does not serve me. It does not increase my sexual confidence. It does not help my partners feel cherished. It produces guilt where none need exist. So I discard it. I am not being intellectually dishonest. I am being epistemologically honest: I admit that I cannot know the sexual noumenon, and therefore I choose the phenomenal interpretation that maximizes my flourishing.
The ideology of effortless performance
Let me give a concrete example. Many men in their thirties and forties begin to experience erectile uncertainty. They have been raised on an ideology that says: "Real men get hard instantly, stay hard for hours, and never fail." That ideology is not true—it was never true, not even in adolescence—but it has been internalized as a standard. The result: performance pressure. The result: anxiety-induced failure. The result: a downward spiral of lost confidence.
A pragmatic sexual ideology would replace that standard with something more useful. For instance: "Erections are responsive, not automatic. They depend on relaxation, on context, on mutual arousal. A moment of softness is not a catastrophe. It is an invitation to slow down, to use hands and mouths, to let the body catch up with the mind." This is not necessarily the "true" description of male sexuality—whatever that would mean. It is a description that reduces anxiety, increases resilience, and leads to more satisfying sex. That makes it true enough. That makes it a better belief.
I have adopted such an ideology for myself. I no longer judge my sexual performance against an impossible standard of machine-like reliability. I judge it against a single criterion: does this encounter leave me and my partner feeling more connected, more satisfied, more alive? If yes, it was a success. If no, I adjust. Not by shaming myself, but by tinkering—with supplements like Butea superba, with breathing, with pacing, with communication. The ideology serves the biology, not the other way around.
Beyond monogamy and promiscuity: a pragmatic pluralism
The traditional debate about sexual morality is framed as a clash between two absolutisms: the religious conservative who says sex belongs only in lifelong monogamous marriage, and the libertine who says any consenting act is equally good. Both are searching for a universal rule. Both are missing the pragmatic point. The right sexual ideology is the one that fits your psychology, your life circumstances, and your goals.
For some people, monogamy provides the emotional safety that enables deep sexual exploration. The trust built over years allows for vulnerability, for kink, for the kind of slow arousal that no one-night stand can match. For those people, the ideology of "sacred union" is useful—not because it is metaphysically true, but because it works. For others, the same ideology produces suffocation, boredom, and resentful celibacy. They flourish under an ideology of "ethical non-monogamy" or "strategic serial monogamy" or even "celibacy with occasional paid companionship." None of these is universally true. All of them are true for someone.
I am not advocating for moral relativism in the sense of "anything goes." I am advocating for pragmatic individualism. You must test ideologies against your own lived experience. Keep what increases your sexual confidence and fulfillment. Discard what does not. This is not selfishness—it is self-respect. A sexually frustrated person cannot be a generous lover. A person wracked with guilt about their desires cannot show up fully for a partner. Adopting a functional sexual ideology is the first act of responsibility toward your own erotic life and toward those you share it with.
Truth as a tool
I have long since stopped asking whether my beliefs correspond to some mind-independent reality. I ask only: do they work? Do they help me get out of bed in the morning? Do they help me face my own reflection without flinching? Do they help me enjoy a woman's body without a running commentary of self-doubt? If yes, I keep them. If no, I revise them. This is not intellectual laziness. It is intellectual honesty about the limits of human cognition. We are not gods. We do not have a God's-eye view. We have our perceptions, our bodies, our desires, and our capacity to choose which stories to live by.
So, adopt a sexual ideology. But do not adopt it because it is handed down from on high. Adopt it because you have tried it, and it has made your life better. Adopt it because it gives you the best chance of sexual fulfillment—and because you have decided, as I have, that sexual fulfillment is a legitimate, even noble, goal. Adopt it, and then be willing to abandon it if something better comes along. That is the pragmatic creed. That is the only creed that has ever served me.
And if you find yourself, as many men do, struggling with the gap between your chosen ideology and your bodily reality—struggling with erections that wilt under pressure, with desire that flickers instead of burns—then by all means, look to biochemistry. Look to Butea superba. Look to whatever restores the alignment between mind and body. But never forget: the biochemistry is not the foundation. The ideology is the foundation. The biochemistry is just a tool to make the ideology real. First, decide what you want. Then, find the means. That is the order of things. That is the order I live by.