Men: How to cure yourself of women

St. Benedict (500s), according to St. Gregory: “Benedict fought valiantly to forget the woman ‘the memory of whom the wicked spirit put into his mind, and by that memory so mightily inflamed with concupiscence the soul of God’s servant … that, almost overcome with pleasure, he was of a mind to forsake the wilderness. But suddenly, assisted by God’s grace, he came to himself; and seeing many thick briars and nettle bushes growing hard by, cast off his apparel, and threw himself into the midst of them, and there wallowed so long that when he rose up all his flesh was pitifully torn; and so by the wounds of his body he cured the wounds of his soul.'”*

My verdict: Not recommended.

The Venerable Bede (700s) recounts how “[St.] Cuthbert would routinely slip out of his monastery at night while the other monks slept. He would walk down to the freezing cold North Sea off the coast of Northumbria and wade deep into the waves to engage in a grueling, sleepless prayer vigil. Cuthbert would stand immersed up to his neck or waist in the freezing water, spending the dark hours singing psalms and praying to quell the ‘passions of the flesh’.”*

My verdict: Also not recommended.

Going in the opposite temperature direction, Archpriest Avvakum (1600s): “A woman came to confess to me, burdened with many sins, guilty of fornication and all of the sins of the flesh, and, weeping, she began to acquaint me with them all, leaving nothing out, standing before the Gospels. And I, thrice accursed, fell sick myself. I inwardly burned with a lecherous fire, and that hour was bitter to me. I lit three candles and fixed them to the lectern and placed my right hand in the flame, and held it there till the evil passion was burned out, and when I had dismissed the young woman and laid away my vestments, I prayed and went to my house, grievously humbled in spirit.”*

My verdict: No.