Chastity, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a quality of one’s being. It is an abiding orderliness among all of one’s sexual instincts, emotions, thoughts, and aims. As a result of having this abiding inner orderliness, one’s sexual impulses do not control the person but the person controls his or her sexual impulses with ease and joy. The chaste person is thus free to live out his or her sexuality in a way that leads to true happiness and avoids counterfeit happiness. Chastity comes from grace and the practice of self-control. Without it, people tend to fall into sexual sin and contract still further physical, psychological, and spiritual wounds. These wounds conspire to make self-control still harder. Chastity is often, therefore, something one arrives at over time. There is a road to chastity. It can be a hard road with many falls and frequent repentance. But it is a road that gradually frees the person from enslavement to sexual impulses and leads a man or woman to a happy self-mastery. –Angelic Warfare Confraternity website