Imagine if we were talking about consuming food.
Now, everyone here surely understands that the body uses mental, physical and emotional cues to ensure that the organism finds enough pleasure in eating to do it when needed so as to maintain the body’s homeostatic level of functioning for survival.
So then, why is it so hard for people to understand that the human organism uses every part at its disposal to ensure proper actualization of mating? Recent studies even show a correlation of libido to specific body parts in potential mates, such as hip curve and jaw length.
I saw a lot of posts on this thread jabbering off about how the pleasure is so good and sex is so great, whatever floats your boat should be commended and whatnot. That sounded really empty to me, besides clearly demonstrating that the posters who said these things have a grave misunderstanding of bodily function, without even going into religion or morals.
I mean, I can jabber on and on about how I have my stomach stapled so I can enjoy my candy bar. That doesn’t mean I can change the reality of the organism’s system and its primary purpose. The system’s primary purpose is to provide nutrition to the entire organism and to maintain homeostatic functioning so as to grow and survive.
Pleasure is used by the body to ensure this happens and we should do all we can to work with this system. Meaning, the body also uses pain to indicate harm and thus we should make sure it is pleasurable, but as pleasure is not the end result, it cannot be relied upon to tell us what is good and bad. We have to find an external, unbiased source to make good choices for our bodies.
And so it is with the function of sexual intercourse. The sexual organs in the human organism have a pretty clear, primary purpose, and those organs efficiently use pleasure to ensure procreation.
Just as we have stomachs that tell us it is good to eat, we have sexual organs that tell us it is good to mate. And just as we can eat a candy bar and have the same good feeling, we can engage in disordered acts of sexuality and have the same good feeling.
Don’t you folks see? This is why Catholics are paying so much attention to the details and asking so many questions. It’s not simply a matter of going with the pleasure or doing whatever feels right. Just as that muffin might feel right but contain 500 calories and saturated fats, so could a fun sexual action be just as bad for your body, relationship and soul.
You could say the little ingredient sticker on packaging is the CCC of food.
Now, the part that fulfills all of this and makes it not only naturally logical and ordered, but also spiritually logical and ordered, is that Catholics believe Christ instituted marriage as a sacrament, bringing this natural procreative act to a beautiful level of unity and sanctity. In other words, Catholics believe not only that there is an important natural purpose of procreation, as seen through our body’s function, but also a spiritual purpose of unity with Christ in the marital embrace.
So as Catholics, we choose to follow Christ’s teachings.This means not only do we try not to break natural law, but we try not to break moral law.
This isn’t just some overzealous Christian ideal that wants to make sex dirty and painful. It is the understanding that disordered, damaging and illogical actions can harm people. Even the secular world recognizes misuse of the body’s functions.
For example, when a person eats to the point of extreme obesity, we look for mental, emotional or even genetic illnesses and defects as we recognize that the secondary result
pleasure has been made the primary focus, at the expense of the natural functioning of the body.
The same can be said of a person who gorges on food, then forces himself to vomit so as not to digest the food. Is this not the same as a person wearing a comdom or vaginal barrier?
If a person cannot recognize natural law or natural consequences, it would do well for that person to study the topic at length before tackling the spiritual aspect of it, unless the person has a disposition that can accept authority before understanding.
P.s. You can’t have your cake and eat it.
P.P.S. Check out
www.christopherwest.com
P.P.S.S. To the poster that talks on about the tubal ligation, please look for a specialist and find a new doctor as you have been gravely misinformed on several points. Your procedure is certainly not foolproof as any real medical personnel will tell you and the procedure does have its own longterm effects and consequences. Make sure you are doing your 6 monthly and yearly.
I can talk about how evil murder is without talking about any specific murderer and I can talk about how great almsgiving is without meaning any specific charity even as an example. Therefore the fact I don’t belong into anyone’s specific bedroom (not to imply it’s all the same to me if people are married or not, sleeping with the same sex or opposite etc), doesn’t mean I shouldn’t talk about the theory.
