Church Teachings on Sex

[JoArtist]

This is a great book by the way. It’s crucial to understand that the “golden rule” isn’t all you need in marriage. Sometimes doing for the other what you’d want done for you doesn’t translate at all. My wife purrs like a kitten when she gets little presents and tokens of affection. She’s hurt and bewildered when I tell her to stop buying all that junk that ends up in a pile on my dresser! Similarly, she doesn’t receive it as love at ALL when I sweat my heinie off vacuuming our her minivan, windexing all its windows and giving it a nice wax job! Hardly notices.

You do have to make sure you are expressing love to your beloved in a way that she can receive it. And that requires knowing her.

But don’t use your primary love language (physical touch) as an excuse for failing to develop virtue. Yes, she needs to adapt and use the times and opportunities you have to make you feel loved. But YOU need to make the effort to recognize the ways SHE expresses love for you and appreciate it. It’s a two way street. We got the book in our marriage prep class and really appreciate it. My own primary is touch as well (comes with the Y chromosome, I think) and my wife’s is not. It can be managed, but it’s work. Most of what is good in life is, right?

Um, I’m a woman dear and we are both touch… I know it is work trust me. I am just saying since it is both of our love languages, when we have a lack of touch, it will affect our marriage in negative ways.

 

[manualman]

Um, I’m a woman dear and we are both touch… I know it is work trust me. I am just saying since it is both of our love languages, when we have a lack of touch, it will affect our marriage in negative ways.

So if he gets a Viagra-proof disability, you’re through? (of course not, it’s a rhetorical question). Life does involve difficulty. I’m pretty sure we haven’t been promised otherwise. That’s all I’m saying.

Thanks for bringing up the book though. It’s a great resource.

 

[JoArtist]

So if he gets a Viagra-proof disability, you’re through? (of course not, it’s a rhetorical question). Life does involve difficulty. I’m pretty sure we haven’t been promised otherwise. That’s all I’m saying.

Thanks for bringing up the book though. It’s a great resource.

I just don’t like when people accuse me of having marital problems because I have problems in my marriage due to our use of NFP. I know you weren’t, just many people have and I am tired of it.

 

[manualman]

I just don’t like when people accuse me of having marital problems because I have problems in my marriage due to our use of NFP. I know you weren’t, just many people have and I am tired of it.

If you DON’T have marital problems, you had better inform the Vatican so they can begin the canonization process. What those of us on THIS side of the fence are tired of is the assertion that NFP causes marriage problems. Maybe Original Sin cause marriage problems? I’ll certainly grant you that NFP can exacerbate problems we already have due to our fallen nature, I just would appreciate it if you’d consider the possibility that the ROOT of the problem is our fallenness, not the moral teaching of the Church. Does that make sense?

I can see why you’d get tired of being called ‘defective’ for having trouble practicing NFP. What gets lost in translation is that we’re all defective too. Peace.

 

[maryjk]

I just don’t like when people accuse me of having marital problems because I have problems in my marriage due to our use of NFP. I know you weren’t, just many people have and I am tired of it.

As you stated, your problems are due to your husband’s work schedule, health problems and the fact that you are trying to avoid getting pregnant, not because of the Church teaching of NFP.

 

[Em_in_FL]

If you DON’T have marital problems, you had better inform the Vatican so they can begin the canonization process. What those of us on THIS side of the fence are tired of is the assertion that NFP causes marriage problems. Maybe Original Sin cause marriage problems? I’ll certainly grant you that NFP can exacerbate problems we already have due to our fallen nature, I just would appreciate it if you’d consider the possibility that the ROOT of the problem is our fallenness, not the moral teaching of the Church. Does that make sense?

I can see why you’d get tired of being called ‘defective’ for having trouble practicing NFP. What gets lost in translation is that we’re all defective too. Peace.

^^ And not to mention… the entire NEED to use NFP means that there IS something defective going on in our lives… there is a prudent/just/serious reason that is burdening our marriage enough for us to give up this incredible gift - sacrificially.

*Ideally *we should never have to use NFP ever… those “reasons” (financial, emotional, physical, etc) that would induce us to avoid sex wouldn’t even BE there!

So yes… those who feel the need to use NFP are “defective”… we’re dealing with situations that are NOT ideal… due to the ROOT cause of the fallen nature of this world.

 

[maryjk]

So yes… those who feel the need to use NFP are “defective”… we’re dealing with situations that are NOT ideal… due to the ROOT cause of the fallen nature of this world.

This is so funny. When I am talking to friends about the fact that I have an only child, I say “I am defective. But it is okay, because God made me this way.” I then get into the medical issues that I have and have had. I have always said it as sort of a joke, but in reality, it is true.

 

[Debora123]

*Ideally *we should never have to use NFP ever… those “reasons” (financial, emotional, physical, etc) that would induce us to avoid sex wouldn’t even BE there!

So you’re saying that ideally, we shouldn’t have to use NFP to avoid and just keep having baby after baby after baby?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Duggars, but they never use any form of birth control and hence have about 20 kids. Bearing this many children is causing some serious problems to Mrs Duggars health, and both her and her last baby almost died from it during birth.

I don’t think a woman’s body was meant to get pregnant that many times. And as human beings we have the intelligence and the NEED to regulate births for the well being of our bodies. Even if nothing else was a factor. We were not made to have baby after baby after baby - with no conscious limitation.

 

[maryjk]

So you’re saying that ideally, we shouldn’t have to use NFP to avoid and just keep having baby after baby after baby?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Duggars, but they never use any form of birth control and hence have about 20 kids. **Bearing this many children is causing some serious problems to Mrs Duggars health, and both her and her last baby almost died from it during birth. **

Mrs. Duggar had preeclampsia. That isn’t from having so many babies. In addition, Mrs. Duggar is part of the Quiverfull movement. That means that she INTENTIONALLY tries to get pregnant. There is no long term breastfeeding in her house. Her goal is to have as many children as she can.

I don’t think a woman’s body was meant to get pregnant that many times. And as human beings we have the intelligence and the NEED to regulate births for the well being of our bodies. Even if nothing else was a factor. We were not made to have baby after baby after baby - with no conscious limitation.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

So you’re saying that ideally, we shouldn’t have to use NFP to avoid and just keep having baby after baby after baby?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Duggars, but they never use any form of birth control and hence have about 20 kids. Bearing this many children is causing some serious problems to Mrs Duggars health, and both her and her last baby almost died from it during birth.

I don’t think a woman’s body was meant to get pregnant that many times. And as human beings we have the intelligence and the NEED to regulate births for the well being of our bodies. Even if nothing else was a factor. We were not made to have baby after baby after baby - with no conscious limitation.

I think Em means in a non -fallen world.

As for the Duggars, she had a preemie due to preeclampsia, which can happen to anyone. I had a preemie because I had a placental abruption. Not because I have other children. I only have 3 children.

The Duggars aren’t complaining about the amount of children they have, they seem like nice people, their kids seem like nice, pleasant children. They seem happy. So what if there’s a lot of them?

 

[Corki]

I think Em means in a non -fallen world.

As for the Duggars, she had a preemie due to preeclampsia, which can happen to anyone. I had a preemie because I had a placental abruption. Not because I have other children. I only have 3 children.

The Duggars aren’t complaining about the amount of children they have, they seem like nice people, their kids seem like nice, pleasant children. They seem happy. So what if there’s a lot of them?

And I had pre-eclampsia with my second child.

In a perfect marriage, given the rhythms of our bodies, and feeding our chidren as God intended, the births of children would be naturally spaced about three years apart. For most women, that woud mean about 7 or 8 children max (barring multiples). While large by today’s standards, that’s hardly a huge family. Before the contraceptive mentality swept the west, no Catholic would have thought a family that size was unmanageable. When I was in school, my neighbors had 10, 12, and 14 children respectively.

In a perfect marriage, if a person needed to space children further than that, a short period of abstinence would not have seemed so horrible but just a small sacrifice to offer up.

In a perfect marriage, people would try to be financially stable first and then marry when they were ready to start a family.

 

[Calliso]

So you’re saying that ideally, we shouldn’t have to use NFP to avoid and just keep having baby after baby after baby?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Duggars, but they never use any form of birth control and hence have about 20 kids. Bearing this many children is causing some serious problems to Mrs Duggars health, and both her and her last baby almost died from it during birth.

I don’t think a woman’s body was meant to get pregnant that many times. And as human beings we have the intelligence and the NEED to regulate births for the well being of our bodies. Even if nothing else was a factor. We were not made to have baby after baby after baby - with no conscious limitation.

Agreed and I donlt think most people here would expect anyone to do that. The problem though is for many people by necessity NFP isn;t just a rare occasional thing its the norm of their lives. And sure for some couples you could argue well they could have had one or two more kids but that would realistically only allow for a little more sexual intimacy in their lives during those few extra times they would be open to life. Not to mention you have to figure the more kids the more tired you will be and likely the less time for sex you will have. Not saying this is always the case but still. Then you have the people that really can;t have more then a few kids or can;t have any and if they follow the Churchs rules on sex that just leaves NFP. And for some that is fine maybe NFP works really well for them and sceduling a good amount of sex isn;t a problem. Maybe they donlt have much need for sex and so on. But for others not so much. But really these people unless they want to take a risk disobeying the Church there really isnt much choice for them.

 

[Calliso]

And I had pre-eclampsia with my second child.

In a perfect marriage, given the rhythms of our bodies, and feeding our chidren as God intended, the births of children would be naturally spaced about three years apart. For most women, that woud mean about 7 or 8 children max (barring multiples). While large by today’s standards, that’s hardly a huge family. Before the contraceptive mentality swept the west, no Catholic would have thought a family that size was unmanageable. When I was in school, my neighbors had 10, 12, and 14 children respectively.

In a perfect marriage, if a person needed to space children further than that, a short period of abstinence would not have seemed so horrible but just a small sacrifice to offer up.

In a perfect marriage, people would try to be financially stable first and then marry when they were ready to start a family.

The problem is no adays that many children would be far too much for most to handle. Actually even “back in the day” for many couples that many kids would have been very hard to handle. But without any reliable birth control methods other then abstinance which most couples can only take for so long, many women would have ended up with very large families. Of course go back far enough and many of your kids would have never made it past childhood. Not to mention children were far less of an expense and more of an asset. Back before machines and the like made our lives much much easier. Nowadays Children are far more of an expense then they are an asset. Most of us donlt live on farms where we need lots of kids to help with the work and even for those that live on farms machines still reduce the need for direct human labor by a fair amount. Not to mention if you live in a 1st world country at least most if not all of your kids will make it to adulthood which of course adds to the expenses. I could go on and on but the point is now is now. And sure you could probably argue there are some people out there who could probably manage another kid or two but very few I am guessing would be prepared to handle more then 4.

As for being finicially stable many people are stable this way before marriage. You are forgetting that alot of these bad things happen after. People can;t look into the future and find out that they will develop a medical problem that makes having babies dangerous or that they have to take a medication that causes birth defects. Or that they will lose their job/jobs and so on and so forth. The point is we can;t always plan for these things perfectly. Sure we can put money away for bad times but chances are that money might be just enough to scrap by until things get better not enough to have another kid or two on.

 

[Corki]

The problem is no adays that many children would be far too much for most to handle. Actually even “back in the day” for many couples that many kids would have been very hard to handle. But without any reliable birth control methods other then abstinance which most couples can only take for so long, many women would have ended up with very large families. Of course go back far enough and many of your kids would have never made it past childhood. Not to mention children were far less of an expense and more of an asset. Back before machines and the like made our lives much much easier. Nowadays Children are far more of an expense then they are an asset. Most of us donlt live on farms where we need lots of kids to help with the work and even for those that live on farms machines still reduce the need for direct human labor by a fair amount. Not to mention if you live in a 1st world country at least most if not all of your kids will make it to adulthood which of course adds to the expenses. I could go on and on but the point is now is now. And sure you could probably argue there are some people out there who could probably manage another kid or two but very few I am guessing would be prepared to handle more then 4.

As for being finicially stable many people are stable this way before marriage. You are forgetting that alot of these bad things happen after. People can;t look into the future and find out that they will develop a medical problem that makes having babies dangerous or that they have to take a medication that causes birth defects. Or that they will lose their job/jobs and so on and so forth. The point is we can;t always plan for these things perfectly. Sure we can put money away for bad times but chances are that money might be just enough to scrap by until things get better not enough to have another kid or two on.

As for the financial stabiltiy before marriage, if that were the case, we wouldn’t see so many threads here by newlyweds who are already using contraception or NFP.

The rest of your post just highlights the serious reasons that enter many marriages. If not for those serious reasons, a couple wouldn’t need to decide about NFP.

NFP isn’t forced on anyone. A couple always has three moral choices. None of those choices is perfect because they are all reactions to a serious imperfection that already exists in the marriage. NFP doesn’t cause the problem. It is just an imperfect solution to the problem. There is no perfect solution.

 

[Calliso]

Well what I do not think that some people understand is that people express love in many ways. Try reading the book, 5 Languages of Love. NFP is especially hard for those who physical touch is their primary love language. It is hard for me to show these physical signs of love during fertile times because it makes it way more difficult to abstain. So it is harder for some than others… when you aren’t being spoken to enough in your love language it is much harder to feel loved and to express love in your language when it can cause you and your spouse to stumble.

Yep Yep that is exactly it. And for those whose physical touch isn;t their love language they might not understand this they might say well why can;t you find something else? But the problem is there is nothing else at least nothing else that truly fits the bill. I mean to someone that needs physical touch giving them more gifts and helping more around the house will make them happy to a point but they still will be emotionally lacking something.

But yeah while my husband sex drive has seemed to more or less vanish at this point for the most part there was a time when being physically affectionate was very hard on him because it aroused him and we both knew nothing could come of it. We still donlt show near as much affection as we did early in our marriage though.

 

[Debora123]

I think Em means in a non -fallen world.

As for the Duggars, she had a preemie due to preeclampsia, which can happen to anyone. I had a preemie because I had a placental abruption. Not because I have other children. I only have 3 children.

The Duggars aren’t complaining about the amount of children they have, they seem like nice people, their kids seem like nice, pleasant children. They seem happy. So what if there’s a lot of them?

I don’t care that there’s a lot of them.

I simply said that it’s definitely taken a toll on her body and that she’s been warned by doctors against having anymore children because her body is getting to the point where it can’t take it anymore.

 

[onmyknees]

The problem is no adays that many children would be far too much for most to handle. Actually even “back in the day” for many couples that many kids would have been very hard to handle. But without any reliable birth control methods other then abstinance which most couples can only take for so long, many women would have ended up with very large families. Of course go back far enough and many of your kids would have never made it past childhood. Not to mention children were far less of an expense and more of an asset. Back before machines and the like made our lives much much easier. Nowadays Children are far more of an expense then they are an asset. Most of us donlt live on farms where we need lots of kids to help with the work and even for those that live on farms machines still reduce the need for direct human labor by a fair amount. Not to mention if you live in a 1st world country at least most if not all of your kids will make it to adulthood which of course adds to the expenses. I could go on and on but the point is now is now. And sure you could probably argue there are some people out there who could probably manage another kid or two but very few I am guessing would be prepared to handle more then 4.

Um, “Back in the day” my parents and all of their friends had no problem raising large families. We did not have all the stuff that kids are given these days. We did not live on a farm and my mom stayed home. We always had home cooked meals from scratch. We had our uniforms for school and a nice Sunday outfit. For play we had hand-me-downs. We had one large Suburban and a used car for my dad to drive to work. We all had jobs to do around the house and yard. We were required to a get a job and pay our own way to college. It worked. We are definately better people for having been brought up this way. We did not even realize that others had much more than us until we got older because we were having so much fun just being kids.

The generation today is spoiled. We did not get our own car until we could afford to buy one. I got a job close to my apartment so I could walk to work and I quickly earned enough to buy my own used car.
So I think it is very possible to have big families even today. You just have to give up your luxuries. We ate out only once a year when my dad got his bonus. We just had the necessities.

Quote from Calliso
As for being finicially stable many people are stable this way before marriage. You are forgetting that alot of these bad things happen after. People can;t look into the future and find out that they will develop a medical problem that makes having babies dangerous or that they have to take a medication that causes birth defects. Or that they will lose their job/jobs and so on and so forth. The point is we can;t always plan for these things perfectly. Sure we can put money away for bad times but chances are that money might be just enough to scrap by until things get better not enough to have another kid or two on.

Well, when medical issues come up you can pray as a family about it. We had a large family at my parish and one of the little girls had cancer. They prayed and prayed and did you know that the money was just there. Never underestimate the power of prayer. You need to have hope always and trust in Him who makes all things new.

 

[searching04]

If you DON’T have marital problems, you had better inform the Vatican so they can begin the canonization process. What those of us on THIS side of the fence are tired of is the assertion that NFP causes marriage problems. Maybe Original Sin cause marriage problems? I’ll certainly grant you that NFP can exacerbate problems we already have due to our fallen nature, I just would appreciate it if you’d consider the possibility that the ROOT of the problem is our fallenness, not the moral teaching of the Church. Does that make sense?

I can see why you’d get tired of being called ‘defective’ for having trouble practicing NFP. What gets lost in translation is that we’re all defective too. Peace.

And those of us who do in fact find that using NFP and church teachings create problems within our marriages are tired of the assertion -and outright denial - by those of you on THAT side of the fence, that NFP cannot create problems. Yes, you say above it can exacerbate problems “that we have due to our fallen nature”. This is nothing more than NOT placing “blame” where it is possible blame exists, for some.

 

[searching04]

^^ And not to mention… the entire NEED to use NFP means that there IS something defective going on in our lives… there is a prudent/just/serious reason that is burdening our marriage enough for us to give up this incredible gift - sacrificially.

*Ideally *we should never have to use NFP ever… those “reasons” (financial, emotional, physical, etc) that would induce us to avoid sex wouldn’t even BE there!

This is utterly illogical and unrealisitc. Never have to use NFP? Really? So couples are indeed supposed to just keep cranking out kids no matter what? Yes, I know you put “ideally”. But this whole string of comments on NFP and church teachings not causing problems, but it is our fallen nature, simply avoids or rejects the reality in couples lives. You can stand all day on the side of the church not being wrong. Maybe, maybe not. Either way. it in no way means that couples are not having problems because of NFP and church teachings. You choose to believe they do not; those of us living it believe otherwise.

So yes… those who feel the need to use NFP are “defective”… we’re dealing with situations that are NOT ideal… due to the ROOT cause of the fallen nature of this world.

 

[Corki]

And those of us who do in fact find that using NFP and church teachings create problems within our marriages are tired of the assertion -and outright denial - by those of you on THAT side of the fence, that NFP cannot create problems. Yes, you say above it can exacerbate problems “that we have due to our fallen nature”. This is nothing more than NOT placing “blame” where it is possible blame exists, for some.

No one is denying that using NFP can be problematic. All that is being said, by Em, manualman and others, is that there was some problem there to begin with. In order for a couple to decide to use NFP, there must have been some “serious reason” already present. NFP is an imperfect “fix” for the serious reason that already exists but it’s the best “fix” we have available.