I can't accept the Church's teachings on Eros

[davidv]

But what I can’t understand is how sexual desire can even be compatible with Agape, regardless of relationship or intention.

Pope JPII explains their compatiblity in his Theology of the Body.

 

[steveandersen]

But what I can’t understand is how sexual desire can even be compatible with Agape, regardless of relationship or intention.

How can it not be?

I realize that you have some issues with this and I don’t understand all your feelings and experiences. I know we all have different levels of desire and needs.

But I’m having a difficult time understanding your position.

I don’t mean to be rude or insensitive but this is a touchy subject for me.
I’m interested because my first wife seemed to be of the same opinion as you.
She suddenly (i.e. conveniently right after the wedding) decided that certain things were “disgusting” to use your words
No Eros for years and years and years and years… eventually no Agape.
I don’t know if she ever had it.

My current wife also had her marriage annulled do to the same problem; her husband decide to just quit that part of the marriage.

 

[Newbie2]

Uh, what!?

Why would it ever be better to “outright reject” truth from the Church?

I agree that full ACCEPTANCE of the truth is difficult and can take time, but an active rejection of the truth is a discontinuing of working on why that truth is truth. This is NEVER acceptable.

Are you Catholic? Is this “rejection of infallible truth” acceptable for you in your faith tradition?

Calm down there, Cowboy!

It appears as if he said that struggling was better than rejection.

That’s what I meant.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

It appears as if he said that struggling was better than rejection.

Ah!

I read:

“…it’s OK to struggle with Church teachings; much better anyway to outright reject them.”

to mean: “It’s OK to struggle, much better (my not being able to make sense of the “anyway”) to outright reject them.”

The “anyway” was misinterpreted by me, as just an intensifier of the “better”.

 

[Newbie2]

My bad. It wasn’t that clear.

 

[strngrnrth]

How can it not be?

I realize that you have some issues with this and I don’t understand all your feelings and experiences. I know we all have different levels of desire and needs.

But I’m having a difficult time understanding your position.

I don’t mean to be rude or insensitive but this is a touchy subject for me.
I’m interested because my first wife seemed to be of the same opinion as you.
She suddenly (i.e. conveniently right after the wedding) decided that certain things were “disgusting” to use your words
No Eros for years and years and years and years… eventually no Agape.
I don’t know if she ever had it.

My current wife also had her marriage annulled do to the same problem; her husband decide to just quit that part of the marriage.

I don’t understand how someone who loves someone, i.e., cares for them, sees them as something pure and lovely, wants them to be their best, and wishes to benefit them, would see them at the same time in terms of a process that is extremely undignified, totally unnecessary, essentially recreational and kind of strange too. I’ve spent my adult life struggling to get my head around it. I tried hypnosis and read self-help books and psychobiology and even meditated…no results except a greater feeling of emptiness and not-there-ness, whatever the word is.
I felt so relaxed and relieved when I let go of the expectation of pretending to be the woman so many men preferred and just letting them all think whatever they wanted. I don’t understand what it all means, but it didn’t depress me until I got older and men made a bigger deal of it all the time. I liked it when people were people and the sex of a friend was trivia and didn’t affect our friendships but those days were crushed by the male version of the biological clock.
Now I feel betrayed and made a fool of by every male I ever liked, to think they were never my buddies in the first place and all our good conversations and easy times hanging out with the old gang were a fakeout on me.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

I don’t understand how someone who loves someone, i.e., cares for them, sees them as something pure and lovely, wants them to be their best, and wishes to benefit them, would see them at the same time in terms of a process that is extremely undignified, totally unnecessary, essentially recreational and kind of strange too. …

Have you read the Theology of the Body?

The physicality which chaste union, which means marriage, opens up (allows) is not not-loving, as you describe it above.

The “process” that you deride above, is a gift of God, and in fact a command of God if done correctly.

Just as Jesus was fully God and fully man, to be fully “emotionally in love” and fully “physically in love” with our mate is as God wants it.

To consider “material” as evil is a heresy. To find out why this is so evil, look into manichaean heresy, and gnosticism and the various other heresies.

Now I feel betrayed and made a fool of by every male I ever liked, to think they were never my buddies in the first place and all our good conversations and easy times hanging out with the old gang were a fakeout on me.

How wise is it to see the worst in people when that is not necessarily the truth?

Best to you.

 

[steveandersen]

I don’t understand how someone who loves someone, i.e., cares for them, sees them as something pure and lovely, wants them to be their best, and wishes to benefit them, would see them at the same time in terms of a process that is extremely undignified, totally unnecessary, essentially recreational and kind of strange too.

Perhaps because they don’t think of it as extremely undignified…etc etc

Maybe they think of it as essential, dignified, central to life

I’ve spent my adult life struggling to get my head around it. I tried hypnosis and read self-help books and psychobiology and even meditated…no results except a greater feeling of emptiness and not-there-ness, whatever the word is.

I’m sorry for your struggle

I do have friends who have never dated or demonstrated any desire that I can tell.
Maybe there are just folks like that?

I felt so relaxed and relieved when I let go of the expectation of pretending to be the woman so many men preferred and just letting them all think whatever they wanted. I don’t understand what it all means, but it didn’t depress me until I got older and men made a bigger deal of it all the time. I liked it when people were people and the sex of a friend was trivia and didn’t affect our friendships

The sex of a person is never trivial
It is an important part of them

but those days were crushed by the male version of the biological clock.

Now I feel betrayed and made a fool of by every male I ever liked, to think they were never my buddies in the first place and all our good conversations and easy times hanging out with the old gang were a fakeout on me.

There sounds to be a lot behind what you’re saying
And I won’t pry this isn’t the place and its none of my business

Men and women can indeed be buddies
I have some good women buddies

But men and women will also always be men and women
sic transit mundi
Sometimes buddies blooms into something else (in fact it seems like a good idea to get to know the person a little before you consider anything more)
If only one person is interested in pursuing it further that can be tragic
That doesn’t mean that they were faking you out or never your buddy in the first place
But “can’t we just be friends” can be 5 of the toughest words to hear even for a buddy

 

[bilop]

I don’t understand how someone who loves someone, i.e., cares for them, sees them as something pure and lovely, wants them to be their best, and wishes to benefit them, would see them at the same time in terms of a process that is extremely undignified, totally unnecessary, essentially recreational and kind of strange too.

I am sorry for you difficulty with this. I echo the advice to read Christopher West on The Theology of the Body. You also might consider talking to a good, orthodox priest.

Just a couple of quick points.

First, sex IS necessary. The procreative nature of sex is needed to bring new life and new souls that can know God and reach heaven. The unitive nature of sex is needed to bond the husband and wife together, to maintain the family unit. Also, marital sex helps both parties avoid immoral sexual conduct.

Also, marital sex should be pleasurable and enjoyable for both parties.

God Bless

 

[strngrnrth]

I do have friends who have never dated or demonstrated any desire that I can tell.
Maybe there are just folks like that?

Well, it isn’t that I haven’t dated. I’ve even lived-in and was pretty loose for a while, trying to be what I was seeing around me as the norm of a woman. And it isn’t that I’ve never had sexual desire. But I certainly never felt it at the same time as the feelings I want anyone having about me. I tried.
You seem not to know what I mean by male biological clock. It’s how I make sense of the fact that the odds that a man I spend time around will hit on me increase with age. I assume it’s their fear of missing their chance. I don’t know what else it can be.

CalmDownWIsWins, I clicked that link and have been scrolling along. So far it’s confusing. I really want to try again to understand this concept, not because i want to be socially acceptable, because I am so exhausted with trying that, only because I don’t want to disobey God.
I’m not anti-material. I love many material things. I have as long as I can remember. I’m not Manichean or Gnostic. I don’t hate my body. I just don’t like thinking someone likes me when he actually wouldn’t if it weren’t for my shape. To me that says he never liked me at all. If I’m still not explaining myself well, I guess I tried. I can’t be the only one or even very rare. But it’s so taboo to talk about feelings like mine. It makes people so furious when all I want is to have a conversation about a popular topic without feeling like an alien passing for an earthling.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

I don’t hate my body. I just don’t like thinking someone likes me when he actually wouldn’t if it weren’t for my shape.

It’s best if we accept our shape as our shape and as something that may be attractive to other people.

You are inseparable from your shape. It is a part of your person.

If your shape is the ONLY thing that others find attractive about you, then perhaps a few things should change, both on your end and on their end.

If you allow people to remain in your proximity (to be your so-called “friend”) only because of their attraction to your shape, then you might want to consider why you would do that?

To me that says he never liked me at all.

The “me” that you are refering to is (probably) your whole person, and if they like your SHAPE but not your non-shape (your mind, personality, etc) then they don’t like your PERSON, but are just using your shape to please themselves, which is a sin.

If I’m still not explaining myself well, I guess I tried. I can’t be the only one or even very rare. But it’s so taboo to talk about feelings like mine. It makes people so furious when all I want is to have a conversation about a popular topic without feeling like an alien passing for an earthling.

If you can just get it through your skull that your shape is REALLY an integral part of your person, and that being appropriately chaste depending on your “spousal state” is a very good thing, your anxiety about the subject may just wander off into “who cares”-land and not bother you anymore.

If you aren’t married, no one is going to “get to you” without your consent, which you won’t give, and if they are predicating their “overtures” toward you in hopes of “getting to you”, they will go away as soon as they get a clue that that ain’t happenin’!

If you are married, only your spouse “gets to you”, and you to your spouse, in unitive (and possibly productive) physical union, and they already know they have ALL of you, not just your shape, and therefore you don’t have to worry about being “used”.

 

[strngrnrth]

If you allow people to remain in your proximity (to be your so-called “friend”) only because of their attraction to your shape, then you might want to consider why you would do that?

If you aren’t married, no one is going to “get to you” without your consent, which you won’t give, and if they are predicating their “overtures” toward you in hopes of “getting to you”, they will go away as soon as they get a clue that that ain’t happenin’!

If you are married, only your spouse “gets to you”, and you to your spouse, in unitive (and possibly productive) physical union, and they already know they have ALL of you, not just your shape, and therefore you don’t have to worry about being “used”.

I don’t let them hang around and they do go away. It’s the betrayal and isolation that entails that bothers me, and the social assumption that I have to be married or trying to get married. And the fact that I can’t be a mother without a husband. And the expectation that I will understand and accept ideas I can’t understand in order to be right with God.
I just miss knowing what was what and having my bud around and not being constantly bombarded with petitons and propositions and proposals that disturb me when I was looking for something so different – a friend. I guess I’m not succeeding in communicating about it.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

I don’t let them hang around and they do go away. It’s the betrayal and isolation that entails that bothers me, and the social assumption that I have to be married or trying to get married.

You don’t have to be married, or trying to be, but you do have to be chaste. Do you know what “chaste” means?

And the fact that I can’t be a mother without a husband.

You DO have to have a husband to be a mother. Why is that a problem?

And the expectation that I will understand and accept ideas I can’t understand in order to be right with God.

You don’t need to understand God’s commands, Simply do them.

Understanding them, when they are actually understandable, is just a bonus.

I just miss knowing what was what and having my bud around and not being constantly bombarded with petitons and propositions and proposals that disturb me when I was looking for something so different – a friend. I guess I’m not succeeding in communicating about it.

You want a friend? Be a friend!

They turn out to not be friendly? You chuck that non-friend!

No one’s forcing you to do anything. Relax…

 

[Mintaka]

strngrnrth:

I suspect a lot of different things are going on here with you. You may be one of those people who is naturally not particularly interested in sex. You may be naturally reserved or require lots of personal space – which in our culture is, very unfairly, not respected. Then again, you may be one of those people whose natural interest in sex was lateblooming, but who was forced by the culture to spend a lot of time thinking about and acting in sexual ways long before you were ready. You may also have been traumatized, or at least seriously disgusted, by certain kinds of bad experiences or artworks or thoughts planted in you. It may also be that the healthy child’s reaction to “ew, mushy stuff” has been prolonged in you, which is also not unheard of.

You don’t have to be particularly interested in sex to be a fully adult, fully human person. (St. Thomas Aquinas wasn’t, which he regarded as a miraculous gift of God. And given his celibate vocation and extreme fits of absentmindedness, it was just as well he had it.)

It’s also fine to regard sex as basically funny and silly in its mode of operation. God’s good creations include a lot of stuff that’s funny, silly, and undignified. Consider the pelican, which is also a symbol of Christ!

“Ew” is acceptable, although an adult really should try to have at least an intellectual understanding that sex and mushy stuff is not “ew”.

But it’s not really okay to regard all sex as intrinsically dirty. That’s just not a healthy attitude towards the way the human body works. It’s like hating the fact we have hair or blood or teeth.

However… I think maybe you should first try to relax a bit about the topic. If you stop trying to avoid the topic, but also do not seek it, and if you try to remain calm and untroubled and neutral about the whole thing, I suspect your bad feelings about sex will fade. A lot of people get so worked up avoiding thinking about a certain thing, and about other people hassling them about it, that they end up obsessing about the very thing they don’t want to think about.

 

[strngrnrth]

You don’t have to be married, or trying to be, but you do have to be chaste. Do you know what “chaste” means?

You DO have to have a husband to be a mother. Why is that a problem?

You don’t need to understand God’s commands, Simply do them.

Understanding them, when they are actually understandable, is just a bonus.

You want a friend? Be a friend!

They turn out to not be friendly? You chuck that non-friend!

No one’s forcing you to do anything. Relax…

I know what chaste means. I have been chaste for years. I get social pressure from Christians, pagans and atheists to get married or at least “serious” with someone all the time, and I just want to make it possible to talk honestly about why some of us don’t want that.
I want to be a mother. I don’t want a husband. Not being a mother is a big deal. Being married when marriage sounds unbearable is another big deal.
I’m trying to do God’s commands. That’s why I’m here, after all. That’s the point.
I am a good friend, I believe, but I feel I am punished for it by my supposed friends hitting on me.
Society forces me to follow its ever-changing rules, like everyone else, or be punished. I am punished with social isolation and stigma for not fitting a certain mold.

 

[Mintaka]

It is disconcerting to have someone hit on you, when you think that you’ve fully explained previously that you aren’t interested in dating or in being anything other than a chaste and non-kissy friend.

To be fair, however, it’s not a bad thing for a man to be persistent and a little pushy. It’s just that we want them to act that way (chastely!) towards some more interested woman. Also to be fair, a lot of women do tend to act more reluctant than they really are or need encouragement to believe that the man really is interested – and that encourages men to hope that you are one of those women. A calm and consistent no works better than getting all worked up and angsty, because it shows them that you are indeed not shilly-shallying and in need of persistent encouragement.

It may also help to acquire a corps of female friends whom you can sic on your male friends.

 

[graceandglory]

I don’t hate my body. I just don’t like thinking someone likes me when he actually wouldn’t if it weren’t for my shape. To me that says he never liked me at all. If I’m still not explaining myself well, I guess I tried. I can’t be the only one or even very rare.

This is exactly the kind of discussions the the Pope writes about in Love and Responsibility.

Just an excerpt:

This spontaneous urge to conceal sexual values, and the sexual character of certain feelings, which we encounter in men and women has, however another and deeper meaning. It is not just a matter of hiding anything that might produce a sexual reaction in another person, nor yet of internally hiding from one’s own reaction to a person of the other sex.

For this shrinking from reactions to mere sexual values goes together with the with the longing to inspire love,* to inspire a “reaction” to the value of the person, and with the longing to experience love in the same sense*–the first possibly stronger in women, the second in men, but one should not suppose that either is exclusive to either of the sexes. A woman wants to be loved so that she can show love. A man wants to love so that he can be loved. *In either case sexual modesty is not a flight from love, but on the contrary the opening of a way towards it. *The spontaneous need to conceal mere sexual values bound up with the person is the natural way to the discovery of the value of the person as such. …

Sexual modesty is as it were a defensive reflex, which protects that status and so protects the value of the person.

 

[graceandglory]

I want to be a mother. I don’t want a husband. Not being a mother is a big deal. Being married when marriage sounds unbearable is another big deal. .

Hello, strngrnrth,
I don’t know you for Adam, but it kind of sounds like it might be a “family of origin” issue.

It could also be that you have a vocation to singleness. There are many ways you can be a parent, not just biologically.

 

[CalmDownWisWins]

I know what chaste means. I have been chaste for years. …

You do realize that “chaste” doesn’t mean “celibate”, right?

I want to be a mother. I don’t want a husband. Not being a mother is a big deal. Being married when marriage sounds unbearable is another big deal.

Do you want to give birth? Do you want to raise a child without a father?

Why would you deprive a child of a father?

I’m trying to do God’s commands. That’s why I’m here, after all. That’s the point.

I am a good friend, I believe, but I feel I am punished for it by my supposed friends hitting on me.

Just smile the smile of the mildly amused when someone you don’t want hitting on you is doing that and say, “Quit being silly, and get me another sandwich!”

Society forces me to follow its ever-changing rules, like everyone else, or be punished.

The nice thing about the Church’s rules are that they specifically DON’T change.

I am punished with social isolation and stigma for not fitting a certain mold.

You can only isolate yourself. What would happen if you were simply cheerful on a constant basis and didn’t accept advances you didn’t want, or “stigmas” you don’t deserve?

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I think we should all be a little easier on strngrnrth. She truly seems to mean well and have problems that some of what is being said here is not likely to help.

Strngrnrth, I am only a twenty-year old man, so I won’t pretend that I really understand everything about your situation or what you are going through.

But take heart. You’re clearly trying very hard and doing your best, and I suspect that maybe you’re beating yourself up a little too much. We cannot directly control how we feel about something, so don’t be so hard on yourself.

Several of the points you’ve made are very good. It is true that it is bad and hypocritical for a man to want to be your friend only because he finds you physically attractive. I think it’s fair to say that it’s not wrong for men to find you attractive, but if that’s all they care about, then they’re wrong.

Secondly, I was appalled when I read that you said Christians often pressure you to get married. I was appalled because not everyone is called to the married life, and that’s perfectly okay. Other people do not get to dictate your vocation to you. Pressuring someone into marriage is wrong.

And if you don’t see sex as a desirable act, then perhaps that is a strong clue that you are not called to marriage. Although it does seem rather unhealthy to regard sex as intrinsically lustful or utilitarian or bad, that’s not the same thing as you simply not wanting it. You can recognize that it can be a good thing without feeling called to a vocation which includes it yourself.

I am sorry that you feel saddened by the fact that you want to be a mother without being a wife. This is one area of Church teaching which would require you to choose both or neither; aside from the negative practical consequences of children not having both a mother and a father, there are also important theological reasons for the importance of the link between sex and procreation. The Church teaches that the generation of human life by means other than marital sexual union is wrong for the very same reason that she teaches contraception is wrong.

As others have done, I encourage you to look into the theology of the body. But please don’t stress out too much. You seem to be trying very hard, and as you yourself pointed out that you’re living chastely, it seems that you are doing what is required of you by God and the Church. God will understand if you find yourself unable to realize on a more visceral level the inherent goodness of human sexuality. You seem to be doing fine with what you can control - the choices you make, what you do. Leave the rest to God.

You know, you might want to pray for St. Augustine’s intercession. He lived a very loose sexual life before his conversion, but he eventually embraced a celibate lifestyle and became a bishop. Because of the negative experiences that sexual immorality brought him earlier in his life, he was often quite negative about sex. You could pray for his intercession, that God may help you appreciate human sexuality’s true meaning and goodness, since he seemed to struggle with the same problem.