Is the desire and enjoyment of sexual pleasure during marital intercourse sinful?

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Post-Sexual Revolution = sex is primarily/only about pleasure. So yeah, Augustine is very relevant to us.

When the frog is in the warm pot, he doesn’t realize he’s boiling. I would encourage every Catholic to consider their assumptions about sex in light of the fact that we live in a time when sex and love are deeply misunderstood and we have likely unknowingly accepted these misconceptions. Notice how easily offended we are at the wisdom of a Church Father.
 
john1513 said:
Post-Sexual Revolution = sex is primarily/only about pleasure. So yeah, Augustine is very relevant to us.

When the frog is in the warm pot, he doesn’t realize he’s boiling. I would encourage every Catholic to consider their assumptions about sex in light of the fact that we live in a time when sex and love are deeply misunderstood and we have likely unknowingly accepted these misconceptions. Notice how easily offended we are at the wisdom of a Church Father.
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So Theology of the Body is just the ramblings of a modernist old man?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
You don’t have to make it into a miserable, unenjoyable experience in order to make it permissible. If you choose to do this then I hope your partner is on the same page with you or else you are actually committing a sin by disrespecting her feelings.
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It took years to reach the understanding that my inability to enjoy sex is effectively incurable because of the need to take SSRI reinforcing hypoactive sexual desire syndrome and just plain disgust with the act itself.

Moreover, my wife has a mild form of multiple sclerosis and has entered perimenopause.

So we’ve reached an understanding: I will never ask for sex, I will oblige her, and I’ll put aside my discomfort to help her reach orgasm. She knows I don’t enjoy it and she doesn’t get upset about that. It’s not the completely sexless marriage I once had and felt at peace with, but it’s better than nothing.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
It took years to reach the understanding that my inability to enjoy sex is effectively incurable because of the need to take SSRI reinforcing hypoactive sexual desire syndrome and just plain disgust with the act itself.

Moreover, my wife has a mild form of multiple sclerosis and has entered perimenopause.

So we’ve reached an understanding: I will never ask for sex, I will oblige her, and I’ll put aside my discomfort to help her reach orgasm. She knows I don’t enjoy it and she doesn’t get upset about that. It’s not the completely sexless marriage I once had and felt at peace with, but it’s better than nothing.
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So what? You’ve made up your own teachings on sexuality informed by your particular experience?
 
I can’t believe some of the things posted in this thread are sincere.
Sampson_Brass said:
It would be ideal for the act to be engaged in without physical arousal or orgasm. It is respectful of the husband and wife, in being open to life, not to treat each other as objects of bestial desire. We are better than that. We can love our spouses through acts of our rational will.
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So…artificial insemination for all, then?
 
No, not artificial insemination. But proper placement of the procreative end of sexual intercourse in marriage ahead of the unitive and sensual, which may be tolerated to quiet concupiscence, but not to inflame it. It’s to put the fire of lust out, not to pour gasoline on it.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
It would be ideal for the act to be engaged in without physical arousal or orgasm. It is respectful of the husband and wife, in being open to life, not to treat each other as objects of bestial desire. We are better than that. We can love our spouses through acts of our rational will.
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To each their own - my spouse and I quite enjoy being each other’s object of bestial desire.
 
AdamPeter said:
So Theology of the Body is just the ramblings of a modernist old man?
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How does Theology of the Body disagree with the Augustine quote?! TOB was in response to the sexual revolution idea that sex was all about pleasure.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
No, not artificial insemination. But proper placement of the procreative end of sexual intercourse in marriage ahead of the unitive and sensual, which may be tolerated to quiet concupiscence, but not to inflame it. It’s to put the fire of lust out, not to pour gasoline on it.
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If this is the case why is NFP allowed by the church?

Also I find it disturbing that you even said that ideally sex should occur without arousal or orgasm. I mean, even from a biological viewpoint that is absurd. 99% of the time orgasm is necessary, at least for the man. And women often find it painful to have sex without arousal.
 
john1513 said:
How does Theology of the Body disagree with the Augustine quote?! TOB was in response to the sexual revolution idea that sex was all about pleasure.
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TOB specifically states that sexual pleasure is to be enjoyed by the married couple, not avoided. JPII also speaks at length in “Love and Responsibility” about the couple ensuring that sexual satisfaction occurs for both spouses as often as possible.

Also, while Augusine is a Saint, not everything he says is Church teaching.

Saints are not infallible. Even Aquinas was wrong on the Immaculate Conception.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
No, not artificial insemination. But proper placement of the procreative end of sexual intercourse in marriage ahead of the unitive and sensual, which may be tolerated to quiet concupiscence, but not to inflame it. It’s to put the fire of lust out, not to pour gasoline on it.
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I’m sorry to treat you like a zoo animal, but I just find this view endlessly fascinating (and wacky beyond words, no offense.)

Out of curiosity, when you eat a meal, do you deliberately make it as bland as humanly possible and eat only the exact amount necessary to avoid starvation, so as not to encourage gluttony?
 
If this is the case why is NFP allowed by the church?

Good question, because its practice subordinates the procreative purpose, while its proponents dress it up with claims that it may still be open to life. But so could the failure of birth control pills or condoms, but that would not alter their contraceptive nature.

I could see NFP not being problematic if it were turned around to encourage intercourse only during the fertile period–the primacy of the procreative would be upheld, not frustrated, even if no pregnancy resulted.

Really, we have to wonder how much of the world’s disordered thinking about sexuality has crept into the Church, not just since Vatican II, but long beforehand.
 
Why did God make sex pleasurable? Why are women only fertile a few days each month and not constantly? Why did God make women able to nurse an infant and doing so usually suppresses ovulation?

God had it right with his creation. Sadly, some Church Fathers, even with their brilliancy in some areas, didn’t get it right with some of their ideas.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
I’m sorry to treat you like a zoo animal, but I just find this view endlessly fascinating (and wacky beyond words, no offense.)

Out of curiosity, when you eat a meal, do you deliberately make it as bland as humanly possible and eat only the exact amount necessary to avoid starvation, so as not to encourage gluttony?
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Believe it or not, this is pretty close to what I’ve been doing for about five years now. Did it to lose weight and found after a while that not eating processed foods, spices, sauces, salt or refined sugars did wonders for my health. Kicked alcohol too and even coffee.

You don’t miss it after a while. Admittedly, that was much harder than my marital arrangement to work out, and even now I still have the odd craving for fast food or sweets, but those have grown less with time.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
Believe it or not, this is pretty close to what I’ve been doing for about five years now. Did it to lose weight and found after a while that not eating processed foods, spices, sauces, salt or refined sugars did wonders for my health. Kicked alcohol too and even coffee.

You don’t miss it after a while.
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But do you think someone who does put seasoning on their food is doing something wrong? Are they encouraging/abetting gluttony?
 
AdamPeter said:
TOB specifically states that sexual pleasure is to be enjoyed by the married couple, not avoided. JPII also speaks at length in “Love and Responsibility” about the couple ensuring that sexual satisfaction occurs for both spouses as often as possible.
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I have never heard JP2 advocate that sexual pleasures are more “goods to be enjoyed themselves” instead of “instances of beauty which move us beyond the sensual to the realm of the true” or that we are supposed “dwell in that enjoyment.”

I have never heard Augustine say that sexual pleasure should be avoided.

You’re creating a false dichotomy between both saints.
 
They might be, if the purpose is not to aid healthy digestion.
 
How do you square this extremely Spartan mentality with, you know, Jesus? The wedding at Cana?
 
It’s not that difficult.

We are called to work out our salvation. If, to avoid sinning, we must deny ourselves ever more pleasures, we have to do that. All worldly pleasures will be as nothing to the pleasure of the Beatific Vision.
 
Sampson_Brass said:
It’s not that difficult.

We are called to work out our salvation. If, to avoid sinning, we must deny ourselves ever more pleasures, we have to do that. All worldly pleasures will be as nothing to the pleasure of the Beatific Vision.
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Yes, I agree with that. What I’m not convinced of is that spouses enjoying sexual relations or a person throwing some paprika on his dinner is sinful. I mention the wedding at Cana to show that Christ himself apparently didn’t hold the view that enjoying something = sin per se. By your logic, Christ should have told the wedding guests to just drink water, and only in the amount necessary to maintain hydration.
 
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