Is there scientific support for the Church's sexual abstinence teachings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ethereality
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
E

ethereality

Guest
The Church teaches that the best way of dealing with sexual urges outside of marriage is a combination of distraction and relationship: One should preoccupy oneself with various activities and focus on relationships with God and neighbor.

The world teaches that the sexual urge is like hunger: If you are hungry, you ought to exercise your digestive faculties; if you are amorous, you ought to exercise your sexual faculties. Food is the natural satisfaction of hunger as sex is the natural satisfaction of arousal. Compare Peter Kreeft’s quotation of C.S. Lewis (emphasis mine):
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, “Hope”)
Click to expand...
It seems both unfair and unhealthy for the Church to teach – as Blessed John Paul II did in one of his writings – that the best method for dealing with sexual urges outside of marriage is to avoid their natural satisfaction.* Which position is correct, and where is the evidence that supports the correct position? I would especially like to see empirical evidence. I am asking for research papers, news articles, etc.
  • Yes, St. Paul advises marriage rather than to burn with desire, but it is not possible to be married until one is married. Moreover, natural family planning requires abstinence for a significant amount of time within marriage, if one is financially unable to support more children. Furthermore, the Church appears to place the majority of her priests in a very difficult position by convincing them to vow never to marry, and making such a vow a normative requirement for the priesthood.
 
Essentially this comes down to three things:
  1. Divine realities trump everything else
  2. This is a divine command, or can be deduced from it
  3. Basically, the argument from natural science is essentially, “This is really, really hard to do, and by the way, please let me show you this scatter plot, don’t you see?! Therefore I will not listen to you.” And this is risible because it is not really natural science at all!
Church teaching cannot (usually) be evaluated by empirical methods because Church teaching is not contained–ie it cannot find its source–within only the natural realm.
 
I don’t know if there are actually scientific studies, but I can tell you my experiences.

I have a harder time maintaining the standards of purity set by God when I am idle. When I work all day I have less time available to indulge these desires even if I wanted to.

When I spend time around others who have chosen to live chaste lives, I find it easier to remain pure myself. I am encouraged by their lifestyles and their choices and it frees me from any pressure to go a different path.

When I spend time with God - whether at Mass, in prayer, or studying scripture - the desire inside of me to live up to His standards becomes larger than any desires for self-fulfillment.

This evidence is only anecdotal and does nothing to concretely “prove” Church Teaching. However, you would greatly surprise me if a study found my experiences were the exception rather than the rule.
 
ethereality said:
The Church teaches that the best way of dealing with sexual urges outside of marriage is a combination of distraction and relationship
Click to expand...
If you read Theology of the Body, I don’t think you would come to the above conclusion, even though those are secondary means. The best means is to master the truth about the body and its dignity, to master the eyes such that one looks at others as God views them. That is neither a distraction, nor marriage. It is to look at others the way Adam and Eve looked at each other prior to the Fall.

It is also a fallacy to equate something physically healthy to its moral quality. If a person had tremendous stress due to anger at another, and the quickest way to alleviate that stress was to strike that other person, it wouldn’t make the act moral. Point being - doing something beneficial for health does not automatically make the act morally acceptable.
 
p.s. The body actually does reflect the theology of the Church by the way. In sexual activity, various chemicals in the body are released, such as dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, and endorphines, that tend toward uniting the person with a single partner by creating “attachment” to that other, i.e. the body wants to be with “one” other partner, i.e. monogamy. It is also evidenced by the fact that an ovum fertilized does not permit another sperm to interfere, again, fortifying the singular one man-one woman sexual order of the body itself.
 
MarcoPolo said:
…It is also a fallacy to equate something physically healthy to its moral quality. If a person had tremendous stress due to anger at another, and the quickest way to alleviate that stress was to strike that other person, it wouldn’t make the act moral. Point being - doing something beneficial for health does not automatically make the act morally acceptable.
Click to expand...
Well said, Marco Polo.

To the OP: You are searching for “scientific” support. Let’s talk logic. Most sexual acts outside of marriage are capable of doing damage to an individual (exploitation, STD’s, unrequited love, creating apathy), to a family (as in an adulterous relationship, the ensuing mistrust, divorce, and division of family), to offspring (deadbeat or absent dads and moms), and to society in general…

On the other hand, Do celibate nuns and monks suffer or die young by being celibate? Has sublimating sexual urges by devoting oneself to education, athletics, the arts, or to social action created chaos in the world? Are children disadvantaged by being born with a father and mother married and devoted to each other?

Can science include logic?
 
Auntie_A said:
Well said, Marco Polo.

To the OP: You are searching for “scientific” support. Let’s talk logic. Most sexual acts outside of marriage are capable of doing damage to an individual (exploitation, STD’s, unrequited love, creating apathy), to a family (as in an adulterous relationship, the ensuing mistrust, divorce, and division of family), to offspring (deadbeat or absent dads and moms), and to society in general…

On the other hand, Do celibate nuns and monks suffer or die young by being celibate? Has sublimating sexual urges by devoting oneself to education, athletics, the arts, or to social action created chaos in the world? Are children disadvantaged by being born with a father and mother married and devoted to each other?

Can science include logic?
Click to expand...
Great points.👍
 
I would ask yourself this. Is it logical to attempt to reproduce when you are unprepared to raise a child? From a scientific and logical standpoint, sex is for creating new life, both the male and female bodies are reacting to facilitate the union of a sperm and an egg. The desire and pleasure etc are there to encourage reproduction and to support the union of the prospective parents.

So sex outside of marriage is illogical because you engaging your body in an attempt to create new life when you do not want new life and you are uniting with a person or image etc that you do not wish to be committed to the rest of your life. The existence of porn and ABC create a real imbalance of pleasure without the offsetting moderation of responsibility and lead to this attitude that sexual pleasure is a necessity to everyday life.
 
It would be very illogical to be active outside of marriage.
Too many problems afterwords.
 
This issue is more of a moral issue rather than a scientific one. I could write volumes based on why, which would include the examination of other species as well as the sexual practices of isolated primitive tribes, untouched by modern religion or morals…but I don’t have the time today.
 
ethereality said:
The Church teaches that the best way of dealing with sexual urges outside of marriage is a combination of distraction and relationship: One should preoccupy oneself with various activities and focus on relationships with God and neighbor.

The world teaches that the sexual urge is like hunger: If you are hungry, you ought to exercise your digestive faculties; if you are amorous, you ought to exercise your sexual faculties. Food is the natural satisfaction of hunger as sex is the natural satisfaction of arousal. Compare Peter Kreeft’s quotation of C.S. Lewis (emphasis mine):

It seems both unfair and unhealthy for the Church to teach – as Blessed John Paul II did in one of his writings – that the best method for dealing with sexual urges outside of marriage is to avoid their natural satisfaction.* Which position is correct, and where is the evidence that supports the correct position? I would especially like to see empirical evidence. I am asking for research papers, news articles, etc.
  • Yes, St. Paul advises marriage rather than to burn with desire, but it is not possible to be married until one is married. Moreover, natural family planning requires abstinence for a significant amount of time within marriage, if one is financially unable to support more children. Furthermore, the Church appears to place the majority of her priests in a very difficult position by convincing them to vow never to marry, and making such a vow a normative requirement for the priesthood.
Click to expand...
Science can speak to the biological aspect of the functions of sexuality but it can’t have any (name removed by moderator)ut on the spiritual aspects. Human beings distinct from all others species and organisms have a natural instinct to relate to their Creator and strive for eternal life over and above physical survival. All other species and organisms have a highest loyalty to their species survival. Their sexual function has no capacity for love and physical sacrifice. Human beings from the time history is able to recall, have practiced reigning in desire to ‘please deities’ and pay for human sins. There is a natural instinct for knowing that dying to self physically is the path to inner freedom and the life of the soul.

Modern man who strives to silence this instinct as primitive and defunct and strives to subvert the physical instinct to populate through sex, reserving it (sex) for situational pleasure alone… goes against every instinct of natural and divine law.
 
LongingSoul said:
Modern man who strives to silence this instinct as primitive and defunct and strives to subvert the physical instinct to populate through sex, reserving it (sex) for situational pleasure alone… goes against every instinct of natural and divine law.
Click to expand...
It’s nothing modern; it’s existed since ancient times, e.g., Sodom and Gommorah. Various primitive tribal groups will also have sex for pleasure. Some even have birth control derived from nature, such as tree bark.
 
There have been numerous responses regarding logic, rational argument, and theology. I had asked for scientific studies confirming these arguments, not whether the arguments themselves made sense.

It seems no one here knows of any studies, although writing this post I do recall something about couples who cohabitate prior to marriage being about seven times more likely to divorce after marriage. Of course there are likely other factors involved in that correlational finding, e.g. temperament of the couple, poverty.

I suppose I started this thread because trying to ignore sexual desire is so hard that it seems unnatural – but perhaps it is simply contrary to our world today, not contrary to one’s nature.
 
The problem isn’t that studies don’t exist, but rather that the results are all over the page. A simple Google search for abstinence studies has headlines of studies supporting abstinence education and headlines renouncing it. There is no consensus.

I agree with you that sexual desire is hard to ignore. That’s why Paul said, “He who marries does well, he who does not marry will do better.” (1 Cor 7:38). This ends a section where St. Paul offers advice to men and women about marriage and purity (1 Cor 6:12-7:38).

He also wrote, “For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God.” (1 Thes 4:3).

There may not be any conclusive, scientific studies to support the Church’s position. That doesn’t mean the other side is correct.
 
whm said:
I would ask yourself this. Is it logical to attempt to reproduce when you are unprepared to raise a child? From a scientific and logical standpoint, sex is for creating new life, both the male and female bodies are reacting to facilitate the union of a sperm and an egg.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but being prepared to raise a child in 2013 is far different from what it was thousands of years ago. Back in the caveman days, women probably were bearing children from the moment they were biologically capable of doing so. In other words our bodies, both mechanically and instinctually, are driven to reproduce. If you’re living in a family clan of hunter-gatherers you can create a new life and be capable of raising it.

The disconnect comes when, thousands of years later, we’re not living in that environment anymore. The problem lies in controlling the biology to conform to the status quo.
 
ethereality said:
There have been numerous responses regarding logic, rational argument, and theology. I had asked for scientific studies confirming these arguments, not whether the arguments themselves made sense.

It seems no one here knows of any studies, although writing this post I do recall something about couples who cohabitate prior to marriage being about seven times more likely to divorce after marriage. Of course there are likely other factors involved in that correlational finding, e.g. temperament of the couple, poverty.

I suppose I started this thread because trying to ignore sexual desire is so hard that it seems unnatural – but perhaps it is simply contrary to our world today, not contrary to one’s nature.
Click to expand...
Yes, I have heard of studies regarding what you’re asking for, but frankly am just too tired to go hunting the internet for them. I have heard of studies, as you say, showing that those who live together and have sex before marriage have higher divorce rates. I know there’s a study showing that couples who practice NFP have an extremely low divorce rate (something like 2%.) I’ve recently heard of some studies showing that despite what popular culture would have us believe, married monogamous couples have sex more often and have greater satisfaction with it.

The problem with studies, in our day and age is that, as useful as they can be, there’s also too much junk science out there, too many people with agendas, creating studies and polls in such ways that they get the answer they want. And here’s where it’s useful to use logic and studies side by side. I think reading Theology of the Body would give some insight into why the Church’s teaching on sexuality is sound, biologically and scientifically.

I can look to the lives of many of my friends and tell you exactly why sex before marriage wasn’t a great idea. I can direct you to a forum full of people who pride themselves on being ‘sex positive,’ which means they have lots of sex with lots of people, and in general, I don’t really see where most of it has done anything but harm them, their marriages, their spouses, and their children.
 
holyrood said:
I can look to the lives of many of my friends and tell you exactly why sex before marriage wasn’t a great idea. I can direct you to a forum full of people who pride themselves on being ‘sex positive,’ which means they have lots of sex with lots of people, and in general, I don’t really see where most of it has done anything but harm them, their marriages, their spouses, and their children.
Click to expand...
What consequences have you discovered these people to face by living as they do?
 
Trebor135 said:
What consequences have you discovered these people to face by living as they do?
Click to expand...
My list covers a number of people I have known, from the common college girl looking for love in all the wrong places to couples in open marriages.

Heartbreak.
Emotional turmoil.
Ending up feeling used.
Drops in self esteem as a result of feeling used.
Drama, drama, drama.
Sexually transmitted diseases.
Having to get tested constantly.
Disease scares when someone who’s sleeping with someone who’s sleeping with someone who’s sleeping with them turns out to have a disease.
Death, in the case of something like AIDS
Pregnancy scares
Unplanned pregnancies.
Issues with family over their lifestyle
Having to keep secrets
Not living up to career potential because all their energy goes to ‘dating’
Problems with children who do not respect them, who feel neglected because the parent is always out ‘dating’
Pain to children who have boyfriends/girlfriends in and out of their lives–they get attached and then the person disappears
Marriages in turmoil and distress.
Stress from juggling all these other issues and dealing with them.
Divorce.

This is off the top of my head list, and of course, a single thing like ‘divorce’ covers a whole gamut of issues that will likely persist a lifetime and spread out in a ripple affect to touch many other lives.
 
Considering that I just finished up a NFP class with my husband, I can say that I benefited greatly from the science that the NFP symto-thermal method is based on. Without that class, I would have never learned the scientific signs of my own fertility, which somehow I had not been taught even though I attended a magnet math and science high school and majored for a large portion of my college career in biology. It’s almost as if our society doesn’t want women to understand their fertility…why else would no science class I have taken leave out instruction of the easily observable fertility signs that I unknowingly had since puberty? The signs that would have prevented years of artificial birth control?

The Church fully supports science; it’s often the proponents of science that like to keep truth from women concerning their own fertility.
 
For those looking for scientific studies, I suggest you read this article. It summarizes the findings of several studies on premarital sex and divorce rates.

You can also see where the original studies were published in case you want to check them yourself.

All of these studies show that non-virgins have higher rates of divorce than those who marry as virgins.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top