Why is sex "allowed" during a woman's infertile days?

[Bendalina]

I genuinely want to accept the Catholic teaching about no artificial contraception. In fact, I teach it, and have practiced it. (My husband and I practiced it for a decade, including meaning we could not make love for the first 2 weeks of our marriage) Being that I am now infertile, though not yet at menopause, I struggle with what seems a contradiction in the teaching.

If the conjugal act is meant to be BOTH unitive and creative, how can NFP differ from artificial contraception in this respect:

NFP informs the couple when they can make love without “fear” of conception.

Artificial contraception does the same.

Both have the INTENTION of sex without procreation.

Why is one OK and not the other?

Further, what of those who have no access to a basal thermometer, pen & paper? Or what of those who lived before we had NFP fully understood?

And why is sex after menopause ok?

I am not a big fan of sex, and so am willing to say: if you don’t want kids, no sex. But you can imagine my husband does not agree. But what about after menopause? Am I entitled as a wife to say No Way Jose? He doesn’t seem to think so. And yet, the arguments for his being allowed to “expect” sex (unitive alone is enough), is contrary to the artificial birth control argument.

 

[blessedtoo]

Why is one OK and not the other?

ABC is an active interference with the process of conception. In order to prevent a pregnancy, one must actively alter the body in some way by suppressing fertilization.

With NFP, you are refraining from the activity that causes pregnancy, thus it is something you are NOT doing, rather than something you **are **ACTIVELY doing. One system interferes with the natural processes of conception where the other system cooperates with those processes.

 

[LilyM]

I genuinely want to accept the Catholic teaching about no artificial contraception. In fact, I teach it, and have practiced it. (My husband and I practiced it for a decade, including meaning we could not make love for the first 2 weeks of our marriage) Being that I am now infertile, though not yet at menopause, I struggle with what seems a contradiction in the teaching.

If the conjugal act is meant to be BOTH unitive and creative, how can NFP differ from artificial contraception in this respect:

NFP informs the couple when they can make love without “fear” of conception.

Artificial contraception does the same.

Both have the INTENTION of sex without procreation.

Why is one OK and not the other?

Further, what of those who have no access to a basal thermometer, pen & paper? Or what of those who lived before we had NFP fully understood?

And why is sex after menopause ok?

I am not a big fan of sex, and so am willing to say: if you don’t want kids, no sex. But you can imagine my husband does not agree. But what about after menopause? Am I entitled as a wife to say No Way Jose? He doesn’t seem to think so. And yet, the arguments for his being allowed to “expect” sex (unitive alone is enough), is contrary to the artificial birth control argument.

God naturally created women to have infertile periods - menstruation as well as menopause, perhaps breastfeeding, etc. Yet, unlike His design for a lot of species, He didn’t design us to be ‘out of heat’ (neither desiring nor capable of sex) during those infertile times. Ergo it is his plan that sex not just be restricted to the fertile times for humans.

As for why NFP (or sex during infertile times) is fine whereas ABC is not - think of it in terms of the MEANS to achieve an end being wrong in themselves, not the end. Spacing out children or avoiding children is not the problem in itself, it’s the altering the body chemically, surgically or whatever in order to render it unnaturally infertile that’s the problem. And you should do some study on ancient medicine - some of those Greeks, Romans, ancient Indians and Arabs were very cluey indeed about female fertility.

As an analogy - if I need and want money to pay my bills and support my family, that end in itself is good and fine. I can, however, either choose morally acceptable means (working, selling things I don’t need) to achieve that good end, or immoral ones (drug dealing, robbing people, conning them out of money) which aren’t acceptable even if they achieve the same good end.

 

[fellowChristian]

It’s all about your intentions.

If you practice NFP you are sacrificing sex and everything that goes with it.

A non selfish decision.

If you are contracepting you are having sex without any consequences.

A selfish decision.

If you can not have children then it means you can not have children. It doesn’t mean you can not have sex.

Sex is not just about making babies.

*"Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter—appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. *

Making love is also about total mutual self-giving.If you are withholding sex you are withholding a part of yourself from him.That is not what the sacrament of marriage is about.

You’re just looking for a way out of having sex. And I understand. I am a women who has been married for 20 years to the same man. I have issues that include him being like a light switch and me being more like two sticks you have to rub together to get a light. and he keeps thinking I’m a light switch:dts: But with five kids and both of us working full time on opposite shifts whos got time to rub two sticks together and fan the flames into a serious fire?:banghead: Anyway we continue to talk open and honest so he understands that after awhile sex is just another chore for me if we don’t treat it the way God meant for us to. It is a gift we shouldn’t abuse.Hopefully you get my meaning

The Catechism of the Catholic Church
ARTICLE 7
THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY

 

[Em_in_FL]

Also from the catechism…

2363
The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.

The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.

Sex within marriage is not ONLY for procreation…
The correctly-ordered nature of the sexual union is vital for ensuring that the procreative aspect is not left out, but it’s certainly not limited to JUST procreation.
Sexual union within marriage is also for “the good of the spouses”… In other words…

2362
"The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude."145 Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:

    The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.146

This is something that may require some serious communication with your husband. Total lack of libido of one of the spouses can be a huge issue for some couples, and when major differences like this arise within a marriage there needs to be open communication and discussion to make sure that no one is being neglected. Your feelings need to be understood by your husband, but your husband’s feelings ALSO need to be taken into consideration. Just because you have an inordinately low sex drive does not mean that sex is bad… that is disordered thinking.

HTH!

 

[onaquest]

So far as menapause goes, I think of Sarah in the Old Testament and Elizabeth in the new. Their fertility passed their time set the stage for the miracle of the Virgin birth that was to come.

 

[Bendalina]

I appreciate all of these thoughtful responses. I am NOT looking for a way out of sex, as one person wrote. And certainly during my 20 years of marriage there have been MANY conversations with my husband. Our sex life isn’t bad by any means. I simply don’t understand the logic of the Church’s argument.

You repeatedly say that sex isn’t ONLY for procreation–got that–but the CC also says that to separate the 2 meanings of sex is wrong… and then then allows it for we elite who understand NFP. “Doing” something versus “refraining” just doesn’t cut it to me as a reason to call ABC immoral.

If the fear of conception causes great stress to a marriage, there’s no mutual self-giving going on even if no ABC is used.

 

[Em_in_FL]

You repeatedly say that sex isn’t ONLY for procreation–got that–but the CC also says that to separate the 2 meanings of sex is wrong… and then then allows it for we elite who understand NFP. “Doing” something versus “refraining” just doesn’t cut it to me as a reason to call ABC immoral.

If the fear of conception causes great stress to a marriage, there’s no mutual self-giving going on even if no ABC is used.

NFP does not separate the 2 meanings of sex, as you suggest. Every marital act that is correctly-ordered is good. The meaning of “correctly-ordered” is that it’s done in it’s natural form - ie, the man completing inside the woman, so that if fertility were present then conception could occur. Fertility is not a requirement.

More from the catechism…

2370
Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158 These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil:159

    Thus the innate LANGUAGE that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory LANGUAGE, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.160

 

[tee_eff_em]

To answer the question in the Thread Title, *Why is sex “allowed” during a woman’s infertile days? *The answer is: Sex is “allowed” to a married couple whether the woman (or the man, for that matter) is fertile or not.

I appreciate all of these thoughtful responses. I am NOT looking for a way out of sex, as one person wrote. And certainly during my 20 years of marriage there have been MANY conversations with my husband. Our sex life isn’t bad by any means. I simply don’t understand the logic of the Church’s argument.

You repeatedly say that sex isn’t ONLY for procreation–got that–but the CC also says that to separate the 2 meanings of sex is wrong… and then then allows it for we elite who understand NFP. “Doing” something versus “refraining” just doesn’t cut it to me as a reason to call ABC immoral.

When a married couple has sex on infertile days, they are not separating the unitive and procreative aspects of the act – Nature (if anything) has done so.

But you are onto something – Something is wrong if a (otherwise fertile) couple has sex only during periodic infertility, with the intent to perpetually avoid conception. I believe Pope John Paul II of Blessed Memory wrote against the “contraceptive mentality”.

tee

 

[Bendalina]

EM in FL: I also understand that fertility is not a requirement. But that just weakens the CC argument. Again, there is sex with no intention of conception. Just because “Nature took care of that” doesn’t negate the fact that the 2 necessary meanings are lacking one. And yet this is OK in the CC’s teaching. It seems to me that only the unitive nature of the act is absolutely necessary.

 

[blessedtoo]

The Church does not say that every marital act MUST produce offspring NOR does the Church say that every act must have reproduction as it’s ONLY intent.

The Church states that every marital act must be OPEN to the POSSIBILITY of procreation. ABC is a tangible, proactive “NO” to that possibility and a **separation **of the two aspects the Church considers essential for marital expression. With NFP, one says “NO” to the separation of the aspects and, rather then an attempt to to isolate one from the other, it chooses to NOT ACT at all, in conformity with God’s law.

An example that might be helpful is the Church’s position of IVF. If Her primary concern was to force Catholics to continuously pump out children, then this form of procreation would be acceptable. IVF separates the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect, makes is morally incompatible with Catholic teaching and should indicate that the Church places equal importance on both expressions of marital love.

 

[onaquest]

NFP respects the body of a woman and her natural cycles. It causes her husband to respect it as as well. I think of the supporters of birth control in the early years and how women were used as brood mares in many cases, it seemed like a god send to many women that were now married to men insensitive to their needs or to women that wanted to express their desire at any given moment. NFP respects the power of a woman’s body to bring about new life. It says that second to this power comes desire, whether ordered or disordered. To abstain from having sex during your most fertile time is not the same as using contraception which tricks the body and the mind into believing that there is no natural cycle given to man by God. To challenge timed celibate periods between a man and a woman is tho challenge celibacy. We have perfectly healthy men and women religious that abstain from sex during their most fertile periods for reasons known to God and man. Why can’t married couple also use celibacy to serve God and man.

 

[Bendalina]

tee ef em: Does CC/JP II consider a couple who has grown children and doesn’t want more and thus are using NFP so as not to conceive disordered?

 

[Em_in_FL]

… doesn’t negate the fact that the 2 necessary meanings are lacking one. And yet this is OK in the CC’s teaching. It seems to me that only the unitive nature of the act is absolutely necessary.

No… NFP is not “lacking one” of the aspects of the marital union.
The procreative and unitive aspects are BOTH in place.

Procreative does not mean fertile… nor does it mean that you can’t engage in marital union without the intention of conception (this implies that every martial act must be done WITH the intention of conception… that’s not the meaning of “procreative”).
The meaning is that it must be “correctly-ordered”… in that the man must complete inside the woman, so that if fertility were present, conception could occur.

You are right in suggesting that NFP could be done with a “contraceptive mentality”, but you are incorrect in suggesting that it is always done with that mentality.
The reasons a couple would choose to use NFP are between them and God alone… not for you and I to judge at all.

2368
A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:

    When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156

 

[Em_in_FL]

tee ef em: Does CC/JP II consider a couple who has grown children and doesn’t want more and thus are using NFP so as not to conceive disordered?

I know you didn’t ask me directly… but now I understand your question…


First off… we can never judge the state of our neighbor’s hearts.
Just because they say the words “we don’t WANT more kids” doesn’t mean that there isn’t a good reason behind that desire. It may be a disordered desire… but it may be a virtuous one… we cannot judge.

HTH!

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

ABC is an active interference with the process of conception. In order to prevent a pregnancy, one must actively alter the body in some way by suppressing fertilization.

With NFP, you are refraining from the activity that causes pregnancy, thus it is something you are NOT doing, rather than something you **are **ACTIVELY doing. One system interferes with the natural processes of conception where the other system cooperates with those processes.

Very nice answer

 

[Bendalina]

Em in FL: I am not concerned about judging anyone, I am trying to understand what I consider inconsistencies in the teaching. The couple with grown kids using NFP with the intention of no more kids are participating in the “contraceptive mentality” which we are told is wrong. Is what makes that OK the fact that they are older and have raised a family and are not required to have kids endlessly? OK, but they are still NOT OPEN to procreation, which is a requirement.

 

[blessedtoo]

EM in FL: I also understand that fertility is not a requirement. But that just weakens the CC argument. Again, there is sex with no intention of conception. Just because “Nature took care of that” doesn’t negate the fact that the 2 necessary meanings are lacking one. And yet this is OK in the CC’s teaching. It seems to me that only the unitive nature of the act is absolutely necessary.

It only weakens the case if you approach it from the “scientific” or secular view of procreation. It is difficult to debate NFP to the exclusion of God’s participation in bringing forth new life.

For Catholics, faith must enter the equation of any debate, even while reason can be employed as the starting point. We may “understand” through knowledge of science that, once a woman has entered or passed through menopause, that conception is physically impossible. Once again, the couple in this circumstance, has done nothing to influence this natural course of events, and is, in fact, cooperating with the laws of human biology, as we believe God designed them. The couple does not seek nor will for the two aspects to be separate. The couple does not actively alter the natural design of aging and inevitable infertility.

One could also make the argument that, in general, God’s design for the aging and progressively infertile couple also includes a tremendous loss of the sexual drive and function. Today, medical science has created artificial ways to prolong sexual function well beyond what nature might have intended. Without intereference, and without medical intervention, it could be argued that God included in His design a natural diminishment of sexual desire and function that would coincide with the natural infertifility of aging.

 

[blessedtoo]

Em in FL: I am not concerned about judging anyone, I am trying to understand what I consider inconsistencies in the teaching. The couple with grown kids using NFP with the intention of no more kids are participating in the “contraceptive mentality” which we are told is wrong. Is what makes that OK the fact that they are older and have raised a family and are not required to have kids endlessly? OK, but they are still NOT OPEN to procreation, which is a requirement.

They are NOT OPEN to procreation because they are not ACTIVELY ENGAGING in the ACT which would bring about new life. They are not refusing to procreate - they are refusing to SEPERATE the two aspects from one another. They are not attempting to thwart the possibility of new life while still participating in the unitive aspect.

A “contraceptive mentality” is exactly that - refusing to accept that the marital act can never be licit when the intentional SEPARATION of the aspects occurs.

Back in the day, before the advent of ABC, couples voluntarily abstained from the marital act because intuitively they understood that you can’t do one without the POSSIBILITY of the other. Many couples with grown children or very large families would either refrain from ALL sexual activity or attempt to work with natural fertility by following the crude (and often unpredictable) rhythm method. This attempt to limit family size, for whatever reason (that would be between the couple and God) would not be considered a “contraceptive” mentality because they are working within the framework of our natural design.

And again, as I mentioned before, anyone who has been married for more than a few decades, can testify that sexual desire diminishes with age. What may seem completely impossible and incomprehensible to a newly married couple in their 20’s or 30’s would not be as hard to understand for a couple in their 50’s or 60’s. In addition, fertility declines as a woman ages and, according to God’s design, her chances of becoming pregnant are lessened with time.

God has allowed us to cooperate with His desire to bring forth new life. He has designed our human bodies to work efficiently with His plan. He has provided safeguards which can be verified scientifically that a couple who may no longer be capable of caring for young children (in their 70’s or 80’s) would not have to contend with such an inevitability because their bodies have naturally eliminated the possiblity.

 

[GratefulDad]

Saw this post a few days ago, it may add to what Em and others have already posted.

From Corinthians we see:

1 Corinthians 7: 4-5

4 A wife does not have authority over her own body, but rather her husband, and similarly a husband does not have authority over his own body, but rather his wife.

5 Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

From Pope John Paul II:
John Paul II also says that if the only reason a couple is having sex is to transmit life, then they may be in danger of using each other rather than loving each other (see Love & Responsibility p. 233).

Also, John Paul describes the “beatifying experience” of conjugal union as a foretaste of the joys of heaven (see TB, Dec 16, 1981 and Jan 13, 1982). In Love & Responsibility, by his detailed discussion of the husband’s responsibility - out of authentic love for his wife - to see that she achieves sexual climax (see Love & Responsibility pp. 270-278).

CCC States:

V. THE GOODS AND REQUIREMENTS OF CONJUGAL LOVE

1643 "Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectively, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values."152
The unity and indissolubility of marriage

1644 The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses’ community of persons, which embraces their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one flesh."153 They "are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving."154 This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist received together.

1645 "The unity of marriage, distinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and unreserved affection."155 Polygamy is contrary to conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive.156

• The fidelity of conjugal love

1646 By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement “until further notice.” The "intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them."157

1660 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (cf. CIC, can. 1055 § 1; cf. GS 48 § 1).

III. THE LOVE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE

2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

2361 "Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death."143

"The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude."145 Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:

2364 The married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and love established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent."147 Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two; from now on they form one flesh

Check out the Christopher West, Books on Theology of the Body. Great resource.

Also, I am not trying to be rude, but did you and your husband ever talk about this before you were married? Did you explain you that you really were not interested in giving of yourself this way and you only wanted to have conjugal relations if you, had to or to have children. Again, not meaning to be rude because giving of one another means taking care of the family, going to work, fixing meals, etc. Just curious?