Catholic Sex Blog

I remember a friend of mine once told me about discussions she had with her other lady friends. They were of the opinion that if their husband had an affair with another woman, they would immediately leave him. And these were the same women who saw nothing wrong with pre-marital sex.

Why is it alright for their husband-to-be to have pre-marital sex, but not for their husband to commit adultery? Aren’t they really the same thing?

Pre-marital sex is committing adultery in advance. It lets you know something about your boyfriend or girlfriend - he or she is willing to have intercourse with someone who isn’t married. What makes you think that is going to change after you’re married?

The only reason people are having a lot of pre-marital sex is because they have access to contraceptives. Pregnancy is a deterrent to having pre-marital sex.

But guess what? Pregnancy is also a deterrent to adultery. If it is okay to use contraceptives in pre-marital sex, it will be okay to use it in adultery as well… which makes the rates of both pre-marital sex and adultery soar.

It is hypocritical to say that adultery is wrong but pre-marital sex is okay, because both essentially do not respect the marital bond. In both cases, people who are not married to each other are having sex with each other.

If that marital bond is not honoured and respected before marriage, there’s no reason to expect it to be honoured and respected after marriage.

Today, I learnt something new about what the Church teaches about pornography.

First, the secular definition of pornography:

“Pornography is the presentation or production of sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.”

Now the Church’s definition of pornography:

“Pornography consists of removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties.”

See the difference? I didn’t at first, until it was explained to me. The difference is that the Church only considers sexual acts shown to third parties as pornographic. That means that a lot of the secular pornography out there is not really what the Church considers pornography. Images like porn stars displaying their private parts (which are called ‘private’ for a reason), or acting seductively - these are not considered pornography by the Church, although the secular world does consider it pornography. These are considered obscene, a sin against modesty and chastity, but not pornography.

All this while, I have been using the secular definition of pornography without thinking to check what the Church defines it.

What’s the big deal, you ask? I asked that too.

The first big deal is that if we label something that isn’t pornography with the word pornography, we are in danger of not recognising the real pornography for what it is. I don’t agree with this explanation yet, but I pray that with the grace of God, I can come to accept the truth as taught by the Church, the bride of Christ and guardian of the truth.

The second big deal is that we have to ask - who labels these things as pornography when they are not really pornography? The answer? The porn industry. The porn industry labels certain things which are not pornography as pornography. Ask yourself this, do you want to listen to what the Church says, or what the porn industry says? This one I can accept. I don’t want to call things as the porn industry labels them. I would rather listen to what the Church says on this.

I read in last week’s papers that supermodel Gisele Bundchen slammed the Catholic Church for its stand on contraception, that it was outdated in a world where no one is a virgin when they marry, and that contraceptives can be very helpful in preventing the spread of STDs.

If I gather rightly, Ms Bundchen is advocating for more sexual promiscuity and for more people to have irresponsible sex, that is, sex without consequences.

The rising rate of number of abortions procured, and spread of STDs can only be attributed to larger numbers of people having irresponsible sex because they can, or because they believe that contraceptives make them invincible.

But no contraceptive is 100% effective, and when there are larger numbers of people taking part in irresponsible sex using contraceptives, the number of unwanted pregnancies is only going to rise. Contraceptives are causing the very thing they were supposed to be preventing - rising numbers of unwanted pregnancies, and rising rate of STD transmission. And a country that uses contraceptives to reduce the number of abortions procured is throwing gasoline to put out a fire; it’s only going to get worse.

The Church is not just against the use of contraceptives; it is against the rotten fruits of contraception as well.

Let’s face it, contraception isn’t about preventing the spread of STDs and unwanted pregnancies. There’s already a 100% effective solution to that, one that the Catholic Church advocates, and the secular world rejects, simply because the secular world promotes the spread of that which they claim to be against. Otherwise why would the secular world promote contraception instead of abstinence?

The secular world is interested in promoting what they call sexual liberty, but which is, in fact, sexual enslavement.

No? Take a good look at Ms Bundchen’s stand on contraception and sex. She is saying, together with the rest of the secular world, that men and women today cannot say ‘no’ to their sexual urges, and must jump into bed with someone before they are married.

What do you call a person who can’t say ‘no’ to his desire for another drink? An alcoholic. What do you call a person who can’t say ‘no’ to another smoke? A smoking addict. What do you call a generation of young men and women who cannot say ‘no’ to their desire to have sex? Sex addicts. Sexual enslavement is what this so-called “sexual liberty” is in fact resulting in. And the consequences? You know it - rising numbers of unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

Let’s face it, contraceptives are never going to work in lowering the rates of unwanted pregnancies and spread of STDs. For even if one day contraception acquires a 0% failure rate, there is still going to be user failure.

So what happens then? Obviously abortion is used to take care of all the unwanted pregnancies that result from irresponsible sex. Now this is serious, because each abortion procured is the murder of a child.

A fetus is not a ‘thing’, it is a human child, a living human person. All scientific arguments are against the position of abortionists and in favour of the Catholic position. If someone wants to put this to the test, let him simply ask a non-Catholic doctor who has performed an abortion whether what he has extracted from the womb is no more than a thing, or whether it is a living being. And if it is a living being, of what species is it?

No; the abortionist position is not based on science or on reason. It is based on prejudices and interests, neither of which have anything humanitarian about them.

I came across a quote by Hugh Hefner the other day and was trying to find it on the Internet. While searching for it, I came across this rather interesting interview with him by On The Media. Here is an extract of it:

WOMAN (from video): The role that you have selected for women is degrading to women because you choose to see women as sex objects.

WOMAN (from video): You make them look like animals! Yes! Women aren’t bunnies. They’re not rabbits. They’re human beings! The day that you are willing to come out here with a cotton tail attached to your rear end–

HUGH HEFNER: We’ve been accused, obviously, of exploiting women, exploiting sex. I think Playboy exploits sex — you know I just think “exploit” is an unfortunate word. Playboy exploits sex like Sports Illustrated exploits sports! [LAUGHTER]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now I noticed that you never responded to her specific challenge about the bunny tails. I mean it would, after all, be antithetical to the Playboy aesthetic to attach a little fuzzy ball of cotton to your own tush, wouldn’t it?

HUGH HEFNER: Yes, I think so. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHS]!

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But is that fair?

HUGH HEFNER: And– that feminist diatribe– didn’t make a lot of sense back then; it seems very foolish today. I think that in the intervening years women really have become truly human. That anti-sexual part of feminism is very antiquated, and quite frankly was anti-revolutionary even at the time. To be truly hu– human, women have to embrace their sexuality. And that’s all Playboy’s really all about. I think it’s one of the reasons why the magazine and the Playboy symbols and why the, the rabbit image are so popular now with young women, and you see Playboy fashions in all the leading women’s magazines. We have come a long ways, baby.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I think that’s true, but I do think that some of that Playboy style that you’re referring to - the bunny costumes - have a– certainly something to do with kitsch. And what’s more, back in the early days when you were creating that costume and that image, it wasn’t women expressing their own sexuality; it was women putting on the costume that you had designed for them!

HUGH HEFNER: Yes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This was, this wasn’t them “embracing their own sexuality.” This was them embracing yours!

HUGH HEFNER: True. That’s right.

Source: http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_112 803_bunny.html

That last line by Brooke Gladstone and the confirmation by Hefner was what struck me most. Women have been, and are still being, taken for a ride if they thought or think that embracing their sexuality means to conform with the picture that the secular media paints.

I still can’t find my quote. Guess I have to spend $25 and get that book in which I saw it. But from what I remember, it was along the lines of why Hefner chose the rabbit to be the mascot for Playboy - for its “humorous sexual connotation” and due to the image being “frisky and playful”. Of course the rabbit is also hunting game for men.

Women or girls who wear the Playboy symbol on them and don’t know what that symbol means had better beware. It’s like painting a big bull’s eye on them for perverts to come after them, hunting them, and conquering them. They’ll be off with a “C’ya!” before you even have time to put on your clothes.

Incidentally, here’s another one for women: Have you ever wondered why the secular media paints thin to be in?

When you look at paintings of famous artists in the past, we see that they had a very different idea of what it meant for a woman to be beautiful. None of them were slender as they are today. What changed? How did our perception of beauty change?

In pre-modern ages, fat women were judged more attractive than slender women because food was scarcer. Also, women who were bigger in size were more attractive than thin women because they could bear more children and were more physically resilient to handle the effects of bearing many children.

What changed?

Over time, people began to associate large families with poverty. If you have fewer children, you have more money to spend on yourself, they realised. This was also around the time that the fashion industry began to pick up, and of course the drivers of the fashion industry realized this. So what did they do? They promoted the idea that thin was fashionable. Why? Because thinner people are less likely to bear many children, which meant that they had more money to spend. Spend on what? Fashion, of course, keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

Women, you have been exploited, and are still being exploited by men, in your search for independence and freedom from men. Freedom is found only in the truth. Where can you find the truth? Only one man can offer you that freedom. Jesus tells us, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Not all the posts on this blog are about sex. Some are about marriage, which is the only proper place for sex to take place. The trouble is, many modern couples today are planning for a failed marriage when they plan not to have children or to delay having children in the first few years of their marriage.

All marriages go through a crisis, writes Msgr Cormac Burke who, as a retired judge in the Roman Rota, has reviewed thousands of cases of marriage annulment from around the world. The following is partly adapted from his book “Covenanted Happiness”.

This crisis usually takes place at about two to five years after a couple gets married. Hence, he writes, a couple’s biggest and most frequent mistake for their marriage is to postpone having children until two to five years after they are married.

It is at this point of time that the romance and love between a married couple begins to fade. It is, according to Msgr Burke, nature’s plan for married couples to have children as the support for their marriage at this point of time. But because many married couples choose to delay having children, the support for their marriage does not exist when they need it.

Many young couples want to enjoy themselves to each other for a number of years after getting married. Despite whatever reasons they give, “to have a good time together” is not much of an ideal for two people to share, and is definitely not going to be enough to hold them together in love for a lifetime.

A couple that plans for a marriage with sacrifice reduced to a minimum and, if possible, totally eliminated, is a couple who wants a marriage where they will eventually lose respect for each other.

One reason that is given that the couple wants to mature first before having children, not realising that it is in the process of raising children together that they mature. I am sure that you can think of many young men in the army who are hardly mature simply because their parents have protected them and prevented them from undergoing hardship throughout their lives. These parents are not doing their children a favour, they are damaging them, spoil-ing them.

In the same way, a married couple that avoids having children under the pretext of maturity is, in fact, preventing their marriage from maturing. They are damaging their marriage deliberately, they are spoil-ing their marriage and themselves.

People have always cried out, “We want to be able to enjoy marriage without the Church telling us what to do. We don’t want to be weighed down by the rules of the Church.” It is ironic then that the people who pay least heed to the laws of the Church are the ones who are finding least happiness in marriage. What is more ironic is that they now blame the Church for giving them a guilty conscience which led to their unhappiness in marriage. That is one sign of immaturity in a person - the refusal to take responsibility for one’s own mistakes. Immature people are always looking for a scapegoat for their problems.

For love to exist and withstand the trials of life, there must be sacrifice, because sacrifice is part of love. To plan for a marriage with the least amount of sacrifice possible is to plan for a marriage with the least amount of love. It is to plan for a marriage that is most likely to breakdown.

- adapted from “Covenanted Happiness” by Cormac Burke

Note: Msgr Cormac Burke’s books can all be found online at his website.