Catholic Sex Blog

Have you ever asked yourself this question: Why are humans born male and female? Why don’t we reproduce asexually, like some creatures? Why weren’t we born bisexual? Okay, hermaphrodites are, but that’s a physical defect. Hermaphrodism is an anomaly.

Normal humans are created male or female. Why? If you don’t believe that humans are created, but evolved to be male or female, then let me rephrase the question: why have humans evolved to be male and female?

I would say that there is only one answer to this question, and that is: we are not made to be alone. Humans have evolved to be male and female because evolution has shown that living in a community has higher chances of survival than living alone.

The organs that enable human beings to live as members of a community include the sexual organs, and what drives human beings to live in a community is the sexual urge.

Like all basic functions of the human body which are necessary for survival of the human race, pleasure is attached to sex. This pleasure that is linked to sex, as is linked to eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, excreting… is what drives a person to do these things necessary for human survival.

Each member of the community contributes in some way to the survival of the community. Some bring food to the table, some cook, some produce art, some build… but one thing that all can do is that all can reproduce. This ensures that each function in the community has direct successors to continue the work that is being done in the community. This is the natural order of human life.

What happens when a human being is not able to reproduce? This is usually because of some physical defect, such as sterility through age or disease. These are not part of the natural order of human life; they are defects that occur through the deterioration of the human body. It is not that defective human’s fault that he or she is unable to reproduce. This human therefore has to contribute to the community in some other way.

What happens when a human being is able to reproduce, but refuses to? Unless this human is sacrificing his or her own reproductive capabilities for a higher purpose, we can say that this human is being selfish, that is, choosing to rely on his or her own self, rather than preserving the unity of the community. It becomes even more apparent when such humans demand the same rights as the rest of the community, while not contributing to it in the same way.

Instead of building up the community as each member ought to, this person is destroying the community by refusing to contribute his or her fertility to the betterment of the community.

We can quite easily see how any act of sexual intercourse that is not open to life stems from self-centeredness. This root of self-centeredness by itself runs contrary to the whole meaning of community living.

We find great difficulty in saying that a person who is self-centered in one area in his life, can be community-centred in other areas, since self-centeredness is a character defect that is at the root of all we do.

A person who says he is community-centred, but has a sexual life that is not open to life, is either being dishonest, or he doesn’t know himself very well, since there is a clear discrepancy between what he says and what he is doing. 

If he is dishonest, it is because he is saying one thing with his mouth, and saying a completely different thing with his body. It is like an unhappy person putting on a brave front, or a smile, and saying that he is happy.

We often don’t realise that our sexual organs and our sexual urge have a particular purpose. They are oriented towards community building, and we know that the very basic community in society is the family.

Thus when a person has sexual intercourse that is not open to life, he is saying with his body: “I want to start a family with you. I want to welcome new life and to help our community to grow.” But he is saying something completely contradictory with his mouth.

This is why contraception, masturbation, oral and anal sex, pedophilia, bestiality and homosexuality are immoral - because they not only do not contribute to building the community, they are tearing it down.

Note: My opinion of homosexuality (or same-sex attraction) is that it is a psychological disorder which can be treated. However, if you are of the opinion that homosexuality is not a disorder, then it’s basically saying that sexually active homosexuals have a character defect which is self-centeredness.

A person who has sexual intercourse is also saying with his body: “I want to be there with you and with our children as they grow up.”

The last line is added, because as humans, we mature far slower in life than other animals. It is therefore beneficial for the human being, as a creature, to remain monogamous in marriage, as this aids the bringing up and maturing of children as adults.

A parent who does not take responsibility for raising the children he bears is also doing something that harms the community, since the child is unable to replicate that parent’s role in the community.

This is why our first reaction to single motherhood due to irresponsible fathers, divorce, polygamy, adultery, and rape is often disapproval, because deep down, we know this does not contribute to the building of community, but instead tears it down.

In conclusion, I would say that sex is not a private matter reserved for the bedroom. Sex is intrinsically linked to the formation of families, the basic unit of community life, the basic unit of society. Thus, for us to turn a blind eye to what couples are doing in the bedroom is to turn a blind and uncaring eye to the future of society.

At the very bottom of it, sex is not so much about what we do, but who we are. We have sex because as humans, we are made (or evolved) to live in community. Everything that has to do with sex concerns the whole community and our whole culture (anthropologically speaking).

Colossians 2:6-15

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received - Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.

Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.

In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is head of every Sovereignty and Power.

In him you have been circumcised, with circumcision not performed by the human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised; he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.

He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
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Luke 6:12-19

Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them “apostles”: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.

He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
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Imagine you have a child, and throughout his developmental years, you never said ‘no’ to him. From somewhere you read or heard that if a child hears the word ‘no’ when he makes a request from you, he will grow up with a fear of rejection. So in order to prevent that, you say ‘yes’ to every request. After twenty years of having said ‘yes’, your child asks something of you which you cannot give. Can you say ‘no’? Chances are, you can’t. And your child, whom you’ve never said ‘no’ to, is not your child, but your master; you are his slave.

What does this have to do with today’s readings? In the first reading, St. Paul tells the Colossians: Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.

What is the philosophy that today’s generation is taught? I think it would be Nike’s tagline “Just do it.” I wrote to an American about sexual freedom recently. Our generation is taught today that sexual freedom means being able to “just do it” without fear of constraints from previous generations or religious beliefs. Today’s generation tends to believe that if they can “just do it”, if they can say ‘yes’ to sex whenever, wherever and however they want to, only then are they sexually free.

However, a generation of people who won’t say ‘no’ to sex, quickly becomes a generation of people who can’t say ‘no’ to sex. A person who can’t say ‘no’ to sex is not sexually free. He or she is a slave to sex. This means that the philosophy that today’s generation is taught is a “secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world” and it is one that traps them and deprives them of their sexual freedom.

If today’s generation (and I’m not referring just to the youth) is quickly becoming a generation of sex slaves, what then can be done for us? How can we find true freedom if the philosophy of the world only serves to make us slaves? In the gospel reading, we see Jesus and his apostles setting people free of their diseases, their demons, and all that chains them down. Today, we can find freedom from sexual slavery in the Church’s teaching of abstinence.

Abstinence is applicable not only to single persons, but persons who are married as well. The Church teaches abstinence is also healthy for married people. There are times when married people have to abstain from sex, such as when due to illness, pregnancy, travel or other reasons. What would a person who cannot say ‘no’ to sex do in cases when abstinence seems to be the only answer? If you think about it for a moment, you will understand why the media has been glorifying those answers.

Abstinence is the true test of whether one has sexual freedom or not, because abstinence shows that a person can say ‘no’ to sex, even at times when he can say ‘yes’. Freedom means having a choice and being able to make either choice. In Christ we find freedom, not just sexual freedom, but freedom in the best sense of the word.

Today is September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America. We also remember that one person that is more dangerous than all the terrorists put together is Alfred Kinsey, the grandfather of the sexual revolution which took place all over the world. The impact of his work on sexual morality has truly devastated the world, and America, much more than any terrorist will ever do.
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Prayer:
Dear Lord, help us to desire true sexual freedom in the way that you offer it to us. Grant us the courage to turn our backs on the secondhand philosophy of the world that we are surrounded with, and turn our eyes to the redemption that you offer us through your cross. Amen.

Give Thanks to the Lord for: Showing us what true sexual freedom is.

Brought up and formed by our culture, it is hard at times for us to abstain, because our culture teaches us to indulge, anytime and anywhere we want. Abstinence is to be avoided.

Abstinence can be the loving thing to when, for example, our bodies need detoxification. We abstain from food and only drink water, so as to purify our bodies.

In marriage, abstinence from sex can be the loving thing to do when one partner is ill.

In church, abstinence from Communion can be the loving thing to do when one knows one is sinful.

I remember a couple of incidents in the past when I was going up to receive Communion and I saw a friend who refrained from receiving, and I asked him “Why?” Isn’t the whole point of coming for Mass about receiving Communion, I asked.

But now I know that choosing not to receive Communion can be the loving thing to do. It can even show a greater respect for the sacrament than receiving it in any condition that we are in.

Likewise, abstinence from food during detoxification shows greater respect for the body than indulging anything at any time.

And abstinence from sex in marriage shows greater respect for the marriage than indulging in sex, whenever and wherever.

Have you ever thought of this question - why was Jesus a man? Why did God become a man, not a woman? It isn’t as simple as saying that if Jesus had been a woman, then people would not have listened to her. As in, it’s not for a cultural or social reason that God became a man. It’s Jesus we’re talking about, and he broke almost all the social and cultural rules of his time. Why then did God become a man? Here, we’re asking why God became specifically a male human.

To understand this, we need to understand two things. First is that God created humans male and female. He could have created us unisex, but he chose to create us male and female. Why? Because if humans are made in the image of God, then humans have to live in a communion of love. When a man looks at a woman, and a woman looks at a man, they understand very well that they are made differently, and that the parts that are different fit together in a complementary way. This is how humans were created in the beginning.

From this reason, it follows that men and women are fundamentally different, not only in terms of the way their bodies are built, but also in the roles they play in life. It is true that women can be a police officer (as opposed to policeman), a fire fighter (as opposed to fireman), and that men can be nurses and secretaries, but there is one thing that a man can do, and no woman can. That is to father a child. In the same way, only women can become pregnant; no man can do that.

So the first thing we need to understand is that God created men and women differently, to play different roles, but to live as a communion of love in God’s own Trinitarian image.

The second thing we need to understand is that God has a male role. I’m not saying that God is male, but that God plays a male role. By this I mean that God is the Initiator, while humans are the Recipient. When we look at the male-female relationship, especially in the conjugal aspect, we see that the man is always the initiator. He gives of himself and the woman receives the man’s seed. This is further strengthened by the fact that the man tends to climax first. I quote the following from Pope John Paul II:

If a husband is truly to love his wife, “it is necessary to insist that intercourse must not serve merely as a means of allowing [his] climax. … The man must take [the] difference between male and female reactions into account… so that climax may be reached [by] both… and as far as possible occur in both simultaneously.” The husband must do this “not for hedonistic, but for altruistic reasons.” In this case, if “we take into account the shorter and more violent curve of arousal in the man, [such] tenderness on his part in the context of marital intercourse acquires the significance of an act of virtue”.

- Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla

God always reaches out to humans. He is always the Initiator, and humans are always receiving God in themselves. Throughout the Bible, we see that God’s one desire is to marry us. God literally wants to impregnate us with his Word. In fact, there was one woman in history who was literally impregnated by God’s Word, who later became a unique fusion of God and human - Jesus. This is why Mary is the model for the Church. She represents the Church, who is the Bride of Christ, and she represents humanity, who receives the gift of God himself into us.

So the second thing we need to understand is that God wants to marry us, and that God is always the Initiator in this relationship.

Understanding these two things helps us to see why God had to become a man, not a woman, when he became human. As a God-man, Jesus was able to initiate his gift of love, his gift of self on the cross. If Jesus had been a woman, she would not have been able to initiate anything. She would have to receive something from humanity. But humanity is the one who receives, not initiates.

When we understand the reason why God had to be a man (not a woman), we understand why the Church insists that the ministers of the altar and the Eucharist have to be male, not female. In order to act in the person of Christ at the altar, the priest has to be a man. If we insist on women ordination, then we will not be able to explain why Jesus is a man; why the Church is the Bride of Christ; and why men and women are different.

In addition, if we insist on women ordination, then we will also not be able to explain the importance of having two complementary genders in marriage. Guess what follows? You know it - homosexual unions. This is clearly painted out in the path taken by the Anglican Church, something that began back in the time of Henry VIII.

As you probably know Henry VIII broke away from the Church because the pope refused to allow him to marry another woman. Henry VIII decided to change the meaning of marriage in his new church. But when we change the meaning of marriage, we also change the meaning of Christianity - why God wants to marry us. And we also change the meaning of our own humanity - why we are made male and female.

This is the reason why the Church cannot allow women ordination - because it understands that the priesthood is not merely a career or ministry - it is a role in which the ordained minister acts in the person of Christ… and Christ was not a woman. He couldn’t have been, not without changing the meaning of marriage, the meaning of humanity, and the meaning of Christianity.

This is also why the Church can never approve of homosexual unions not because of discrimination, but simply because homosexual unions deny the fundamental differences between male and female; deny the significance, sanctity, and the very meaning of marriage… and this directly leads to denying the meaning of Christianity. You will find that Christians in support of homosexual unions are not able to explain why Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride (Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 19:7-9), or even why Christ lay down his life for his Church. It is, in essence, the denial of the fatherhood of God.

That said, it must also be said that the reason the Church cannot allow women ordination has nothing to do with culture or the degradation of women. On the contrary, the Church holds women in a very high position. Pope John Paul II himself has called the feminist movement “praiseworthy”, and that it must continue. But he also stressed that it must not make the mistake of equating males with females. They have the same dignity, but they are not the same.

The Church does not degrade women. If it did, it would not place Mary as Queen of Heaven, and the role model for all disciples of Christ, and indeed the role model for all humanity. Mary is so highly esteemed because she received God into her so fully that a human person was conceived from that intimate union with God.

Each of us is also called to receive God fully in our lives, so that God may be born into the world. But as none of us can receive God so fully and completely as Mary did, since she was conceived without original sin, none of us will ever be able to physically give birth to a God-man. We can, however, still spiritually give birth to God in the world, increasing his kingdom of heaven on earth.

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 attended a talk today on “Theology of the Body” given by Family Life Society’s Andrew Kong once. It was held in a function room in the National University of Singapore for about 50+ university students from the Catholic Students Society there.

Although I had heard Andrew speak on the subject before, it is always interesting to learn more about the huge topic. Realising that I gain something every time I explore this topic, I made up my mind to attend the talk, especially since the crowd would be a most interesting one. I looked forward to the question-and-answer segment at the end of the talk. University students are always full of interesting questions and viewpoints.

The talk held in the evening drew a good mixture of male and female students… boys and girls who would become ladies and gentlemen after listening to Andrew’s eloquent lesson on one of Pope John Paul II’s greatest legacies for the Catholic Church and the world at large.

One of the most interesting parts of the talk came when Andrew invited all present to imagine a particularly tantalizing scenario. Loud boisterous hur-hur-hur came from the young men present, laughter which masked their embarrassment, possibly from having viewed something similar during their private pornography viewing sessions. The louder the laughter, the more embarrassment it masked.

The other most interesting part of the talk was when someone asked Andrew about the female equivalent of lust. For males, lust (using of another person) usually manifests itself through sexual lust. Lustful males are pornography’s largest viewers. But what about lustful females? What is the female equivalent, asked a student.

Andrew’s response was to suggest romance novels. Immediately, the girls present giggled in embarrassment. That was an eye-opener for me. For while young men tend to laugh in embarrassment when their secret thoughts are laid bare in such a talk, Andrew expertly laid bare the secret thoughts of the young ladies present.

Just last week, I was speaking with a religious sister in her seventies, who shared with me that even at her age, she experiences the temptation to fantasize when she reads sexually explicit scenes in novels. Although romance novels are not her cup of tea, she sometimes encounters them in crime novels. When she does, she skims over them. Pope John Paul would call this “custody of the eyes”, a form of self-defense.

Incidentally, certain Korean drama serials came to mind when Andrew mentioned romance novels. It suddenly dawned on me (when it should have long ago) that these drama serials which draw the women by the thousands are none other than the female equivalent of pornography. It’s not pornography per se, because it does not meet the definitions of what pornography is, but it becomes apparent immediately that many ladies are as hooked to drama serials (and romance novels) as many men are hooked to pornography.

The results are expectedly similar. While pornography addicts become increasingly unsociable, and find increasing difficulty in relating to the opposite sex, women who are hooked to drama serials and romance novels also become increasingly unsociable, and also find increasing difficulty in relating to the opposite sex.

While pornography addicts may end up projecting their fantasies onto the women in their lives, resulting in unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships, drama serial addicts may also end up projecting their own fantasies of how a man should be onto the men in their lives, which also result in unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships.

There we find the line between reality and fantasy blurred. As we become accustomed to the images of men and women in our respective fantasies, we want our fantasies to become reality, and when we don’t get it (since it is impossible, that’s why it’s called a fantasy), we are dissatisfied with whoever we are with.

As no man or woman is perfect, and no reality can be fantasy, we will forever be dissatisfied, so long as we expect our fantasy world to become reality. It is easy to say that this can never happen to us as we are in full control of our senses, but people who are addicted are not free; they are not in full control of their senses. That is why the line between fantasy and reality is blurred. That is why lust is so dangerous to our humanity. It makes us less human, hence it dehumanises us.

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I suppose the best way to address the issue of sex is first to ask, “What is the purpose of sex as God intended it to be?”

A careful examination and reflection of the question, which anyone can do in his or her own time and space, will reveal three possible answers:

1. For pleasure
2. For reproduction
3. For bonding between couples

No doubt that sexual intercourse does produce pleasure, but is that its sole purpose? For example, eating is pleasurable. Does that mean that the purpose of eating is for pleasure only? For people who think so, they end up obese and unhealthy, just because they eat for the pleasure of it. Rather, the purpose of eating is to nourish our bodies.

Take another example. Sleeping is pleasurable, especially when one is tired. Does that mean that the purpose of sleeping is for pleasure only? For people who think so, they end up being a lazy slob, and probably end up missing important appointments, just because they sleep for the pleasure of it. Rather, the purpose of sleeping is to allow our bodies to recover.

How about sex then? Sex between a couple is pleasurable, especially when both climax at the same time. Does that mean that the purpose of sex is for pleasure only? For people who think so, they end up being addicted to sex, and can’t think of anything else throughout the day. Rather, the purpose of sex is something else altogether.

You see, for all bodily functions which are necessary for humans to carry out in order to live in a way that God has ordained, God has cleverly attached pleasure as a side-effect to these functions, like eating, sleeping, shitting, farting, urinating (especially with a full bladder), …, and having sex. But to pursue these activities for the pleasure alone is unhealthy.

So we’ve established that answer #1 is not the right answer. True, sex does give pleasure, eating does give pleasure, sleeping does give pleasure, and the same goes for all other natural bodily functions including shitting, farting, urinating, breathing, yawning, sneezing, etc. But pleasure is not the sole purpose of any of these bodily functions.

If you look at it another way, what would happen if a couple engaged in sex purely for pleasure? Well, for one thing, they’d end up with multiple babies. What a bother. You can’t kill them, since that’d be murder. You can’t keep bringing them to the adoption agency - they’d give you counselling. Repeated abortions is dangerous for the mother’s health. So what do you with them?

Society’s answer has always been to address the ‘problem of fertility’ at the root. Maybe in the course of having sex, there was a way to separate the pleasure from the babies? Maybe we can prevent babies from even being born in the first place?

And so society has come up with condoms which prevent conception, masturbation (mutual or otherwise) which prevents conception, anal sex, oral sex, the Pill which either works to change a woman’s natural cycle so that she doesn’t conceive, or affects some hormones post-conception so that the fertilised egg cannot attach itself to the womb. In actually, such a Pill causes abortion of the pregnancy, hence is called abortifacient. The most common of these is Mifepristone also known as “RU-486″ and marketed under the brand name Mifeprex. It is widely known that such Pills induce abortion.

Once you handle that problem of the irritating babies that keep popping up, you’re free to have sex in any form for the sake of pleasure alone.

Actually, society has also come up with a way to deal with the problem of overeating. You want to eat, but you don’t want to additional weight that comes with it. So you either regurgitate the food out, so that you can eat some more (no one would hesitate to call this perverse or an illness), or you take a pill that allows the food to pass through your system undigested. More pills… Remember those weight-loss pills that promise to allow you to lose weight while maintaining your normal diet? This is how they work.

The problem here is, what if you were to do this all the time? For regurgitators, they will end up malnourished, and if it carries on, they will eventually die.

So what happens if an entire society does the same with sex? To separate pleasure from reproduction? To put it simply, society will end with this generation, because there is no more reproduction of the human species. Hence, a culture of death.

I missed out one answer, didn’t I? Answer #3 - sex is for bonding between couples. Well that’s actually incorporated into having babies. If one does not try to separate answers #2 and #3, and answers #1 from answers #2 and #3, one would tend to end up with a healthy marriage and family.

It is no secret that a married couple who uses contraceptives will be more likely to end up in divorce. Why? The reason is spiritual, but saying that doesn’t make it less important. It’s not a secret at all… it’s just not made known well enough…

Firstly, humans are beings made of a fusion of spirit and matter. We are neither completely matter, like animals, or completely spirit, like angels. We are spirit and matter. What we do in the flesh, we affect our spirit as well… which is why sins committed in the flesh can have an effect on our spiritual state, and our spiritual state can affect our physical being. Which is why when you can’t control your addictions (to food, sex, sleep, drugs, etc), you are more likely to be unable to control yourself spiritually and end up living a life of sin… if your addiction does not already lead you there.

In having sex, a couple bonds not just physically, but spiritually as well. A complete physical bonding reflects a complete spiritual bonding. What happens if you put a physical barrier, like a condom or a diaphragm, into a sexual intercourse? The physical barrier is a reflection of the spiritual barrier.

Sex is a time when couples express their marital vows - to give of themselves completely to each other, to receive of the other partner completely, in a free, total, faithful, and fruitful way. But with contraceptives, whatever the form, the couple is saying with their bodies, “I give you all of myself, except my fertility.” or “I want all of you, except your fertility.” Such an action is a reflection of a deeper withholding of something else on a spiritual level.

In the end, contraceptives not only creates a barrier to prevent reproduction (#2), it also creates a barrier to prevent bonding between couples (#3).

Answers #2 and #3 are intrinsically linked to each other; they cannot be separated… just as physical union cannot be separated from spiritual union during sex.

And that, is the purpose of sex.

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It started with a comment on another blog that denies seems to deny pornography’s link to rape. I chanced across it while searching the Wordpress tag “pornography”. After writing a whole long comment and faced with the possibility of it being deleted on that blog (like how I delete some inappropriate comments on this blog) through no fault or blame on the owner of that blog, I decided to post the comment, albeit edited, on my own blog. Some sub-headings were included to make reading easier.

What is pornography, and why is it wrong?

As defined in Wikipedia, pornography is “the explicit representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal”. In other words, pornography is the use of the human body to sexually arouse the viewer. This is wrong because the human body is not supposed to be used in any way, because when we use a person, we are reducing his dignity from that of a person to that of an object (to be used).

Why is pornography, sodomy, and adultery the “business of the law”?

Pornography, sodomy, and adultery all affect the society, hence it is the business of the law indeed.

Pornography, as mentioned above, is the use of the human body as a commodity. Specifically the pornography industry uses the human body in an obscene manner to exploit people - the actors and actresses, and those who purchase the material, all in the name of money. The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink. (Source: Pornography Statistics 2007)

As for sodomy, studies have indicated that the body’s natural immune system is broken down by repeated exposure to semen during anal intercourse. Also, the tearing and rupturing which can take place during such intercourse exposes the individual to infection by manifold serious and fatal diseases. Of these, AIDS is the most well-known and the most dangerous. (Source: Larry, Burtoft, Ph.D, Setting the Record Straight: What Research Really Says About the Social Consequences of Homosexuality, Focus n the Family 1994)

Adultery is a crime against marriage and is illegal in some jurisdictions. If the business of marriage falls under that of the law, then how can adultery not concern the law, since adultery is a breach of the marital contract? I don’t have a source for this, hence this is using common sense.

Did Alfred Kinsey manipulate his results in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male?

Yes, Kinsey did indeed skew his results. Dr Judith Reisman’s research shows us how:

Kinsey engaged in what is known as “category manipulation”. In one example, he classified 1,400 criminals and sex offenders as “normal” on the grounds that such miscreants were essentially the same as other men - except that these had gotten caught. The “human males” category could then include incarcerated pedophiles, pederasts, homosexual males, boy prostitutes and miscellaneous sexual predator.

One of the co-authors of Kinsey’s work, Clyde Martin, was charged with all the statistical analysis of data for the project of “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” despite not having any background in statistics. And even he admitted that “criminal and abnormal men permeated the sample to such a degree that the only way to clean it up would amount to rewriting the entire book”.

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist of global acclaim in the 1940s, was a friend of Kinsey. He had already proven that volunteers in a sex study were usually “unconventional” men and women with high rates of unhealthy and disapproved sexual activity. Relying upon these volunteers - even those not counted among prison populations - would produce results that showed a “falsely high percentage of non-virginity, masturbation, promiscuity and homosexuality in the population.

Which is what happened - according to Kinsey’s skewed data, 95 percent of the American male population regularly indulged in deviant sexual activities such as extra-marital affairs, homosexuality, pedophilia, etc. Maslow offered to help Kinsey clean up the “volunteer error” in his work, but once Kinsey realised how this would compromise the outcome of the data and steer it away from the results he wanted, he abruptly terminated his friendship with Maslow.

It is an established fact (stats coming) that child molesters regularly use pornography to seduce their prey, to lower the inhibitions of their young victims and to serve as a kind of “instruction manual”. In a study of 36 serial sex murderers interviewed by the FBI, 81 percent admitted using pornography. Of those studied, 87 percent of girl child molesters and 77 percent of boy child molesters admitted to regular use of pornography.

Decriminalizing pornography came about when the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the revolutionary Model Penal Code with its recommendation of drastically reducing the penalties for its 52 major sex crimes according to Kinsey’s data.

Prior to that time, the definition of obscenity according to case law was “anything offensive to chastity or modesty, expressing or presenting to the mind or view something that… decency forbids to be exposed… tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts…”

The new Model Penal Code declared a thing obscene if “considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest… And if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description…” According to Kinsey, sexual activities such as sodomy, incest, pedophilia, and bestiality are within customary limits, so one is left to wonder what exactly the Model Penal Code restricts.

- the source of these past nine paragraphs is “The Kinsey Corruption: An Expose on the Most Influential ‘Scientist’ Of Our Time” by Susan Brinkman, based on the book “Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences” by Dr Judith Reisman

What does the use of pornography lead to?

Using common sense, consider this: If a person regularly used pornography, he would be so “sexually charged” up (heh heh) that he would need to release it somewhere. First, it would be masturbation, but because these feelings of pleasure lead to addiction, and addiction is a progressive disease, more is required than before to obtain the same sexual high previously experienced. The person would therefore seek out more thrilling ventures to meet his need for sexual pleasure.

If the person was married, sex with his wife would no longer meet his need for sexual pleasure, because the fantasy is always more pleasurable than the reality. He would seek out other sources to obtain that sexual high, such as in extra-marital affairs, prostitutes, etc.

But don’t take my word for it; that’s just my common sense speaking. Ask a professional psychologist who specializes in addiction. Or, you can take the word of Sexaholics Anonymous, as they write:

“Some common characteristics of male and female sexaholics include isolation, depression, guilt, and a deep sense of emptiness. Our common behaviors include fantasizing about sexual and other self-centered desires, harmful co-dependent relationships, compulsive masturbation, use of pornography, including the Internet, promiscuous sexual relationships, adulterous affairs, and compulsive pursuit of exhibitionism or sexually abusive relationships, regardless of legal consequences.”

Or you can take the word of professionals who have researched this. Both Sexual Addiction Recovery Resources and Sex Addiction Help explain the Sexual Addiction Cycle which begins with Fantasy, which leads to Ritual, which leads to Acting Out, which leads to Shame, which leads again to Fantasy, and the cycle repeats.

I write passionately about this because my life (like Dr Judith Reisman’s) has been affected by the lies that resulted from Kinsey’s “research” which has affected the society where we live in, because our society tells us it is “normal” for every man to view pornography and “it doesn’t cause any harm”. Not true on both accounts. Both come from Kinsey and his skewed findings.

For single men, addiction to porn has many negative effects, but for the married man, it is even worse. For every married man addicted to porn are a corresponding wife and children. How many hundreds of millions of lives are affected directly or indirectly by pornography? We don’t know, but we are slowly starting to feel its effects. Sexual Recovery Institute has more to say about partners and children of porn addicts.

What can we do about pornography? It affects everyone, yes, even you. Because even if you are not directly affected by it, someone you know and are close to is, although you probably don’t know it. That’s how pervasive this problem of pornography is. But because you are affected, you can do something about it.

The first thing that you can do is to find out more. I have a directory of links to good websites that you can go to in order to have a fuller understanding of what we are facing here. After that, spread the word to all the people you know. If each one of you is aware of the danger of porn, the world is that much richer and better equipped to deal with the problem of pornography.

Boys are introduced to pornography and masturbation at a very early age. For some, they are introduced to it even before their bodies develop what is needed to enjoy such activities. Some of the men I have known have been viewing pornography and masturbating to it since puberty and have never had a wet dream before.

Here are some of the reasons why people who continue to use pornography to masturbate give to justify their uses, and the corresponding response I would give:

1. It feels good.
- Can’t deny that, but it doesn’t feel good every time. Sometimes it’s just not satisfactory. At other times, you feel damned guilty afterwards. Still at other times, you left a big mess in the room and you have to clean up and make sure you don’t get caught. Then there’s that nagging guilt and suspicion of other people using the computer and chancing across your porn files.

Life’s more than about feeling good. It’s more than about such fleeting feelings are. Abstaining from instant gratification, not just masturbation, helps create a better, more permanent form of happiness by introducing you to real love, instead of lust.

2. It doesn’t harm anyone.
- Actually it does. It harms you, because you are taking that love you have that is meant for others and directing it towards yourself. Basically, you are having a sexually intimate relationship with yourself which can only lead to the detriment of the loving relationships you have with others.

3. It doesn’t harm anyone else.
- Why is it wrong and against the law, both legal and moral, to commit suicide? It doesn’t harm anyone else too. It is because the ones who love him are harmed when they realize that their loved one had problems and that they could not be trusted to share his secret. There is a great sense of betrayal of trust in the persons.

4. No one loves me. It doesn’t harm anyone else.
- The one who commits suicide harms society as a whole because it deprives the society of one person’s gifts. Similarly, masturbation deprives society of the love you could be giving to other members of the society and giving it to yourself instead. Thus, not only is the rest of society harmed by this selfish action, the rest of society doesn’t benefit from it either.

5. It’s my body, and I can do what I want with it.
- Really? Then make your hair move on its own. It’s your body, isn’t it? Why can’t you move it? Or how about never falling sick. It’s your body, isn’t it? Why can’t you always remain healthy? Simply because your body doesn’t belong to you. It’s been loaned to you to take care of.

Your human body is not yours, contrary to what you might think. You need to return it when you’re done with it. It’s like borrowing someone’s mobile phone to make a call. You don’t use the phone to knock in a nail when you borrow it, do you? No, you treat it carefully because it’s not yours. You use it only for what it’s supposed to be used for. Masturbation is not what the genitals are supposed to be used for.

6. I need to masturbate in order release this sexual tension in me. It’s the natural thing to do.
- What happens if you don’t release it? Will it collect until you pop? Actually yes. When you sleep at night, your body will release the sperm periodically in a totally natural way. That’s the truly natural thing to do - to allow nature to take its course.

7. But it’s so inconvenient to get up in the middle of the night to wash up after wet dreams.
- The natural thing to do isn’t always the most convenient thing to do. You do have to make a trip to the toilet to pee, don’t you? And no one complains about that inconvenience, except maybe the elderly. But really, this excuse of inconvenience is really all there is to it - an inconvenience… because you and I know that it’s not the real reason why a guy jerks off once a week or more. We do it for pleasure. This excuse of inconvenience is just an excuse to make us feel justified while jerking off.

There are, of course, more reasons, but those are not reasons that I have ever used to justify myself. Maybe I will write another post on that in future.

My dear fellow Catholics,

The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

I am writing this letter to you today to ask for your kind and gracious help. In the gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells his disciples, “Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them!” He teaches us that as fellow Christians we should not cause our brothers and sisters to sin.

There are two groups of people that need your help today and these two groups of people have a special tendency to sin so we must do our best to help them to avoid sin.

The first group are those who are addicted to pornography. For men especially, who are in this situation and trying not to sin, we lead them to sin when we appear before them in immodest dressing. This dressing applies to both men and women, for there are both straight and gay men who are addicted to pornography.

The second group of people are those who have a tendency to judge others. When they see people who dress shabbily or immodestly, they are quick to judge them as disrespecting the Lord. When we present ourselves before them in clothes that are less than suitable for the occasion, we become a cause of sin to these people.

Therefore, on behalf of both these groups of people, I implore you, my fellow Catholics, to dress modestly wherever you go, especially in church. Dress modestly and suited to the occasion, so that we will not be a cause of sin for others.

Thank you, my brothers and sisters!

God bless,
Catholic Writer