![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2020\/02\/CoupleChurch.jpg\")
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This was an exchange that took place underneath my post,\u00a0Natural Family Planning (NFP) & Contraceptive Intent<\/a>. \u201cNaters\u201d (of unknown religious affiliation and 20 years old) seems quite concerned with NFP, judging by a seemingly overwhelming emphasis on it: seen in his Disqus comments<\/a>. His words will be in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n There are several problems here. If couples are concerned about spacing children but then don\u2019t want to think that contraception is okay<\/em>, then that means that NFP is<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the only de facto path they have since that\u2019s the only method of birth control allowed in the Church. <\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s correct. Those who think contraception is gravely evil (in line with what Catholic teaches; and indeed what all<\/em> Christians taught till the Anglicans started dissenting in 1930), use the moral method of NFP. Obedient Catholics are obedient to Catholic Church teaching.<\/p>\n That is why the Church promotes NFP to death, as something that can build couples, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n Exactly. We promote what we believe is good and true, just as any group of like-minded individuals does. The women who just marched on Washington think \u00a0it\u2019s wonderful to have the right to murder their own children, so they\u2019re out there promoting it to death (pun half-intended). That\u2019s their priority. Ours is promoting the inherent value of life, and the happiness and fulfillment of, and moral behavior in marriages, sex lives, and families.<\/p>\n The Church allows couples to be able to use NFP for financial reasons. Janet Smith herself said that the legitimate reasons for using NFP were a lot more than most people would think. What you also end up doing is allowing a calendar, charts, etc., to determine when to make love and when to not instead of determining when to do so according to how close you feel to your spouse. <\/span><\/p>\n Yep. In the old days, if you weren\u2019t ready to have children yet, you abstained from sexual relations. That was obvious enough. When premarital sex was still actually frowned upon by society (something so \u201cquaint\u201d now that it can hardly be imagined, but it really was<\/em> like that, even in my own lifetime [born in 1958]), this was more than enough reason to wait till marriage, because having children was only proper within that state of life.<\/p>\n Today that\u2019s all gone with the wind; however (whatever people believe and however they may act), sociological data continues to demonstrate\u00a0what the Catholic Church \u201cknew\u201d all along: that illegitimacy is one of the leading indicators of a life of poverty and trouble. It wasn\u2019t meant to be that way, and so (as usual), the children of irresponsible sex are the ones who are most penalized: either by being murdered or consigned to a life of poverty with one parent in the house (another leading indicator of poverty and familial and personal dysfunction).<\/p>\n But back more directly to your point: yes, we do charting, because it is a moral and intelligent way to determine when to have children or not, for the proper reasons. We Catholics so often get accused of being anti-science; yet when we utilize biological science in conjunction with NFP, all of a sudden it is something silly; to be mocked and run down, and it is supposedly anti-sex.<\/p>\n Someone observed that the most important sex organ is the brain<\/em>. That\u2019s very true. Sex is not just \u201cthe plumbing\u201d; not just electricity and tingling feelings and raging hormones and chemistry and High Romance. That\u2019s the fantasy stuff of movies and romance novels and newlyweds and the sinful \u201cone night stand\u201d; but it is not the stuff of real<\/em>, everyday life<\/em>, attempted to be lived out according to a moral system (in this case, Catholicism).<\/p>\n Human beings are not merely\u00a0biological pleasure machines. We\u2019re more than just our sexual organs. Really<\/em> fulfilling, spectacular sex truly is that within a committed, lifelong relationship. Women in particular respond sexually in the fullest manner when they are in such a relationship: where they feel absolutely cherished and loved, and where the man has committed himself to her security and their marriage together, and to any children, as an equally committed father.<\/p>\n There is another well-known saying: \u201csex begins in the kitchen.\u201d What is that trying to get at? I think it\u2019s a pithy way of wisely observing\u00a0that sex is more than biology. It exists within a context of a lived (committed) life together. It flows from being soulmates: almost one soul in two bodies. Romance and committed love and fulfilling sexual intimacy are\u00a0one whole thing.<\/p>\n You<\/em> act as if it is simply the fleeting feelings of the moment (therefore, when sex occurs, is determined solely by that<\/em>). Serious Catholic couples \u2014 those who practice NFP and accept Church moral teaching \u2014 express our love within sexuality as a manifestation of our existing (non-physical) love and commitment to our wives.\u00a0It\u2019s not just<\/em> to \u201cget our rocks off\u201d or to have the wonderful sensations involved (though Catholics assuredly have drives and sensations and urges just like anyone else).<\/p>\n That being the case, we are willing to wait if necessary. We know it will be wonderful when it happens. We don\u2019t have to \u201cwhip up a sexual frenzy\u201d in order to enjoy it. When we\u2019re together, it\u2019s great. We know<\/em> it will be, by the sheer fact of being together<\/em>. And if we\u00a0have to wait a bit, well, \u201cabsence makes the heart grow fonder\u201d doesn\u2019t it? There\u2019s an upside to that. It\u2019s not all gloom-and -doom, and it\u2019s not<\/em> <\/strong>impossible. We\u2019re not uncontrollable animals.<\/p>\n The best \u201cnews\u201d of all is that many secular sociological studies have shown that observant Catholics (who go to Mass every week and are obedient to Church teaching) have happier marriages (far lower divorce rates), and (are you sittin\u2019 down?) happier and more fulfilling sex lives (yes, you read that right) as well.<\/p>\n As for secular folks and those who bought into the pottage of the sexual revolution Big Lie, look all around you to see how happy they<\/em>\u00a0are. If they were so happy, they\u2019d be with one partner for a long time. It\u2019s been an absolute disaster.<\/p>\n And I highly doubt that charting your wife\u2019s cycles is gonna make you a better or even a decent person. <\/span><\/p>\n When you put it that way, it sounds silly, and so you have the appearance of making some kind of argument. It must be analyzed within the overall philosophy and approach of it, not in cynical sound bites. We are honoring both God\u2019s natural law by abstaining if there is reason not to have a child at a given time, and also respecting our spouses by not reducing them to sex objects, who are only there to fulfill our<\/em> screaming sexual needs of the moment (as if we are utterly unable to control<\/em> those).\u00a0In fact, those of us who have actually applied NFP, report that \u2014 far from detracting \u2014 it enhances<\/i> love life and marriage, because it fosters concern for the other rather than the selfish instinct, with which we all struggle.<\/p>\n People make decisions based on how they feel and experience, that\u2019s just what people have done for thousands of years, even people who oppose contraception have and still continue to do that (take Traditional Latin Catholics for example). <\/span><\/p>\n Yes they do, but there are moral experiences and there are immoral ones. There are a number of situations that call for control and acting beyond just feelings. That\u2019s so utterly obvious that I won\u2019t even bother giving a single example. Anyone can think of them with a moment\u2019s reflection. We do all kinds of things in life not based on feelings and emotions alone, but on reason and will and based on what we know to be right and wrong.<\/p>\n Another problem is that sex on infertile days isn\u2019t the same as sex during fertile days, and many people can\u2019t live without the soul-mending experience that sex is. It\u2019s just not good enough. <\/span><\/p>\n You are again reducing<\/em> sex to biological urges and sensations (and natural lubrication, if you will), but it\u2019s much more<\/em> than that, as noted above. This is your fundamental error.<\/p>\n Many people don\u2019t just want sex, they want it to feel good too. <\/span><\/p>\n We are quite aware that sex should feel good, thank you.\u00a0You act like we\u2019re a bunch of stereotypical sexually repressed Puritans or Victorians (and even they have been grossly caricatured). If you want the best sex you can have, and for a long time, NFP and committed, monogamous marriage and committed religious belief and practice is for you. Many studies have shown\u00a0both things to be the case. As for Catholics and other committed Christians and sexual pleasure, here is a report about just one of many studies: \u201cDevout Catholics Have Better Sex, Study Says: Catholics have more enjoyable sex, more often\u201d<\/a> (Elizabeth Flock, US News & World Report<\/em>, 7-17-13). I quote:<\/p>\n Devout, married Catholics have the best sex of any demographic group, the Family Research Council said at an event Wednesday, pointing to a collection of studies from the last several decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The socially conservative Christian group relied heavily on statistics from the University of Chicago\u2019s last National Health and Social Life Survey, conducted in 1992, which found the most enjoyable and most frequent sex occurring among married people, those who attended church weekly \u2013 any church, whether Catholic or not \u2013 and people who had the least sexual partners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThose who worship God weekly have the best sex,\u201d said Patrick Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a former George H.W. Bush official, in a talk hosted with the Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education Wednesday. \u201cI want to see this on the cover of Playboy sometime.\u201d<\/p>\n . . .\u00a0Fagan told Christians in attendance that they \u201chave to claim a place that\u2019s very different in sexuality \u2013 and that by the way is very superior, even in matters sexual.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With NFP, it doesn\u2019t matter if it feels good or not. Just have it. <\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s your cynical, vain imagining. It\u2019s not the reality of how NFP works. I\u2019ve been married for 32 years, am fabulously happy; couldn\u2019t be any happier, with four fantastic kids as Catholic as we are (by free choice). Catholic teaching brings that about. All you can do is blast it from afar. We\u2019ve lived<\/i> it.<\/p>\n That to me is sex-crazed and actually not even human. <\/span><\/p>\n If it were true<\/em>, I would agree, but it\u2019s not<\/em> true. It\u2019s a caricature and gross distortion of NFP and the experience of practicing it.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t take a contraception supporter to understand the logical and intellectual errors behind the NFP movement. That\u2019s why even some of the people supporting the ban on contraception in 1968 were having disagreements with the hierarchy. It\u2019s not that they didn\u2019t support the ban, but it was rather the way in which they went about it.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s beyond our immediate purview.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n I reply now to some other related comments that \u201cNaters\u201d made on various Patheos posts:<\/p>\n You are<\/em>\u00a0advocating for a lack of pleasure, because pleasure is supposed to be in sex every single time and expecting couples who have the money to practice NFP is like saying they shouldn\u2019t enjoy sex.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. We have practiced NFP and I don\u2019t ever recall an intimate time with my wife that was not pleasurable. There are, of course, times that are not as \u201cdramatic\u201d or \u201cspectacular\u201d as others, but that\u2019s just life, and what does that have to do with togetherness, love, and commitment? Nothing! It\u2019s just biology. The real joy and pleasure is being<\/em> with your spouse, no matter what<\/em> happens. If a couple is fulfilled and happy: \u201cone flesh\u201d: as the Bible says, they are irregardless of fleeting moments of biological ecstasy. Again, I say, we are not merely\u00a0biological pleasure machines. That alone will never make anyone happy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no more different from robotic sex, and it\u2019s quite artificial to do it. It\u2019s tragic because sex is supposed to be loving and bonding and sex during infertile periods really don\u2019t qualify as any of those two for most people.<\/span><\/p>\n This is sheer nonsense, as a generality. It doesn\u2019t apply to happily married Catholic spouses who practice NFP. They don\u2019t \u2014 on the whole \u2014 report this. \u00a0You can always run across an exception here and there. I would go so far as to say that if someone only enjoys sex during fertile periods, then they know little about sexual pleasure within a committed marital relationship at all. They\u2019re\u00a0emphasizing exactly the wrong things: the momentary thrill, the ecstatic experience; the fireworks. Those things actually occur less, the more we are obsessed with them. Everything today is so hyper-analytical. Good sex, like good romance, wilts underneath that sort of silly, particularistic, hyper-rational analysis.<\/p>\n The Catholic \u201csolution\u201d to all this is simple:<\/p>\n 1) Marry the right person (of the opposite sex).<\/p>\n 2) Marry the person you love, and who loves you, and who is a moral person.<\/p>\n 3) Love the person you marry, with all that that entails.<\/p>\n 4) Wait till marriage, because to not do that is a mortal sin in Catholic teaching.<\/p>\n 5) Follow the teachings of the Church, which includes the indissolubility of marriage. It\u2019s a lifelong commitment \u2014 for better, for worse \u2014 to one person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Do all that, and all your hyper-analyses and nitpicking about every aspect (real or imagined) of NFP will be irrelevant. This is the \u201crecipe\u201d (God\u2019s recipe) for happiness and marital bliss. It\u2019s backed up even by secular studies, such as the one I cited above.<\/p>\n Sex nevertheless necessarily involves concupiscence. <\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s a lie from the pit of hell, and collapses natural biological urges into lustfulness. That\u2019s simply not true. The urges can quickly become concupiscence and sinful if we don\u2019t control them, but they are not necessarily instances of concupiscence (which is essentially saying that all<\/em> sexual urges are sinful). That is the true anti-sex position, because it pretends that even marital sex is an evil, sicked, dirty thing, when in fact it is the most beautiful thing in the world.<\/p>\n At the ripe old age of 20, you couldn\u2019t have had all that much sexual experience (not that one has to experience anything to talk about it; but you go on and on<\/em> about all this). If you have, and you\u2019re not married, it was sinful, if it was fornication, according to Catholic and biblical morality. And you don\u2019t sound like you know much more about theology, to make a statement like the above, which is outrageous.<\/p>\n Sex is always supposed to feel good,<\/span><\/p>\n It does<\/em>, when it is in a moral context (it feels good emotionally and \u201chumanly\u201d and spiritually; not merely physically). If it\u2019s not moral, it can and will be thrilling for a short time, but will never last.<\/p>\n They shouldn\u2019t have sex when their libido isn\u2019t high. Sex is supposed to be delightful and doing otherwise makes it no different from mechanical sex.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, this is based on your rather silly and naive collapsing of sexual expression and fulfillment down to simply biological thrills and tingling nerves. It is much<\/em> more<\/em><\/strong> than that. I can\u2019t emphasize this enough. You are the one making it merely \u201cmechanical\u201d and not a whole spiritual person and soul being intimate with another whole, spiritual person and soul.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not deranged for saying that having sex when you don\u2019t want it is rape.<\/span><\/p>\n Yep.<\/p>\n Having sex during an infertile period is when you don\u2019t want sex. Who wants to have sex when your sex drive isn\u2019t that high on that day? That\u2019s rape.<\/span><\/p>\n Women usually don\u2019t\u00a0<\/em>enjoy sex during infertile periods, and it doesn\u2019t matter how hard they try. Women just weren\u2019t designed that way.<\/span><\/p>\n Now you are being illogical and absurd again. Obviously, a couple practicing NFP is doing it willingly. There is such a thing as marital chastity. And so if a woman or husband doesn\u2019t want to have sex at a given time, we don\u2019t force them to. NFP doesn\u2019t teach any such thing. But calling it \u201crape\u201d when a couple voluntarily has sex during infertile periods is absolutely ridiculous and calumnious, too.<\/p>\n There is much silliness in your whole analysis of the supposed gospel truth that \u201csex during infertility is never pleasurable.\u201d Try to run that line by pregnant<\/em> women. They aren\u2019t fertile but\u00a0they will affirm that they have plenty of sexual desire during those nine months. And of course, there is pregnancy a lot of the time, for couples who practice NFP but have relatively a lot of children. One article about the noteworthy excellence of pregnant sex<\/a>, proclaimed:<\/p>\n [P]regnancy is amongst the most sensual, sexual times in a woman\u2019s life . . . with many expectant mums expressing increased sexual appetite and fervor, much to their partner\u2019s delight or bewilderment, with every ripening day.<\/p>\n Consider, after all, what\u2019s going on with the hot mama\u2019s changing form. First, the hormones of her time with child are blessing her with better skin and hair, making her feel more gorgeous than ever.<\/p>\n While some women, especially the toilet-bound, feel anything but sexy during their pregnancy, many are literally glowing from their expectancy, and love their bodacious body as never before.<\/p>\n Second, whether it\u2019s her first or second trimester, some women experience increased sexual urges, at levels exceeding pre-pregnancy. During the second trimester in particular, many feel hot to trot for reasons far beyond their control.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Breastfeeding also makes a woman less fertile, so that there is a natural time of spacing on that basis, for those who do it. Again, it is false to claim that breastfeeding women don\u2019t have a sexual desire (though studies show that in many cases it lessens some during this time, at least at first), so that sex with them all during that time (and pregnancy) is supposedly \u201crape.\u201d Is this some original thought coming from\u00a0you, or did you find this nonsense from someone else?<\/p>\n In fact, many of those who practice the latter are no better than those who practice ABC.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s true: if it is wrongly used with contraceptive intent. I just posted about that very thing<\/a> in the last week.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n For more information on NFP, contact\u00a0Natural Family Planning International<\/a>. Its manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach<\/em>, spends a lot of time encouraging couples to be generous in having children. It also teaches God\u2019s way for spacing births through the right kind of breastfeeding and explains\u00a0all the fertility options and rules. The manual can be downloaded for a suggested donation of $10. It fully supports Catholic Church teaching.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Related Reading:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Dialogue:\u00a0Contraception\u00a0vs. NFP: Crucial\u00a0Ethical Distinctions<\/a>\u00a0[2-16-01]<\/p>\n Dialogue: Contraception & Natural Family Planning (NFP)<\/a>\u00a0[5-16-06]<\/p>\n \u201cDivine Family Planning\u201d (Unlimited Children \/ Anti-NFP): Critique<\/a>\u00a0[9-20-08]<\/p>\n Protestants, Contraception, the Pill, & NFP\u00a0<\/a>[8-12-11]<\/p>\n Natural Family Planning (NFP) &\u00a0\u201cContraceptive Intent\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[8-28-13]<\/p>\n A Defense of Natural Family Planning<\/a>\u00a0[National Catholic Register<\/em>, 5-25-19]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n (originally posted on 1-23-17)<\/p>\n Photo credit:<\/strong>\u00a0Married couple in St. Mary\u2019s Church in Dedham, Massachusetts. Photo by \u201cBriancua\u201d (6-15-13)<\/span> [Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/\u00a0 Creative Commons<\/a> Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International<\/a> license]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was an exchange that took place underneath my post,\u00a0Natural Family Planning (NFP) & Contraceptive Intent. \u201cNaters\u201d (of unknown religious affiliation and 20 years old) seems quite concerned with NFP, judging by a seemingly overwhelming emphasis on it: seen in his Disqus comments. His words will be in blue. ***** There are several problems here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":44340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,123],"tags":[2016,84,3609,3154,1382,1695,875,2017,3158,1753,3157,2037,2089,1000,575,3153,3607,3608,3605,3604,3606,1882,2773,2015,2014,872,3155,873,3031,3156,581,582,3610,999,874],"class_list":["post-44331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-issues","category-sexuality-and-gender-issues","tag-abortifacients","tag-abortion","tag-agape-love","tag-anti-child-mentality","tag-bible-sex","tag-biblical-sexuality","tag-birth-control","tag-birth-control-pill","tag-blessing-of-children","tag-catholic-sexuality","tag-childbearing","tag-christian-sexuality","tag-conception","tag-condoms","tag-contraception","tag-contralife-will","tag-eros","tag-erotic-love","tag-fufilling-sex","tag-great-sex","tag-intimacy","tag-large-families","tag-motherhood","tag-natural-family-planning","tag-nfp","tag-onan","tag-onanism","tag-openness-to-life","tag-parenthood","tag-pregnancy","tag-sex","tag-sexuality","tag-soulmates","tag-the-pill","tag-withdrawal-method"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n
\nUnfortunately, Money Trees Do Not Exist<\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0If you have been aided in any way by my work, or think it is valuable and worthwhile, please strongly consider financially supporting it (even $10 \/ month \u2014 a mere 33 cents a day \u2014 would be very helpful). I have been a full-time Catholic apologist since Dec. 2001, and have been writing Christian apologetics since 1981 (see\u00a0my Resume<\/a>).\u00a0My work has been proven (by God\u2019s grace alone) to be fruitful, in terms of changing lives (see the tangible evidences\u00a0from unsolicited \u201ctestimonies\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0I have to pay my bills like all of you: and have a (homeschooling) wife and two children still at home to provide for, and a mortgage to pay.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nMy book royalties from\u00a0three bestsellers in the field<\/a>\u00a0(published in 2003-2007) have been decreasing, as has my overall income, making it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.\u00a0 I provide over 2700 free articles here, for the purpose of your edification and education, and have\u00a0written 50 books<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019ll literally be a struggle to survive financially until Dec. 2020, when both my wife and I will be receiving Social Security. If you cannot contribute, I ask for your prayers (and \u201clikes\u201d and links and shares). Thanks!<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nSee my\u00a0information on how to donate<\/a>\u00a0(including 100% tax-deductible donations). It\u2019s very simple to contribute to my apostolate via PayPal, if a tax deduction is not needed (my \u201cbusiness name\u201d there is called \u201cCatholic Used Book Service,\u201d from my old bookselling days 17 or so years ago, but send to my email: apologistdave@gmail.com). Another easy way to send and receive money (with a bank account or a mobile phone) is through\u00a0Zelle<\/a>. Again, just send to my e-mail address.\u00a0May God abundantly bless you.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\n