Most women bloggers have a loyal reader and commenter who can be described as \u201cIssues Guy.\u201d \u00a0Like a dog has fleas, he\u2019s got issues with women \u2014 and man, do they bite.<\/p>\n
My Issues Guy put himself right in the middle of this post on idolatry<\/a>, in a tangential combox conversation which turned out to be far more interesting than the post itself \u00a0(even though the post itself had \u201cforeskin\u201d in the title!). Issues Guy described his perfect potential wife and marriage thus:<\/p>\n The Plan It\u2019s a simple three-point plan. Not sure how hard it would be to execute.<\/p>\n In return I will: It\u2019s a perfect plan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ouchie, the issues! \u00a0A married man tried to correct him, saying,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Your description of marriage as a contract with its focus on sexual gratification of the man exposes a deep seated fear of intimacy and completely misses the root of our Church Tradition \u2026\u00a0So you will be physically faithful to one woman. Big shit. So was Hitler.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n As a sacramental vocation, I have experienced that marriage helps me to be a better person ONLY when I am actively engaged in all aspects of our lives. When I slack off and choose to only live my vows by \u201cworking until I blackout\u201d it is a sham. And when in such denial, my heart has been clouded from receiving love from any source.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Issues Man responded:<\/p>\n Sex as the foundation of marriage isn\u2019t an error, it\u2019s natural law. That\u2019s why sex is considered the consummation of the sacrament and why people of the same sex can\u2019t marry each other.<\/p>\n Really this whole controversy boils down to a wife\u2019s duty to have sex with her husband.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A few people tried to respond to him, but here is the reply that really lit up my female brain:<\/p>\n The expectation that someone should be available \u201call the time\u201d speaks to little to no understanding of how important sex really is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ding ding! Issues Guy thought that, because he wants and needs sex all the time, he alone understands how important it is; but in fact, it shows how unimportant<\/em> he imagines sex to be. It shows how little he understands it.<\/p>\n Imagine if someone said, \u201cMost people settle for three-minute pop songs, but I am different. I appreciate the beauty of Beethoven. Therefore, I will put the fourth movement of his ninth symphony on repeat, and will listen to it over and over again at top volume for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n That would be weird, right? Someone who wants that is someone who maybe started out actually loving music, but his natural desire for its beauty and depth has turned into . . . something else. Something that ruins Beethoven.<\/p>\n Or imagine a child who is presented with a chocolate cake for his first birthday. He\u2019s so excited that, while he does manage to get some of it into his mouth, he also smears it in his hair, squishes it between his fingers, slathers it all over his skin and clothes.<\/p>\n PIC baby massacring\u00a0cake<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t look at a kid like this and say, \u201cWow, here is a true gourmet! Unlike the rest of us, who eat three meals a day, he truly understands how important food is.\u201d No, you\u2019d say, \u201cHa, he doesn\u2019t know any better. Someone get a towel.\u201d<\/p>\n Why is this? Well, when something is profound, we don\u2019t enjoy it best when we wallow in it. We\u2019re not sponges, just an undifferentiated blob of strung-together holes designed for soaking. Someone who soaks, someone who wallows \u2014 this is not someone who understands. This is someone who has traded understanding for consumption.<\/p>\n It is the same with sex. \u00a0The \u201cwant\/need\/have-to-have\/gimme-more-now-now-now\u201d model of sexuality is a sad and poor and foolish one. Yes, we have needs \u2014 but we are more than the sum of our needs. We are not made to wallow. When we understand that something is important, we use some discernment, some restraint, or at very least some careful timing.<\/p>\n Now, these analogies \u2014 music, food \u2014 are useful to explain what is grotesque about the \u201cwant\/need\/must-not-be-denied\u201d attitude . . . but only up to a point. It is true that there is such a thing as too much Beethoven or too much chocolate cake, and that people who yearn for nonstop saturation don\u2019t truly love what they say they love.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the only problem, when we\u2019re talking about sex. It\u2019s not just that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. It\u2019s that sex doesn\u2019t mean anything at all when it\u2019s not an expression of a relationship.<\/p>\n Food and music have some element of this need for relationships. It\u2019s nicer when we enoy music together, and it\u2019s a happier day when we can share a feast with someone else. But if we do enjoy these things alone \u2014 if we are carried out of ourselves, out and away from the crowded concert hall on a solitary musical wave, \u00a0or if we close our eyes in bliss as we taste a spoonful of something exquisite, something we do not have to share?<\/p>\n PIC woman tasting spoon<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This is fine. This is great. This is normal, and nice, and good.<\/p>\n But sex is different. Sex is only meaningful because it is part of a relationship.<\/em>\u00a0This is true of sex\u00a0every single time, no matter who you are, what your circumstances, what your \u00a0needs, what your wants, what your desires, what your issues. Sex is about two people, always. \u201cYou give it to me\u201d is not a relationship.\u00a0If you\u2019re thinking of sex as something that you do and the other person must let you do, then you are not really thinking about sex. You\u2019re thinking about holes that need filling. You are being<\/em> a hole that needs filling. You are being a sponge.<\/p>\n PIC flabby sponge<\/p>\n \n<\/p> \u00a0<\/p>\n The comments I quoted above came about as a tangent to the central conversation \u2014 but come to think about it, they\u2019re right on target. I said<\/a> that idolatry is when we<\/p>\n replace God with something smaller and easier to manage \u2014 and devote your life to serving that, instead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And there we are. Sex is not small, and it is not easy to manage. It is a vast ocean. One way that we can make it manageable is, paradoxically, to wallow in it \u2014 to become an undifferentiated, undifferentiating mass of saturated holes. It is easier this way. Sponges don\u2019t care about tides, or storms, or seasons, or night or day. Some of them don\u2019t even need another sponge to reproduce. They just witlessly bud, and add to themselves more holes to be filled.<\/p>\n Do not, o thou man, be a sponge. Be better. Struggle, suffer, give yourself over to a world of thirst and desire, conflict and deep joy.<\/p>\n Struggle, learn, suffer, love, and be better than a sponge.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ******<\/p>\n You know that\u00a0Extraordinary Bishops\u2019 Synod on the Family coming up in October? The Patheos Catholic Channel will be posting a rolling symposium covering all sorts of topics relevant to the Synod. I\u2019m tagging this post #synod and #symposium because it\u2019s about sex, and sex is relevant to everything! Right? Yes? Most women bloggers have a loyal reader and commenter who can be described as \u201cIssues Guy.\u201d \u00a0Like a dog has fleas, he\u2019s got issues with women \u2014 and man, do they bite. My Issues Guy put himself right in the middle of this post on idolatry, in a tangential combox conversation which turned out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[729,404,730,157,206,255,732,733,731],"class_list":["post-13193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-desire","tag-misogyny","tag-needs","tag-sex","tag-sexuality","tag-suffering","tag-symposium","tag-synod","tag-synod-on-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nFind a woman who:
\n\u2022wants to\/is willing to have sex all the time
\n\u2022wants to be 100% submissive in a way that feels natural
\n\u2022wants to\/is willing to have all the kids I can give her<\/p>\n
\n\u2022treat her like a middle school girl (which women seem to like no matter what they may say) alternating with treating her like an adult which they admittedly also seem to like.
\n\u2022work till I black out if necessary
\n\u2022let her read to me<\/p>\n
\nAnyway, many of my fellow bloggers, many of whom are capable of thinking of things other than sex, are posting clear, insightful, entertaining posts. The Catholic\u00a0Patheos Synod Symposium Landing Page<\/a>\u00a0is already full of great posts, and is being updated regularly. You may not be familiar with some of the fine writers who contribute to the Patheos Catholic Channel. Browse around! We\u2019re an amazingly varied bunch<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"