Not to mention not having to worry about diseases ...

Jill just does not get it...actually got to feel sorry (and pray) for her!

You go girl....
Anonymous | 04.16.06 - 6:50 am | #

Hell, I feel sorry for a lot of people. I feel sorry for wrinkled-ass 76-year-olds with heart conditions who can't end the day satisfied unless they've popped a Cialis and gotten busy with some hottie from the bridge club. Not that I know anyone like that or am, even worse, posting from that person's laptop while on vacation in Florida.

I feel sorry for Dawn, too. Dawn, when will you realize you'll never be a free-thinking feminist if you continue to insist on having and expressing your own opinions?
saintkansas | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 7:16 am | #

Dawn,
You express your thoughts with a lovely knife edged precision. If anything your baptism, confession and communion has made your case even more clear. You have willingly given up something of temporal pleasure to gain infinite Joy. The culture of this world does not and sadly cannot understand that sacrifice. All we can do is pray that the Holy Spirit will convict their hearts to conversion.
King Tiger | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 8:07 am | #

I love this thing that God created called sex. Absolutely love it. And I love it so much that I will no longer accept any substitutes for the real thing, the way it was meant to be.

Amen.

I'm thoroughly convinced I'm gonna grow old and die alone, that there's no mate for me. But that's no reason to stop abstaining. Cheap sex is still cheap sex, even if the real thing isn't available.

Rather than your sushi parallel, it's more like, "What kind of music lover would sit and listen to an ill-tuned band of people who never practice getting together drunk -- and playing songs you hate anyway -- just because nobody's playing any Mozart?" No matter how drunk you get, even if you get drunk enough that the bar band starts to be fun to listen to, it's still not Mozart. And you're fooling yourself if you settle for it.
Christina | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 8:42 am | #

Not to mention you'll be puking your guts up in the morning....
Christina | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 8:43 am | #

Sex is about survival. Are we accepted in our society, will we participate in procreation, will we be taken care of?

I don’t think anyone on either side of sexual politics ‘feeling sorry’ for their detractors because they are wrong-thinking and will not thrive as a sexual being - is realistic.

Humans are motivated to thrive sexually and the God we imagine made us that way. There must be a constructive way to communicate about sex without proclaiming folks on the other side of the issue will wither and cease to exist either by disease or lack of use.

Dually we creatures must use sexuality wisely to survive as sexual being in our groups and fulfill our god-given chemical desire to be bonded to another, or others, if you are destined to have more than one partner in your life.

Partnership is a choice, but not a guarantee of full satisfaction emotionally or sexually. Sex is a choice, but not a guarantee of partnership as we imagine we deserve.

One sexual being giving the other sexually being the opportunity to survive sanely with equal consideration and knowledge - that’s love. God loves through us when we care about the quality of each other’s survival. Must we be angry at each other and lock horns as we seek to sort out our sexual motivations? That is merely the god-given territorial creature in us talking.

Easter is the underlying story, dually a Christian and Pagan holy day, about the value of fertility (and the sex that must accompany it}. The egg, the tomb, the rebirth of creatures, a salvation from perishing even as we thrive.
middlegal | 04.16.06 - 10:43 am | #

Amen, Dawn.

I don't regret the path that I've chosen, either. One always looks back and cringes at the mistakes they made in life. In addition to that, I cringe at the mistakes I *almost* made, and I thank God that He gave me the strength to resist temptation and not make them. I feel as though I dodged a bullet.

If I ever met the right man and got married, that would be wonderful. But if I don't, I'm okay with that because my life is pretty full as it is. Some people think sex is the be all and end all of life. If that's the case, they must not have enough to do.

As for Jill and her nasty little attack on you (and, in turn, people like me), since it is Easter, I will forgo my usual uncharitable impulses and try and pray for her. Maybe one day she will realize there is more to life. Hopefully, it won't be too late when she does.

Happy Easter to you, Dawn.
Susan B. | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 11:21 am | #

Ah yes, another "free" feminist castigates people who are not enslaved by their genitalia. I love how these "sisterhood is number one" wymmin turn into catty hags the minute they encounter another female who doesn't buy into their delusions.
Andrea Harris | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 11:45 am | #

Maybe you two should go out to lunch.
IA_ | 04.16.06 - 11:51 am | #

I came over to welcome you into the Church fully. I said a prayer for you during Easter Vigil last night, that God may bless you in your new life.

As for Jill, I'll pray for her too. There's much more wrong there than just moral disagreement. Such an attack, meant to wound you on the happiest day of your life, speaks volumes of something not at all right.
Eileen R | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 12:26 pm | #

(Here we go again) (exasperated sigh of expectation)

What I said previously about contraception and the objectification of the person (both you and the other) goes double for extra-marital sex.

But that's all for now; time for further commenting later. Its Easter! The Lord has risen, and our sister Dawn, once lost, has now been found. She was dead, and has come to life again. Welcome home!
Bender | 04.16.06 - 12:47 pm | #

I'm completely with you, Dawn. I have the same feelings about this. (I am also a single female, a convert to the Catholic Church, with a history of both deeper and shallower relationships behind me.)

And I must also state it here clearly (probably also in the name of Dawn and other men and women who have chosen this path) towards Jill and others who think like her that

discovering, understanding and putting into practice Church teaching about sexuality has been the second most wonderful and joyful gift I have received through my conversion (the first being faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ).
Petra | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 12:47 pm | #

Oh yes, and many blessings for your reception into the Catholic Church!
Petra | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 12:50 pm | #

Dawn,
Welcome into the One Holy Roman Catholic Church, founded by Jesus Christ. Bishop Sheen once wrote: "Goodness always appears as a reproach to those who are not living right and the reproach on the part of the sinner expresses itself in hatred and persecution." That is why the Jills of the world are attacking you. That is why the Catholic Church is persecuted. May God Bless you
George J. Nick
George | 04.16.06 - 1:16 pm | #

Maybe you two should go out to lunch.

Not a bad idea, IA. I thought that too.

discovering, understanding and putting into practice Church teaching about sexuality has been the second most wonderful and joyful gift I have received through my conversion (the first being faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ).

Beautifully said, Petra. My feelings exactly.

Happy Easter, everyone! Thanks so much for your good wishes and your prayers.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 1:21 pm | #

Can you imagine putting all of your energy into doing things (like abstaining from sex) for a future mate, only to never find one?

This sentence really needs to be truncated.

Can you imagine putting all of your energy into doing things (like abstaining from sex)?

At which point, I'm afraid, one sees the essence of the matter -- and the mind boggles. Putting all your energy into abstaining from sex?

Why on earth would avoiding sex be so difficult and so draining? Does this woman really believe that sexual intercourse is like breathing: it happens spontaneously, and you actually have to try to stop it?
Mary | 04.16.06 - 1:57 pm | #

Having actually gone out with Dawn, I'd suggest she puts all her energy into her mealtime conversation - which is wondrous to behold, believe me.
CGHill | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 2:30 pm | #

May your chaste abstinance be spiritually fruitful, Dawn, as it has been for hundreds of God's holy ones, from Saint Paul through Saint Therese of Liseux, all the way down to today's saints in the making.

I agree that the Church's teaching on sexuality is a jewel in Her crown. I have never been happier since DH and I chucked the artificial contraception out the window and started welcoming children into our lives.
Cin | 04.16.06 - 3:01 pm | #

The following is sheer speculation, and as it comes from the Christian point of view is obviously not something that will be at all persuasive to someone who doesn't believe in the Christian idea of the life to come. Yet I offer it to non-believers as a possibility worth considering.

Suppose Christians are right. I strongly suspect (this is the speculation) that what was good in the life we have lived on earth will somehow be carried into, or be available from, eternity. But since sin cannot be in the presence of God, the time we've spent in sin will truly be lost, forever. Those moments in which we have experience pure sinless pleasure will be ours forever, those in which we sinned will be, so to speak, gaps in the tape. If we grasp so hard at pleasure that we sin in order to get it, it will slip away. This surely is part of what Jesus meant in saying that "he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it."

A moment like this one, when I'm looking out the window at the live oak in my yard, may become an eternal source of increasing pleasure to me, while a moment of sin (think I'll leave examples to your imagination) will first become loathsome to me and eventually disappear forever.

One reason I think this is true is that I can already see the process at work in this life. As C.S. Lewis said (paraphrasing from memory), earth in the end will prove not a very distinct place, but a region of heaven to some and of hell to others. And I must say that the pervasive anger, ranging from a sort of chronic snark to fury, of what's supposed to be sex-positive feminism doesn't sound like something that would be part of heaven.
Maclin Horton | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 3:56 pm | #

"Perhaps it is for Jill, and that's why she advocates having sex without love — and why she's so frightened by the thought of dying without having taken the opportunity to have loveless sex."

...where did I advocate that? Or say anything like that? I don't think that there's one single way everyone should (or shouldn't) be having sex. If you want to wait until marriage, that's great -- it's entirely your decision. For me, loveless sex doesn't work. So I don't have loveless sex. I just don't think that love magically appears the day I get married; I think that love can exist entirely on its own, in its own right, without a ceremy to certify it.

For other people, loveless sex works, and I say if that works for both partners, go for it.

As for this:
* Lady X's foremost desire is to be married.
* Lady X puts all her energy into fulfilling her desire.
* Lady X has never found a husband.
* Lady X will never find a husband.

I don't think I ever claimed the last prong. Do I think you'll never find a husband? How should I know? I certainly didn't say that in my comment, I just said that you haven't yet. Neither have I (but I'm not exactly looking).

You're making your own decisions, and that's great. Good on ya. Sex before marriage obviously don't work for you; you think you shouldn't have it, and you don't. I have no problem with that. I don't think it's sad or wrong or any of the things that you probably think about my sex life.

Here's what my comment meant: You seem to be dedicating nearly all of your energies into trying to achieve one goal, and that goal is the kind of thing that isn't really "achieved" the way that a lot of other goals can be, and is at least partly contingent on fate and chance. This goal is of high importance to you, to the point where you're changing your behavior to achieve it and writing and entire book and blog on it. It's not even a personal goal anymore; you've made it into a public lesson. Which is all fine and good. And perhaps you find this bitchy or mean, but when I see someone directing all of their energies into something that they have little control over and which as of yet has not come to pass (doesn't mean it won't, not be any stretch), I look at that and I go, "That must be hard."

It doesn't mean that I think you live a joyless life, or that you're pathetic. I find your judgmentalism troubling, but that's another issue. It's human nature to feel sorry for people whose lives, from our own perspective, seem like they'd be less than ideal, especially when we see people idealizing something that hasn't come to pass and that we suspect has been built up to be much better than it actually is. Obviously lots of your commenters feel sorry for me, given their prayers. You probably look at my life and think it's pathetic. As long as you're happy, and I'm happy, we can feel sorry for each other all the live-long day and it won't matter one little bit.
Jill | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 4:17 pm | #

Jill, I've been looking through the last couple months of entries on this blog and am surprised at how rarely this subject which you insist is the centre of this blog is brought up. Unless you think that Dawn just makes pro-life posts to attract a husband? Or that when she writes about her faith, it's also about attracting a husband?

[Eileen, I took out some personal comments you made. The Harris Protocol, linked at left, which I use as comments rules, asks commenters not to express themselves in that way. The idea, which I admit I don't always enforce perfectly, is to create an environment where people feel free to comment without being personally attacked. If you can express the same sentiments without name-calling, please feel free - Dawn.]

Edited By Siteowner
Eileen R | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 5:22 pm | #

Dawn, when will you realize you'll never be a free-thinking feminist if you continue to insist on having and expressing your own opinions?

Now, THAT'S funny!
Fr Joseph Huneycutt | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 5:42 pm | #

The older philosophers, from Plato down to quite recently, thought the purpose of philosophizing was to become happy. And they realized, with some exceptions, that the pursuit of pleasure was incapable of making anyone happy.

The classic discussion of this, rooted in Augustine's Confessions, is the first five questions of part two of the Summa Theologica (II/I.1-5). There Saint Thomas looks at creation and realizes that no finite created thing can ever make us happy, that happiness can only be found in the vision of the eternal God who loves us and cares for us.

When we don't see that vision, when we put anything created as the central thing in our lives, we are on the long, slow slide to becoming Gollum: enslaved to the ring of this world, consumed by its passion, hissing endlessly, "My precious, my precious."

For some, the created thing they can't live without is money; for many, it's sex.

St Thomas points to the place where we can seek what wise men called beatific vision, the vision that alone gives true happiness: that vision is the vision of God in the Eucharist.

Peace and grace to Dawn for another wonderful set of posts, and peace to all who blog here.

Happy Easter,
GH
GrenfellHunt | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 6:35 pm | #

You know they'd hate you either way. If you were a married woman advocating chastity before marriage, they'd dismiss your opinion as that of someone who doesn't know how impossible it actually is to live without sex. If you're an unmarried woman actually walking the walk, there's something wrong with you. You're a sad, pitiful person, living a sad, pitiful life.

The real question is: what is so threatening to these other bloggers about your opinions about sex and marriage? Why are they so fascinated by this, why do they find your views on chastity so annoying? Obviously you're getting under somebody's skin.
Ersza | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 6:49 pm | #

The real question is: what is so threatening to these other bloggers about your opinions about sex and marriage?

You know, for me, when someone says something that is really foolish or outrageously wrong, I generally just dismiss it outright as not worthy of my time to consider. It is generally only when there is some merit to their comment that it is necessary to respond to it.

And for a person to argue and argue and argue the same point to death, over and over, repeatedly denying the truth of what someone else has said, well, that tends to indicate that they are not even convincing themselves with their arguments. As I said before in another posting, they doth protest too much methinks. If what we say and think is so outrageous and lacking in merit, they would simply dismiss it out of hand. The fact that they do not, the fact that they feel "threatened" is some indication that they know the truth . . . and they do not like it.
Bender | 04.16.06 - 7:19 pm | #

Jill, you write about Dawn that "[she] seems to be dedicating nearly all of [her] energies into trying to achieve one goal". This is a strikingly odd thing to say. Among other things, Dawn has spent the last nine months going through a unique, beautiful and quite time- and emotion-consuming process (preparation for reception into the Catholic Church). She writes about this from time-to-time, but having gone through it myself, I know that her writings about it on the blog are very small in comparison to the amount of space it has been taking up in her spirit.

The question that comes to my mind when I hear you say that Dawn dedicates "nearly all her energies" to marriage and pre-marriage celibacy is...what is it about you that causes you to not see the rest of Dawn?
Emily | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 7:29 pm | #

If it makes you feel better, I got married at 45...didn't meet my husband until I was 40, and neither of us were looking for a spouse when we fell in love...
I was happy as a single, but you know, it's nice to have someone who cares for you, and who is there when you are down...sex is nice too...even for us grandparents.
(I became a "mother" at age 35...adopted two older boys who needed a family.By the time I married, I had a granddaughter...)
boinkie | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 8:13 pm | #

nd for a person to argue and argue and argue the same point to death, over and over, repeatedly denying the truth of what someone else has said, well, that tends to indicate that they are not even convincing themselves with their arguments>>

Bender, can't you say that about anyone who keeps debating their point, even if it's how wonderful their religion is? Can't you say you're trying to convince yourself you're right or is it only viewpoints you disagree with?
NeilC | 04.16.06 - 8:55 pm | #

As a single Catholic woman i don't understand why people think living without sex is so hard. i have other things to do in my life rather than focus all my energy into finding people to shagg for the night. If i get married that would be good but i'm not all that worried about it. Sex isn't the be all end all of human existance.
lar | 04.16.06 - 9:43 pm | #

Dawn,

I've seen so many people, who lived faithless lives with easy sex and lots of alcohol, end up in their late thirties or early forties with severe depression. I just heard last week about yet another old friend who now has this problem.

I've seen this so many times now that I can't believe that this isn't a well-known phenomena. Is this something new, or are these people just considered 'acceptable casualties' in the sexual revolution?


Mark
Mark | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 9:47 pm | #

Dawn:

One quibble: I don't think it should be called the "sex-positive/babies-negative crowd"; it should be called the fornication-positive/babies-negative crowd.

One suggestion: In commemoration of your transformation, I think that you should put the "016smile" JPEG in the place of honor on the top of the Dawn Patrol, and retire (or at least put down below, with the other cartoon), the "blonde" cartoon, since (it appears) the RGB hex values of your hair aren't close to anymore.

And, speaking of transformation: Have you had a look at Pope Benedict's Easter Vigil sermon? It looks like Benny has been really rocking this Holy Week. This is part of that sermon, and (as you can see) it mates very well with your statement:

I think that what happens in baptism can be more easily explained for us if we consider the final part of the short spiritual autobiography that St. Paul gave us in his Letter to the Galatians. Its concluding words contain the heart of this biography: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). I live, but I am no longer I. The "I," the essential identity of man -- of this man, Paul -- has been changed. He still exists, and he no longer exists. He has passed through a "not" and he now finds himself continually in this "not": I, but no longer I. ...

My "I" is taken away from me and is incorporated into a new and greater subject. This means that my "I" is back again, but now transformed, broken up, opened through incorporation into the other, in whom it acquires its new breadth of existence. ...

This liberation of our "I" from its isolation, this finding oneself in a new subject means finding oneself within the vastness of God and being drawn into a life which has now moved out of the context of "dying and becoming." The great explosion of the Resurrection has seized us in baptism so as to draw us on. Thus we are associated with a new dimension of life into which, amid the tribulations of our day, we are already in some way introduced. To live one's own life as a continual entry into this open space: This is the meaning of being baptized, of being Christian. This is the joy of the Easter Vigil.

The Resurrection is not a thing of the past, the Resurrection has reached us and seized us. We grasp hold of it, we grasp hold of the risen Lord, and we know that he holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. We grasp hold of his hand, and thus we also hold on to one another's hands, and we become one single subject, not just one thing. I, but no longer I: This is the formula of Christian life rooted in baptism, the formula of the Resurrection within time. I, but no longer I: If we live in this way, we transform the world. It is a formula contrary to all ideologies of violence, it is a program opposed to corruption and to the desire for power and possession.

The guy is kicking.
PMcGrath | 04.16.06 - 10:02 pm | #

Jill,
So I don't have loveless sex. I just don't think that love magically appears the day I get married; I think that love can exist entirely on its own, in its own right, without a ceremy to certify it.

Can you tell me what love is in your eyes? I begin to believe that when thee and we use this word, we are talking about two different things.

I surmise (correct me if I am wrong) that you view this as an emotional 'attachment'; whereas we’d lean more heavily on the term commitment.

I think this is where we may all be talking past each other.

From our perspective, without the commitment, we’d probably not even qualify what you would as love. I am not saying there is no bond, or emotion, but it’s likely not the same bond and emotion we have in mind.

And perhaps you find this bitchy or mean, but when I see someone directing all of their energies into something that they have little control over and which as of yet has not come to pass (doesn't mean it won't, not be any stretch), I look at that and I go, "That must be hard."

The ‘goal’ is chastity. Chastity applies to the unmarried, the married, and the religious alike. The ‘way’ of chastity is different depending on the individual’s circumstances.

Dawn can achieve chastity in her current unmarried state as fully as I can in my own married state. Her energies are not wasted if she never marries as they are being directed at and lived out in the present.

The goal doesn’t change if and when she marries; only the means to that end change.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 10:11 pm | #

My knowledge of Christianity is rudimentary but I have this to say about the subject where it concerns sex.

I think that many secular and/or liberal Christians believe that those who choose to remain chaste until marriage are doing so solely for the purpose of trying to catch a husband; it shouldn't have to be said that this isn't true. They abstaining from sex because( and any Christians please correct me if I'm wrong) their bodies are not their own, but belong to the body of Christ and they must treat their vessels accordingly.

Chastity has much less to do with gaining a husband than it has to do with living in accordance with God's will and church doctrine.
SBW | Homepage | 04.16.06 - 11:45 pm | #

To Mark above (9:47pm): yeah, I think it's one of those obvious things that a lot of people don't want to see. I've been watching it since the '60s and it's certainly not uncommon. The sexual revolution has many, many casualties, not least the children of divorced parents. I thought at one point in the '70s, when so many people were divorcing for relatively slight reasons, that the children would react against it and be determined not to follow in their parents' footsteps. No doubt that happens, but it appears that more frequently the damage suffered by the children makes marriage even more difficult for them.

It's so much easier to destroy a culture than to build one.
Maclin Horton | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 12:15 am | #

So sex is "something that you have little control over"?

Don't you hate that, when you're just walking along fully clothed and trip and fall naked on top of some other naked person? That like happens to me everyday! Who could possibly control something like that!

Seriously though, if sex is so far beyond your control that this sort of thing is a regular part of your life, maybe it is time to start asking yourself if you control the sex or if the sex controls you.

It has been my personal observation that in this dark age of spirituality, those who chant mantras like "I am truly free" are sincerely convinced they are right but lying to themselves nonetheless.

Conversion begins with accepting the possibility of your own fallibility. Seeking only begins once you humbly admit others brighter and more spiritually-experienced than you have explored the topic at length. Coming home begins when you look to where all these signs point.

I don't suppose you all have seen those Buddhist paintings that describe the universe in the abstract -- usually with a lotus blossom or some other symbol of the Buddha at the center.

Sometimes I can imagine how the universe is arranged in other people's minds. Sometimes the center is self. This is sad. Even more sad is when the center is just a particular organ on that person's body.

If I could take back all my past sexual sins and live without knowing the pleasure, I would.

If I could go back in time with a frying pan and use it to whap people upside the head whenever they fed the lie of society to me, I would.

"But there would be much whapping"
-- Book of Griddles 3:23
StubbleSpark | 04.17.06 - 3:16 am | #

Wow, StubbleSpark. You said it.

The griddle idea is cool. If I had a griddle, then every time I was fed a societal lie, I could just skillet. Oil be damned!
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 3:26 am | #

They abstaining from sex because( and any Christians please correct me if I'm wrong) their bodies are not their own, but belong to the body of Christ and they must treat their vessels accordingly.

Chastity has much less to do with gaining a husband than it has to do with living in accordance with God's will and church doctrine.

Yeah, SBW. Exactly. You got it! :-)))
Petra | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 3:43 am | #

This post got me wondering: what would the 38-year-old me be like had I gotten "the one thing I seemed to want more than anything" when I was 24? Or 18? How many people my age are still married to the spouse they wanted so badly at 24? Don't cry for me, Argentina: I am at peace with the fact that Molly Ringwald and I were never meant to be.

It's so much easier to destroy a culture than to build one.

Well said as usual, Man Poet Maclin. You know one thing this society needs? A Post-Sex Culture. You know, a safe and productive place for honest-to-God adults who've had their share of orgasms and are ready to move on (I'm looking at you, Hefner). Please buy my book, Toward a Post-Sex Culture, which I'm going to start writing today.

I envy Dawn that she's found a purpose so early in her life. Hell, the "feminist movement" is older, aging poorly, and apparently still doesn't have a clue what it actually "wants."

(And yes, I'm ready to back up that claim.)
saintkansas | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 6:26 am | #

Dear Jill,

I used to feel exactly the way you do. I am 50 now - I got married right out of college, left my husband when in my early 30's, and spent roughly seven years "enjoying" the sexual revolution.

During that time, I had an extramarital affair with someone I worked with, causing great pain to his family and almost losing my children because of it. I still suffer minor "fallout" from that relationship, even though it's been over for 15 years, because we still work together and I still live with the consequences of my actions. (E.g., not being able to comfortably attend work-related parties, etc.)

I also had a number of "meaningless" relationships in which either I hurt the man, or he hurt me.

Finally, in my early 40's, I came to my senses somewhat and decided this "casual sex" stuff just wasn't worth the trouble FOR ME. So I began living a "chaste" life but not a Christian one -- philosophically, I continued to hold views like yours.

I was glad to be rid of the hassle of sex, but I can't say I was happy. In fact, my life was bleak. I don't know whether I was clinically depressed, but I "felt" very depressed.

During my early to mid-40's, I was a nominal Catholic. As my depression worsened, I picked up a copy of the Catechism - I'm still not sure why, apart from divine intervention - and read the whole thing. I found the teachings on sex to be very foreign to my sensibilities. But the rest of the Catechism resonated with me, so I decided to "try" accepting the whole thing with an open mind. With respect to the sexual teachings, I told myself, "Yes, this seems weird, but think about it - what good ever came from one of your sexual relationships outside of your marriage? None! So, maybe the Pope is right. Who knows?"

So, for about four years now, I have been living "Christian chaste" (soon after reading the Catechism I went to Confession for the first time in 35 years or so), and I can attest that there really is a difference. My depression is gone. I am very "pro-sex" -- but, like Dawn, believe it can come only from the context of a loving relationship between a husband and wife.

It's now been about 10 years since I've had sex with anyone, and it is not the joyless life you think. In fact, I have never been so happy. Love of God has filled the voids in my life.

I pray that you will find this happiness, too. God bless you.

(Sorry I can't use my name, but I still work with the person referred to above.)
Anon. | 04.17.06 - 7:00 am | #

The reason Jill and the "Feministes" and the rest of the neo-pagans of the world do not "get" it, is because they view sex as a need. And it is not. Needs are things we cannot do without, lest we die. One does not die when one abstains from sex!

Sex is the language of marriage, only. When it is used in any way outside of the marital state, it is a lie. You understand this important truth; the poor slaves of the sex-obsessed culture do not. And they will never be truly happy because no one is ever happy living a lie.

Dawn, these women cannot stand the light that shines from the truth that you uphold. That light falls on their own sinfulness and they see how truly ugly they have become. That is why they persecute you.

And make no mistake about it, when one lives the Gospel, as you clearly are, one will be persecuted. But as you know, Christ told us it is a great honor to be persecuted for His sake! We will be greatly blessed! And when we offer the hurts and insults to Him, for the conversion of the very people who attack us, it has a tremendous power over sin and evil in this world!
Georgette | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 7:38 am | #

StubbleSpark:

So sex is "something that you have little control over"?

Wow, you're unbelievably full of ---- [deletion mine - Ed.], Dawn. If you want Jill to treat you "fair", then I suggest not using ellipses and other dodges to pretend that she's saying something other than what she did.

What she said is you're desperate for a husband. You know it and I know that's what she said. And you didn't get one by sleeping around so you think a 180 is gonna score you one. You're casting around for a man to give meaning to your life, and that's what hasn't changed. You want to change something? Define yourself instead of asking for a man--any man--to do it for you. Casual sex is fun, if you don't expect it to result in the guy imparting his essence on you.

The truth is that your anti-feminist work here is only making your problems worse. By insisting that a woman's worth is tied up in what penises she touches, you're not doing yourself any favors in getting past your obsession with having a man confer importance on you by choosing you.
Amanda Marcotte | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 8:27 am | #

I had sex with my husband before we were married, and also after. Now, we could not at the time we began to have sex have known that the relationship would develop into marriage; however, as it happened, it did progress into engagement and then marriage. How can it reasonably be said that the act of sexual intercourse underwent a change in kind after the marriage ceremony, when neither the act nor the relationship changed from before to after? So saying would insist upon the relationship being divided into two parts, whereas, from where I stand, I only see one.
Ledasmom | 04.17.06 - 9:03 am | #

I want to dissent somewhat from what saintkansas says above. She implies that it's better not to get married early, because you might not make the right choice. This is a lie fed to us by the same sex positive/baby negative culture that would like us to have casual sex. It's all part of the Brave-New-World vision of the future where we all wear our Malthusian belts and don't get ourselves involved in commitments, relationships, and obligations that we can't handle. I call bullshit. I got married at 21, and I am still very happily married 12 years later. Saint Paul said it is better to marrry than to burn. If you are eighteen and can't live without sex, then you'd better be looking for a husband or wife. (And it *does* take time and energy to find a spouse. It's not like falling off a log, especially when you get past the age of being in school and meeting lots of eligible people). You might find yourself questioning that choice when you're thirty. If so, you've got work to do, putting that marriage back together. There's no free ride. Marriage isn't organized for our pleasure. It's a vocation. And "love" isn't an emotion, it's an action. It's a duty to love your husband or wife, and a choice you make. In that sense, without commitment, where is the "love" in sex?
Ersza | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 9:19 am | #

And make no mistake about it, when one lives the Gospel, as you clearly are, one will be persecuted>>>

Oh come on....enough with the persecution complexes!
neilC | 04.17.06 - 9:23 am | #

Amanda - LOL! That's what you get from reading this blog? You breeze past the successful career (and recent promotion), vibrant faith, myriad friends and eclectic interests and decide that because Dawn is living a life of Christian chastity, she's desperate for a man to define her? Thats hilarious.

For some people, the whole point of sex is for the couple to "impart their essences" on one another. Without that connection, the encounter might as well be powered by batteries. That may be enough for you, but it doesn't follow that Dawn's full of anything but faith and love if it's not enough for her.
Belinda | 04.17.06 - 9:30 am | #

Ledasmom,
So saying would insist upon the relationship being divided into two parts, whereas, from where I stand, I only see one.

Really? That's an interesting claim. So why did you get married then? What 'happened' in that act that you thought it important enough to go through with it?

You put to lie your own claim by the explanation of it. You partook of an act (getting married) that ended one stage of your relationship (pre-marital) and started another (married life).

You make the delineation for us as clear as night and day, and then oddly claim that there is no delineation?
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 9:57 am | #

Bender, the point about protesting too much is a good one -- when my husband and I attended our Engaged Encounter weekend, we were one of the few couples who were not cohabiting (or switching rooms and roommates in order to stay with our fiances/fiancees for the two nights of the retreat).

There was an anonymous Q&A session on Saturday night. People had dropped questions into a box all day, and then the leaders pulled the questions out and posed them to the group at large. Literally 95% of the questions were variations on "Why can't we have sex before we get married?" The cohabitors were extremely defensive and very angry, and nobody was making attacks or condemning them. The leaders and others simply explained what the Church teaches and why.

I thought at the time and I still think now that if they were truly convinced that their choice was correct and right, they would not have felt the need to defend it so angrily or to have others tell them that it was okay (which seemed to be the point of asking the question so repeatedly). That kind of defensiveness springs from a guilty conscience.

It's hard for hedonists to understand chastity -- they see it as a rule that bars them from the pleasure that is rightfully theirs, unfairly imposed from an outside source. For those who do practice chastity as a spiritual discipline, they see it as a choice freely made and willingly kept for the healthy life of the individual. To me, it's not all that different from the other disciplines to which I submit myself -- I don't eat or drink to excess or overindulge in those foods which are less than good for me, and I exercise regularly. These things may seem pointless in the moment, but they serve a long-term goal of a healthy body. Could illness or accident or any other unexpected catastrophe put all of my care and discipline to naught? Certainly. Does that make it worthless or wasted? Absolutely not.
Scherza | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 10:26 am | #

SteveG, this may come as a very great shock, but sex is not the sole reason to marry.

I also had sex with my husband before we married (and I didn't know then that he was going to be my husband) as well as after, and like Ledasmom, the actual physical act hasn't changed. I married him because he's the best man I've ever known, he's my best friend, we make each other better people, and we're in love.

Sex is just the icing on the cake.



As for the persistent and troubling claim that some make here, that sex is meaningless without marriage (or with contraception) I must yet again object. Dawn probably thinks I'm a big slut because I had sex before marriage and not just with my husband. However, there are lots of gray areas between virgin/married/big slut. I never had a one night stand. I never used sex to try to keep a guy. I only slept with people I truly cared about (and I made sure they cared about me before we did anything). I always used contraception and I never got sick or pregnant. And now I'm happily married and working on making baby #1.

So, at least as far as my experience goes, the meme that pre-marital sex will ruin your life is a big load of crap. It doesn't have to, not if you're smart.
Norah | 04.17.06 - 10:41 am | #

Norah, no one ever said that sex is the sole reason to marry. Of course it's not. I think that Steve's point was that if you're already acting like a married couple, why bother with a wedding?
Luthien | 04.17.06 - 10:54 am | #

if you're already acting like a married couple, why bother with a wedding?

Acting? How so? What do married couples do together? I believe you just inadvertantly proved my point.


We got married for ourselves. We wanted to make an official, legal statement that we were bonded for life, and we did it because we wanted to, not because of someone said we should since we were "already acting like a married couple".

It's true; there really are guys who will buuy the cow when they already get the milk for free.
Norah | 04.17.06 - 11:00 am | #

SteveG - I'm not Ledasmom, but I'll essay an answer.

It is entirely possible, and common, to get married for reasons that have little to do with the primary relationship. Relatives, taxes, residencies, and a whole slew of other things can provide good and sufficient reason to turn a relationship into a legal marriage withot meaning anything positive or negative about the marriage. My wedding had much more to do with family expectations and taxes than it did with my relationship with my husband.

A good marriage does not spring into being complete and perfect at the moment of vows. It grows organically from the first meeting to the last parting. It may grow stronger at some points, it may die back at others, but it's one progression. Nobody hauls away the old relationship and gives you a whole new one at the ceremony.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 11:01 am | #

Norah

SteveG, this may come as a very great shock, but sex is not the sole reason to marry.

No shock there, unfortunately it’s not even remotely related to what I said.

I also had sex with my husband before we married (and I didn't know then that he was going to be my husband) as well as after, and like Ledasmom, the actual physical act hasn't changed. I married him because he's the best man I've ever known, he's my best friend, we make each other better people, and we're in love.

I didn’t suggest that the act changed, but that something about the relationship did. Putting aside the valid point brought up by another poster (about sex for ‘social’ reasons), I assumed that the original poster and yourself made that formal commitment because it meant something.

I was focused on the context of the relationship within which the act was taking place.

Sex is just the icing on the cake.

And that in my view is part of the problem. That sex is viewed as icing when in fact as sexual beings it is so central to who and what we are that getting it’s meaning ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ has far reaching consequences.

It’s astounding to me that in the previous conversation on this topic that none of the folks on 'my side' of the issue pointed out the obvious fact that the objective purpose of sex is twofold.

These two purposes are that of the bonding of the couple, and of procreation. That is a biological fact that is irrefutable. One need not have any religious insight to state this common sense fact.

The problem arises when you substitute the motivator (intense pleasure) of an act for the act itself as the purpose.

Pleasure in sex is awesome, no question about it. But it is simply not the purpose of the act and it cannot take the place of the true biological purpose without any negative consequences.

And that is true of any act. It’s why the food analogy is so frequently used. As with sex, if you substitute the pleasure associated with eating (which is a motivator to prompt us to eat to survive) for the purpose (obtaining nutrients to survive), you end up more often than not with obesity.

Now the adverse effects are more ‘obvious’ in that instance, but they are present when the same is done with sex.

As for the persistent and troubling claim that some make here, that sex is meaningless without marriage (or with contraception) I must yet again object.

It’s not that sex is meaningless outside of marriage. It’s that it’s SO freakin meaningful. It’s not we who take the attitude that it’s meaningless, but those who make light of it that do.


And now I'm happily married and working on making baby #1.

Very seriously….Congratulations!
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 11:29 am | #

Norah
Acting? How so? What do married couples do together? I believe you just inadvertantly proved my point.

It’s not what they DO. It’s the underlying commitment that’s been made that was absent before hand. Can you not see that that act (the committment) changes (or should) the very nature of the relationship, and by consequence it changes (though one might not ‘feel’ the change) to some degree everything that takes place within the relationship?

It's true; there really are guys who will buuy the cow when they already get the milk for free.

But how do you know which guys are which until they make that definitive declearation via marriage that ‘I am not one of those guys!’

You can’t really say that you were sure that your husband wasn’t one of those guys until he made the commitment. It’s that commitment and declaration which said to you that he wanted more than just the milk, no?
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 11:35 am | #

As a never married, female convert to the Catholic Church, I must say that being chaste is true freedom. I am not avoiding my sexuality, I am honoring that fact that my sexuality is a commodity as precious as gold and rarer. Respecting my sexuality allows me to know true freedom. I do not worry about an unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, or the possibility of being with a man I do not truly love. Being chaste gives me the opportunity to lovingly focus on others instead of a dead end relationship that ends in heart break. Being chaste is not a struggle or time consuming. My being is focused on my Lord and Savior and doing HIS will NOT mine. When a woman realizes she is not a commodity, she is liberated in a way modern feminist cannot relate to. She knows the true meaning of freedom and is the true feminist, because she is truly honoring what being female is about. She is an example in the community of selfless love and freedom. This is when a woman is truly secure in her sexuality, because she knows her sexuality is not defined by being sexual active. She is honoring the timeless virtues and vocations handed down to females.
Anastasia | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 11:39 am | #

SteveG, by the same reasoning, if you don't have sex before marriage how do you know the person you're marrying isn't just marrying you for the sex?
Why did we marry? Well, it was important to my then-future husband; it made me default next-of-kin; it allowed us access to each other's insurance policies. Apart from that? Big hassle, not really worth it. Did our relationship change when the legal status of it changed? No.
Ledasmom | 04.17.06 - 12:23 pm | #

SteveG, by the same reasoning, if you don't have sex before marriage how do you know the person you're marrying isn't just marrying you for the sex?

But this is the polar oppostite of what's been discussed. If neither party has 'given' anything away before hand, nothing has been 'lost'. If the couple are willing to get married 'just to get the sex', well, they have a poor understanding of what marriage is, but at least they've made the committment before they've started giving that part of themselves.
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 12:57 pm | #

SteveG, that would truly be a relationship based entirely on a drive towards pleasure, whereas mine with my husband, contraception or no, is not.
Ledasmom | 04.17.06 - 1:08 pm | #

SteveG:

And what happens when the novelty of sex wears off and the happy couple realizes their hormones were convincing them they were in love when they really just wanted to bonk? They've made a lifetime "comittment" to someone they may not have anything in common with, or even like very much. Personally, I'm glad I got all the bad relationships out of the way before getting married.

You can’t really say that you were sure that your husband wasn’t one of those guys until he made the commitment.

Yes I can. We slept together on the third date and by the fifth he told me he never wanted to be with anyone else. Three years and two apartments later we were married. It happens, trust me. But I can't really "feel" the change, right? I'll just have to take your word for it?


Anastasia:

Who said women are commodities? Besides you, I mean?
Norah | 04.17.06 - 1:14 pm | #

I am a man who, with regard to sex, has lived life both ways, first according to the Gospel of Dr. Ruth and Dear Abby and then, after I "reverted," according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. Chastity helped restore me to wholeness and made the world come alive for me. I believe that the Church's teachings about sex are uniquely valuable in today's world given the way that the world has so completely debased sex.
Dan | 04.17.06 - 1:35 pm | #

SteveG, that would truly be a relationship based entirely on a drive towards pleasure, whereas mine with my husband, contraception or no, is not.

First off, I make no judgment on your or anyone else’s marriage as I don’t know you or your husband and any speculation in that regard would be foolishness.

I am speaking at a moral and philosophical level (if my ramblings can be called that). I am emphatically not with the folks in the last discussion who presumed that the act somehow automatically turns the other person into an object.

I do indeed think that all things being equal, the tendency is such that there is a distinct danger that this can happen to nearly anyone (just like continued/extended over indulgence in food will likely lead to almost anyone gaining weight).

But common sense should make us acknowledge that just as some people have differing natural metabolism, and can eat to varying degrees with different consequences, it’s likely that different couples have different thresholds as to how much they can participate in contraception sex before it has a real effect on them.

As to your point, I didn’t say that someone marrying only for sex was a good thing (I explicitly said that that person would have a poor understanding of marriage) and I’d suspect that someone marrying for that reason alone would likely have little prospects of a successful marriage.

In fact, in my own tradition, someone marrying for ONLY that reason would likely not even be seen as validly/sacramentally married.

And I don't doubt that your marriage is based on more than sex, but may I ask on what your sex is based? Is it the pursuit of pleasure and intimacy?
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 1:42 pm | #

And what happens when the novelty of sex wears off and the happy couple realizes their hormones were convincing them they were in love when they really just wanted to bonk?

They've made a lifetime "comittment" to someone they may not have anything in common with, or even like very much.

See my previous comment on this. I wouldn’t be one to argue that marrying purely for sex is a good thing.

But this whole scenario seems strange to me. Are there really people who avoid pre-marital sex, and participate in a relationship for any amount of time, who get married simply so they can licitly have sex? That seems like an utterly false hypothetical to me.

Someone taking chastity seriously enough that they avoid pre-marital sex, but not taking marriage seriously enough that they would marry for such reasons. I somehow doubt it.

Personally, I'm glad I got all the bad relationships out of the way before getting married.

Are you suggesting that the only way to know that a relationship is bad or not is if you test drive the other person’s genitilia? If anything, the emotional complexity that comes attached to the sexual act serves to cloud, rather than clarify, one’s judgment about the character and suitability of another person.

Yes I can. We slept together on the third date and by the fifth he told me he never wanted to be with anyone else.

Wow! He told you that?! ;-)

Seriously, without knowing or judging your husband, do you think that no-one has ever uttered such words insincerely or even sincerely without realizing what the hell they were saying?

And you just prove my earlier point. How is it possible that a guy who barely knows you (really now, 5 dates doesn’t qualify as an immense span of time or experience) can possibly know that this is the person who he should spend his entire life with? It’s really a pretty preposterous claim.

It’s fantastic if it worked out for you guys, and I am truly happy that is the case. But do you really think this utterance, at that point was something that you could be sure you could trust for the rest of your life?

Three years and two apartments later we were married. It happens, trust me.

I don’t doubt it. But I doubt you can really argue that it works out that these words have been spoken, but end up dashed on the reality of life.

Thanks, but I’ll trust the reality that despite nearly every couple uttering the same types of words, nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce.

But I can't really "feel" the change, right? I'll just have to take your word for it?

Right, you can’t ALWAYS feel things as they occur. I have news for you, and it’s a lesson you’ll do well to take note of. Life is not all about how we feel. Sometimes things can be going one’s own relationship that you are utterly unaware of and don’t feel.

That’s not an attack, and I don’t exempt myself from that. It’s just the reality of how relationships work. Ask any husband or wife who’s discovered after years of marriage that their spouse has cheated on them, and they hadn’t a clue in the world.
SteveG | 04.17.06 - 1:58 pm | #

Casual sex is fun, if you don't expect it to result in the guy imparting his essence on you.

Well said, Amanda. Thank you.

Cheap wine is also fun if you vomit.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 2:04 pm | #

The food analogy is a really lousy one SteveG, if you want it to mean what I think you want it to mean.

People who eat for conscious pleasure, pay attention to their food, and enjoy every bite, are not often overweight. The eating that will most frequently lead to overweight is the sort of fanatical deprivation that leads to slowing down the metabolism, followed by eating a lot of sugary, or fatty foods in a rebound from the deprivation.

Which in my experience is actually a good analogy for a love life. Attention, mindfulness, and rational decisions are most likely to lead to satisfactory conclusions. For many people that will be chastity in the religios sense - but for many it will not. Just like for many, conscious food eating will lead to vegatarianism, and for many, not. You can make an argument that chastity is more moral and healthier - just as you can make the same argument for vegatarianism - but it's really not possible to say that one can't be moral and healthy only in that one way.

I knew my husband was committed to me and our relationship because he stuck with me through thick and thin for four years before we ever got married. The marriage was a declaration of our committment, not the source of it - not even the source of our knowledge of it.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 2:22 pm | #

Norah, I don't think I did prove your point. Couples who live together before marriage aren't just having sex together, but participating in the humdrum daily activities of life like paying the bills, making dinner, housecleaning, and all that together, and they're enjoying each others' companionship and even sometimes having children together as though they were married. It's not just the sex that has persuaded the governments of most states to call such relationships commonlaw marriages after 7 years have
elapsed.

Cynthia Wood, the food analogy actually works, because nourishemnt, not pleasure is the point of food. If you enjoy it, that's good, and God did make food taste good to give us pleasure, but staying alive is the whole point, just as pleasure is a good and God-given part of sex but not the whole point.
luthien | 04.17.06 - 2:54 pm | #

People who eat for conscious pleasure, pay attention to their food, and enjoy every bite, are not often overweight.

This is not the person I am referring to. I am referring to the person who has forgotten the purpose of food and substitute for it the gratification of a desire.

I’d suggest that the person you describe is able to do what you suggest precisely because they enjoy the pleasure as ‘part’ of the experience, rather than as the experience. This person likely has either a conscious or intuitive understanding of food and the place pleasure has in the process of eating.

Of course delighting in the pleasure is absolutely fine, but pursuing it as an end is not healthy in any aspect of life whether it is in regard to food, sex, alcohol, or any other number of things that produce feelings of intense pleasure.

Just like for many, conscious food eating will lead to vegatarianism, and for many, not. You can make an argument that chastity is more moral and healthier - just as you can make the same argument for vegatarianism - but it's really not possible to say that one can't be moral and healthy only in that one way.

In your example, vegetarianism is a terrible analogy. That is akin to saying that on couple prefers the missionary position over all others. As long as the basic function is intact, such choices become a matter of preference.

We can say that it is manifestly not healthy to use bulimia as the method of staying at the ‘right’ weight. Most other forms of eating will involve the simple actions of taking food into one’s mouth, chewing it and swallowing it. What/where/How it is consumed is simply a matter of preference.

Now extending this to sex, the function of the sexual act in essence is really quite simple, no? As long as the basic function is intact, there is no question of morality. But the moment contraception (among other things) is used; the act has been altered.

That is where the moral question arises. Is the alteration healthy, or not?

I knew my husband was committed to me and our relationship because he stuck with me through thick and thin for four years before we ever got married. The marriage was a declaration of our committment, not the source of it - not even the source of our knowledge of it.

Something like this occurs for most married couples. What’s your point? The declaration is still a declaration and it means ‘something’, no?
SteveG | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 2:57 pm | #

These two purposes are that of the bonding of the couple, and of procreation.

Whose purposes?
Josh | 04.17.06 - 3:43 pm | #

Are there really people who avoid pre-marital sex, and participate in a relationship for any amount of time, who get married simply so they can licitly have sex? That seems like an utterly false hypothetical to me.

Uh, why? I know people who did it, and ended up miserable. They didn't have a terribly long courtship and they were very young (late teens) and very religious. The human sex drive is one of the most powerful forces in existence; are you seriously telling me you don't believe it could temporarily subvert someone's more rational mind? Look at all the sex scandals in the government.

Are you suggesting that the only way to know that a relationship is bad or not is if you test drive the other person’s genitilia?

No. But it helps. And it helps not to be married to a guy whom you have just realized is a total tool. And it helps to know what you do and do not want in a potential partner. See, sometimes you only think you know what you want, but when you get it, it isn't for you at all.

How is it possible that a guy who barely knows you (really now, 5 dates doesn’t qualify as an immense span of time or experience) can possibly know that this is the person who he should spend his entire life with? It’s really a pretty preposterous claim.

Who said he barely knew me? We'd been friends for two years before we ever went on a date. There was an attraction from the beginning, but the timing wasn't right for a while.

All right, gotta go to work. Maybe we'll pick this up later.

Oh, Dawn?

Cheap wine is also fun if you vomit.

Maybe you should stay away from analogies, they don't seem to be your strong suit.
Norah | 04.17.06 - 3:50 pm | #

NO FAIR! NO FAIR! You get to be a catholic girl without suffering the derision us catholic teen boys would throw at the girls every day! And several of those jokes/sayings came to mind while I was reading this, but I won't post them in such polite company!

Ohh God, food, fish, sex, biting my tongue till it BLEEDS!!!!!
tk | 04.17.06 - 3:55 pm | #

Whose purposes?

Nature, basic biology, God, call it what you like, but it is most obviously the case that bonding and procreation are the central purposes of sexual intercourse.

You *might* be able to argue that 'bonding' is a social construct. You simply can not argue against the basic biological fact that a primary purpose (evolutionary purpose if you like) of sexual intercourse in ALL mammals is the generation of offspring.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 4:00 pm | #

Nature, basic biology, God, call it what you like, but it is most obviously the case that bonding and procreation are the central purposes of sexual intercourse.

Purpose implies intent or design. If one rejects the idea of a designer, it makes no sense to speak of the "purpose" of sexual intercourse.

When someone says something is "obviously the case," it's usually time to check your wallet.
Josh | 04.17.06 - 4:13 pm | #

Purpose implies intent or design. If one rejects the idea of a designer, it makes no sense to speak of the "purpose" of sexual intercourse.


I am not bringing a designer, or God in at all at this point. I am also not talking about a purpose in a grand scheme of things sense at this point either.

Now, tell me what is wrong with this sentence...

One of the primary biological 'purposes' of sexual intercourse in mammals is generation of offspring.

What part of that do you have a problem with? Maybe if I change it around.

The evolutionary mechanism by which generation of offspring is effected in mammals is sexual intercourse.

Better?

Now, if you think that is wrong, say why, and maybe offer an alternative instead of cute rhetoric about wallet checking.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 4:20 pm | #

We got married...to make an official, legal statement that we were bonded for life

Maybe you should stay away from writing greeting cards; it don't seem to be your strong suit.
saintkansas | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 4:20 pm | #

SteveG - I would put the food analogy in reverse. Every time we eat we nourish ourselves, whether it's well or poorly, but sex is not always procreative. Even under Catholic theology and without contraception only a minority of sex acts are procreative - the rest are merely potentially so. What is present in the sex act at all times and under all conditions is relation. Your sexual behavior can affect those relationships positively or negatively, but it will always, always affect them.

Now look at the analogy again. One's food choices affect one's nutrition, always and without exception. They can be good or bad, but will not be the same for everyone, nor should they be. One's sexual life affects one's relationships, always and without exception - even if you live a celibate life that affects your relationships. But what affects one person's relationships positively, may affect anothers negatively. There is no one food on the planet that is universally nourishing for everyone. None.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 4:33 pm | #

Ultimately, we belong to God, not ourselves. And our goal is not to get all the things we want but to be wholly conformed to His likeness, to learn to love as He us. His love is revealed in obedience to the Father. Our love must also be obedient to Him.

Human relationships, including sex and what we do with sex, are not left outside the scope of obedience. In fact, it is only within that scope that they reach their true potential. That is why how we feel about our relationships is a false issue. The real concern must be whether our relationships make us more like Christ.

But in the midst of it all, let us remember that being made like Christ, accepting obedience, including the obedience of chastity, is neither dour nor onerous: let us not forget the pleasure and joy of becoming what God has created us to be, of pleasing our Father.

Hope is probably the greatest gift of chastity.
Drusilla | 04.17.06 - 4:40 pm | #

PS - I didn't notice my failure to delete the "Hope is probably the greatest gift of chastity." I need more time and space for that one.
Drusilla | 04.17.06 - 4:42 pm | #

1)As a feminist, I fully support people who choose not to engage in sexual activity. The feminist community has been discussing the problems of sexual pressure for a LONG time.

2) The logic of contraception that I saw in the last thread, quite frankly, baffles me.

Natural family planning is obviously a intentional form of contraception. So I really don't understand the logic of "emotional withholding" of other forms of contraception, but not of NFP or chastity. If a couple deliberately chooses not to have coitus on a fertile day, that is a form of contraception.

Inside of marriage, deliberate chastity can be a form of contraception.

Furthermore, by limiting intimacy to a focus on coitus and ejaculation, I think you have devalued other forms of sexual and marital intimacy.

Holding hands, kissing, making out, cuddling, ect. There is a whole range of intimacy that need not end up in coitus. However, by your logic of "two people using each other as masturbatory aids" your logic concludes that if the intimacy does not conclude in coitus, people are withholding something important from one's partner.

Quite frankly, I see this view as overly focused on coitus and ejaculation, and exclusionary of a whole range of intimacy, like holding hands or cuddling.

As a married woman, I think it's silly to focus on ejaculation and coitus as the only important sexual intimacy in a marriage or in a relationship.

It's as if every intimate encounter must end in a prescribed way. If a husband even mistakenly ejaculates prior to coitus, you all apparently see that as a immoral act.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 4:51 pm | #

Luthien, it is not true that a common-law marriage is established after seven years' cohabitation, not anywhere in the U.S. In those states that do recognize it, the most usual requirements are a declaration of intent, cohabitation and representing oneself as married; one could, in several states, conceivably establish a marriage as was explicitly permitted in Pennsylvania before they stopped recognizing new common-law marriages: by the couple's saying, "We are married", and then living together. There is no requirement of a specific amount of time cohabiting. What was recognized in Pennsylvania was, in other words, marriage per verba de presenti - by words of present consent - and the essential part, even today, of a Catholic marriage ceremony; I do not know if a marriage ceremony consisting only of an avowal of marriage before a witness followed by consummation would today be recognized by the church as binding and needing annullment before remarriage.
Ledasmom | 04.17.06 - 4:54 pm | #

Even under Catholic theology and without contraception only a minority of sex acts are procreative - the rest are merely potentially so. What is present in the sex act at all times and under all conditions is relation.

Why merely? You’ve downgraded the procreative potential to ‘merely’ out of nothing more than convenience for your argument.

Surely I agree that the bonding aspect is always present. But just as surely the procreative potential under girds the act at all times, and in fact is the far more powerful of the two purposes.

The bonding is magnificent, but it’s the life giving aspects of the union that are the more significant.

Now look at the analogy again. One's food choices affect one's nutrition, always and without exception. They can be good or bad, but will not be the same for everyone, nor should they be.

This is false. The preferences we have are not the same for everyone, but the healthful act of eating (if unaltered by something like bulimia) is precisely the same. Put food in mouth, chew, swallow. You are conflating the preferences surrounding that basic act with the act it self.

The basic act of sex likewise has certain characteristics. Contraception is not a ‘preference’ of how to perform that act, it’s an alteration of the very nature of the act.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 4:54 pm | #

The analogy is perfect. Junk food is like contracepted sex: It does more harm than good. Also pregnancy provides a woman's body with nutrients for another life to survive, just as nutricious food does. But a contraceptive, like a potato chip, is full of poisons and things that harm your body and your spirit.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:01 pm | #

Or - let's say a married woman has endometritis and coitus causes her pain.

Do all forms of touching and intimacy become immoral at this point?

The need to touch, and be touched, by your partner goes far beyond sexual intercourse.

A hug, a kiss, holding hands, the twirling of hair, and more passionate encounters, ect., are all examples of sexual expression that take place in marriage.

The importance of human touch reaches far beyond the goal of impregnation, coitus and ejaculation.

To reduce the meaning of human physical intimacy to impregnation reduces the role of physical touch in loving human relationships.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:04 pm | #

Junk food is like contracepted sex:

NFP is contracepted sex. The couple is deliberately not engaging in coitus on a fertile day.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:06 pm | #

Junk food is like contracepted sex:

NFP is contracepted sex. The couple is deliberately not engaging in coitus on a fertile day.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:06 pm | #

Natural family planning is obviously a intentional form of contraception. So I really don't understand the logic of "emotional withholding" of other forms of contraception, but not of NFP or chastity. If a couple deliberately chooses not to have coitus on a fertile day, that is a form of contraception.

There is no sin in :not having sex,: therefore, no sin in NFP. Why is it so hard for you to go three days a month without sex?

Furthermore, by limiting intimacy to a focus on coitus and ejaculation, I think you have devalued other forms of sexual and marital intimacy.

Holding hands, kissing, making out, cuddling, ect. There is a whole range of intimacy that need not end up in coitus. However, by your logic of "two people using each other as masturbatory aids" your logic concludes that if the intimacy does not conclude in coitus, people are withholding something important from one's partner.

A marriage must be consummated in order to be recognized by the Church. IF all a couple did was hold hands and make out, their marriage could be annulled as invalid.

Additionally of course, no amount of hand-holding will create new life, which is the purpose of marriage, Biblically and Churchwise.

Keep in mind that the Bible is very clear about the purpose of masculinity and femininity. Women can be saved through childbearing. Be fruitful and multiply. What the Lord hath joined let no man put asunder (ergo, do not put asunder the marital act by rendering it infertile).
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:06 pm | #

Or - let's say a married woman has endometritis and coitus causes her pain.

Do all forms of touching and intimacy become immoral at this point?

The need to touch, and be touched, by your partner goes far beyond sexual intercourse.

They can abstain.

God does not make exceptions for when masturbation may be moral. Again, they are NOT REQUIRED TO HAVE SEX. Only to consummate their marriage initially.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:08 pm | #

I am talking about intention, for the purpose of discussing the emotional and moral intent of NFP and chastity in a marital relationship.

Chastity for the purpose of preventing conception is a form of contraception.

Just as many of our ancestors used both the withdrawal method and chastity as a form of contraception.

If people don't use contraception, women during their fertile years will bear, on average, 12 children. This is quite obvious when we look at the average family size of Americal colonial families.

Or, for a more modern example, see the book, Cheeper by the Dozen
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:15 pm | #

Women can be saved through childbearing.

Biddy, can you please explain what this means?
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 5:17 pm | #

Or - let's say a married woman has endometritis and coitus causes her pain.They can abstain.

Biddy,

My question was not about abstenance from coitus. Of course a loving couple would abstain from coitus if it caused a woman pain.

I am asking about all other forms of sexual touch in the marriage. If the encounter can not conclude in coitus and ejaculation, may that couple touch each other?

Can they make out? Can they kiss? Dry hump? Heavy Petting? Hold hands?

Or must every encounter end up in coitus? It seems to me, that if the couple is not engaging in coitus, they are "contracepting."
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:18 pm | #

Geoduck: You are correct that contraception is not to be used with a contraceptive mentality. If the purpose is to have more money, be prettier, have a big house, another car, finish some fancy degree, or whatever, then it is not a grave reason and the couple must be open to a child.

If it comes down to bills or starvation, then that would be a good reason.

You are not supposed to use NFP like a condom. If you are not ready for children, you ARE NOT SUPPOSED to get married!! Married women tacitly agree to be mothers. If they can't handle that, you wonder why they put themselves in a situation where pregnancy could happen.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:19 pm | #

“But women will be saved through childbearing.” (1 Timothy 2:15, NIV)

Bible verse.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:20 pm | #

If people don't use contraception, women during their fertile years will bear, on average, 12 children. This is quite obvious when we look at the average family size of Americal colonial families.

Back thenm, children were seen as a blessing and as a contribution to the family, not as something that caused women to get fat and unable to realize their careers.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:21 pm | #

Also pregnancy provides a woman's body with nutrients for another life to survive, just as nutricious food does. But a contraceptive, like a potato chip, is full of poisons and things that harm your body and your spirit.

Explanation for this also, please. Pregnancy does not "provide a woman's body with nutrients"; pregnancies cause a woman's body to transfer nutrients to the fetus. Contraceptives are not "full of poisons"; contraceptives (presuming you mean the hormonal sort) are a higher dosage of hormones naturally produced by a woman's body.
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 5:21 pm | #

Explanation for this also, please. Pregnancy does not "provide a woman's body with nutrients"; pregnancies cause a woman's body to transfer nutrients to the fetus. Contraceptives are not "full of poisons"; contraceptives (presuming you mean the hormonal sort) are a higher dosage of hormones naturally produced by a woman's body.

Pregnancy is the most natural, healthiest state of a woman. Women who are pregnant frequently have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, you name it. Contracepting women are exposed to abrasive chemicals (latex or spermicide) or to synthetic hormones which are highly cancer- and stroke-causing.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 5:23 pm | #

But Biddy, the awareness of NFP is to inform couples of their fertile days.

By your logic, a couple ought to be having coitus on her fertile days, not abstaining from sex on those days.

There's a reason that women in the Colonial era had at least 12 children. They were not abstaining from sex on their fertile days.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 5:24 pm | #

Dawn, when will you ever learn you can't use logic on people who operate at the level of two dogs mating in an alley.

Dawn0106smile.jpg = Gorgeous, inside and out!!!
Don | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 5:26 pm | #

Pregnancy is the most natural, healthiest state of a woman.

Is that why pregnant women so frequently suffer from nausea, vomiting, backache, fatigue and bloating and such? (Leaving aside less-common but not-unknown ailments like gestational diabetes, gestational psychosis, hyperemesis gravardium, and preeclampsia - the last being particularly fun for the pregnant woman, since it essentially involves the fetus she carries trying to kill her.) Gee, the things I've missed! I wish I could be pregnant all the time!

Women who are pregnant frequently have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, you name it.

I am researching myself presently, but where have you seen proof of this?

Contracepting women are exposed to abrasive chemicals (latex or spermicide) or to synthetic hormones which are highly cancer- and stroke-causing.

Honey, condoms aren't supposed to be 'abrasive'. Neither is lube (spermicidal or not). Even the kinkier folks I've known haven't been that into S&M.

The links between hormones and various types of cancer still remain unclear - but since both synthetic hormones and the hormones of pregnancy monkey with women's bodies in fairly major ways, and since the effects are broad-spectrum, to generalize so wildly is irresponsible. The data doesn't back you up. The only firm data I've seen is that women with a risk of stroke prior to starting hormonal birth control may have a higher risk of stroke when taking hormonal birth control.
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 5:40 pm | #

Here's an indy animation - no words, just a haunting soundtrack and wordless vocalization - that speaks to Dawn's point without saying a word on the topic - beautiful, profound !

www.gethappy.com/more1.html
(16 MB download may take a while)

Contraception is the "BLISS" invention par excellence, robbing humanity's gut instinct - the joy of living - while promotiong slavery to 'faking it', pun intended.

P.S. Mark Osbourne may or may not agree with how I apply his Academy Award nominated short film to the culture of life, but I don't think I calumniate his point of view.
Clare Krishan | 04.17.06 - 5:45 pm | #

Dawn, when will you ever learn you can't use logic on people who operate at the level of two dogs mating in an alley.>>>

And using the Bible as an explanation is logic? Seems more like faith to me. Some believe, some don't.
neilC | 04.17.06 - 6:01 pm | #

Re: Norah's "It's true; there really are guys who will buy the cow when they already get the milk for free."

From my experience in the peer-to-peer ministry 'Retrouvaille' helping couples heal broken marriages, some guys (and gals) who've grown accustomed to "free milk" don't abandon their pirateering after having secured a private supply. Most cows don't enjoy being put out to pasture to find cowpats everywhere marking the invasion onto turf they supposed was for their personal use only (think porn addiction or infidelity). Pope Paul VI predicted it and it came to pass...
Clare Krishan | 04.17.06 - 6:21 pm | #

Ledasmom, you're probably right. My information about commonlaw marriage did come from the truly awful local paper. (which was complaining about some difference between common law marriage laws. the paper's staff is overall a few frootloops shy of a full box, so I won't use their information anymore) Thanks for the correction. (and for teaching me a lesson about sources.)
luthien | 04.17.06 - 6:33 pm | #

Biddy, I don't believe you're right about consummation being require for the Catholic church to recognize a marriage; look up Josephite marriage.
Ledasmom | 04.17.06 - 6:34 pm | #

We love you Dawn!

I hope that you pay no mind to the sillies who think a life without sexual intercourse is meaningless -- I'm a family doctor and I can assure them that there is goodness in life before and after one's sexual salad days.

Someone may have said this before and probably better than I, but you have to think you are onto something when living a chaste life and attesting to it is so disturbing to so many.

Welcome to the Catholic Church -- I am proud to be in such good company as you.:)
angelic doctor | 04.17.06 - 6:38 pm | #

Someone may have said this before and probably better than I, but you have to think you are onto something when living a chaste life and attesting to it is so disturbing to so many.

As a feminist, I would very much advocate that a person refrain from sexual activity if it could cause emotional or physical harm.
----
However, I find the beliefs about contraception within marriage logically inconsistent in this thread and other recent threads on marital contraception.

(I found it particularly inconsistent when NFP was advocated as a form of contraception on this list.)

A commenter on the "Kissing" thread accused married couples of engaging in "unloving" behavior if contraception was used. In fact, a commenter compared married couples to behavior with a sex toy! That statement was insulting, I think, to the majority of married couples in 1st world countries.

Again, I think the focus on contraception and coitus devalues the meaning of marital physical touch. The importance of holding hands and a whole range of sexual acts between married couples is being simplified into coitus.

Coitus and ejaculation has been the center of these discussions, when sexual love is so much more then coitus.

A couple who holds hands lovingly and cuddles in front of the TV is engaging is important physical touch.

At what point does that couple become immoral, if they refuse to have coitus? At what point are they obligated to ejaculate in a pro-creative friendly manner?

And if they do not, is the marital cuddling and petting immoral and mastorbatory?
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 7:33 pm | #

geoduck2,

"Inside of marriage, deliberate chastity can be a form of contraception."

Nope. Being faithful to one's vow of marital monogamy (chastity inside of marriage) is not contraceptive. Intentional abstinence (what I assume you meant above) also is not contraceptive, as there is no act to contracept.
Franklin Jennings | 04.17.06 - 7:50 pm | #

Intentional abstinence (what I assume you meant above) also is not contraceptive, as there is no act to contracept.

How is intentional abstinence on a fertile day not an act of contraception?

Let's say a married couple is cuddling in bed. Other stuff happens. But the couple stops short of coitus because they know it is a fertile day. That is an intentional act of contraception.

Or, what if the husband ejaculates by mistake while cuddling? Is that not an act of contraception?

For years our grandparents and great-grandparents used withdrawal, and (forgive me) dry-humping, as a form of contraception.

We know from history that the lack of contraception leads to about 12 children in a healthy, fertile couple. Again - see Cheeper by the Dozen.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 8:13 pm | #

A commenter on the "Kissing" thread accused married couples of engaging in "unloving" behavior if contraception was used. In fact, a commenter compared married couples to behavior with a sex toy! That statement was insulting, I think, to the majority of married couples in 1st world countries.

Well the state of marriage and gender roles in this society leaves a lot to be desired.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 8:17 pm | #

A commenter on the "Kissing" thread accused married couples of engaging in "unloving" behavior if contraception was used. In fact, a commenter compared married couples to behavior with a sex toy! >>

This was the phrase that angered me the most, passing judgement on other's relationships, because we don't do it the "right way". If I'm silent, I accept this inanity, if I speak up how my wife and I have a loving relationship built on more than sex, the Biddies and their ilk say "you're trying to convince yourself." It's a no-win situation for both sides.
neilC | 04.17.06 - 8:18 pm | #

For years our grandparents and great-grandparents used withdrawal, and (forgive me) dry-humping, as a form of contraception.

Which is also as wrong as a condom, as it erects both a physical and mental barrier in their relationship. They were still using each other, and their relationship was still not as open and honest as a non-contracepting couple's would be.

We know from history that the lack of contraception leads to about 12 children in a healthy, fertile couple. Again - see Cheeper by the Dozen.

This is a problem how? Doing what your body was designed to do is more harmful than poisoning it with synthetic chemicals on a daily basis?

Go to any NFP class and you'll hear testimonies of how strong the marriages are there.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 8:21 pm | #

his was the phrase that angered me the most, passing judgement on other's relationships, because we don't do it the "right way".

That's guilty conscience. We weren't talking about you specifically. We're speaking in general terms about the quality of marriage with vs. without contraceptives.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 8:22 pm | #

Nice picture Dawn! If you get tired of New York, c'mon down here to Virginia where we've still got plenty of room to breathe, not to mention an abundance of gentlemen!
Jfred | 04.17.06 - 8:24 pm | #

geoduck2:

in addition to the objections to contraception already cited by others there is the not insubstantial problem for practicing Catholics of either secondary or primary abortifacient effects (in the latter case these so-called "contraceptives" in fact do not act against conception but against implantation of a conceptus, i.e. a tiny, human being).
angelic doctor | 04.17.06 - 9:08 pm | #

What she said is you're desperate for a husband.

What she said was that it was pitiful to put all your energy into things such as abstaining from sex and never find a husband.

Even skipping lightly over her peculiar views about what it takes to abstain from sexual intercourse -- the desperation is her own invention, coming from the chastity.
Mary | 04.17.06 - 9:09 pm | #

I do not know if a marriage ceremony consisting only of an avowal of marriage before a witness followed by consummation would today be recognized by the church as binding and needing annullment before remarriage.

That's what the marriage ceremony is, today.

Of course, the witnesses usually need to include a priest -- but even that may not be required, if either of the couple are in danger of danger, or if it would take too long to get a priest (three months is the rule, I believe).
Mary | 04.17.06 - 9:11 pm | #

Biddy,

There is absolutely no problem with people who choose to have 12 children! My great-grandparents had 12 children, and were quite happy.

A healthy, fertile couple, who does not use contraception, should "naturally" bear about 12-15 children.

Actually, what bothers me is that people are pretending that NFP is not a form of contraception.

And some people then presume to lecture other married couples, and tell them that they are not in a loving relationship, but using each other as sexual objects! To tell them that in their marriages, they are using each other!

It would be more honest, if those lecturing were actually bearing 12-15 children. Instead, NFP is being promoted as a form of contraception. It's even being promoted as an effective contraceptive!

People aren't really "walking the talk" of a life without contraception. I have a problem with that.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 9:37 pm | #

angelic doctor,

I don't have a problem with people choosing to manage their bodies and their lives according to their consciences. If people don't agree with the pill or condoms, I understand that they would be happier with NFP. I'm sure that lots of couples are very happy with NFP. I'm happy for them.

I do have a problem when Biddy declares that people in other marriages are "using" each other. I find it particularly odd when she isn't privy to the interior life of those marriages.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 9:43 pm | #

(An open letter to Dawn Eden)

Dear Dawn -

Recently you picked apart some comments that Jill from Feministe made. I'm not going to enter that argument, because Jill can defend herself, and her opinion quite well.

In your response though, you made some comments about yourself that I find truly sad. And even though I doubt you will take this letter in the spirit of empathy, compassion and sisterhood it is written in, my beliefs compell me to offer it to you anyway.

"The agon comes not from certainty, but from agnosticism. If I am to be single for life, I wish I could know it now. It would be wonderful to be able to plan out the rest of my life without having to leave a husband-sized gap just in case. "

First, I would just like to point out that the agnostic admits and accepts that they do not know, cannot know. It may drive them to study more, but the purpose cannot be to find a "final answer", because in fact such a thing is (to an agnostic) not possible. Since your writings seem to indicate a desire (on your part) to be taked seriously from a religious/theological/doctrinal perspective, I would recommend that you be more precise in usings those terms.

Second, (and this is much more important) your use of the words "husband-sized gap" seem to suggest that you see your life as being incomplete because there is no husband. It smacks of a paucity of self-worth. A rejection of the value that you have; that we all have; by the virtue of being simply who we are.

As anyone who has suffered with depression can tell you, it is dangerously unhealthy to build your own self-image and self-esteem around another person or relationship. That way lies madness.

It is an intrinsic part of being human that we do not know what is to come in our lives. Every morning we get up not knowing so many things and the day unfolds as one long journey of discovery for us. It is one of the greatest joys and sorrows of our existance. So all we can do is learn to accept and love and value ourselves; wholly, completely; and not for the benefit of some future idealized mate, because another person can never you "whole".

And you have to accept that you may never find that future husband, and that you will never know you've found him until it happens.

Finally Dawn, if you truly cannon come to terms with the above realities of life, then I suggest, (and I say this in all compassion) that you find a therapist to help you do so.

Sincerely,
another lynne
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 9:50 pm | #

Another Lynne, if you followed the link I put on the word "agon," you would have seen that I meant the word in the Biblical sense of a conflict between the worldly life and the heavenly life of the believer. As for the word agnostic, I don't believe that "agnostic" in the context I put it -- which was not that of agnosticism about God -- means acceptance in any sense. It simply means a-gnostic, lacking knowledge.

I find it interesting that you are offended by the term "husband-sized gap." It suggests that you do not believe a woman who wishes to be married should order her life in such a way as to save room for a future husband.

Anybody who knows me, whether in person or through perusal of my blog, knows that I am not off sitting in a tree. I find the idea that I am somehow putting off things that I could be doing utterly laughable.

I believe that what touches a nerve for you is that I am leaving an emotional and spiritual husband-sized gap in my life. Our feel-good, post-feminist culture dictates that women are to feel "complete in themselves" and not feel any lack.

Ridiculous. Men and women are made to be one flesh. Not having a mate is no reason to curl up in a ball and die, but neither is it a reason to carry on as though one is whole when one is, in fact, not.

When a priest or a nun take their vows, they forsake marriage for union with God and the Church. The meaning of their commitment to the Lord is marked in what they are giving up. They would not be giving up anything were there not a real, organic need for marital love that is built into them and every human being.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 10:09 pm | #

Dawn -

What touches a nerve in me is that a person (any person, man or woman) who cannot love, respect and value themself for *themselves* places themself as somehow lesser than their partner. And that's a truly sad thing.

If getting married is a priority for you, great. I've got no trouble with that. It is not that marriage makes us "whole". It is that marriage takes two whole beings and creates something new. You cannot create that new thing if you don't bring a "whole" self to the table.

I don't believe I said anywhere in my letter to you that I thought you were "off sitting in a tree". I'm not really sure where that comment comes from at all.

(And for the record, not all priests give up the right to marry, I am assuming you were referring to the Roman Catholic Church).
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 10:20 pm | #

What touches a nerve in me is that a person (any person, man or woman) who cannot love, respect and value themself for *themselves* places themself as somehow lesser than their partner. And that's a truly sad thing

Yes, it would indeed be sad if I said any of those things. But I didn't.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 10:23 pm | #

"but neither is it a reason to carry on as though one is whole when one is, in fact," not. "
Your words Dawn. - following your reasoning a person who has no partner is not whole.
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 10:28 pm | #

That doesn't justify the conclusions you drew, Another Lynne.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 10:31 pm | #

which conclusion are you referring to Dawn?
Anonymous | 04.17.06 - 10:35 pm | #

sorry, the above question was from me.
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 10:37 pm | #

All the ones I italicized in my response above.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 10:40 pm | #

N.F.P has two components.

1. Knowledge - about human fertility, the menstrual cycle, and ones own body.

2. Self control

Can any one be against those two elements?

Obviously, better information can lead to better decisions.

Self control is an important element in reaching goals.

Adding these two positive elements to our marriage has improved it. As we gained understanding of our sexuality (including fertility) we interacted better. Self control has enabled us to be more responsive to each other, not only sexually, but in our entire married life.

The periodic indulgence that became part of the rythmn of our marital life, synchronizing our sexual desires to our mutual pleasure.

My testimony is that as my understanding of the teaching of the Catholic church on sexuality has increased and I have intergrated it into my life, my marital relationship with my husband has improved.

I know that I was content with a lot less than i now enjoy. Faith continually leads to new discoveries, new riches. blessings are piled on blessings, heaped up. overflowing. Joy follows joy, but not in unbroken succession.

A times we weary of doing good, we are arid, the way seems difficult, and we want to hang on to the cheap treasures we have grasped. Do I really have to change, to let go, or reach further? Then grace rescues me, makes easy what seemed so hard, and joy increases.

Trudy
Trudy Whittaker | 04.17.06 - 10:43 pm | #

Dawn, if I follow the reasoning of your statement to it's conclusion, you are saying that someone who has no partner is not whole.

You talk about leaving a gap in your life. A gap suggests that something is missing. Something missing makes you less than complete. Therefore you are saying you are not whole.
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 10:48 pm | #

Trudy Whittaker,

I think it's wonderful that you and your husband have found joy in your marriage.

I don't think it's a matter of "being against" NFP. More knowledge about one's cycle is a good thing.

I think it will be very helpful to me and my husband as we try to conceive.

However, the implications that NFP is not a system of contraception is baffling to me. If one is purposefully not having sex on one's fertile days, what else could that be, aside from a system of contraception?
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 10:51 pm | #

However, the implications that NFP is not a system of contraception is baffling to me. If one is purposefully not having sex on one's fertile days, what else could that be, aside from a system of contraception?

Because someone who's not having sex isn't contracepting! You can't use someone as a sex doll if you aren't having sex with them!!
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 11:01 pm | #

Another Lynn, I don't see how you come to your conclusions from that, especially given my explanation above of what it means to leave emotional and spiritual space in one's life for a spouse.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 11:12 pm | #

Biddy,

But the reason that they aren't having sex is to contracept.

What if the couple kisses that day, for example, yet chooses not to have sex because that is a fertile day? Aren't they treating each other like sex dolls? If they make out, but stop, then they're practicing contraception.

I really don't understand this.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 11:13 pm | #

Because someone who's not having sex isn't contracepting!

But they're not having sex for the purpose of... not having kids. Intentionally refraining from a sexual act which is likely to result in conception, and induldging in that same sexual act when conception is unlikely.

You can't use someone as a sex doll if you aren't having sex with them!!

Constantly obsessing over your partner's reproductive cycle doesn't seem terribly sexy, either. Or terribly loving. "Okay, tonight we can make love, and Tuesday is okay, but Wednesday through Saturday are out. I can go back to loving you on.... how does next Monday work for you? Say, eight o'clock?" Aren't you selectively denying your partner's essence in NFP? Denying it specifically when you're likely to concieve, which is when it's most important (apparently, because that's when it's truly Love?)

How is it loving to compel your spouse to have a child with you if they don't want to have a child with you? Another commenter previously argued that it was far sexier to tell your partner "I want to have a baby with you" than to say "I want to have sex with you". Not if your partner doesn't want a baby at the moment. Not if neither of you want a baby at the moment. We are all more than our gonads, after all, surely?
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 11:17 pm | #

Dawn, not to be rude, but are you being deliberately obtuse? Your own words state that a person is not whole unless they are either married or become a priest or a nun.
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 11:17 pm | #

my explanation above of what it means to leave emotional and spiritual space in one's life for a spouse.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure I understand the concept of leaving emotional space for one's spouse before one finds him.

I can understand that one would be searching for a spouse. That I get. And I understand that searching for a partner can be frustrating, at times.

But before I met my husband, there was no lack, because I had not yet met him.

After I met him, I was overjoyed to get to know him as a person and fall in love with him.
geoduck2 | 04.17.06 - 11:18 pm | #

Another Lynne, the point that I made earlier is that it is part of the human condition, agon, to not be whole. Not even married people are whole. "Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."

I feel the gap more keenly because I'm not married, and married people are supposed to represent God's love in one another's life. But there will still be a gap when I am married -- it's just that I'll have a partner with whom to share my journey and my longings.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.17.06 - 11:25 pm | #

Dawn, at the risk of being condescending, you aren't married, so it is flawed logic to state that you feel something more or less simply because of that state (unless of course you are simply talking about your desire to be married). I would accept as given that we all have struggles, and that we are all trying to become better people. I would even accept that it's nice to have a partner on that journey. But placing marriage on a pedestal is...for lack of a better word, foolish.
another lynne | 04.17.06 - 11:34 pm | #

(in the latter case these so-called "contraceptives" in fact do not act against conception but against implantation of a conceptus, i.e. a tiny, human being).

angelic doctor, this is simply false. Contraceptives work, most of the time, by suppressing ovulation. The woman's ovaries produce no eggs. There is nothing to fertilise.

It is true that there are secondary effects which can alter the thickness of the uterine lining and the consistency of the cervical mucus, but most fertilized eggs fail to implant in the first place, of their own accord, and no one mourns such failed implantations as miscarriages. If they did, women would be giving their sanitary products proper Christian burials each month.

Additionally, these secondary effects don't necessarily occur with all hormonal methods, or in all women. And some women have difficulty ever maintaining implantation. Are they natural born contraceptors? Is it wrong to pump them full of artificial hormone poisons in order to cause their uterine linings to behave?
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 11:35 pm | #

Natural infertility is God-willed. Willful denial of your God-willed fertility is the opposite. Infertile women are not destined to conceive and bear biological children, for whatever God's reasons are. Maybe they are meant to adopt. They have a purpose other than childbearing.

But the fertile woman's story is quite different. She retains her fertility for a reason.

It is not for you to mess with that reason.
Biddy | 04.17.06 - 11:42 pm | #

angelic doctor:

Rereading your comment, when you referenced the 'primary' effect, I take you to be speaking of Plan B, or emergency contraception. Emergency contraception works only by preventing ovulation. It does not abort an already-fertilized egg. That is why it is only effective about 70% of the time, and why it is more effective when taken very soon after sexual intercourse. If it actually functioned as an abortifacent, it would have a higher rate of efficacy. It is not an abortifacent, and so only works if the woman has not yet ovulated. I believe it does hasten the onset of menses, but it does not abort a fetus.
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 11:43 pm | #

Biddy: But if fertility is always in God's hands, what's the point of NFP?
Intemperate | 04.17.06 - 11:47 pm | #

From the prescribing info for Plan B (Levonorgestrel) --
"Plan B is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun."
http://www.go2planb.com/section/...escribing_info/

"Inhibiting implantation" = abortifacient
Bender | 04.18.06 - 1:18 am | #

From the prescribing information for Lo/Ovral, Mode of Action --

"Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation)."
http://www.wyeth.com/products/ wp...lo_ovral_pi.asp

Lo/Ovral being a widely used and typical birth control pill, the fact that it occasionally works by preventing implantation makes it an abortifacient.
Bender | 04.18.06 - 1:34 am | #

From the prescribing information for Ortho Tricyclen Lo (another common birth control pill) --
"Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation)."
http://www.thepill.com/active/ ja...PI.pdf#zoom=100
Bender | 04.18.06 - 1:48 am | #

Lo/Ovral being a widely used and typical birth control pill, the fact that it occasionally works by preventing implantation makes it an abortifacient.

Pregnancy tests don't show positive until after implantation; therefore, pregnancy begins there. If there is no implantation (as happens naturally quite frequently) there is no pregnancy.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 2:02 am | #

So since pregnancy tests don't show positive until implantation, that means that a fertilized yet non-implanted egg is not a human being?

Do I detect horrible logic there?

That's like saying that the dead body wasn't found by the police until 9 PM, so it the person couldn't possibly have been killed at 6.
Andy | 04.18.06 - 2:22 am | #

So since pregnancy tests don't show positive until implantation, that means that a fertilized yet non-implanted egg is not a human being?


Yes, that's exactly what it means. And yes, it is indeed logic, although there is nothing horrible about it. A fertilized egg is not a human being. If it were, I could fill a wheelbarrow with acorns and open a lumberyard.

Same thing, right?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 2:27 am | #

A fertilized egg is not a human being.

Simple basic biology informs us that when a human sperm unites with a human egg, it forms a unique and separate entity, which is itself, as proven by its DNA, a member of the species homo sapiens. Being a separate and individual entity makes it a "being." Being a member of the species homo sapiens makes it "human."

Please lets not get into this Orwellian and Clintonian redefinition of language.
Bender | 04.18.06 - 2:39 am | #

But can it walk and talk? Survive outside its mother's body? Nope. Not abortion, and not up to you. And that's all I have to say about that. This thread is not about abortion.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 2:45 am | #

If anyone's wondering why their comments have been zapped, I'm jettisoning ones that go too far off-topic or get too personal, as per the Harris Protocol.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 2:52 am | #

"However, the implications that NFP is not a system of contraception is baffling to me. If one is purposefully not having sex on one's fertile days, what else could that be, aside from a system of contraception?"

We need to clarify and define terms.

The meaning of contraception in the above quote is simple, avoiding conception, and correct.

That is why it is less confusing to refer to artificial contraception or artificial birth control.

After all, NFP stands for Natural Family Planning.

The distinction between ABC (Artificial Birth control) and NFP is that ABC changes the act of sexual intercourse, and NFP does not.

In my life it was the sexual act itself that united us.

One benefit of growing up as a practising Catholic is that you are required to be honest with yourself when you examine your concience before recieving the Sacrament of reconciliation.

So I knew ahead of time that if we did have sex, I would want it to be a total commitment. while I had fallen away from the practice of my faith, I still had enough self knowledege to know where my actions were leading, and I did think ahead. If we went all the way, and he dumpted me, then what?

For me, it would mean a commitment to the single life. I was at the point where I was making the choice, "This man and no other". This is an intensly romantic choice, and entirely possible one, even if somewhat unusual.

It was a blessing that my young man also realised and accepted the implications of commitment inherent in sexual intercourse. The unfortunate thing was that we were inhibited from expressing our desires for permenance by our cultural conditioning. We had bought into the noble sounding lie that love leaves the beloved free.

Pregnancy, the natural result of our behaviour, was the best possible result for us. The realization that we were expecting a child cut through the societal constraints that were inhibiting our communications. We discovered that our commitment was mutual and so were able to escape the lotus land we had been inhabiting and get married.

The advantage to an officially permanant relationship is that you have the motivation to get it right. I'll explain. As a couple we explicitly agreed that we are going to remain married whether we are happy or miserable. As reasonable people, we prefer to live happily together therefore we have both motivation and opportunity to learn how to live happily together.

That is how NFP came into our lives. After the birth of our first child my doctor recomended the IUD and I stupidly followed his advice.

My husband noticed that this harmed me physically, mentally and spiritually, so he advised me to get the damm thing taken out. He knew as he said this that we would not go back to any kind of contraception. (He was agnostic at that point of time, so my well being was his motivation).

During our second pregnancy we came across contact information for a NFP service, and we learned NFP during that pregnancy. To our surprise, we discovered that we had been inhibited from truly discussing entire aspects of our sexual relationship. Learning NFP was exciting, freeing, enriching.

I don't like being lied to, and there are a lot of lies spread around about love and sex. I have tested out the Catholic churches teachings on sexuality, and in my experience, the Catholic Church's official teachings on sexuality are both testable and true.

Trudy
Trudy | 04.18.06 - 7:36 am | #

Contracepting marriages involve a 5-minute roll in the sack. NFP marriages involve discretion and discussion. Contraceptive devices harm women and men and separate them from their true purposes; NFP works within your purpose.

If another pregnancy would kill you, DO NOT HAVE SEX. Why can't people grasp this?
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 9:35 am | #

Also any husband who continues to do the deed with his wife knowing full well that she could die from the results, kind of proves our point about the regard contracepting couples have (or not) for each other.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 9:40 am | #

5 minutes??!??!!
Biddy, are you implying that employing contraception shortens the duration of coitus? And I think it's jump in the sack, roll in the hay.
Regarding your second comment up there, what if it's the wife who wants to do the deed and just doesn't want to risk dying to do so?
Ledasmom | 04.18.06 - 9:50 am | #

Then she takes that chance. It is not my responsibility if someone has knowingly risky sex.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 9:53 am | #

Biddy, are you implying that employing contraception shortens the duration of coitus?

No, just cheapens it.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 9:54 am | #

"
But the fertile woman's story is quite different. She retains her fertility for a reason.

It is not for you to mess with that reason."

And humans weren't born with wings. Therefore, flying in airplanes is against God's will. It's not for you to mess with that.
Jill | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 10:14 am | #

I'm not sure why people who use contraceptives aren't using discussion and discretion, Biddy. Saying that NFP is not contraception smacks of having your cake and eating it too. It's a wonderful position, isn't it? One gets all the benefits of using contraception - being able to have as few children as one wants, rather than a pregnancy every year or two, AND one gets to look down upon all those who do the same thing, using a different method, as "contraceptors" and using each other as sex toys. Sorry - that's called hypocrisy.
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 10:17 am | #

"Contracepting marriages involve a 5-minute roll in the sack. NFP marriages involve discretion and discussion."

So contraception involves a five minute roll in the sack, where as NFP involves discretion and discussion and THEN a five minute roll in the sack. Because couples who use contraception don't talk to each other.

Anyone who thinks that sex only takes five minutes (or who, in practice, only have sex for five minutes) obviously has very little insight into what sex can potentially be. And I'll take my contracepting, more-than-five-minute sex over whatever Biddy's having any day.
Jill | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 10:18 am | #

Ledasmom says: Regarding your second comment up there, what if it's the wife who wants to do the deed and just doesn't want to risk dying to do so?

Biddy responds: Then she takes that chance. It is not my responsibility if someone has knowingly risky sex.


Who was making it your responsibility? I think our point is that we want you to keep your nose out of our business, and quit saying that your narrow definition of sex should be what everyone else adheres to. You make it your issue when you dictate to that woman what she should and should not do. If someone has knowingly risky sex, by all means don't make it your responsibility -- mind your own sex life, and we'll mind ours.

But that's the thing -- the sex itself isn't risky! For the woman in this hypo, CHILDBIRTH is risky, and with reliable contraception she's able to completely opt out of that. And this is what it comes down to, and why this conversation will never go anywhere: People like Biddy believe that a woman has no rights to her own reproductive system, and that she shouldn't be able to control her fertility even to preserve her own life. If she can't give birth properly, she has no right to sexual pleasure.

It's like arguing that no one should wear seatbelts in cars, because if someone wants to drive they know it's risky -- and if there is an accident they definitely shouldn't be able to call 911. A ridiculous assertion, right? But that's what the anti-birth control, anti-abortion argument comes down to.
Jill | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 10:25 am | #

But that's the thing -- the sex itself isn't risky! For the woman in this hypo, CHILDBIRTH is risky, and with reliable contraception she's able to completely opt out of that.

I guess Jill hasn't heard of AIDS, syphillis, gonorrhea, herpes, etc., all of which are potentially transmitted through condom surfaces.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 10:38 am | #

Bender and Andy, regarding the pill:

There are any number of reasons a fertilized egg might fail to implant. Fertilized eggs fail to implant in most instances. About 80% of the time, actually. Hence my remark earlier about giving all used tampons a proper funeral. How would you know? It might contain a baby!

Some forms of birth control can alter the uterine linings in some women, sometimes. but not in all women, all the time. I know two kids concieved while their mothers were on Depo-Provera - so no fair blaming "skipping pills" there. The hormones didn't function as abortifacents there, certainly. Hormone-based birth control doesn't kill babies. Much depends on the woman's basic endocrinology to begin with. A friend of mine suffered many miscarriages of very wanted pregnancies because her hormone levels couldn't support it. It happens naturally.

Fertilized eggs can spend 7-10 days just wandering around the reproductive tract. They are, at this point, indistinguishable from any other ball of cells, from a blastocyst of another species, even. They really are just cells - the two distinct patterns of DNA have not yet synthesized. If the timing in the cycle is wrong, if the hormones are wrong, if the woman in question didn't happen to eat nutritiously enough during the previous month and her uterine lining is too thin, the egg won't implant. Is such a woman responsible for killing a child? She should have been more careful, after all!

One time in every 200, they implant in the wrong place - this is known as an ectopic pregnancy, it cannot be carried to term, and trying can either kill the pregnant woman or permanently reduce or end her fertility. Is intervening in an ectopic pregnancy - which involves a perfectly healthy fetus, but which will never result in a baby, still 'killing a human being'?

(In El Salvador, where all abortions are crimes, women with ectopic pregnancies must wait in the hospital, hooked to an ultrasound machine, until their fallopian tube is burst open by the developing fetus. Then, and only then, can doctors step in to save her from bleeding to death. Usually too late to repair her fallopian tube, though.)

Things really start getting "Orwellian" (thanks, Bender) when we start regulating basic biological functions of other human beings. In El Salvador, there are squads of Forensic Vagina Specialists. There, a woman's uterus can be taken into court custody and used as evidence against her in a trial. Spontaneous miscarriage happens, and no one considers it a crime. It is a sad thing if a pregnancy is wanted, but often such miscarriages happen so early that the woman never knows she was pregnant. Are all women of childbearing age who engage in vigorous physical labour, fail to take prenatal vitamins and don't eat properly at all times responsible for any "murders" resulting from failed implantation? Chance dictates the failure of more pregnancies than does the taking of hormonal birth control.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:17 am | #

Weren't we talking about a married couple, Biddy? Admittedly, spouses have been known to cheat, but if she can't count on her husband to be faithful (or prudent), I don't see how NFP would actually help her.
I'm at a bit of a loss as to how you cheapen five-minute sex. You're starting pretty close to zero there as is.
Ledasmom | 04.18.06 - 11:24 am | #

Biddy, I would argue that reducing sex to "gets you pregnant" does far more to "cheapen" sex than anything a consenting couple might do to prevent a pregnancy from happening.

The terms you use certainly don't suggest that you hold sex in very high regard - "a five minute roll in the sack" doesn't suggest much reverance. You make it all sound downright mechanical.

Also any husband who continues to do the deed with his wife knowing full well that she could die from the results, kind of proves our point about the regard contracepting couples have (or not) for each other.

Any woman could "die from the results". It's just more likely for some. Only comparatively recently have childbirth mortality rates fallen. Women dying in childbirth has historically been a fairly common thing. Reliable contraception, along with other advances in medicine, has made that less common an occurance, but certainly up until last century, it wasn't rare.

By the logic you use, no loving couple could ever have sex - but if they don't have lots and lots of baby-producing sex, with the woman pregnant all of the time, they don't really love eachother.

Hm.

And isn't "DO NOT HAVE SEX" more likely to result in greater withholding of marital intimacy than contraception might? That's the part I don't get. "No more sex for you, ever! Because sex with contraception isn't loving enough! So that means you get NO LOVE AT ALL!"
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:32 am | #

Then she takes that chance. It is not my responsibility if someone has knowingly risky sex.

Apparently, it's your responsibility EVERY TIME ANYONE HAS SEX EVER. Right down to the specific details. That's what you've been saying all this time, at least, so far as I can tell.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:35 am | #

I guess Jill hasn't heard of AIDS, syphillis, gonorrhea, herpes, etc., all of which are potentially transmitted through condom surfaces.

I, for my part, hadn't heard that NFP prevents 100% of all STDs. Amazing!
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:36 am | #

And isn't "DO NOT HAVE SEX" more likely to result in greater withholding of marital intimacy than contraception might? That's the part I don't get. "No more sex for you, ever! Because sex with contraception isn't loving enough! So that means you get NO LOVE AT ALL!"

Apparently the difference between you and me, Intemperate, is that I don't think sex = love. If one needs sex to be loved and fulfilled, then going without sex means going loveless. NFP couples understand that abstinence, whether monthly or permanent, won't kill you.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 11:43 am | #

I, for my part, hadn't heard that NFP prevents 100% of all STDs. Amazing!

She said "sex itself isn't risky, just pregnancy." I'd say the type of sex feminists enjoy (no strings attached) is the riskiest kind!
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 11:43 am | #

Hey! Everybody! Quit with remarks that even seem close to be name-calling. Turn the rhetoric down several notches -- and that means quitting sarcasm too -- or my delete finger will go into overdrive. For all sides. Over and out.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 11:46 am | #

Apparently the difference between you and me, Intemperate, is that I don't think sex = love. If one needs sex to be loved and fulfilled, then going without sex means going loveless. NFP couples understand that abstinence, whether monthly or permanent, won't kill you.

This is what I don't understand, though, Biddy. If NFP proponents argue that sex is a high expression of love, one that can only truly be made in an honest fashion with no contraception in use, and that use of contraception can destroy a marriage... doesn't that mean sex is pretty important to a marriage built on NFP? If just using a condom or swallowing a pill can entirely break a couple's love and trust and ruin an entirel culture, what would no sex at all do?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:49 am | #

She said "sex itself isn't risky, just pregnancy." I'd say the type of sex feminists enjoy (no strings attached) is the riskiest kind!

Just because contraceptives are in use doesn't mean "no strings attached". Many of us who use contraception have not experienced disruption of all loving emotion. Sex works on many levels to bond a couple in a stable relationship.

How would believing that men and women are both fully human beings who deserve basic human rights logically result in relationships where the partner is considered an object?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:54 am | #

"NFP couples understand that abstinence, whether monthly or permanent, won't kill you."

Lots of things won't kill you. That doesn't necessarily make them desirable or good.
Jill | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 1:34 pm | #

"She said "sex itself isn't risky, just pregnancy." I'd say the type of sex feminists enjoy (no strings attached) is the riskiest kind!"

Biddy-
I was referring SPECIFICALLY to the hypothetical scenario presented (this should have been clear when I wrote, "
But that's the thing -- the sex itself isn't risky! For the woman in this hypo, CHILDBIRTH is risky"). For the married woman who will die if she gives birth to another child, it is the childbirth and not the sex that carries the primary risk. Obviously sex comes with the possibility of STIs, but for the hypothetical married couple, NFP won't alleviate those risks either.
Jill | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 1:37 pm | #

NFP couples understand that abstinence, whether monthly or permanent, won't kill you.

Biddy, you speak like someone who has never been part of a couple. Abstinence, within the framework of a marriage, won't kill you...but it won't make you happy about living.

I know this to be true about myself; due to a medical problem we once had to abstain for several weeks. It was the loneliest time of my marriage. I need the physical aspect to feel whole and connected to my spouse. If I had to go the rest of my life without it...well, that would really suck.

But feel free to tell me why I'm wrong.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 2:15 pm | #

This discussion makes me think of Lois McMaster Bujold's science fiction books. One of the societies had invented a uterine replicator. Some members of a conservative society were reluctant to use the replicators.

There was a discussion about how much a man could love a woman if he insisted that his wife go through pregnancy when there was a safer option.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 2:17 pm | #

She said "sex itself isn't risky, just pregnancy." I'd say the type of sex feminists enjoy (no strings attached) is the riskiest kind!

I'm a feminist; I have married, monogomous and loving sex.

If we're talking about something else, please let me know.
-----

And it still sounds to me like NFP is a system of contraception. People intentionally use it so they do not bear 12 children during their fertile years.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 2:21 pm | #

Ladies and gentlemen:

If a unique and valuable human being begins to exist at the moment of conception, then anything that interferes with it from that moment forward, 30%, 20%, 0.5% of the time is an abortifacient, whether that is the intention or not.
If a unique and valuable human being comes into existence at any other point in the continuum of life, I'd like to know where that is because any other moment -- implantation, "viability" (a target constantly moving backward by the way), passage through the birth canal i.e. birth -- is completely arbitrary. Simply changing the definition of pregnancy to mean implantation of a conceptus is a game of semantics.
Comparing an acorn to a tree is not a valid analogy in mammalian biology because an acorn is a seed and an embryo is not, and the old "man's seed planted in the woman's womb" concept has been officially out of date for at least a century now scientifically.
Oh, and what else? In the newer low estrogen dose bcp's available, progesterone is the primary effector, preventing implantation of a conceptus and NOT inhibiting ovulation. This is true of Depo Provera and other progesterone preparations as well.


To sum up: a new and unique and valuable human being comes into existence at conception and no sooner or later. The only "contraceptives" having no effect on this new human being are barrier methods which keep sperm and egg from ever meeting to form this new human being or sterilization either of the male or the female. All the other so-called contraceptives either partially or totally act as abortifacients. Whether or not this is the intended effect merely moves the abortion from a category of first degree muder to one of second degree. Miscarriages are not murders because the conceptus fails to further develop and grow as a result of unintentional internal or external factors (statistically almost always defects in the embryonic person incompatible with further life).

So, the difference between a person utilizing a barrier to keep a sperm and egg from meeting and a person using either a progesterone only or estrogen -progesterone combination preparation is the difference between contraception and abortion.
The difference between a person using natural family planning and one using true contraception (i.e. barriers) is a question of whether or not one is open to a conception occurring and a baby resulting.(I think that it safe to say that zero percent of condom users wouldn't mind if a pregnancy resulted). You will only hear the rhetoric of failure rates in the contraceptive and abortion camp and not in the NFP camp.

Whew. I need a nap.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 3:20 pm | #

angelic doctor;

acorns=lumberyard?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 3:34 pm | #

Dawn tellingly wrote: "I believe that what touches a nerve for you is that I am leaving an emotional and spiritual husband-sized gap in my life. Our feel-good, post-feminist culture dictates that women are to feel "complete in themselves" and not feel any lack."

Here you bundle up what infuriates you about feminism, as if this is the gospel position.

Yet you have chosen this singular definition.

The feminism I embrace suggests only that a woman doesn't HAVE to feel a permanent chilly gap without a husband.

A very different matter indeed.

angelic doctor wrote: "You will only hear the rhetoric of failure rates in the contraceptive and abortion camp and not in the NFP camp."

How come, then, there are books to advise on perfecting NFP - if not to avoid unwanted failure?
jody tresidder | 04.18.06 - 3:46 pm | #

Because NFP couples are still open to the POSSIBILITY of life. They aren't using artificial means to block it. Contracepting couples will also usually have abortion as a backup should their method fail. NFP couples will generally carry the pregnancy to term and welcome as a blessing.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 3:48 pm | #

Would total abstinence for life kill me or my marriage? No. But it would put a much bigger strain on both of its participants than contraception does.

Who says feminists don't get married and have chaste, monogamous, loving sex? Last I checked I'd been married fourteen years. I've been perfectly chaste the whole time. I just don't go around poking into other people's bedrooms, and resent greatly other people trying to poke into mine.

I have nothing whatsoever against NFP, but it's not for us (and yes we've talked about it, and about every other issue relating to sex, children, and marriage). People communicate when they're in a good marriage, it's part of the whole deal.

And I can't let the "Pregancy is the healthiest state" remark go by. I have a great-grandfather who killed at least three wives via excessive child-bearing. Lots of concern for his precious twenty-seven offspring too, as judged by his unwillingness to build a fence to block off the cliff fifty feet from his back door. "Ain't ever lost but two," was the quote.

Every hormonal BC device includes the remarks about implantation - basically because so many fertilized eggs are lost before implantation that it's impossible to tell if the one or two fertilized eggs that got produced might have failed to implant because of the hormones, or because they were part of that huge percentage lost naturally. There's little or no evidence that they increase the rate of loss.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 3:56 pm | #

Biddy, then why don't they skip the NFP altogether and just try for a baby? If they're using any kind of pregnancy avoidance method, they are not planning to have a child at that time. Yet according to Biddy the Expert on Sex and Marriage, they should never have gotten married if they didn't want children.


Biddy, your position is chock-full of inconsistencies, and attempt to point them out have thus far been fruitless. Can you just accept the fact that not everyone shares your views on sexuality, parenthood and marriage; and that that doesn't not make them miserable, perverted and wrong? Is that possible, please?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 3:57 pm | #

angelic doctor:

Wait. So the high efficacy rates of NFP cited by its proponents are based on the fact that it can't fail, because any resultant pregnancy - whether intended or not - must be fundamentally wanted?

On hormones:

Progesterones are sometimes used in early pregnancy to help sustain the pregnancy. (Consider the word's Latin root: gestare. As in gestation.) Progesterone reinforces the uterine lining and discourages the onset of menstruation - that is why women on progesterone-based BCPs sometimes stop menstruating altogether.

After a fertilized egg implants, progesterone works to prevent rejection of the egg and miscarriage. Naturally-occuring low levels of progesterone are found in women with reduced fertility. Such women are given specially-timed shots of progesterone or use progesterone creams as part of fertility treatment when seeking to become pregnant.

So, progesterone doesn't sound much like an abortifacent to me, considering that women who don't have high enough levels of progesterone miscarry. BCPs which are progesterone-based work by keeping blood levels of progesterone constant. This discourages ovulation. This is why women who take progesterone-only BCPs must take their pills at the same time each day.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 3:58 pm | #

Biddy - might this be because couples practicing NFP currently are also likely to be members of strongly pro-life religions? If NFP were the contraception of choice among all people, you'd see a lot more people who use NFP, and would get an abortion after a slip-up.

Frankly, given who promotes and uses NFP, I would be vastly surprised if the abortion rate weren't lower among NFP users.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 4:02 pm | #

Incidentally, an acorn able to sprout and grow into an oak is fertilized, so the analogy is perfectly valid. Spontaneous generation went out of fashion some time ago, scientifically speaking...
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 4:07 pm | #

Who is Lady X?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:07 pm | #

People communicate when they're in a good marriage, it's part of the whole deal.

But NFP forces you to communicate even MORE, and more intimately! Look at your level of communication now...then think what it could be!
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 4:08 pm | #

"MORE"? How so?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:17 pm | #

What more? Your average man thinks period stuff is icky and won't discuss it. The NFP husband has to see his wife's cycle as something beautiful and natural, not as "woman's stuff" to be shunned. The NFP husband recognizes the true purpose of a woman as shown by her natural cycles.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 4:24 pm | #

Do you work for PP or are you a volunteer?

Neither. I have a friend who has been trying to concieve and carry a child for about five years now, I have two other friends who have concieved and carried to term pregnancies while on progesterone-based birth control (Depo), I am a naturally curious person, and I think biology is neat. So I have studied such things. Why do you ask? (And are you really a doctor? Or do you play one on the internets?)

I can provide sources (internet ones, at least) if you are interested. It seems very strange to me for fertility doctors to prescribe progesterones, if it prevents implantation as you say. The information I have seen indicates that progesterone-based birth control makes fertilization itself less likely - not that it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg. Some sources have indicated that such BC may also change the behavior of the fallopian tubes, but I do not know how well-documented such science is.

I don't really understand how my last sentence "makes your point beautifully", so perhaps you could explain?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 4:29 pm | #

Oh and intemperate, about the acorns and oaks thingie...a fertilized egg (a tiny human) is not deposited on the ground to await the rather remote possibility that it will be driven in further by force, then watered, then germinate, then put down roots, then break the surface, then grow taller and broader, at all times in this not being eaten or squashed or cut down.

It lives in his or her mother's womb and only grows more recognizably human and at no point is more vulnerable in his or her life to intentional or unintentional insult, unable to leave that space until sometime about 38 weeks later, and continues on in this vulnerability for many years after.

But you knew that.

Acorns/oaks and babies are entirely different in one very important way. Baby humans and
adult baby humans are infinitely more valuable and worthy of respect.

Gotta go --- work to do.
Peace.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 4:32 pm | #

Biddy, I'm truly wondering how much actual experience you have with this stuff. (note to Dawn: it's a fair question. She's the one presenting herself as an expert on the subject.)The "average" man? Come on. My husband isn't shy or squeamish. And why in the world would you WANT a man who "won't discuss" "woman's stuff"? Any such man in my world would be promptly shown to the door and wished a good life.

And the "true purpose of a woman"? I have many true purposes; but I see childbearing as a choice, not an obligation.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:33 pm | #

Intemperate, I deleted angelic's question re PP before your answer came up -- it was uncalled for.
Dawn Eden | 04.18.06 - 4:34 pm | #

I'm really a doctor intemperate. And very temperate as well.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 4:36 pm | #

Biddy, is "forced" communication going necessarily to lead to marital bliss? Is "forced" anything going to lead to a positve result? Marital relations shouldn't feel like interventions. People I have known in happy relationships - and happy relationships I have had, friendships and my present romantic relationship - don't rely on "force".

Perhaps I have led a charmed life, but my beloved seems to recognize my "true purpose" pretty well, even without the help of NFP. And he doesn't consider that "true purpose" to be "broodmare" or "commodity" or "sex toy". I have very rarely met men with such insensitivity as your example suggests. In my experience, at least, the "average man" doesn't find women "icky" - at least, not once past the age of oh, about fifteen (emotionally).

I guess if you believe such "forced communication" is healthy, it might help explain why you think forced birth might be a positive thing for people. I myself find the viewpoint rather perplexing.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 4:38 pm | #

a fertilized egg (a tiny human) is not deposited on the ground to await the rather remote possibility that it will be driven in further by force, then watered, then germinate, then put down roots, then break the surface, then grow taller and broader, at all times in this not being eaten or squashed or cut down.

No, it's deposited into the uterus to await the rather remote possibility that it will implant, then begin dividing, then becoming larger and capable of survival on its own; at all times in this not being attacked by its mother's immune system or having a cord accident or simply failing to grow.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:39 pm | #

Not so remote Norah, not compared with the odds of acorns and oaks, and certainly not even in the same world of value and worth and dignity.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 4:41 pm | #

I'm really a doctor intemperate. And very temperate as well.

A medical doctor? I find that hard to believe, because you were dead flat wrong in saying progesterone prevents implantation. It prevents ovulation. I can't believe any medical school would not explain the difference.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:43 pm | #

Another thing they apparently didn't teach in med school...lots of fertilized eggs simply fail to implant naturally. And sorry, but an egg is not worth as much as a grown woman.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 4:44 pm | #

Yes in fact a medical doctor norah. sigh. and you?
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 4:45 pm | #

"Because NFP couples are still open to the POSSIBILITY of life. They aren't using artificial means to block it. Contracepting couples will also usually have abortion as a backup should their method fail. NFP couples will generally carry the pregnancy to term and welcome as a blessing."

Biddy - whether or not this generality is true, and if it is it likely has to do with the religious beliefs of those in question, it does NOT indicate a necessary connection between beliefs about children and method of contraception. Again - what matters is the belief, not the method.
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 4:47 pm | #

Dawn - that was kind of you, but I wasn't terribly insulted. My nickname doesn't indicate my personality - at least, not usually. Bit of a joke.

angelic doctor: (may I abbreviate you to AD?)

a fertilized egg (a tiny human) is not deposited on the ground to await the rather remote possibility that it will be driven in further by force, then watered, then germinate, then put down roots, then break the surface, then grow taller and broader, at all times in this not being eaten or squashed or cut down.

Well, a fertilized egg bops around in a woman's reproductive tract for a week or so, its survival dependent on the chance it might land in the right spot to slough off some exterior cells, burrow into the tissues, latch onto a blood vessel and grow.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it works pretty well:

Eggs can latch onto the wrong place entirely (in the fallopian tube, onto an ovary -onto any tissue surface, and they can burrow right on through), just as acorns can fall onto hard rock or pavement. They might not latch onto anything at all, or might hit the uterus at the wrong point in the cycle. Lots of things can go awry.

And that's just implantation. Countless other things have to go right for the fertilized egg (or the acorn) to grow.

It lives in his or her mother's womb and only grows more recognizably human and at no point is more vulnerable in his or her life to intentional or unintentional insult, unable to leave that space until sometime about 38 weeks later, and continues on in this vulnerability for many years after.

Again, a lot like an acorn, no? The more you extend the analogy, the better it seems to work.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 4:49 pm | #

My man doesn't think "period stuff" is icky. I know, of course, that he's above average, but are most men such wussies that even discussing blood and mucus makes them squeamish?
Ledasmom | 04.18.06 - 4:52 pm | #

And Norah when does this worthiness grow, in the grown woman I mean? Sometime in childhood? Perhaps in adolescence? Oh, I see, perhaps at birth, as a child passes through the birth canal or through the transected abdomen in a cesarian delivery? Perhaps there is a fraction of a second as the child is a quarter of her length out, or a half, or five eighths when she is a quarter as worthy or so on...? Perhaps it is when a person is loved or at least wanted by at least one other person.(But then what if I am unloved? Unwanted? Am I less worthy?)

No. A human person, male or female, is either always worthy and valuable or never. Any other point on the continuum is an arbitrary one.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 4:58 pm | #

Intemperate, you seem to have missed the inherent value of a human being part of my argument, which makes the analogy limp mightily.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:00 pm | #

angelic doctor;

Yes in fact a medical doctor norah. sigh. and you?


If you are, then why am I having to explain this stuff to you? Didn't you pay attention in med school? Or did they not teach it? I would like to know.

This is all info that my Dr.(an MD) gave me, when I went for my pre-conception checkup. She was very patient and helpful and answered all my questions (and I had a lot of them, since I'm also the type to do my own research before undertaking a project).
Norah | 04.18.06 - 5:00 pm | #

Straw man on the comment I deleted, Norah.
Dawn Eden | 04.18.06 - 5:10 pm | #

Intemperate, you seem to have missed the inherent value of a human being part of my argument, which makes the analogy limp mightily.

Perhaps we are not using the analogy to illustrate the same thing. I did not notice "dignity" being involved in the discussion until just recently, when you introduced it. The initial analogy, at least as I read it, was meant to illustrate that a fertilized egg is not a fully-developed, viable human being - not any more than an acorn looks like a full-grown oak tree.

I only got involved in the analogy to correct your misinformation regarding the viability of acorns, actually - to say that an acorn is more analogous to a fertilized egg than it is to male human sperm.

I don't really care to involve myself in the "dignity" argument, as I am willing to accept that my views on the nature of soul and spirit are not the prevailing ones here, and I am not fluent in Catholic teachings, because I am not Catholic.

Suffice it to say that I love and respect both oak trees and people, but if an oak tree threatens to fall on my house and crush me, I'm going to call a tree surgeon to come in and talk to me about possible ways to remove the tree, if necessary. If I get pregnant, and if that pregnancy is likely to physically injure me, I'd like to have the same freedom to consult a professional then, too. I'd also like to be able to make my own landscaping choices, so any oak trees I want to cultivate in my yard grow in a healthy fashion.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 5:13 pm | #

Oh, of course Norah. The inherent worth of the child in her mother's womb goes away when her mother's health is physically threatened...by exactly what , I'm not sure, but that's another argument in the round-robin of fallacies.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:14 pm | #

Not at all, Dawn. A woman is either worthy of control over her own reproduction, or she isn't.

since angelic doctor opined that;

A human person, male or female, is either always worthy and valuable or never.

I was wondering whether that situation (which is laughable that you call a strawman; ever hear of South Dakota?) is an example of always worthy and valuable? Or never worthy and valuable?
Norah | 04.18.06 - 5:15 pm | #

angelic doctor;

The inherent worth of the child in her mother's womb goes away when her mother's health is physically threatened

You seem to be arguing that the mother is the one who loses worth. Am I understanding you correctly? If not, please do explain.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 5:17 pm | #

Biddy, given the amount that sex, childbirth, and fertility have figured into my husband's and my discussions, I have a hard time imagining how we could discuss it more without giving it an entirely unwarranted weight. You are the one saying that sex isn't the only thing that makes a marriage, right?

Norah, I can well believe that a medical doctor would be unsure in matters of fertility. Medical school proper doesn't give the topic a tremendous amount of time, and consists of so much information crammed in so fast that relatively little sticks unless it's in a field that a given doctor actually practices. Not to mention the available information tends to change rapidly, so unless a doctor is keeping up with the developments of a particular field, what they know is usually significantly out of date. One can be a great neurologist, and completely out of touch about pediatrics, for example.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 5:17 pm | #

Intemperate, thanks for the acorn analogy defense, btw. I think it makes a lot of sense, and you made some good points.
Norah | 04.18.06 - 5:19 pm | #

oak trees and children do not compare. Nothing can be compared to the importance in a marriage of bearing fruit, and the value and dignity of that fruit. Trees and women = apples and oranges Norah.
Biddy | 04.18.06 - 5:24 pm | #

Are we really comparing human beings in utero with landscaping in a yard?

The argument limps more and more unless we entirely dehumanize exactly who we are talking about: an infinitely valuable mother who for a short period of time carries within herself an infinitely valuable although quite a bit more vulnerable baby.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:24 pm | #

Norah, I've banned you rather than hunt and peck for the ad hominems. You'll be unbanned in time, as you were recently after you made ad hominems before; my system only allows a certain amount of bans at a time.
Dawn Eden | 04.18.06 - 5:27 pm | #

And I did not address the progesterone issue at first because I had thought that it was a nonstarter, but progesterone does not always suppress ovulation, in which case the fall back is to thicken cervical mucous giving spermatozoa a harder time reaching the egg AND prevent impantation of the fertilized egg via changes in fallopian tube contractions and in the endometrium.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:40 pm | #

pardon my typos
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:40 pm | #

And Cynthia Wood, that would be an ad hominem attack btw.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 5:45 pm | #

a ferilized egg is no longer an egg; if the use of the word is acceptable at all when referring to the conceptus, it is so only because it is used equivocally--pretending that the conceptus is the same sort of thing as an egg through a verbal sleight-of-hand is just that
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 5:50 pm | #

Ad hominem attack? Where? What did I miss? Hard to read through so many comments.
Dawn Eden | 04.18.06 - 5:50 pm | #

In my experience, at least, the "average man" doesn't find women "icky" - at least, not once past the age of oh, about fifteen (emotionally)>>

I dunno, before I got married I made sure my wife had her cootie shots. :) (Trying to add some humor because we need it here, another thing that's important in an intimate relationship)
NeilC | 04.18.06 - 5:56 pm | #

angelic doctor - OK, I'm confused. If you're referring to the doctors comment, I made the perfectly true statement that an MD does not confer automatic expertise in fields outside the particular medical practice of the particular doctor. I was responding to Norah who was doubting you were a doctor based on your comments on fertility. I see no reason to doubt your credentials as an MD. If that's an ad hominem, then I completely misunderstand the term.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 5:56 pm | #

No. A human person, male or female, is either always worthy and valuable or never. Any other point on the continuum is an arbitrary one.

In an attempt - perhaps a futile one - to steer the conversation back to its initial topic:

If all is binary in human morality, why is such an "arbitrary point on the continuum" as use of contraception in a marriage so powerful? Is it logical to say that a just-fertilized egg is morally equivalent to a human, with no exceptions, but that two married people using a condom are morally equivalent to "two dogs mating in an alley", as one commenter phrased it?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 5:56 pm | #

Ad hominem argument:

A makes claim B: Angelic Doctor says that one effect of progesterone bcp's is to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg i.e. a human being

There is something objectionable about A: Angelic Doctor is ignorant like many other doctors in that he is either poorly trained in woman's reproduction or speaking outside of his current level of expertise.

Therefore claim B is false: One effect of progesterone in bcp's is to prevent implantation of said fertilized egg/human being/conceptus is false.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 6:06 pm | #

wow - over 200 comments, I'll go back and read them, but here's mine:

I'm a 40 year old virgin - no movie pun. It doesn't take "all my energy" not to have casual sex. I don't pine for a husband, but do hope for one some day - God willing. One last thing - If I don't get a husband, somehow I think I'll live just fine - whatever God has in mind for me.
cathy | 04.18.06 - 6:09 pm | #

NeilC: Circle, circle, dot, dot! Now you have a cootie shot!

T.Chan: I've been using 'fertilized egg' because it is easier to spell than "blastocyst". (How is a fertilized egg no longer an egg, though? People quite commonly speak of "fertilized chicken eggs", and such.) "Conceptus" is a rather vague term, since it can cover anything between just-after-fertilization to point-of-birth.

angelic doctor: Changes in cervical mucous do not in any way cause implantation failure, and so cannot in any way be considered an abortifacent effect. Changes in cervical mucous prevent fertilization in the first place - if the sperm doesn't get to the egg, the sperm can't fertilize the egg. I have seen some mention of changes in fallopian tube behavior, and I mentioned it above, but I have not seen much said about this effect other than "it could happen, we're not sure".
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 6:10 pm | #

God bless you, Cathy!
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 6:10 pm | #

Angelic Doctor, that's a straw man argument, not an ad hominem. It's likewise unacceptable according to Harris Protocol, though I don't prosecute that violation as vigilantly.

And now, I am off-topic.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 6:12 pm | #

AD - I do not claim that B is false based on your status as a doctor or not. Your status as a doctor was being doubted because B is inaccurate, or at best, wildly incomplete. I was making the reverse argument - just because B is false does not mean that you are misrepresenting yourself.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 6:13 pm | #

Exactly right intemperate. Changes in cervical mucous do not prevent implantation, they prevent fertilization as they make it more difficult for spermatozoa to reach an egg as said. Changes in the contractions in the fallopian tube and in the endometrium prevent implantation, as I also said.

This, by the way is an example of a straw man argument Dawn, if the intention is to attribute a weaker, easily reutable and false statement to me and pretend to have refuted my original argument.

I stand by the ad hominem definition.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 6:21 pm | #

general observations on the comments:

pro-chastity comments, generally loving and appears to be written by people who love their lives and committments towards God. Don't get a sense that any thing is missing.

anti-chastity comments, generally angry and defensive.

Choose Love - Real Love.
cathy | 04.18.06 - 6:27 pm | #

angelic doctor, your original statement ("progesterone-based birth control works by preventing implantation, not by suppressing ovulation") was not refuted by someone questioning your medical credentials. Someone questioned your medical credentials because your statement was refuted - and can be refuted by anyone with access to google or some rudimentary knowledge of the female reproductive system.

I don't expect my my orthopedist to know all there is to know about endocrinology. I don't even expect my GP to know all there is to know about endocrinology - or about orthopedics. There is so much to know - that's why there are specialists, after all.

Questioning your argument is not attacking you as a person or as a doctor, though if your specialty is indeed obsterics or gynecology, I think I'll stick to my present doctor. No offense meant.
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 6:33 pm | #

Cathy... are you sure you're reading the same thread I've been reading? Have you got to the bit about "sex toys" yet?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 6:36 pm | #

1) I understand why some people would choose to use NFP over other systems of contraception.

What I do not understand is the attitude that other married couples who use, say, a condom, have issues in the emotional arena.

I even understand (although disagree) that one's preference of NFP might make one feel morally superior to a married couple who uses a barrier method.

But I really am stunned by the judgement that married couples who don't use NFP are not loving, are using each other as "sex toys" or are having "sex like dogs".

It's this certainty of emotional superiority and supposed knowledge about the interior of other people's marriages that I find prideful.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 6:46 pm | #

But of course offense is meant Intemperate but, well you call yourself intemperate.

You would do well to stick with your present doctor and not someone like me as I would try at all times to affirm you and your family's inherent value and worth at all times...oh, wait, that can't be right...:)

I hope your GP (although it's called Family Medicine in 2006) knows quite a lot about endocrinology and about orthopedics. And I will put it to you that even an endocrinologist does not know everything there is to know about endocrinology.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 6:46 pm | #

intemperate:

T.Chan: I've been using 'fertilized egg' because it is easier to spell than "blastocyst". (How is a fertilized egg no longer an egg, though? People quite commonly speak of "fertilized chicken eggs", and such.) "Conceptus" is a rather vague term, since it can cover anything between just-after-fertilization to point-of-birth.

Why no longer an egg? Just one indication--do a chromosomal count. Another indication: a normal egg does not develop into an adult human being. There is no formal identity between the egg before fertilization and the conceptus, even if the material from the egg is used, in which case there is a limited material identity. Hence, egg can be used equivocally, but not univocally.

As for conceptus, it may be vague as not referring to a specific stage of human development, but that is the point. What is the product of fertilization is a individual human being and is not formally identical to the sperm or egg that came to be united.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 6:53 pm | #

Your definition of ad hominem is perfectly correct. I stand by my statement that I didn't make an ad hominem attack.

I tend not to be too concerned with the "Is hormonal birth control abortifacient (in the strict Catholic sense) or not?" argument in the first place, though I recognize that it is an important point for many fundamentalists with regard to their contraception. I'm not actually too certain why a Catholic would be concerned, since hormonal contraception is not allowed by the Church regardless.

Me being me, and my theology being what it is, I don't consider a single-celled zygote as inherently valuable as a grown human being. The unique genetics claim doesn't impress me - unless you want to try to claim that one of a pair of identical twins is superfluous.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 6:53 pm | #

Your average man thinks period stuff is icky and won't discuss it.

When I read this I thought of my Italian-born Catholic grandfather.

(Although I do have to say that both my father and my husband (pro-contraception) will talk about periods and buy menstrual pads.)

I find it so strange that a particular system of contraception (NFP) could be held up as a necessity for the emotional health of a marriage.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 6:55 pm | #

geoduck2:

What I do not understand is the attitude that other married couples who use, say, a condom, have issues in the emotional arena.

As I have stated in the other thread, it is a result of a certain approach to explaning Catholic sexual morality--whether it be personalist, or New Natural Law Theory, or w/e else--by which one is forced according to philosophical premises or approach to look exclusively at intention and knowledge of the agent. I don't agree with the approach, but I suspect this is where the characterizations are coming from--conclusions (or generalizations) based on this approach.

The teaching of the Church (and of Natural Law) can be put forward in other ways, and while your point should be taken by those who make judgments about 'state of mind,' I would hope that you would not dismiss the other possible explanations of why use of ABC is not licit.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 6:58 pm | #

Cynthia Wood:

The unique genetics claim doesn't impress me
There is more to the argument that the conceptus is a unique human being beyond the unique genetics claim, which can be weak if formulated incorrectly. There are several essays by Robert George and Patrick Lee available online, which I would recommend:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/ar...7/ georgelee.htm
http://www.nationalreview.com/ co...rge073001.shtml

See also George's position paper in Human Cloning and Human Dignity:
http://www.bioethics.gov/ reports...dix.html#george
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 7:04 pm | #

T.Chan-
"The teaching of the Church (and of Natural Law) can be put forward in other ways, and while your point should be taken by those who make judgments about 'state of mind,' I would hope that you would not dismiss the other possible explanations of why use of ABC is not licit."

Could you please explain or point to these other ways in which the distinction can be pointed out? I'm genuinely interested.
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 7:20 pm | #

T.Chan:

Thank you for those references. I have been arguing those positions for a while but have never seen them so systematically articulated.
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 7:49 pm | #

Sophie:

One can find a more traditional explanation of why NFP is morally permissible here:
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt103.html

This kind of explanation locates morality not exclusively in the intention (the desire of some good or end), but also in the means chosen to achieve the good or end. ABC is wrong because in the use of ABC one is deliberately frustrating the conjugal act itself, while with NFP, one is not.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 7:49 pm | #

angelic doctor: you're welcome!
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 7:56 pm | #

But can it walk and talk?

Can you walk and talk while you're asleep?
Mary | 04.18.06 - 8:16 pm | #

T.Chan-
Thanks. I'm quite willing to be proven wrong - I've just not yet seen a sound argument for NFP not being contraception.
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 8:20 pm | #

ABC is wrong because in the use of ABC one is deliberately frustrating the conjugal act itself, while with NFP, one is not.

I would think that the intention would be very important in evaluating morality.

That's why I don't see a moral difference between a barrier method of birth control and a couple that deliberately abstains from coitus on fertile days.

The act of contraception, by barrier or withdrawal, or making-out and refusing to ejaculate on fertile days, are all acts designed to frustrate conception.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 8:33 pm | #

Sophie--
wrt to a couple practicing NFP
while the act has no potential to result in conception, it's still the conjugal act; the nature of the means is not determined by the intention-- while the intention may be a deliberate avoidance of pregnancy, the conjugal act is not 'tampered with'

if one wishes to call the (temporary) practice of NFP 'contraception' that is fine, one just needs to see why this form of 'contraception' is morally permissible while ABC is not

however, if one looks wants to be faithful to the etymology of 'contraception' one will see that NFP is not contraception in so far as it does not involve the deliberate frustration (contra) of the conjugal act, rather it takes advantage of the naturally occuring infertile period
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 8:39 pm | #

geoduck2

I would think that the intention would be very important in evaluating morality.

Yes, it is. But notice I said that the intention alone does not determine the morality of an act. One must also look at the means employed, the exterior act.

That's why I don't see a moral difference between a barrier method of birth control and a couple that deliberately abstains from coitus on fertile days.
But there is, because the intention alone does not suffice.

The act of contraception, by barrier or withdrawal, or making-out and refusing to ejaculate on fertile days, are all acts designed to frustrate conception.
No, the conjugal act is rendered infertile naturally, by the timing of the woman's cycle, not by the deliberate tampering with the act. That's a big moral difference.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 8:41 pm | #

One may have the intention to supply one's child with a computer so the child can learn. This intention is good. However, there is a moral difference between buying the computer with one's own money and stealing it from someone else.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 8:42 pm | #

I'm quite willing to be proven wrong - I've just not yet seen a sound argument for NFP not being contraception.

Me too. As a student of history, I find it particularly baffling.

I know what happens when married couples to not attempt to frustrate conception. A study of the Colonial Era and Early Republic of America will show that women had anywhere from 10-15 live births.

Couples married at a later age, due to land shortage in in parts of New England in the 2nd half of the 18th century. Women married in their 20s. Even when women married at age 24, it was usual for that couple to bear a child every other year. A family of 12 children was normative, unless there were fertility problems in the relationship, or unless the husband was not at home for long periods of time. (such as a sailor/sea captain, ect.)

My husband joked the other day that I hate a-historicism more then any other "sin." Perhaps that is why this bothers me so much. It is not credible to assert that NFP is not a system of contraception designed to frustrate procreation.

If NFP is not designed to frustrate procreation, couples using NFP would have 10-12 children unless fertility problems are present; or unless the couple married late in life, after a significant portion of a woman's fertile years are up.

That being said - if the use of NFP makes people happy and more confident in their relationships and faith, I'm happy for them.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 8:45 pm | #

No, the conjugal act is rendered infertile naturally, by the timing of the woman's cycle, not by the deliberate tampering with the act. That's a big moral difference.

Isn't there a duty to procreate?

That is how my Puritians in Colonial Massachussets would respond to your attitude towards conception & NFP.

Perhaps Catholic theology differs from my colonialists? (I mean, I'm sure Catholic theology differs from my Puritian colonialists! :) But I'm surpirsed that it would differ in this specific manner.)

Perhaps the act itself is given heavier weight then intention. I would think that intention would actually govern the meaning of the act, if the intention is to frustrate procreation.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 8:51 pm | #

As I see it the real difference comes down to this: in using NFP, the act itself is not tampered with, but in using ABC, the act is tampered with - one changes something about the act before or during one's performance of it. I understand this distinction.

My difficulty in seeing the *moral* distinction is that I believe that one must look at the sexual act in context, not just at the act alone. The couple is changing their sexual relationship generally in order to avoid conception.

I do understand the difference between means and ends. My frustration with many of the NFP-only arguments, especially on the other thread, is that they confuse means and ends by claiming that in using NFP one (always?) has good ends, and in using ABC one can only have bad ends. Surely we can all agree that one can use NFP in a non-licit way, and that there are different ends one can have in using ABC - some more licit than others.
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 8:52 pm | #

geoduck2:

It would seem from your argument that you find a large family a sort of bad thing. Am I correct in saying this?
angelic doctor | 04.18.06 - 8:53 pm | #

Oh - I don't know Catholic moral theology or philosophy well enough to know if there are degrees of licitness (if that is even a word?). What I mean is, surely there is a moral difference between using ABC because one does not want children and would not accept them as a gift from God, and using ABC in order to space children (all the while being open to them if they come along)
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 8:53 pm | #

AD: I cannot speak for geoduck's beliefs about large families but her argument is a good one - she is trying to point out in many ways why NFP is not different than ABC. Red herring, much?
Sophie | 04.18.06 - 8:55 pm | #

Sophie:

My frustration with many of the NFP-only arguments, especially on the other thread, is that they confuse means and ends by claiming that in using NFP one (always?) has good ends, and in using ABC one can only have bad ends. Surely we can all agree that one can use NFP in a non-licit way, and that there are different ends one can have in using ABC - some more licit than others.
Granted. That sort of generalization is false. But in order for an act as a whole to be good, the means (exterior act), the intention, and the circumstances all have to be right/good. If the act is lacking in any of those components, then it is wrong. So if the means is wrong (e.g. ABC), the act is wrong, regardless of intention.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 9:04 pm | #

Oh - I don't know Catholic moral theology or philosophy well enough to know if there are degrees of licitness (if that is even a word?). What I mean is, surely there is a moral difference between using ABC because one does not want children and would not accept them as a gift from God, and using ABC in order to space children (all the while being open to them if they come along)

In both cases, the use of ABC is wrong because the means employed is wrong. As for subjective culpability, that is for God to judge.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 9:05 pm | #

geoduck2:

Perhaps the act itself is given heavier weight then intention. I would think that intention would actually govern the meaning of the act, if the intention is to frustrate procreation.

See the above post on intention, means (exterior act), and circumstances.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 9:07 pm | #

It would seem from your argument that you find a large family a sort of bad thing. Am I correct in saying this?

No - I think it's great when a couple who wants a large family has a large family.

I'm not sure why why comments would convey this?
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 9:39 pm | #

The couple is changing their sexual relationship generally in order to avoid conception.

Sophie - yes - this is exactly what I've been trying to say.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 9:43 pm | #

After reading the comments about the moral differences between ABC and NFP, I come away with the feeling that an excessively fine hair is being split.

I understand the intellectual attraction of an abstract discussion of ethical sexual behavior. But I detect more than a whiff of legalism in commenters' insistence that there is only one true attitude toward an issue that is Biblically unclear.

"But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God." (Romans 14:10).
scirocco | 04.18.06 - 10:18 pm | #

scirocco,

Some of this argument is stemming from the assertion that a marriage that uses barrier contraception is less "loving" and "communicative" then a marriage that uses NFP.

Some of the particularly inflamatory remarks included the assertion that a marriage that does not use NFP is a marriage in which the spouses treat each other as "sex toys."

I certainly agree with you that it is biblically unclear. (In addition, I do not believe that a statement of infallibility has been made about NFP?)
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 10:44 pm | #

there is enough witness by the ordinary magisterium as to the licitness of NFP; an act of definition isn't necessary
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 10:52 pm | #

geoduck2, I've been following the comments, and my ire (such as it is) is directed at those very commenters, the ones who ungraciously assert that using ABC turns a partner into nothing better than a sex toy.

I generally smell BS when discussions about morality become so exacting -- NFP is generally OK, but not if the married couple's attitude is x, for example -- and the penalties for non-compliance are so severe (you're not relating to your spouse as a full human if you use ABC). It's legalism, in which right living is narrowly described, and church dogma is given the same moral weight as Biblical commandments.

I know, my Protestant roots are showing.
scirocco | 04.18.06 - 11:24 pm | #

ad:

But of course offense is meant Intemperate but, well you call yourself intemperate.

I've hardly lived up to my nickname, I think.

You would do well to stick with your present doctor and not someone like me as I would try at all times to affirm you and your family's inherent value and worth at all times...oh, wait, that can't be right...:)

Well, if you would "affirm [our] inherent value and worth at all times" by taking me off hormonal birth control, or "affirm" me by deciding, in the case of a dangerous pregnancy, that I'd have to suck it up and deal with any health consequences up to and including death, I personally wouldn't feel all that "affirmed". But since I shell out a considerable amount of money each month for my PPO plan, you can practice as you please and I am free to find a doctor who will consider treatment options that work for me.

Mary: Can you walk and talk while you're asleep?

I am told that I have, actually! (Punched someone in the face too, once. I tend to toss and turn a lot in sleep.)

T.Chan: Why is "conceptus" more correct than "blastocyst"?
Intemperate | 04.18.06 - 11:27 pm | #

intemperate: conceptus is more correct than fertilized egg
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 11:29 pm | #

The key word in the Catholic teaching about birth control is artificial. There may indeed be a contraceptive aspect of NFP, but it does not employ unnatural means. There is no obligation for husband and wife to have intercourse during the "magic moment" each month, nor is there any prohibition on not having same during said portion of the cycle.

One is not commanded to have a large family; one is commanded to use sexuality the way the Creator intended.

If that is "Biblically unclear," that may be because of the Catholic view of the Bible. In oversimplified Catholic teaching, the authority of the Bible comes from the Church; in Protestant theology, it is exactly the opposite.

Personally, I subscribe to the former. Christ built his church on Petros, not Biblos. And so it goes.
C.J. | Homepage | 04.18.06 - 11:30 pm | #

I generally smell BS when discussions about morality become so exacting -- NFP is generally OK, but not if the married couple's attitude is x, for example... It's legalism

It's legalism if "giving alms for the sake of earning praise from men is wrong" or "praying for the sake of being seen by others as being religious" (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18) is legalistic. Even if the means is right, one's intention can make the act bad.
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 11:35 pm | #

should be: "praying for the sake of being seen by others as being religious is wrong"
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 11:36 pm | #

Even if the means is right (in itself)
T. Chan | 04.18.06 - 11:36 pm | #

I know, my Protestant roots are showing.

scirocco,

I agree with your post.

And as my lapsed Catholic father married my Protestant mother, I was raised Protestant. My approach in religion is very Protestant, for better or worse.

(I like Umberto Eco's comparison of Catholisism to Protestantism by comparing the Apple computers to IBMs.)

I'm not knowledgeable about Catholic theology, but a Catholic friend told me that the Pope had not declared a (infallible?) statement about barrier birth control? Mind you, I don't know what I'm talking about her, but that was my understanding of the situation.
geoduck2 | 04.18.06 - 11:48 pm | #

I believe that is correct, geoduck2; infallibility has been invoked but rarely (am I correct in stating that the last time was with regard to the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven?) and not as of yet about condoms or similar.
Intemperate, I also have talked and walked in my sleep; if you bring to mind the peculiar logic of dreams, which makes so much sense in the dream-mind and so little outside it, you may surmise as to the sort of conversations I have had with my husband while, technically, asleep.
C.J., you have also oversimplified Protestant doctrine (as if there were only one!); see, for example, the Episcopalian three-legged stool.
Ledasmom | 04.19.06 - 12:38 am | #

geoduck2:
A teaching does not have to be defined through the exercise of the extraordinary magisterium in order to be be considered infallible.
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 2:35 am | #

A teaching does not have to be defined through the exercise of the extraordinary magisterium in order to be be considered infallible.

I wouldn't know. All I know is that it was important to my friend, who is pretty devout.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 3:47 am | #

If another pregnancy would kill you, DO NOT HAVE SEX. Why can't people grasp this?

Biddy, I believe people can grasp that this is your position. We simply disagree.
scirocco | 04.19.06 - 4:37 am | #

I wrote: "The couple is changing their sexual relationship generally in order to avoid conception." (as did geoduck, over and over again) That is what makes NFP morally equivalent to ABC as far as I am concerned. I have yet to see a response to this, aside from perhaps the natural/unnatural argument, which seems to be pretty weak - counterexamples abound.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 9:18 am | #

Women are meant to have children. They have a natural desire to do so. Husbands who deny them that need deny 100% love. The love may be 95%, but it's never 100 without the openness to life.
Biddy | 04.19.06 - 9:37 am | #

Biddy - and if the woman doesn't wish to bear a child at a given moment in time? Does forcing a pregnancy on her show her the great error of her ways? Does The Magic Of The Baby somehow suffuse her with a great and wonderous Love She Never Knew?

I'm pretty sure we're not discussing men who deny their wives access to their glorious baby-filled sperm. We are talking about couples deciding together when to have children and when not to have children, and how to do what they decide together. At least, that's what I thought?
Intemperate | 04.19.06 - 9:54 am | #

Sophie wrote: "The couple is changing their sexual relationship generally in order to avoid conception." (as did geoduck, over and over again) That is what makes NFP morally equivalent to ABC as far as I am concerned. I have yet to see a response to this, aside from perhaps the natural/unnatural argument, which seems to be pretty weak - counterexamples abound.

I hink that T. Chan did address this. I'll try again in any event.

Can we start by agreeing that the end/goal that both ABC and NFP are trying to achieve is that of spacing children? Can we further agree that this is a moral end/goal.

Now not all means to a moral end are equivelant.

I think the example T. Chan used was that of obtaining a computer. We can either buy or steal the computer. The end (obtaining a computer) is not immoral, but the means can be either moral or immoral. Do we agree this far as well?

The question in this discussion then becomes about whether the means of achieving the goal (spacing children) is moral or not. Here we have two options under discussion.

1) Artificial Birth Control
2) Natural Family Planning

So, we need to explore whether the means in this case produce moral or immoral acts.

Now, it seems fairly clear to me that NFP is moral as a means. There is no act engaged in, so there can be no immorality in the act.

I haven’t seen you say that NFP is immoral, only that it’s equivalent to ABC and thus if one is moral, the other must be. OK again?

What I am trying to lay out here is that indeed the means in question to the goal we all agree is moral (spacing children) are not equivalent.

In the case of ABC, the act IS engaged in, and thus we must look at whether how it is engaged in is moral.

The problem with ABC is that something is being done to the act itself to render THAT act infertile. I think that is unarguably a willful alteration to the act in question which is not present in NFP.

I know that you do not agree, but I am hoping this at least helps bring clarity and maybe give a more focused discussion of the issue.
-------------
For the Protestants involved in the discussion, you should probably be aware that until roughly 1930, this teaching was held in common by all Christians (Catholic and Protestant). You may want to read this series of articles to fill in some of the historical background from your perspective.

http:// www.illinoisrighttolife.o...ionAnalyzed.htm
http:// www.illinoisrighttolife.o...onAnalyzed2.htm

In it Jill Stanek (a well known pro-life advocate) lays out the historical landscape and discusses contraceptions linkage to abortion, and how contraception found it’s way into Protestantism in the 1930’s.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 10:23 am | #

SteveG-
Thanks for the clarity and for responding to me.

[i]Can we start by agreeing that the end/goal that both ABC and NFP are trying to achieve is that of spacing children? Can we further agree that this is a moral end/goal.[/i]
I would agree with a proviso - that both ABC and NFP can be used for immoral ends.

You are quite right that the question is about the means used. The question then is whether either or both involve immoral means.

The mistake I see in your argument is here: [i]Now, it seems fairly clear to me that NFP is moral as a means. There is no act engaged in, so there can be no immorality in the act.[/i]

I see two problems with this. One - morality does not only involve acts, but omissions - "we have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done..." Two - I believe that NFP does involve an act - that is, the act of practicing NFP. There is a decision made that one will abstain during a woman's fertile times - and that decision guides when the couple will have sex. As far as I am concerned, *that* is the act. Couples practicing NFP do not just have sex during a woman's infertile times, but they decide *not* to have sex when she is fertile. Thus gauging the morality of NFP is not just deciding whether not engaging in sex is immoral - but whether timing sex to avoid conception is immoral.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 10:48 am | #

SteveG, you say:
"Now, it seems fairly clear to me that NFP is moral as a means. There is no act engaged in, so there can be no immorality in the act"

I am not sure this holds up. By your reasoning, there could not exist such a thing as a sin of omission: no act, therefore no immorality.
Is it not at least possible that by a couple's denying themselves the profound bonding that can be experienced via sex, their marriage and intimacy may be harmed? Biologically speaking (and no, I do not consider biology the be-all and end-all of morality, but if we are to talk about the "natural purpose" of acts it is fair to use biology as a basis for definition of such) sex in humans is much more often used for bonding than it is for reproduction: even the most prolific woman on record had (if I remember correctly) fewer than sixty children, but any woman who so wishes may have sex thousands of times in her lifetime. Contrast the human sexual pattern with that of other mammals, for whom one mating is often enough to ensure pregnancy.
Ledasmom | 04.19.06 - 10:54 am | #

(I think that it safe to say that zero percent of condom users wouldn't mind if a pregnancy resulted)
There is at least a small percentage there, I use FAM and would welcome a pregnancy if it is God's desire
Sarah Faith | 04.19.06 - 11:10 am | #

Add me to that small percentage - I'd be delighted if I became pregnant.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 11:19 am | #

I'm pretty sure we're not discussing men who deny their wives access to their glorious baby-filled sperm. We are talking about couples deciding together when to have children and when not to have children, and how to do what they decide together. At least, that's what I thought?

...which they can do naturally and by abstaining. Couples who wish to be intimate need to understand that when they marry, they tacitly agree to be parents whenever God decides. Those who cannot accept this do well to stick to the single or missionary life.

Poisoning or abrading your wife's body is not loving. Denying her her deep desire to serve her husband as she serves God and to provide the world with the blessings and future believers that are children, is cruel.
Biddy | 04.19.06 - 11:20 am | #

Add me to that small percentage - I'd be delighted if I became pregnant.

So...why do you contracept?

That can't be great for a child's self-esteem: "I was conceived when my parents really didn't want me. I was such a burden that they decided not to give me any brothers or sisters. Now I have nobody to come home to, while other Christian children have eight or ten people at home."
Biddy | 04.19.06 - 11:21 am | #

Biddy - Please stop with the strawmen. You really are trying my patience! I could just as easily say to someone who practices NFP - "well, if you say you're open to life, why do you practice NFP?"

You can't have it both ways. You have said that a person who uses ABC cannot be open to life. I have provided you with a personal counterexample. Now you say that I should not use contraception *because* I am open to life. Do you see how circular that is?

I'm not even sure what you were thinking when you were writing the second paragraph. I said I'd be delighted, and you say that means I won't want my children, or that I'll only have one?

I've read Humanae Vitae. Our reasons for delaying conception are in line with its teaching. The only difference is the means we use, and if someone could prove to me that using FAM is immoral, I'd stop using it immediately.

Sorry for the anger. But I was beginning to think that people were listening to each other on this thread, and you've just dashed those hopes.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 11:31 am | #

As discussed, condoms erect a physical as well as an emotional barrier. It's like saying, "The two shall become one...sort of."
Biddy | 04.19.06 - 11:38 am | #

Biddy - that is your assertion. Can you back it up? Can you show that it is different to use a condom than to withhold my fertility by not having sex while one is fertile? Can you prove that the emotional barrier exists? Just stating something as fact is not convincing anyone of its truth.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 11:42 am | #

Sophie:
I would agree with a proviso - that both ABC and NFP can be used for immoral ends.

And I agree with that proviso for sure.

I see two problems with this. One - morality does not only involve acts, but omissions - "we have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done..."

I need to clarify that in that statement I was only referring to the moral issue of each particular sexual act. Each and every particular sexual act, it seems to me, always has moral questions attached to it.

I am not arguing that an act of omission can’t be immoral, but the immorality of such an act is not sexual immorality, but immorality associated with something else.

Two - I believe that NFP does involve an act - that is, the act of practicing NFP. There is a decision made that one will abstain during a woman's fertile times - and that decision guides when the couple will have sex.

Again, agreed, and that can be done morally, or immorally, but each act in question is not a sexual act and each must be evaluated based on what it is, not what something else is.

The morality of the sex acts is one thing, the morality of the abstaining decision is something else. They effect one another, yes, but they are not the same thing.

The act in question here is abstaining, not sexual intercourse. The moral strictures and how we evaluate them are not the same.

Whether the act of abstaining is moral is a real issue and those who practice NFP are generally aware of that. We are supposed to be asking questions like.

‘Do we have a valid reason for abstaining?’

…if we don’t, then the act is likely immoral as well, but it’s not an immoral sex act, it’s an immoral abstaining decision. They simply are not one in the same.

That we can commit immoral decisions of abstaining does not mean that each decision of such IS immoral. And that such decisions can be immoral doesn’t mean that by extension somehow immoral sexual acts using ABC are now render moral.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 11:58 am | #

Biddy,

1 Peter 3:15 - Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence;

I think you need to reflect on this passage a while before you post.

I fully accept the Church's teaching on contraception, but let's not oversell NFP. This teaching is HARD, and pretending that it isn't, and pretending that NFP magically makes marriages better is not being totally honest.

I agree that all things being equal, not using birth control is better for a marriage overall, but it is still a challenge. Like any challenge it presents an opportunity for growth and maturity, but that doesn't change the fact that it's difficult.

Being Pollyanna about it and telling these folks that if they just stop taking birth control and start using NFP, suddenly their marriages will be magically transformed is more than a little disingenuous and dumbs down a really tough and complex topic.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 12:07 pm | #

Biddy, even those on your side are calling you on absurdity. I don't mean this as an attack, but the way you're phrasing arguments makes you seem intentionally absurd. Are you trolling this thread?

Denying her her deep desire to serve her husband as she serves God and to provide the world with the blessings and future believers that are children, is cruel.

But it's okay for the husband in this scenario to deny the wife's "deep desire to serve" as long as he denies her pregnancy through the means of NFP? Because NFP is Always Good, because it's... what, less abrasive?

(Again, I have yet to encounter an 'abrasive' condom. If your nether regions are being abraded painfully during intercourse, and this is not your desire, someone is doing something incorrectly. You also seem to be raising the hormone canard again. That was discussed at some length upthread.)

Your argument seems to hinge on a man forcibly preventing his wife - against her will - from becoming pregnant. No one appears to be discussing that scenario except you. Why do you keep going on about it?
Intemperate | 04.19.06 - 12:29 pm | #

From the better late than never file, which would appear to fit perfectly in these discussions on pre-marital sex and contraception --

"Man does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbours the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom.
"The human being lives in the suspicion that God's love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God.
"He himself wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God's level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts. He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies solely on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him. Rather than on love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death. . . .
"We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God's will. For God's will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature.
"If we live in opposition to love and against the truth - in opposition to God - then we destroy one another and destroy the world. Then we do not find life but act in the interests of death. . . .
"we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life: the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no, to descend into the shadows of sin and to want to do things on one's own is part of being truly human; that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality, fully ourselves.
"In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. . . . We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing, perhaps even necessary.
"If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them.
"This is something we should indeed learn on the day of the Immaculate Conception: the person who abandons himself totally in God's hands does not become God's puppet, a boring 'yes man'; he does not lose his freedom. Only the person who entrusts himself totally to God finds true freedom, the great, creative immensity of the freedom of good.
"The person who turns to God does not become smaller but greater, for through God and with God he becomes great, he becomes divine, he becomes truly himself. The person who puts himself in God's hands does not distance himself from others, withdrawing into his private salvation; on the contrary, it is only then that his heart truly awakens and he becomes a sensitive, hence, benevolent and open person."
Pope Benedict XVI, Homily on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2005.
http://www.vatican.va/ holy_fathe...council_en.html
Bender | 04.19.06 - 12:34 pm | #

I usually delete long quotes, but I'm a sucker for a good Benedict passage, and yours is relevant -- thanks, Bender.

Biddy, Steve wrote:

"Biddy,

"1 Peter 3:15 - Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence;

"I think you need to reflect on this passage a while before you post."

What he said.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 12:39 pm | #

Steve,

Thank you for your thoughtful answer.

Here's where I see some of the major rhetorical differences in the arguments:

Sophie wrote: "The couple is changing their sexual relationship generally in order to avoid conception."

Some people have repeatedly written that artificial contraception causes "unloving" behavior in a relationship. However, these argumets ignore the fact that NFP changes the sexual relationship within a couple. People avoid each other at certain times of the month for one reason only.

Can we start by agreeing that the end/goal that both ABC and NFP are trying to achieve is that of spacing children? Can we further agree that this is a moral end/goal.

I agree that this is a moral goal.

However, I am unsure if everyone on the thread thinks that. People have asserted that it is unloving for a man to avoid ejaculation in his wife because he is withholding part of himself. Furthermore, some commenters have asserted that women naturally want to have children, and that avoidance of childbirth is not moral.
-----
Wasn't there a teaching from the Old Testament that a husband was required to have coitus with his wife at certain times?
----
Furthermore, if a couple is intentionally spacing children, that goal is a contraceptive goal, and certainly counters the natural process of childbirth. Like I said before, historically fertile American couples produced 12-15 children.

Do you all think the act of contraception (by NFP) is something to be avoided if possible?

How moral is it to space children? If women in the colonial era regularly had children once every 2-3 years, why is it acceptable for women today to bear significantly less children in a fertile marriage?

Is it moral and acceptable to reduce births from 12-15 children to 2-5 children?

Is it moral for a married couple to engage in any physical touch on fertile days if coitus does not result?

Or is this touch, which does not result in coitus, an example of "withholding parts of oneself"?


I think the example T. Chan used was that of obtaining a computer. We can either buy or steal the computer. The end (obtaining a computer) is not immoral, but the means can be either moral or immoral. Do we agree this far as well?

No - I do not see a moral difference between a couple on a fertile day that "makes out" or engages in "heavy petting" without coitus versus a couple that uses a condom.

Furthermore, I do believe that the decision not to act is a moral question.

The decision to purposefully avoid coitus is still a a moral question according to the rhetoric we've been engaging on in these threads.

*** The problem is that I disagree with the premise of your argument. (see above.)

Now, it seems fairly clear to me that NFP is moral as a means. There is no act engaged in, so there can be no immorality in the act.

Again, if purposefully avoiding conception in marriage is a immoral act, it has not been explained to me why NFP is moral.

I haven’t seen you say that NFP is immoral, only that it’s equivalent to ABC and thus if one is moral, the other must be. OK again?

No. I wonder if you all are avoiding the implications of your own arguments.

A couple from the American colonial era would not find it acceptable to limit their family to 2-5 kids, by whatever means. It would be a tragedy for many colonial couples. Yet for the modern middle class, they do not wish to have a family of 12-15 children.

I wonder if NFP is a strategy that allows couples to achieve the same family size as those couples who use artifical birth control.

It makes me wonder if people say they are against "contraception" for a variety of reasons, yet when "push comes to shove", they are not willing to behave in a way that would naturally result in a family of 12 children.

To put it simplistically: People aren't walking the talk.

----

If the argument is reduced to the act of ABC is immoral while the intentional act NFP is moral - in order to have the exact same results in family size -- well, then, that seems to me to be an article of faith that allows couple to achieve the same results of ABC couples.

The problem with ABC is that something is being done to the act itself to render THAT act infertile. I think that is unarguably a willful alteration to the act in question which is not present in NFP.

Refusing to engage in coitus and ejaculation on fertile days is also a willful alteration of one's fertility.
-----

For the Protestants involved in the discussion, you should probably be aware that until roughly 1930, this teaching was held in common by all Christians (Catholic and Protestant).

I do appreciate the reference. However, there are many sects of American Protestants. All the sects did not change their teachings at the same time in the 1930s.

For example, in the 19th century people from various Protestant sects were promoting the concept of "Voluntary Motherhood."

19th century figures like Theodore Parker, Emerson, William Ellery Channing, ect., were all part of these Protestant sects.

Around 1800 there was a decrease in American birth rates from about 12-15 per fertile couple to 6-7. (This change is especially dramatic for native born American woman, as opposed to foreign born American women. However, after a generation the children of immigrants dramatically lower their birthrates.)

Couples began using various techniques (natural and artificial) to decrease family size. If you look at the census numbers, you can see the decrease is constant from 1800-1940. Since the 1940s, the average size of a family for a native-born American woman, has ranged from 2-3.5 children.

-----
To summarize -- NFP appears to be a system that allows couples who say they are fertile and "open to fertility" to achieve the exact same result in the number of children as couples who use ABC.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 12:44 pm | #

I normally do not post long quotes, but this is one of those "WOW" homilies that B16 has given.
Bender | 04.19.06 - 12:52 pm | #

Bender,
You might want to read this as well. It's from then Cdl. Ratzinger's words in a book called 'Salt of the Earth' which is an extended interview he gave to Peter Seewald. In particular, pay close attention to the last two questions. I think there is some things to think about here for those who contracept as well. ...
----------------------
Contraception
PS: Your Eminence, many Christians do not understand the Church's position on contraception. Do you understand that they don't understand it?

Cdl. Ratzinger: Yes, I can understand that quite well; the question is really complicated. In today's troubled world, where the number of children cannot be very high given living conditions and so many other factors, it's very easy to understand. In this matter, we ought to look less at the casuistry of individual cases and more at the major objectives that the Church has in mind.

I think that it's a question of three major basic options. The first and most fundamental is to insist on the value o£ the child in society. In this area, in fact, there has been a remarkable change. Whereas in the simple societies of the past up to the nineteenth century, the blessing of children was regarded as the blessing, today children are conceived of almost as a threat. People think that they rob us of a place for the future, they threaten our own space, and so forth. In this matter a primary objective is to recover the original, true view that the child, the new human being, is a blessing. That by giving life we also receive it ourselves and that going out of ourselves and accepting the blessing of creation are good for man.

The second is that today we find ourselves before a separation of sexuality from procreation such as was not known earlier, and this makes it all the more necessary not to lose sight of the inner connection between the two.

PS: Meanwhile, even representatives of the sixties' generation, who tried it, are making some astonishing statements. Or perhaps that's just what we should expect. Rainer Langhans, for example, who once explored "orgasmic sexuality" in his communes, now proclaims that "the pill severed sexuality from the soul and led people into a blind alley." Langhans complains that now there "is no longer any giving, no longer any devoted dedication". "The highest" aspect of sexuality, he now professes, is `parenthood", which he calls "collaboration in God's plan".

Cdl. Ratzinger: It really is true that increasingly we have the development of two completely separated realities. In Huxley',s famous futuristic novel Brave New World, we see a vision of a coming world in which sexuality is something completely detached from procreation. He had good reason to expect this, and its human tragedy is fully explored. In this world, children are planned and produced in a laboratory in a regulated fashion. Now, that is clearly an intentional caricature, but, like all caricatures, it does bring something to the fore: that the child is going to be something that tends to be planned and made, that he lies completely under the control of reason, as it were. And that signals the self-destruction of man. Children become products in which we want to express ourselves; they are fully robbed in advance of their own life's projects. And sexuality once again becomes something replaceable. And, of course, in all this the relationship of man and woman is also lost. The developments are plain to see.

In the question of contraception, precisely such basic options are at stake. The Church wants to keep man human. For the third option in this context is that we cannot resolve great moral problems simply with techniques, with chemistry, but must solve them morally, with a life-style. It is, I think — independently now of contraception — one of our great perils that we want to master even the human condition with technology, that we have forgotten that there are primordial human problems that are not susceptible of technological solutions but that demand a certain life-style and certain life decisions. I would say that in the question of contraception we ought to look more at these basic options in which the Church is leading a struggle for man. The point of the Church's objections is to underscore this battle. The way these objections are formulated is perhaps not always completely felicitous, but what is at stake are such major cardinal points of human existence.

PS: The question remains whether you can reproach someone, say a couple who already have several children, for not having a positive attitude toward children.

Cdl. Ratzinger: No, of course not, and that shouldn't happen, either.

PS: But must these people nevertheless have the idea that they are living in some sort of sin if they ...

Cdl. Ratzinger: I would say that those are questions that ought to be discussed with one's spiritual director, with one's priest, because they can't be projected into the abstract.
--------------------

...Now if the Holy Father was even then saying that we shouldn't be 'reproaching' such people, we ought to be very careful about how we engage in such discussions. Let's be sure we are trying to explain rather than condemn.

I've said before that I am fully in line with church teaching, and use NFP, and agree with what you are planning to do, but I think it's possible you may be in for a rude awakening as to really how difficult a challenge this is for a married couple with several children.

I suspect from your words that you will indeed stick by your guns on this, but I likewise suspect that your view towards other will soften greatly.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 12:54 pm | #

Dawn,
I do hope you'll keep my quote (even though it's long) as well. It's not nearly as long and bears directly on the discussion at hand. Don't know if you needed the pitch or not, but there it is. :-D
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 12:58 pm | #

Geoduck2
You are throwing out a lot of different topics at once. I wish I had time to address them all, but I don’t, so forgive me for cherry picking a bit.

Some people have repeatedly written that artificial contraception causes "unloving" behavior in a relationship.

I’ve never said that, nor would I. I would say that the potential for that is certainly present though. I take it as a fact that there are very probably many couples out there who are far more loving and giving then me and my wife due to any number of reasons from their basic temperament, to their upbringing.

I will say that I do believe that all things being equal, use of contraception in a marriage is far more dangerous to the relationship than non-use, while admitting that NFP too can be abused.

However, these arguments ignore the fact that NFP changes the sexual relationship within a couple. People avoid each other at certain times of the month for one reason only.

And part of any decent NFP instruction will spend a great deal of time explicitely saying that this is a bad thing. During times of abstinence, the couple needs to find other affectionate ways of remaining close and NFP instruction usually (as far as I am aware) acknowledges and encourages that.

Like I said before, historically fertile American couples produced 12-15 children.

Can you back this up with some documentation? I find it highly improbable that this was the case. With nutrition being what it was, and with life expantancy being what it was, the number of fertile years of a woman were likely greatly reduced from what they are today. Girls matured much later, and women became increasingly less fertile at an earlier age.

Additionally, studies of existing tribal cultures where breastfeeding is done in an unrestricted manner, show that the average natural spacing of children (due to breastfeeding amenorrhea) in pre-industrialized societies is between 3 and 4 years.

Using even the least favorable numbers, the math of 12-15 children simply doesn’t add up. If a woman has roughly 25 (lets say from the age of 15 to 35) years of excellent fertility, you are talking about maximum of 8 children (25/3), assuming no miscarriages. That’s births, and doesn’t even discuss actual family size. With terribly high infant mortality rates, it’s likely that many of those babies didn’t survive.

I’ve read very balanced sources that indicate that historically (not limited to colonial America), that family size was generally no larger than 3 or 4 living children per family at most. That’s not live births, that’s children who made it past age 5 or so.

In addition, if you work the numbers on American population alone, and take the population in colonial America and project out 12 to 15 children per woman, you'd see that this is impossible to support. The population would have literally exploded in no time flat far beyond anything that the historical population records support. I can show you the math, but you'd have to tell me the time frame you are talking about.

Do you all think the act of contraception (by NFP) is something to be avoided if possible?

A contraceptive mentality which shuts out the possibility of new life should be avoided for sure.

No - I do not see a moral difference between a couple on a fertile day that "makes out" or engages in "heavy petting" without coitus versus a couple that uses a condom.

I do not mean this to be snarky, but the difference is pretty obvious, no? making out is making out, and is not sexual intercourse. How could we possibly equate making out to sexual intercourse. They are two completely different acts.

I think I addressed most of the rest of your comment in my reply to Sophie.

To summarize -- NFP appears to be a system that allows couples who say they are fertile and "open to fertility" to achieve the exact same result in the number of children as couples who use ABC.

But even if that were true (though I don’t really accept it as you phrase it), the means are what are being discussed. You’re trying to escape the difference in the means by saying that making out is equivalent to sexual intercourse with a condom. But that is manifestly not so.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 1:40 pm | #

we ought to be very careful about how we engage in such discussions. Let's be sure we are trying to explain rather than condemn.

I agree 100 percent. As a great sinner myself, justly worthy of condemnation, I am in no position to condemn anyone. I merely offer my comments to try to explain, even if some people take it as personal criticism.
Bender | 04.19.06 - 2:12 pm | #

I also lay claim to comment 300!!!
Bender | 04.19.06 - 2:14 pm | #

I’ve never said that, nor would I.

Thank you. I posted my response before I saw recent posts that had addressed those previous comments. I think some posts that were causing consternation have stoped.

On historical fertility:

Can you back this up with some documentation?

Yes, I'll look up some footnotes and cites. (Footnotes at the bottom.)

There was a labor shortage in the American colonies. Until immigration in the 19th century the small population was a big problem. Children were necessary for survival in the Anglo societies.

(In terms of fertility at a younger age - I agree. However, girls today are beginning their menses at shockingly young ages due to nutrition, such as 9-11 years old!) If a woman was fertile by age 18, she had plenty of time to have a family of 12 children.

My great-grandmother didn't marry until she was 20 and she had 12 children.

Wealthy women in New England could marry quite young (16-18 years old). However, women who married at ages 20-22 also easily bore 12-15 children during their fertile years.

Additionally, studies of existing tribal cultures where breastfeeding is done in an unrestricted manner, show that the average natural spacing of children (due to breastfeeding amenorrhea) in pre-industrialized societies is between 3 and 4 years.

Yes - Several Native American cultures in America did this. This long period of breast feeding was not common for the British or Anglo American population.

Using even the least favorable numbers, the math of 12-15 children simply doesn’t add up. If a woman has roughly 25 (lets say from the age of 15 to 35) years of excellent fertility, you are talking about maximum of 8 children (25/3), assuming no miscarriages. That’s births, and doesn’t even discuss actual family size. With terribly high infant mortality rates, it’s likely that many of those babies didn’t survive.

I'm actually surprised that this number surprises anybody. My great grandmother bore 12 healthy children that all grew up to adulthood. She bore most of her children before the 1940s and the advent of antibiotics.

If you doubt me, I'd suggest looking at one's own geneology charts. My great-grandmother was born in Italy, and more likely to avoid contraception; however, if your ancestors have been in America a while, look at your (or other) family charts from the early 1800s.

If your ancestors were immigrants, look at that first generation of immigrants in America.

I’ve read very balanced sources that indicate that historically (not limited to colonial America), that family size was generally no larger than 3 or 4 living children per family at most. That’s not live births, that’s children who made it past age 5 or so.

What are your sources? I'm a 19th century specialist working on a Ph.D. My MA is in American History from William and Mary.

In colonial America the majority of people lived in an agricultural situation. It would be a bad situation if only 3 or 4 members of the family survived into adulthood.

However, it is true that mortality was much more common in early America then today. Babies in particular were subject to diseases and such that we have vaccines for today.

I will find footnotes and cites for you to read.

In addition, if you work the numbers on American population alone, and take the population in colonial America and project out 12 to 15 children per woman, you'd see that this is impossible to support. The population would have literally exploded in no time flat far beyond anything that the historical population records support. I can show you the math, but you'd have to tell me the time frame you are talking about.

The population and the process of urbanization in America did explode from 1815-1850. In 1700 New York only had a few thousand people. By 1850 is was a city of several hundred thousand. (I can give you sources on urbanization & the population explosion in the 19th century if you're interested. I just worked on that subject with a friend studying for her comprehensive exams.)

The colonial time period is from early settlement on the mainland (1600s) to what is defined as the early Republic.

----
cites:

See Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. (Ulrich is a professor of colonial history at Harvard. The book won the Pulitzer Prize. Martha Ballard was a midwife in Maine. This book is also fun to read. My grandmother loved it as a present.)

I would particularly refer you to Ulrich's footnotes for specifics on birth numbers but on page 193, "Most women went through delivery every other year, summoning a midwife...For the next year they would breat-feed the newest baby...Even with incomplete registration, there are more than seven children per family in the twon clerk's records. Marth adelivered four women of a twelfth, one of a thirteenth, two of a fifteenth, and one of a sixteenth child. (In the Maine town of Howell) For most women, breat-feedin retarded conception, created birth intervals that averaged twenty-four months, in Martha Ballard's practice as in most of the western world...If there was any effort at family limitation it came toward the end of the childbearing years."

From the records of Howell Maine, during Martha's practice:(p.194)"Tabitah Sewall had eight chidlren in fourteen years and then quite bearing...Not even widowhood could retart Susanna Cony Howard Brooks. She produced eight children in sixteen years of marriage to three different husbands."

Ulrich's footnotes are quite good - you can follow her primary sources to the town records.

I'll go look up some articles on colonial birth rates and post them.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 2:18 pm | #

I appreciate you engaging me in this conversation - I'll look up the historical cites in a second.

A contraceptive mentality which shuts out the possibility of new life should be avoided for sure.

When I know the historical numbers, do you see why this sounds odd to me?

making out is making out, and is not sexual intercourse. How could we possibly equate making out to sexual intercourse. They are two completely different acts.

Part of what I'm thinking of are two things: (sorry to be kind of crude here)

But common forms of contraception within marriage in the 19th and first half of the 20th century were the following:

1) withdrawal

2) the dry hump to ejaculation outside of the wife's body.

3) Much less common -- but a rather bizarre practice -- was an act they continence. A man would actually not ejaculate durring or after coitus. It was supposed to be a morally, spiritually and emotionally superior form of sexual practice to that of withdrawal.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 2:26 pm | #

Laurel Thatacher Ulrich, "The Living mother of a Living Child: Midwifery and Mortality in Eighteenth-Century New England," WMQ 46 (1989), 27-48.

Here's some general books on childbirth in America:

Richard W. Wertz and Dorothy C. Wertz, Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America.

Judith Walzer Leavitt, "'Science' Enters the Birthing Room: Obstetrics in America Since the Eighteenth Century," The Journal of American History, 70 (September 1983): 281-304

Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Child-Bearing in America, 1750-1950.
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A primary source is William Sermon, The Ladies Companion, or th English Midwife, published in London in 1671.
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Roger Thompson, Sex in Middlesex: Popular Mores in a Massachusetts County, 1649-1699 (1986)


Angus McLaren, Reproductive Rituals: The Perception of Fertility from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century (1984)

Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800(1977)
----

I have a bibliography of articles that examine the fertility and death rates of Colonial America in specific regiions. I'll look for that.
Anonymous | 04.19.06 - 2:55 pm | #

ooops - Anonymous is me - geoduck2.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 2:56 pm | #

Yes - Several Native American cultures in America did this. This long period of breast feeding was not common for the British or Anglo American population.

I think this partly explains things. The 12 – 15 seems to be somewhat of an aberration to me speaking in larger historical and geographical terms.

I'm actually surprised that this number surprises anybody. My great grandmother bore 12 healthy children that all grew up to adulthood. She bore most of her children before the 1940s and the advent of antibiotics.

I am not surprised that this happened, but you seem to be claiming that the majority of women were having 12 to 15 children, which if it were the case would quickly result in a population explosion beyond all reckoning.

It’s simply not possible that all, or even the majority of women of child-bearing age were having twelve children. Twelve births, maybe, 12 children, impossible.

If you doubt me, I'd suggest looking at one's own geneology charts. My great-grandmother was born in Italy, and more likely to avoid contraception; however, if your ancestors have been in America a while, look at your (or other) family charts from the early 1800s.

I am second generation on both sides. My maternal grandparents (Italian) had 4 living children. My paternal grandparents had 4 children (one of whom died). Neither used contraceptives.

What are your sources? I'm a 19th century specialist working on a Ph.D. My MA is in American History from William and Mary.

I’d need to attempt to dig them up tonight. I admit that am vaguely referring to some excellent history texts I have at home that I’ve not read for several years.

But, again, I am speaking on a much larger scale than just colonial America. I don’t really doubt the number of births you are suggesting too strenuously, though I doubt the seeming implication that the norm was 12 to 15 live children. I may be misreading that, but it ‘seemed’ to be the implication.

In colonial America the majority of people lived in an agricultural situation. It would be a bad situation if only 3 or 4 members of the family survived into adulthood.

Again, I won’t doubt that, especially with the fact that they seemed to have taken less advantage of the natural infertility breast-feeding provides, but how may living children are you saying was typical?

I just think it is very tenuous to claim that the typical historical family size for humans included 12 to 15 children for any extended period.

If that’s not typical geographically, or historically, I think it loses it’s punch to point out that one narrow culture, for a very short time gave birth to 12 to 15 births (not living children even), and that NFP users should be measured against that yardstick regarding openness to fertility and large family size.

If as I’ve suggested the typical family size has usually been 4 to 5 children, then I would suggest this is a fairer measure.


See Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. (Ulrich is a professor of colonial history at Harvard. The book won the Pulitzer Prize. Martha Ballard was a midwife in Maine. This book is also fun to read. My grandmother loved it as a present.)

I am confused as a random google search turned up this article…

http:// www.americanforeignrelati...ildbearing.html

…which references Ulrich, amongst others, and says that…

In 1800 white women of childbearing age gave birth to an average of 7.04 children,

…so frankly, I am not sure what to think on this. But I think my points still stands whether it’s 7.04 or 15 births.

From the records of Howell Maine, during Martha's practice:(p.194)"Tabitah Sewall had eight chidlren in fourteen years and then quite bearing...Not even widowhood could retart Susanna Cony Howard Brooks. She produced eight children in sixteen years of marriage to three different husbands."

But again, this seems to contradict the contention of 12 to 15? I am really confused now.

Could you clarify what you believe the importance of that 12 to 15 number is? Maybe I am misreading what you are suggesting by it.
SteveG | 04.19.06 - 3:07 pm | #

I appreciate you engaging me in this conversation - I'll look up the historical cites in a second.

Seriously, my pleasure.

When I know the historical numbers, do you see why this sounds odd to me?
But we’ll have to see where that part of the discussion leads us. If the historical norm across human society was to have families with 12 to 15 living children, yes, I’d see it as odd. If the historical norm was 4, or 5, or even 7 children, I think you’d have to admit that the typical NFP user falls right in line with those numbers, and the typical couple using contraception is well below that.

Part of what I'm thinking of are two things: (sorry to be kind of crude here)

But common forms of contraception within marriage in the 19th and first half of the 20th century were the following:

1) withdrawal

2) the dry hump to ejaculation outside of the wife's body.

3) Much less common -- but a rather bizarre practice -- was an act they continence. A man would actually not ejaculate durring or after coitus. It was supposed to be a morally, spiritually and emotionally superior form of sexual practice to that of withdrawal.

If it matters, number 1 and 2 would most definitely be considered immoral in Catholic teaching. They would both in fact be considered forms of contraception known as Onanism.

Number three…hmmm.. that IS bizarre….I suppose that one could make a case that that might be moral, but I doubt it. Besides the fact that biologically speaking it’s an act that still remains open to conception. I’ll refrain from going into detail other than to say that the ‘pre-ejaculate’ is known to contain sufficient sperm counts to achieve conception.
Anonymous | 04.19.06 - 3:14 pm | #

That previous comment is mine. Premature commentation (Pun intended). ;-)
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 3:15 pm | #

geoduck2:
Refusing to engage in coitus and ejaculation on fertile days is also a willful alteration of one's fertility.

No, it's not--there is no tampering with the body or with the conjugal act--abstaining is not the same as doing with a 'fix-it'.

If the argument is reduced to the act of ABC is immoral while the intentional act NFP is moral - in order to have the exact same results in family size -- well, then, that seems to me to be an article of faith that allows couple to achieve the same results of ABC couples.

Intention is a technical term, referring to the aims or goods one is desiring. A couple using ABC and a couple using NFP may have the same goals -- uniting with the spouse while deliberately avoiding conceiving a child (assuming there are serious reasons for doing so). We are not talking about the morality of the intention, but the morality of the means, of the exterior act.
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 3:16 pm | #

btw, as for 'fertility' -- we are not talking about alteration of 'fertility', which is names the power. We are talking about altering the sexual act itself. The power can be altered naturally, e.g. menopause or degradation of the sexual organs, or artificially, through surgery. This is not what is at stake here, as we are not talking about the morality of sterilization or the like, but NFP and ABC, which involve the conjugal act.
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 3:20 pm | #

I think this partly explains things. The 12 – 15 seems to be somewhat of an aberration to me speaking in larger historical and geographical terms.

On the numbers:

Ansley J. Coale and Melvin Zelnik, New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the U.S. (Princeton University Press, 1963)

Wilson H. Grabill, Clyde V. Kiser, and Pascal K. Whelpton, "Demographic Trends: Marriage, Birth and Death," in Michael Gordon, ed., The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective (New York: ST. Martin's Press, 1973, pp.390).


When I say 12-15 - I specifically mean 12 to 15 successful live births, verus miscarriages, stillbirths and/or death during labor. However, I do not doubt that all of the children often did not live to adulthood.

I am not surprised that this happened, but you seem to be claiming that the majority of women were having 12 to 15 children, which if it were the case would quickly result in a population explosion beyond all reckoning.

Yes, I am claiming this was normative for the Anglo population in Britian and its colonies during the Early Modern Era. In other words, on average I would expect a married woman to bear a child every 24 months in the Anglo-British world.

Specifically, native born American women began to reduce their birth rates in the late colonial/early republic period. (circa 1770s) However, looking at the records of Howell, Maine, the historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich found, by examining the town records, that during marriage women bore a baby every 24 months. She is contesting, to some extent, that the birthrate decreased during that time period.

It’s simply not possible that all, or even the majority of women of child-bearing age were having twelve children. Twelve births, maybe, 12 children, impossible.

Why is this impossible?

Mind you, I am specifically not including enslaved women, who due to their work circumstances and lives bore much fewer live babies.

I’d need to attempt to dig them up tonight. I admit that am vaguely referring to some excellent history texts I have at home that I’ve not read for several years.

I am curious about those numbers and would be interested in your sources.

But, again, I am speaking on a much larger scale than just colonial America. I don’t really doubt the number of births you are suggesting too strenuously, though I doubt the seeming implication that the norm was 12 to 15 live children. I may be misreading that, but it ‘seemed’ to be the implication.

I suppose it is much more accurate to that on the average, I would expect a free Anglo married woman living in Britian or its colonies, to bear a child once every 24 months. Thus, it was common to find families of 10-15 children as women bore babies through a period of two decades of their life.

Wealthy women were able to marry in their teens; and southern white women married earlier, (in their late teens) in general, then white women in New England.

Again, I won’t doubt that, especially with the fact that they seemed to have taken less advantage of the natural infertility breast-feeding provides, but how may living children are you saying was typical?

The first national census that we have available to us is the 1790s. Birthrates already started to decrease prior to the 1790s according to some historical arguments. There are some local studies that inform us prior to that point.

Anyway - here's the numbers of the fertility rates for white free women in the United States:

1800: 7.04
1810: 6.92
1820: 6.73
1830: 6.55
1840: 6.14
1850: 5.42
1860: 5.21
1870: 4.55
1880: 4.24
1890: 3.87
1900: 3.56
1910: 3.42
1920: 3.17
1930: 2.45
1940: 2.10
1950: 3.00
1960: 3.52

You can see the trend of Americans who began to limit their family size during the 19th century. Of course, they were responding to large structual shifts such as the Transportation Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and Urbanization. After 1850, more Americans moved to an urban area (defined as a town of at least 2,000) then moved to an agricultural area.

In contrast, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is investigating a town in Maine in the Early Republic. It is still quite rural, and couples are still having babies 1 per every 24 months -
I have an article by someone called Smith titled "The Demographic History of Colonial New England." I can't find it's full citation - but I'll look for it for you.

I just think it is very tenuous to claim that the typical historical family size for humans included 12 to 15 children for any extended period.

I don't understand why this would be tenuous in a society that is not a hunter-gather society. Once humans could grow large ammounts of wheat, they could easily sustain large families. And yes, I understand that mortality rates were much higher then today for all people, but especially for children.

If that’s not typical geographically, or historically, I think it loses it’s punch to point out that one narrow culture, for a very short time gave birth to 12 to 15 births (not living children even), and that NFP users should be measured against that yardstick regarding openness to fertility and large family size.

I do not have the numbers, as I'm an Americanist, but from what I've read, I am projecting these numbers on all free married women in the entire span of the Early Modern Era in all the countries of western Europe. I'm referring to Britian, to France, to the Netherlands, to Germany, and to all the American colonies. (Although I'm not sure how indentured servitude and the convict situation interacted with fertility for married women in Australia.)

Like I said - the census numbers show the average number in 1800 was 7.04 for white free women's fertility rates in the U.S.


references Ulrich, amongst others, and says that…

In 1800 white women of childbearing age gave birth to an average of 7.04 children,

Yes! Yes! That's exactly right. those numbers probably come from Coale and Zelnik. Do you see what I mean about Ulrich looking at an agricultural town at a time when the birth rate was already decreasing?

I'm sorry that I was confusing. A woman giving birth once every 24 months is a better way to explain the average fertility.

ld you clarify what you believe the importance of that 12 to 15 number is? Maybe I am misreading what you are suggesting by it.

I'm sorry that I've been confusing. Because it was so common for a healthy married couple to bear a child once every 24 months, and end up with quite a large family, (and by large I mean 8 to 15 children), I find it odd that the rhetoric of being "open to conception" is being employed.

Couples in the Colonial Era had to deliberately control their birth rates to get their fertility rates down to a rate of 7.04 in 1800. They were, in a sense, closing themselves off to procreasing more then their parents and grandparents. There was a land shortage for parts of the second half of the 18th century in parts of New England which, in part, contributed to the declining fertility rate.

It comes down to this - when people are really open to a large family they bear children regularly.

When people want to control their fertility, they do not bear children once every 24 months.

When people have very small families (2-4 kids) and call that "being open to fertility" I am baffled by that.

Two to four children is a very small family. A healthy couple can have many, many more children then that. And we have the resources to feed and shelter them in a healthy way. Our living standard is far, far beyond that of our ancestors in the Colonial and even in the 19th century.

I don't think people are "walking the talk" of procreation; and their ancestors would think they were absolutely nuts to say they are "open to fertility."
Anonymous | 04.19.06 - 3:55 pm | #

ooops - again, I'm anonymous.

Sorry about the long post.

I'll still look for the colonial research. I can't find a book that has some articles in its bibliography.

Thanks for talking - talking about history is one of my favorite things!

Seriously, the Laurel Thatcher Ulrich book is fantastic as a gift for a grandmother or mother who enjoys reading about history.

It talks all about farm life in Maine from a mother's perspective.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 3:58 pm | #

T. Chan,

What I should have specifically said was:

"Refusing to engage in coitus and ejaculation on fertile days is also a willful alteration of one's fertility rate.

Americans since the late colonial period have reduced their fertility rate through a variety of ways, which includes abstinence within marriage.

When a married couple only produces 2-4 children, yet that couple is healthy, and was married durring their fertile years (from their late teens through their mid 30s) I understand that that couple has, most likely, intentionally reduced their fertility in a drastic way compared to the birth rate of their married ancestors in the 16th, 17th, or early 18th century.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 4:12 pm | #

When I say 12-15 - I specifically mean 12 to 15 successful live births, verus miscarriages, stillbirths and/or death during labor. However, I do not doubt that all of the children often did not live to adulthood.

Yes, I am claiming this was normative for the Anglo population in Britian and its colonies during the Early Modern Era. In other words, on average I would expect a married woman to bear a child every 24 months in the Anglo-British world.

I think I am getting a clearer picture of what you are saying here. And given your area of study, I can see why this seems significant to you.

Why I am pushing back on this is that I think it’s more pertinent to ask what the typical family size was for the human race. It seems narrow (I mean that in a literal, and not pejorative way) to measure the modern NFP family against what I think in the larger scheme of things could be considered somewhat of an aberration.

I say this because of several reasons including the fact that from what you’ve even said, they were not even bothering to take advantage of the naturally ordained spacing of children. By not freely breastfeeding they were increasing their natural rate of births. There’s a sense in which I could argue that they were ‘artificially’ ENHANCING their fertility. ;-)

Now, if this is as you lay it out (such rapid fire births), while it is certainly true that they might scoff at our ‘openness’ to fertility, I am not sure that in the naturally ordained order that’s all that relevant. See where I am going here?

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the ‘natural’ family size is probably around 4 to 5 children (again, think much larger scale both chronologically, and geographically, than you’ve so far considered).

I arrive at that VERY rough estimate by suggesting that the typical woman would experience at MOST 25 years of fertility, would typically bear a child every 3 to 4 years (let’s split the difference at 3.5), and would likely not have all of her children survive past even age 5.

25/3.5 = 7.1 births.

With historic infant mortality rates (defined as children dying before age 1) being somewhere around 30%, the number of children per family would usually be around

7 x .70 = 4.9

Or roughly between 4 and 5 as I’ve argued.

It seems that if this rough estimate is anywhere near close to the typical ‘natural’ family size, well then that might be a fairer measure in regards to how open to fertility NFP users are.

I do not have the numbers, as I'm an Americanist, but from what I've read, I am projecting these numbers on all free married women in the entire span of the Early Modern Era in all the countries of western Europe. I'm referring to Britian, to France, to the Netherlands, to Germany, and to all the American colonies. (Although I'm not sure how indentured servitude and the convict situation interacted with fertility for married women in Australia.)

Again, all things considered that’s a pretty small swath of time and space to use for comparative purposes for a species that is several hundred thousand years old.

I just don’t see any compelling reason why Anglo women of the early modern era are the stick against which things should be measured.

It comes down to this - when people are really open to a large family they bear children regularly.

Not THAT regularly. Not naturally anyway. If a woman breastfeeds in a wholly natural manner, this would not be possible let alone likely.

When people want to control their fertility, they do not bear children once every 24 months.

But only in that early modern, westernized, Protestantize culture it seems to me. Of course there may be other such cultures which have existed, but they aren't the norm.

When people have very small families (2-4 kids) and call that "being open to fertility" I am baffled by that.

But everything's relative. Relative to that era you are outlining, it looks ‘closed’. Relative to the surrounding modern culture (Western) and countries with birth rates of 1.4, 1.8, etc., it’s quite open. And relative to the natural historical reality, it’s pretty darn close to being right in line.

Besides, I know quite a few families using NFP, and among them, the smallest families have at least 3 children, and it’s far more typical in my experience (anecdotal I admit) that they have 4, 5, and 6. And even despite my push back here, 8 and 10, are not all that uncommon among such families.

Two to four children is a very small family. A healthy couple can have many, many more children then that. And we have the resources to feed and shelter them in a healthy way. Our living standard is far, far beyond that of our ancestors in the Colonial and even in the 19th century.

But feeding and sheltering aren’t all there is to parenting. Time and attention are needed, and those are very limited resources regardless of the culture in which we live.
Anonymous | 04.19.06 - 4:57 pm | #

Dang it! That anonymous was me again. Dawn, what's up with the site? It's not holding onto post information like it normally does.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 4:58 pm | #

Probably a problem with the cookies on your computer, Steve.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 5:00 pm | #

geoduck2:

"Refusing to engage in coitus and ejaculation on fertile days is also a willful alteration of one's fertility rate.

Granted, but the # of children a married couple should have is a determination of prudence.

And we have the resources to feed and shelter them in a healthy way. Our living standard is far, far beyond that of our ancestors in the Colonial and even in the 19th century.
Questionable, given the fact that time for our oil-dependent econommy is running out.
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 5:06 pm | #

Undoubtedly there are those who want fewer children because they want to maintain a certain lifestyle, or wish to allocate more resources for the children they have, e.g. for college and the like. Nonetheless, it is also possible for a couple to have legitimate reasons to space the children apart, for example in a region where resources are scarce, and so on...
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 5:11 pm | #

Why I am pushing back on this is that I think it’s more pertinent to ask what the typical family size was for the human race. It seems narrow (I mean that in a literal, and not pejorative way) to measure the modern NFP family against what I think in the larger scheme of things could be considered somewhat of an aberration.

I think this is a very interesting question. I would think that we could find some sort of information about ancient Rome. And we do know that hunter-gatherer societies had significantly lower birth rates then agricultural societies. (Some Native American tribes/cultures had a tradition of no sex during certain times the tribe would be migrating on a hunt.) Likewise, I would expect enslaved people to have lower birth rates due to overwork and nutrition problems. I don't know what life was like for the Surfs in Russia or Europe. But again, I would expect overwork or lack of nutrition to limit fertility rates.

I say this because of several reasons including the fact that from what you’ve even said, they were not even bothering to take advantage of the naturally ordained spacing of children. By not freely breastfeeding they were increasing their natural rate of births.

Although they were breastfeeding their children for about a year. And having children was seen as an obligation both to one's family and to one's religion.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the ‘natural’ family size is probably around 4 to 5 children

(1)I would question the value of "natural" as a useful term in this context and

(2) say 4-5 children is "natural" only in a situation where the couple's fertility is decreased because of lack of nutrition or overwork. For example, I have found a bunch of enslaved couples from the nineteenth-century who bore 4 surviving children. However, they had a series of problems that limited their fertility and their nutrition and health.

I arrive at that VERY rough estimate by suggesting that the typical woman would experience at MOST 25 years of fertility, would typically bear a child every 3 to 4 years (let’s split the difference at 3.5), and would likely not have all of her children survive past even age 5.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich puts it at 1 child every 24 months. In New England the birth and survival rate was pretty good in the late colonial era.

Or roughly between 4 and 5 as I’ve argued.

I think you're underestimating fertility and overestimating mortality. I also think this rate of child bearing is highly problematic for the survival of an agricultural community.

I would expect an average size of 4-5 children for a hunter-gatherer society, but not for a society based on wheat/corn/grain and a settled population.

Not THAT regularly. Not naturally anyway. If a woman breastfeeds in a wholly natural manner, this would not be possible let alone likely.

I think we disagree about this. I stand by Ulrich's time of 24 months/child during one's fertile years. We also disagree about the average period of breastfeeding that was common in the western world prior to weaning.

I suppose the way to break it down, it to examine birth rates on a global basis. I think we will find that in industrialized countries, the average birth rate is about 2 births/ couple. Whereas in the 2nd and 3rd world, the birth rate is much higher - at about 6-9 children per couple.

Goodness, I can think of friends in Mexico City who have 11 children. And that couple did not marry until after college. It's just not that uncommon to have that many kids.

And relative to the natural historical reality, it’s pretty darn close to being right in line.

If you are talking about an average of 3 births per healthy family, I very much disagree with the historical accuracy of that statement. (Unless the couple married at a late age.)

However, if these families are having 7-12 children, then I do believe they are "walking the talk" and open to procreation.

Time and attention are needed, and those are very limited resources regardless of the culture in which we live.

Yes, of course. But all resources are limited, and in comparison to our ancesters in the Colonial Era, we are very wealthy, indeed.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 5:28 pm | #

Questionable, given the fact that time for our oil-dependent econommy is running out.

Oh no, we are wealthier then their wildest dreams. They only had a open fire place to keep them warm and cook their food.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 5:30 pm | #

Our living standard is far, far beyond that of our ancestors in the Colonial and even in the 19th century.
For now.

And we have the resources to feed and shelter them in a healthy way.
For now.
It is questionable if this can be maintained in the near future.
T. Chan | 04.19.06 - 5:49 pm | #

SteveG - Thanks. I'm still not convinced that separating the two kinds of acts is legitimate, but I will think on this further.

Dawn - Do these comments threads get lost in cyberspace after awhile? I'd like to refer back to this over the next couple of months.
Sophie | 04.19.06 - 5:50 pm | #

I lost a comment :( Here it is again:

Steve,

Please see Mexico's total fertility rate in the 20th century as an example. Mexico had a total fertility rate of 7.3 until 1962:

"My father came from a family of 11 children. I came from a family of four children," said Luis' mother, María Elena Cervantes. "Me, I'm having two. That's it."...Mexican women each had an average of 7.3 children in 1962, but the number has been steadily dropping since then. It fell 27 percent in the past decade."

Excerpted from a story on the web by Chris Hawaley, "Smaller Famiies Evidence of Cultural Shift in Mexico" in The Arizona Republic, April 4, 2006.

I see families of 10-12 children all the time in my primary resources. It's shocking in the Colonial Era to see a family of 4 or less kids. You don't see much of that until the 19th century.

The US lowered its birth rate in the 19th century. Since 1962 Mexico's population is doing exactly what the US population did in the 19th century.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 5:56 pm | #

My italics are out of control. Sorry about that. I don't know what the problem is.
geoduck2 | 04.19.06 - 5:57 pm | #

Great to see commenters having such a good and serious discussion.

Sophie, you write: "Dawn - Do these comments threads get lost in cyberspace after awhile? I'd like to refer back to this over the next couple of months."

They do disappear after a certain amount of time; I don't know how long. (HaloScan handles that end.) You might want to copy and paste them into a Word file so you can save them.

Geoduck, to end italics, you have to do the same command you do to start them, but put a / before the i. So instead of [i] (with carets instead of brackets), you have [/i]. If I show you with carets, it won't show up.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 04.19.06 - 6:07 pm | #

SteveG - breastfeeding longer will tend to increase the average span between births - but only the average. There are plenty of women whose fertility rebound even with full breastfeeding.

Our second son was conceived while his older brother was still primarily breastfed, and he's far from the only child I know in that position. Whether it's genetics or environment, it's real. And it's a problem for NFP because the regular menses have often not been re-established.

The discussion in general is very interesting - I just wanted to make that point clear. There are those who even with long-term breast-feeding would be having children 1 to 2 years apart did we not take steps against it.
Cynthia Wood | Homepage | 04.20.06 - 10:47 am | #

I just cut and pasted this thread of comments, and it took over 100 pages in Word!
Sophie | 04.20.06 - 11:04 am | #

Breastfeeding is not at all reliable in preventing pregnancy unless it is on-demand and exclusive, and even then a woman who for whatever reason must not get pregnant would be unwise to rely on it. Breastfeeding while pregnant can also be exceedingly hard on the woman's body, due to the double drain on her resources. Women who went in for extended breastfeeding (and the upper classes historically would use wetnurses, both to avoid the considerable inconvenience of nursing and to prevent the fertility-depressing effect of nursing) would often avoid sex for exactly that reason.
It seems to me that focusing on surviving children, rather than pregnancies, tends to underestimate the bodily strain on the woman who had to go through pregnancy after pregnancy without even knowing if she'd have a living child at the end.
Ledasmom | 04.20.06 - 11:45 am | #

SteveG - breastfeeding longer will tend to increase the average span between births - but only the average. There are plenty of women whose fertility rebound even with full breastfeeding.

It’s not simply breastfeeding that extends the infertile period, but a specific type of breastfeeding that largely mirrors what I can best describe as ‘natural’ mothering. The term commonly used is ecological breastfeeding and is outlined in principle here…

Ecological Breastfeeding

Even in a modern society such as America, where solids are introduced and encouraged far earlier than ever before, the average period of infertility for women doing this type of breastfeeding is something like 14 months, and 2 years is not at all uncommon.

‘Full breast-feeding’ may or may not be in line with this depending on your definition of that term, but typically, what most people commonly mean by ‘full’ does not meet the requirements that produce the infertility. In particular, one of the most crucial elements is night time nursing, when the hormones that suppress ovulation are most prevalent. Since most families in Western society do not co-sleep, few even women even deeply committed to breastfeeding are going to get the benefit of this natural suppression of fertility.

Our second son was conceived while his older brother was still primarily breastfed, and he's far from the only child I know in that position. Whether it's genetics or environment, it's real. And it's a problem for NFP because the regular menses have often not been re-established.

We’ve been through such a period like that (it lasted nearly a year) where lack of regular menses made charting extremely difficult. It was indeed a very challenging period, and frankly included far more abstinence than I cared for. But it is not an insurmountable obstacle.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.20.06 - 12:37 pm | #

Darn! I always seem to have problems with links in haloscan. The link above is bad (referes back to these comments). Here is the url...

http://ccli.org/nfp/ebf/summary.php
SteveG | Homepage | 04.20.06 - 12:38 pm | #

Breastfeeding is not at all reliable in preventing pregnancy unless it is on-demand and exclusive, and even then a woman who for whatever reason must not get pregnant would be unwise to rely on it.

I wasn’t trying to ‘sell’ that particular item as ‘reliable’ as such. It came up as part of a discussion on the natural family size and the role that this had in naturally spacing children. You are correct that it must be on demand and exclusive to be effective, but even at that, as Cynthia noted, and I admitted, that it sometimes comes with it’s own set of challenges.

All that said, generally speaking, on average, it does indeed suppress fertility if done within certain parameters. After my first, we had a full 20 months of infertility. After my second, we had 14 months. Since our newborn is only 2 months old, can’t say what we’ll see in that regard. ;-)

I realize that individual results may vary, and that if you REALLY want to prevent getting pregnant, you are strictly speaking correct that this isn’t ‘reliable’ in the long term, but I just wanted to illustrate that the suppression of fertility is real.

It seems to me that focusing on surviving children, rather than pregnancies, tends to underestimate the bodily strain on the woman who had to go through pregnancy after pregnancy without even knowing if she'd have a living child at the end.

I am not focusing on living children out of lack of sympathy for the plight of women in that circumstance. Again, please take my comments in the context offered. The discussion, in my eyes anyway, was about the ‘natural’ size of most families and my trying to push back against the notion that since NFP users don’t have 12 to 15 children, we somehow aren’t walking the talk.
SteveG | Homepage | 04.20.06 - 12:46 pm | #

The way it was meant to be? The way it was meant to be is that mammals are supposed ot find each other, be attracted to each other, and create offspring. I don't see Zebras or pigs waiting to get married.

I'm not trying to knock your faith, but population control through religion has been a hallmark of human civilization (sacrificing virgins for some, polygamy for others). while I admire your adherence to your faith, I do in a way feel bad for not allowing yourself to enjoy the fruits of life, in the way which nature intended. and to let religious beliefs subvert your own free will is in my mind the single worst thing you can do to your soul. just my $.02. Stay true to your beliefs, if they make you strong and bring your fulfillment, cause I can't argue with that.
Wooderson | 04.20.06 - 2:43 pm | #

It's been said that "if God does not exist, everything is permitted." Some of your interlocutors at Feministe appear to be acting that out. Haters and non-believers make the case for the Faith simply by their own lack of restraint and civil discourse.
TSO | Homepage | 05.02.06 - 1:58 pm | #

Dawn, I very much enjoyed reading your interview in Salon. Something struck me though. I wonder if perhaps you are placing undue meaning in 2 things that happened simultaneously in your life - your decision to become chaste and your getting older.

When I was in my teens through my early 20s, I loved having friends that had the same interests as I did. Now in my 30s, I find that my natural instinct is to weed out those friends with whom I don't share anything other than those interests, and I kept the friends with whom I shared similar values and outlooks on life. And just for the record, some of those friends I have chosen to keep are friends who started out as "interests" friends.

Nothing momentous happened in my life to make me arrive at this decision; it was a more organic, natural progression into maturity.

So while I agree with you that as we get older it is more important to have deep and abiding friendships based on shared values, why do they have to be the values that YOU say we should have? Why can't it be the values that are important to me?

I find that the people whom I consider life-long, take-a-bullet-for friends are people who have similar foundations on which they build their lives - their families are important to them, they are passionate about their political beliefs, they laugh easily, they love deeply, and they show a natural respect for the world around them. Things like their musical tastes or their favorite movies no longer matter to me.

But, within this amazing group of people I have chosen to surround myself, they are diverse in so many ways - single men and women, married couples with children, engaged couples, gay, straight, from different countries and cultures and different races, from every corner of the political arena.

And I don't like the fact that I felt, after reading your interview, that my fulfilling and enjoyable life should be rendered invalid because I am having pre-marital sex.
Christine | 12.29.06 - 9:12 am | #