Theology in the Bedroom: Love, Sex & Fertility - Talk 7

By Jack Chui

Sexual Honesty

Most of this talk centered around explaining why the Church holds a stand on controversial topics related to sex. These are topics like:

• Contraception
• Pre-marital sex
• Homosexual acts
• Pornography
• Masturbation
• In vitro fertilisation

Not all of these were answered, but left as a thought question post the talk. The way to answer these moral questions is to answer the following - Is this an authentic sign of God's free, total, faithful, fruitful love or is it not? Each of the above should fail in at least one of those four criteria. We are only bitter towards the law when we desire break it...

Contraception was particularly focused on because I think a lot of Catholics struggle with this one. Contraception was not intended to prevent pregnancy - there was always a 100% reliable way of doing that - to abstain. So it was invented so that we wouldn't have to abstain. Unfortunately, it promotes a society that does't have to say yes to abstaining - it promotes sexual addiction so that men and women can indulge in lust. Not free...

Contraceptive sex denies the total gift of self because it gives all of the body EXCEPT my fertility. Fertility is the original blessing of God on humanity

Contraception is also not faithful because it violates the marriage vows of being open to new life/children.

Sex should be both life-giving and love-giving - we should not divorce the two.

Responsible Parenthood

its a myth that the Church teaches that couples are obligated to have as many children as is physically possible. The Church calls couples to a responsible exercise of parenthood. That is - "to prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being".

There are two accepted forms of 'contraception' in the Church - abstinence and Natural Family Planning (NFP). NFP is acceptable because it is in keeping with the nature of sexual intercourse as a renewal of the couples wedding vows. Never does a couple using NFP do anything to sterilise their acts of intercourse. If pregnancy does not result from their acts of intercourse, it's God's doing, not their doing. Every time such a couple have intercourse they can honestly pray, "Lord, your will be done."

Some random notes on Marriage

Simply getting married doesn't automatically guarantee sexual honesty. Sexual sin is a dodging of the cross - because true love hurts too much. The first step to a healthy marriage is faithfulness - how healthy would a marriage be if s/he were unfaithful to their wedding vows? Sex is like a renewal of the marriage vows expressed bodily.

The marriage or love vows is actually a forging of God's love rather than our own, because its impossible to love by ourselves all the days of our lives. We are called to participate in this love - stay close and 'convert' into it --- towards God's love. This is an ongoing daily conversion.

Children are not a right, they are a gift. The child is a sacramental expression of 'one flesh' of marriage - the child is the flesh! Spousal love prepares us for parental love. We need to continue spousal love when having children - I can be a better father by being a better husband to my wife.