New Research Suggests Porn is NOT an Addiction. It is a Compulsion. Here’s Why That Matters.

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New research puts another nail in the coffin of the idea that pornography is an addiction.  First the study, then I’ll explain why this matters for treating problem sexual behaviors and why it’s GOOD news for sufferers.  According to ScienceDirect.com…

A new study published in Biological Psychology provides provocative evidence in favor of dropping the addiction label because what’s going on inside the brains of so-called porn “addicts” is nothing like what you would expect from someone who has an addiction.

In this study, researchers recruited 122 heterosexual men and women who reported “problems regulating their viewing of sexual images.” These participants came to a lab where they viewed a series of images (some sexual, some non-sexual) while an electroencephalograph (EEG) measured their brain waves.

The researchers focused on one specific brain activity pattern, the late positive potential (LPP), which reveals the extent to which a stimulus evokes an emotional response. LPP is a frequently used measure in neuroscience studies of emotion.

Previous studies of drug addicts have found that, when shown images of their drug of choice, their LPP levels spike—that is, they show a strong emotional response to images of the drug.

To the extent that pornography is addictive, one would expect a similar finding when a so-called porn addict is shown sexually explicit imagery; however, that’s not what was found in this study. Instead, what researchers found was the reverse—that is, these individuals showed decreased LPP levels when viewing sexual images compared to non-sexual images.

As noted by the study’s lead author, Dr. Nicole Prause, in a press release: “While we do not doubt that some people struggle with their sexual behaviors, these data show that the nature of the problem is unlikely to be addictive.”  In light of such findings, it would seem advisable to drop the “addiction” label when talking about people who are having issues regulating their porn use because it does not appear to be accurate.   

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Saying that pornography is not addictive does NOT mean it is not problematic.  We know that it is–unquestionably.  BUT if the urge to view pornography is an addiction then that means that one can never hope to fully recover from the urge to view pornography and/or masturbate.  As the saying goes, “Once and addict, always an addict.”   Although some people are helped by recovery programs that follow an addiction model, many other people are demoralized by the idea that they might never be free of the struggle.  This idea causes many to give up treatment or never try in the first place.  “After all, if I’m never going to be free, why start in the first place.”

This might seem like a cop-out on the surface, after all, plenty of people have drug and alcohol addictions and they seek help.  But the difference is that with drugs or alcohol, you can learn to avoid the chemicals that drive the addiction.  But if pornography is actually an addiction, you always carry the chemicals that cause the addiction inside of you. You can never really be sure when they might strike again.  An alcoholic can tell himself, “I can be OK as long as I don’t take the first drink.”  but while a “porn addict” can avoid pornography, they can’t avoid feeling physically attracted to someone.  If they’re married, they can’t avoid sex.  They can’t avoid every image on TV or in the movies the might provoke arousal.  Can you imagine the kind of pressure this approach can put on a client and why so many people despair of ever recovering when they are treated using an addiction model?   No matter how many controls you put on your computer, no matter how accountable you make yourself to a partner, you can ever be scrupulous enough to get away from every imaginable trigger.

GOOD NEWS

The mounting research suggests that rather than an addiction, it might be truer to call porn and problem sexual behavior “compulsions.”  To say that the urge to view pornography is more like a compulsion than an addiction means that it can be treated like many other impulse control problems such as, anger control problems.  The treatment for compulsions involves helping clients learn mindfulness-based techniques that empower them to avoid triggers when possible, recognize urges early, identify the problem driving the urge and address the real, underlying concern.  There is good reason to believe that this approach actually heals the damage compulsions can cause in the brain and enable clients to experience healthy arousal without triggering a compulsive response. Many clients who learn this approach report that they can become free from the urge to view pornography or engage in other problem sexual behaviors altogether AND go on to have healthier and more intimate marriages post-treatment.

Through the Pastoral Solutions Institute tele-counseling practice we successfully treat problem sexual behaviors such as compulsive pornography use using this compulsion model of treatment.  We also encourage our clients to use a wonderful support program called ReclaimSexualHealth.com which created a coaching program to support clients going through therapy for this issue.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The bottom line is that if you or someone you love is struggling with problem sexual behavior, there is hope.  There is healing.  There is a way through.  And if you need assistance, we are here to help.

Dr. Strangelove (OR) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Natural Family Planning. (Part III in a Series)

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Strangelove

This is the third post in my series titled, The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Burden of Natural Family Planning which attempts to propose some practical and sensitive avenues for addressing the struggles many couples have with NFP.  Click the links for Part One and Part Two.

It isn’t unusual in NFP circles to run into faithful, devout, well-intentioned people who use NFP but live in a constant state of fear about it.  Sometimes they are concerned about the method for health reasons (e.g., hormonal issues, complicated cycles, PCOS), sometimes for mental health reasons (depression, anxiety or OCD), and sometimes it’s just because they don’t really trust the method or don’t trust their ability to read their fertility signs.

Fear and Loathing in NFP-Land

This anxiety can exact a huge cost both for the person’s sense of well-being and the marital relationship.  Because some couples are nervous about the method not working or “getting it wrong” (especially when they are dealing with serious health issues that make conception inadvisable) these couples often feel an incredible burden that causes them to not only use the most conservative rules for determining infertility, but add a few days on either side “just to be safe.”  This can lead to extra long periods of abstinence, increased marital tension, and a great deal of self-doubt and resentment toward the Church for burdening them with the cross of NFP.  In fact, it isn’t unusual to hear women who feel this way wishing for a medical issue that would require them to have a hysterectomy just so that they could stop having to worry about all of this all the time.

Fear:  Not Part of the Method.

NFP isn’t a cake-walk for anyone.  Sure, there are lots of blessings that can come from practicing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Likewise, for couples who are new to the method, it is natural to feel a little nervous while you’re learning to trust yourself to really know and understand your signs.  That said,  long term anxiety and resentment over the method is always sign that something is not right and the good news is that it is usually the kind of issue that can be corrected with the right kind of information and help.

Let’s Not Blame the Victim

Now, before I go on, let me make one thing abundantly clear.  I’m not blaming the victim.  I’m not saying that if, in your practice of NFP, you don’t experience the kind of joy that makes you want to break out in song at the site of a thermometer and a ream of graph paper then there is something wrong with you.  What I am saying is that if fear and resentment were an unavoidable part of NFP, especially for couples with health or mental health issues, relationship struggles or other concerns, then all couples who wrestled with these issues would be equally miserable.  The good news is that they are not.  There are, in fact, couples who struggle with health problems, mental health concerns, relationship challenges, and other problems who find NFP to be, at worst, a little inconvenient, and at best, a genuine help to them.  “So what?”  You might say.  “That’s not me.”    I get that.  But again, here’s the good news.

Research on the psychology of happiness shows us that the best way to find a way out of a problem is to look at people who are going through similar things as myself but who, somehow, are managing to be happy–or at least effective–despite their circumstances and ask, “What are they doing differently and how can I learn to do that too?”   One of Satan’s greatest lies is that our suffering is so unique that there is no one who can understand or help us through our own struggles.  Being humble enough to recognize that we can learn something useful from people who are going through similar things as us, but somehow bearing up better than we are can be a real source of hope, strength, growth.  The following represent some of the ways couples who struggle with NFP but do not become oppressed by it deal with their challenges.  Try to read the following with an open heart and ask yourself how you might begin to take advantage of some of the supports that follow.

1.  Get Ongoing NFP Training and Support.

Even if you think you know everything there is to know about NFP, having well-trained people you can turn to for ongoing support, additional training, or who could even just serve as a sounding board can be tremendously helpful even when you feel like there is nothing else that can be done.  The more you can say you feel oppressed by the practice of NFP, or nervous about it, or feel that your circumstances are uniquely difficult, the more you need to be getting regular consultation and support in practicing NFP effectively and gracefully in your life.  Likewise, don’t feel that you have to be wedded to one person or even one method for support.  One client I worked with became such good friends with her NFP coach that she didn’t want to “disappoint” her friend by seeking help elsewhere even though she didn’t feel that her present level of support was really helping.  The only thing that matters is getting the support, training, and counsel you need, wherever and however you need it.

The truth is, different methods evaluate slightly different signs and slightly different constellations of signs, and they evaluate them using different techniques and tools.  If one style of NFP doesn’t fit your lifestyle, investigate other options.  The more methods you know, the more ways of gathering information you have, the more competent you can be at interpreting your unique fertility signs.

2.  Seek Faithful Medical Support

If you have a health concern that is making the practice of NFP more difficult for you, it can be helpful to seek counsel from a Catholic physician whose practice is consistent with the teachings of the Church.  I am not suggesting that you need to make a radical change in your treatment or even change the primary physicians consulting on your case.  Rather, it might be good to get support from a Catholic physician who can offer you advice on medical approaches that are both consistent with your faith journey and how you might be able to manage your health problems in ways that make practicing NFP easier.  Two good sources for these referrals would be the Catholic Medical Association and the Pope Paul VI Institute.

3.  Seek Faithful Counseling Support

Perhaps you feel that your mental health and your marriage are just fine and you don’t have a particular problem that you need to address in counseling.  That may be true, but counseling isn’t just about solving problems.  It is also about developing strengths.  When a person, or couple, is going through a particularly trying time, it can be helpful to work with a professional therapist who can help you discover how to approach the challenges you are facing in a manner that brings out the best in you.  There is a wide body of research showing that even in the absence of mental health or relationship problems, when a person who is struggling with an unusual stressor seeks professional help, they function better through the difficulty and experience more rapid relief from the difficulty they are encountering.  Of course, if you are dealing with a mental health or relationship issue then all the more reason to seek competent, faithful help early and stick with it until you feel like you have gotten to a better place with both  your practice of NFP and the co-occurring issues.  You can find good resources for faithful counseling at www.CatholicTherapists.com  (a national referrals source) or through our Catholic Tele-Counseling Practice at the Pastoral Solutions Institute.

4.  Seek Prayer Support

Getting good spiritual direction, or at least ongoing prayer support, is essential for remaining faithful under pressure and beating back the dark thoughts that make our attempts to remain faithful more difficult than they ought to be.  Satan does not want God’s people to be faithful.  If we must be faithful, then Satan would prefer we become those “querulous sourpusses” that Pope Francis decried in the Joy of the Gospel.  Getting good spiritual support–whether from a spiritual director, a prayer group, or even your spouse, or a spiritually-mature friend or relation– is essential for preventing this bitter root from growing in you (Heb 12:15).

5.  Avoid All-or-Nothing Thinking

When you are in the grip of fear, resentment, or other strong, emotional reactions, it is easy to fall prey to all-or-nothing thinking that says, “Unless I can see how doing this (whatever ‘this’ may be) can resolve my problems, there is no point doing anything.”

When we are in the middle of a struggle it can be difficult to know what is going to work.  That’s why it’s important to take our cue, not from our feelings, but from what people who are handling things better than we happen to be are doing.  Again, we need to stop thinking our pain is so terrifically unique that the things that help others couldn’t possibly help us.  If you are going through difficulties with NFP and you are not seeking one or more of the forms of support I have outlined in this article, then you simply aren’t getting the help you need.

Again, the truth is, despite the many blessings it affords,  NFP can be a challenge under the best of circumstances. If you are feeling oppressed by the practice of NFP, then that is a sign you need more support, training and guidance, not because you are necessarily doing anything wrong, but so that you can learn to rise to the unique challenges in your life that are making NFP more difficult than it needs to be.  To get more support working through the ways Natural Family Planning might be negatively impacting YOUR marriage, check out my books, When Divorce is NOT An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love  and Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute  to learn about our Catholic Tele-counseling practice.

 

The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Burden of Natural Family Planning (Part 2): Dealing with Frustration Continued

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Before you read this, I hope you’ll take a moment to read Part 1 in this series. The challenge of sexual frustration in NFP is a serious problem that deserves serious answers. Take a moment to read my original post that lays the groundwork for what follows.  I’ll wait.

Read it?  Great.   Let’s continue.

Oh, in that last piece I said I’d deal with medical concerns and extended fertility etc in Part II.  I see now that’s going to have to be Part III.  That’s written already, but I’ll post it tomorrow.  Thanks.

OK.  Down to business.  Let me start by sharing something about myself.  (And I promise to get back to NFP in a minute. Hang in there with me please.)

I Hate Exercise.

I hate exercise.  I mean I really, irrationally, HATE exercise.  It makes me feel awful.  I don’t enjoy it AT ALL.

Don’t get wrong.  I like activities–dancing, chopping wood, hiking–but I don’t get too many opportunities to do those things.  What I have the opportunity to do is push-ups and crunches and weight lifting and treadmills and cardio and all the things I ABSOLUTELY HATE with the burning passion of a 1000 suns.

Worst of all, these  gym-type exercises tends to leave me haunted by the ghost of gym classes past, where I was repeatedly and mercilessly humiliated by my classmates and even teachers for not getting the rules for particular games, or not being able to keep up with the other kids in class, or being picked absolutely dead last for every game we ever played.

I recall the shame I would feel when my GPA would suffer, despite perfect grades in every other class, when I got a D in gym because I couldn’t climb as high on the rope or run or swim fast enough.  Even more than not getting the point or the rules of most sports and dealing with the academic consequences of my phys ed failures, I had to put up with being honestly hated, teased, and shunned by the kids in my class for not having one iota of athletic skill or interest.  Even now, when I exercise, I hear those kids voices making fun of me. It’s like reliving it over and over again.  I feel ashamed.  I feel defeated before I start.   I carry a lot of emotional baggage around this issue.

But Greg, I LOVE Exercise!

I often hear people talk about how WONDERFUL exercise is. How much ENERGY it gives them.  How GOOD it makes them feel.  I can honestly say that I have never once had this experience in my life.  Not once.  I can’t even understand it. In fact, I really really want to hate these people.  I know that’s wrong.  But that’s what my default reaction would be.  Fortunately, I can’t allow myself to go there.

You see,  my oldest daughter, who is a dancer and competitive figure skater gets it. She LOVES exercise.  Always has.  Everything exercise is supposed to do for people, it does for her.   She really is inspiring to me. I can admire her.  I can be mystified by the things she can do with her body and her stamina and physical discipline, but I can’t really personally get where that kind of talent comes from.  I don’t have it.

Getting Over Myself

Like I said, it would be easy for me to resent people who liked exercising.  To think of them as narcissistic, body-worshiping jerks, or dumb jocks, or emotionally-crippled lunkheads who think with their muscles instead of the hearts or head.  But that would be wrong because it is completely untrue.

People who like exercise–as my oldest daughter illustrates to me–are just wonderful people who have different talents than I have.  In fact, I can learn a lot from them if I let myself.  Because of my oldest daughter’s example and because of my own wish for continued good health as I get older, I have been working hard to overcome all the emotional and physical obstacles that stand between me and exercise.  I am better for the struggle.  I am learning to quiet–if not silence–those inner voices.  I am learning to–dare I say it–kind of, sort-of, enjoy some kinds of exercising.   I am finding that I  am more coordinated than I thought I was, and stronger, and more physical in some ways.  I am discovering things about myself I didn’t know were in me.  I couldn’t learn those things about myself when kids and teachers were shaming me.  Or when I was just keeping aloof and being resentful about what exercise did to me and how bad it made me feel. But in the loving environment of my family, where it is safe, I am learning to love this part of myself that I was taught to hate.  Even though I have a long way to go, I am glad that I am finally learning.

What I DO Love…

As much as I hate exercise, I really do like sex.  I love the intimacy of it.  I love how it makes me feel. I find that it is wonderful on every level.  I would love to make love all the time.  But see, here’s the thing.  That’s not real life. Sometimes you actually have to do other things. Even after you’re married.  The house needs to be cleaned and things need to be done, and kids need to be raised and money needs to be made and sick spouses  and children need to be cared for, and sometimes sleep actually does need to happen.

And herein lies the problem.  If I love sex more than I love taking care of my wife, or my kids, or the gifts God has given me to exercise good stewardship over, then I have a problem.  If my desire for sex makes me pouting, or angry, or irritable, then I have a problem.  Namely, if I love sex so much that it makes me resentful toward my spouse that I can’t get it as often as I want, the way I want exactly when I want, then I love sex more than I love my wife–and vice versa for her. That makes sex something less than love. It means I am tempted to see my wife, and for her to see me, as a means to an end.  It means that I am being tempted to see my marriage as the post upon which I can legitimately scratch my sexual itch and while that’s OK (even Augustine said so, claiming that marriage was a legitimate mechanism for dealing with sexual concupiscence) to SETTLE for that is to settle for less than God intended sex to be.

God Wants to Give You More.

God wants lovemaking to be more than scratching an itch.  He wants it to be something that serves as a physical reminder of his love for me and my wife.  It is meant to help us want to love each other better, not just in the bedroom, but across every dimension of our lives together.  It is meant to help us see all the parts of ourselves and our relationship as a whole and not just think that we can treat each other, ourselves, and our relationship either poorly or with benign neglect–as long as we get to have sex.

Real Love = Real Work

But learning to love each other this way takes work. It is hard.  Sometimes, we have to overcome those feelings of frustration.  We have to overcome the fear that putting off sex tonight means never being loved the way we want to.  We have to overcome the voices in our heads that say we aren’t lovable, or aren’t desirable, or a million other things that make us feel like not having sex right now is the absolute most horrible thing ever.  I’m not making fun.  I totally get this feeling.  I have been there, but NFP has helped me work through all that and more.

NFP isn’t easy just like exercise isn’t easy.  But even though NFP isn’t easy, just like exercise, it is good.  It is a tool that develops my capacity to be the selflessly loving man that I want to be.  That does not come easily to me.  In fact, I would be hard pressed to say there is another tool that has forced me to grow as much as NFP has over the years.  I am a better man–and my wife is a better woman–because of it.  We don’t “enjoy” NFP any more than I can say that I enjoy exercise.  But because we have been diligent about living it out, we see all the fruit that it has borne in our lives and relationship.

NFP does not have magical powers to make couples lovey-dovey marriage masters automatically.  But it does force couples to do the work that they might otherwise never do if they didn’t make themselves learn to use the tool and use it well.

Understanding the Struggle 

I understand people who struggle with finding the good in NFP.  Honestly, on an emotional, superficial level, I find that there is little to like about NFP–just as I find that there is little to  like about exercise.  But in both cases, I understand that the fault in both cases really is me.  And that isn’t a condemnation.  That’s freedom.  I know that my problem with exercise or NFP is my problem.  The answer isn’t to try to convince the CDC and the AMA to condemn exercise because, dammit, it brings up so much baggage for me.  The answer is for me to cooperate with God’s grace so that I can be delivered from all the shame and the pain and so that I can learn to really love this body he gave me–finally.

NFP, You Make Me Want to Be a Better Man

Similarly, yelling at the Church for making me do NFP because of all my sexual frustration totally misses the point.  I mean, I GET it, but that still doesn’t mean it makes any sense.  I need NFP exactly because of my capacity for letting sexual frustration block out everything else that’s good in my life and relationship. I may not love NFP,  but I am grateful to it because it makes me work to be a better man–and my wife to be a better woman.  I am grateful that we have been going through it together for 26 years and that the struggle has helped us celebrate an uncommonly deep, intimate and joyful love.  Looking back, I am more and more convinced that our growth is not in spite of NFP but because of it.  In the early years of our life together,  I had to take the Church’s teaching on faith.  It wasn’t easy.  In fact,  it would have been easy at many, many times over our 26 years together so far to chuck NFP altogether because it is hard.  And it IS hard. But it also IS good.

All I can say is that no one in their right mind expects you to jump up and down with unabashed glee that you “get” to do NFP (Oh Goody!) any more than someone would look forward to exercising. Except that, weirdly enough, some people do naturally look forward to exercising.  And the more you do it the more you begin to find that you can enjoy it yourself.

NFP Doesn’t Want You To Love IT.

Maybe we can never learn to  love NFP.  But maybe that’s not the point.  Maybe, if we can embrace the cross that comes with it, we can learn the real point of NFP, which is that NFP doesn’t exist so we can love it for its own sake.  Rather it exists so that we can learn to love our spouse for his or her own sake, and not for what we can get out of them.

If we can do that, then we can finally start to receive the gift that the Church is trying to give couples through NFP.  A truly authentic, honest and real experience of love without use.  To learn more about creating a  genuine, joyful, passionate and sacred sexuality in your marriage, check out Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide To Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

 

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Burden of Natural Family Planning–PART 1.

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Image shutterstock.

Apparently all the 4th of July fireworks got a lot of couples thinking about the fireworks that weren’t happening in their bedrooms.  It’s usually difficult to ever find anyone writing anything about Natural Family Planning.  This week brings two different posts on the challenges of using NFP.  America Magazine has an article about the struggles various couples have with the method due to everything from medical complications to failure of the method to struggles with periodic abstinence and the sexual frustration that this abstinence often entails.

Likewise, Melinda Selmys,  has been musing on the challenges of NFP.  She–and the comments to her post–point to some real challenges that couples experience with the method.  In fact, she cheekily concludes that it is not a coincidence that about 1-2% of the population are asexual–that is, have no interest of sex with anyone of any kind–and only 1-2% of Catholics use NFP.  The implication being that the only people who are really happy about having to do NFP are the ones who really don’t give a fig about sex anyway and would like a pious reason for avoiding it. Relax.  She’s only kidding.  Sort of.

At any rate, the upshot of both pieces is that NFP is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad burden on couples and the best we can do is do it grudgingly, if at all.

Serious Questions Require a Serious Response

Because these are such huge issues, I’m going to do at least two posts on the concerns raised by the authors of the articles I mentioned above.  That said, blog posts  can’t possibly address these serious concerns as thoroughly as they need to be addressed.  I do, however, respond to all of these concerns listed above and more importantly, offer real-life, practical solutions in my book, Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind Blowing, Toe-Curling, Infallible Loving.  If you’re looking for practical answers to the challenges you facing with trying to integrate your faith with your sexual life, I really encourage you to take a look.  I think you’ll find real help there.

In this post, I’ll take a look at the issue of sexual frustration.  In my next post, I’ll respond to the other challenges identified by the above writers.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.

A lot of people have the idea that NFP is supposed to be the cause of the kind of joy usually reserved for deodorant commercials.  That is, because a couple is doing NFP, they are supposed to automatically be dancing in a sunny field while smiling manically at each other as an unseen symphony orchestra plays Copland’s Hoe-Down (the song from that American Beef Council commercial).

I would like to suggest that this understanding is, um, tragically mistaken.

Harvesting the Fruit

NFP can produce a lot of good fruit–both personally and maritally–for the couples who use it but it isn’t automatic.  Couples need to be taught how to cultivate, nurture and harvest that fruit and most simply aren’t.  The problem is that because so many people in the Church would like to see NFP just go away and so few Catholics actually use it, most NFP program’s resources need to be invested in fighting off attacks and convincing people to give it a try.  They just don’t have the support they need to do the job they would really rather be doing; that is, supporting couples in learning how to use NFP well.  Even within the Church, NFP programs are like MASH units stuck on the front lines of the battle against the Culture of Death.  they can do as much as they can with what they have, but they can’t do the job they’d like to be doing–the job they should be doing–because they are constantly being shot at and bombed from every direction.   That is a tragedy but it is also the very real and human cost of dissent.  The harder people protest NFP, the more energy NFP programs have to spend fighting for and justifying their existence in the first place.  Likewise, the fewer resources they can afford to spend supporting couples and improving the method.  Even so, the good news is that there are real answers to these common concerns.

Dealing with Frustration

Let’s look at the objection that  NFP doesn’t work because some men—and women—find it “too frustrating.”   It would be easy to belittle such comments but it would be wrong to do so.  The struggle with our fallen selves is a serious matter, and there is real pain involved.  Sexual frustration can be the source of great tension in a marriage and unless a couple understands it and knows what to do with it, the person’s mental health and marriage will suffer.

As I indicated above, this is a big question with a lot of different dimension.  To make things more manageable, let’s focus our blog discussion on the relationship between sexual frustration and NFP.  In Love and Responsibility as well as the Theology of the Body, St. John Paul II teaches that sexual attraction serves both as a reminder that we were not created to be alone and as a call to remember that we are always to work for the good of the other.  In other words, as long as our sexual energy and urges inspire us to draw closer to our mate and keep our mate’s best interest in mind simultaneously, then those urges are good and godly.  By contrast, if our urges cause us to be primarily concerned with getting what I “need” from my spouse no matter what, then that urge is disordered, fallen, and ungodly.  Left unchecked, that urge can ultimately destroy my marriage and my soul.

NFP–What’s the Point?

As I am fond of reminding people, NFP is not, in my view, primarily a means of spacing children.  It is, in my view, primarily a spiritual exercise that allows couples to accomplish 3 ends; (a) to facilitate the communication and prayer life of the couple (b) to help the couple prayerfully discern their family size and, on an ongoing basis, continue to both balance and expand all the virtues associated with the unity and procreativity of marriage and (c) help the couple achieve holiness, freedom, and true love  through self-mastery and self-control.

It is point (C) that I am most concerned with here.   All of us are fallen.  All of us struggle with the desire to use another for our own selfish ends.  For some, that struggle against selfishness is stronger than for others—but it is in all of us, and overcoming it is hard and sometimes painful.  The spiritual beauty of NFP is that it highlights that struggle and challenges us to overcome our tendencies toward selfishness in ways we might not otherwise be challenged.  When someone says that NFP “doesn’t work” for them because they get too sexually frustrated, I have to respond that, in fact,  NFP was made for them.  Why?  Because any sexual urge that—if unsatisfied—threatens to blot out all the other good things about the marriage is a disordered urge that will either destroy the person, the couple, or both.  Such an urge must be tamed.

Sex on the Brain.

Is this unrealistic?  No.  The sexual drive is part of neuroendocrine system, the same primitive brain system responsible for urges like hunger and anger.  What person in his right mind would argue that intense urges to rage at people indiscriminately or eat uncontrollably should be encouraged?  No one.  In fact, we praise people who have mastered these urges (not repressed–mind you–but rather, can consciously choose when to use them and when not to) as being, in some ways more human than those who have not mastered them.    Likewise, people who have mastered these urges—who are capable of eating or stopping as they choose or being angry or not as they choose—can be said to be more free than people who must eat any time the urge strikes or must rage any time their anger is pricked.

And here is the irony.  Although society makes a distinction between the sex drive and the anger and hunger drives, the brain does not.  Society praises the unfettered sex drive, while practically criminalizing people who are overweight.  But  the same region of the brain is responsible for all three urges.  Gaining mastery over our sex drive; that is, being able to consciously choose to use it only when it is ordered toward the good of the other person, makes us more human and more free than the person who must give into every impulse for sex “or else.”  Having to wrestle with this fallen nature is hard.  The process is painful but it is sanctifying, and that struggle is a necessary part of the daily life of anyone who takes his or her mental and spiritual health seriously.

How Do I Know I’m Doing it Right?

We need to recognize that any frustration we feel in the process of doing NFP is a sign that NFP is working.  If my muscles are sort after an intense exercise session–that is a sign that my exercise regimen is building muscle.  If I am fasting or dieting, the hunger I feel is a sign that what I am doing is working physically and spiritually.  Are any of these things “fun” in the common sense of the word?  Of course not!  But we do them because they bear great fruit.  They help us look and feel and be our best.

THE SAME IS TRUE FOR THE PAINS OF NFP.   When we feel those pains, we must learn to recognize them as the growing pains that accompany both our advancing spiritual maturity and our increasing capacity for true love (i.e., the ability to work for the good of the other even when doing so makes us uncomfortable).  In those times when the growing pains—the disordered sexual frustration—hurt the most, we must recognize that we are not feeling a sexual urge that must be satisfied, but a selfish urge that must be contained and transformed.  In response, we must draw closer to our mate, in conversation, prayer, work, and non-sexual affection, as a way of reclaiming the freedom that our fallen-ness has taken from us.  Is it always easy?  Absolutely not, and anyone who says otherwise is telling you a tale.  But it is worth it, because with the struggle comes an increased capacity to become the lover, the person, and the child of God each of us is being called to be.

When to Get Help

All that said, there are times when because of medical concerns, or ridiculously long periods of abstinence, or pregnancy despite cautious usage of the method, or other issues, that NFP really isn’t working for a couple. In those times, special assistance is going to be required. My next post will be on how to deal more effectively with those situations.  In the meantime, if you are struggling–or if you want to learn how to avoid many of the struggles common to most couples–check out Holy Sex!  A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.  It can start you down the path of experiencing the joyful, loving, passionate, soulful and faithful sexual relationship you were meant to have.

BE NOT AFRAID! Raising Faithful, Moral Kids in a World Gone Mad.

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I’ve been hearing from a lot of parents who, especially in the wake of SCOTUS decision on gay marriage have serious concerns about raising faithful, moral kids in the present culture.  It’s never been easy, but recent events take the challenge to parents to a whole new level.  How do we convey the Catholic vision of love and marriage to our kids in a world that defines these terms in completely different ways than we do?  How can we hope to compete?  In our weaker moments, I think it is possible for parents to fall prey to nightmare fantasies in which we are trying to raise our kids in some kind of post-apocalyptic, morally bereft,  Hunger Games world.

I have three words for you.  BE NOT AFRAID!!!

Be Not Afraid!!!

I don’t think it does any good at all to approach the culture with a spirit of fear. I regularly counsel parents–and we adopt this approach with our own kids–that “freaking out” about media, peer-pressure, social media, or the latest cultural trend is actually the best way to set our kids up to fall prey to the glamour of evil.  The more panicked we get, the more we send the message that our faith is weak, and unable to engage the world, much less stand up to it.  The more we live in fear, the more we set our kids up to become fascinated by the power of the thing we fear the most.

Reality Check

At worst, recent events compel Catholic parents to be willing to have more conversations we might rather not have with our kids–and to have those conversations earlier than we might otherwise prefer to. But with good information and a spirit of prayer neither we, nor our children, have anything to fear no matter what our background is or what challenges we face.   “Jenn-Henn” is a perfect example of what I am writing about.  At Only a Mere Woman Blog  Jenn writes bravely about her difficult upbringing and her struggles to make peace with her body, her femininity, and her sexuality.  Recently, she posted a review of Beyond the Birds and the Bees in which she spoke of how it not only helped her learn how to teach her kids to have a healthy sexuality, but it also is helping her heal her own woundedness.   She wrote…

For our second Book Club review, I have Beyond The Birds And The Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids by Greg and Lisa Popcak. I found it to be eye opening and a bit healing for me, due to my issues in regards to my own femininity, which will be the subject of my next post, if not more. The most striking thing for me is the idea that sexuality is more than one’s sexual orientation, who one is sexually attracted to; that it involves the whole being of a person as a representation of who they are at the core and informs their interactions with the world around them. The idea that sexuality has more to do with femininity and masculinity than what one does with one’s genitals is revolutionary to me. The idea that a person who follows all of the prescribed rules regarding chastity and modesty yet is ashamed of, say, their femininity actually has an unhealthy sexuality is mind boggling to me. Turns out I’ve been doing it very wrong. 

Anyway, for someone who doesn’t remember any sort of sex talk, and has been ashamed of herself and her body for so long, the advice was much welcome and needed. Giving examples of how parents can speak of the body and sex in respectful, matter of fact ways is extremely helpful. Showing how chastity and modesty are positives and not negative mandates is brilliant. But it really all boils down to teaching parents how to help their children grow up as well integrated people, people who know their worth and the worth of others, and are willing and able to do what it takes to preserve their dignity and that of other.  READ THE REST 

 

The Healing Truth

I’m grateful to Jenn for her willingness to share her own journey.  Her comments highlight the fact that wherever we come from, whatever our own struggles, and whatever obstacles the prevailing culture might want to through at us, we can heal and we can find the ways to give our children the things we wish we had been given.  We don’ t have to be afraid of anything the world can throw at us because we have the answers the world is seeking.  It simply up to us to discover and use the tools that will help us live what we teach and be a witness to the world of the positive, powerful Catholic difference at work! Now is not the time to hide from the culture. Now is the time to engage it with charity, courage and with our facts in order and to teach our children to do the same.

For more information on how you can raise faithful, moral kids in a world gone mad, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees: The Catholic Guide to Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids.  And don’t forget to pre-order your copy of our upcoming book, Discovering God Together:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids which looks at the latest research of what it takes to raise children who can live and celebrate their faith!

Something Fishy? Why is THIS Missing from Pope Francis’ Environmental Encyclical?

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I was not one of the many Catholics dreading the publication of Laudato Si.  I teach a college course on Catholic Social Teaching and stewardship of the environment is one of the major themes of this great and influential body of work.  As Catholics, we believe that when the Word of God became flesh, all of creation was raised to a new dignity in Christ.  Human beings do not own the world, we are merely stewards of it.  It is an established point of Catholic social doctrine that all of us have a grave moral duty to do what we can to leave this planet in better shape than we found it. As Pope Francis inspiringly notes, honoring God’s creation is  an important way that God’s people give praise to him.

Wanted:  Strong Catholic Voice

In light of this, I was genuinely looking forward to reading what Pope Francis had to say on this important issue.  In all the debate about environmental policy, strong Catholic moral leadership has been conspicuous by its absence.  In this regard, Pope Francis does not disappoint.  He does a wonderful job recognizing the common errors that many secular environmentalists make–from worshiping the earth as a deity to misguided efforts to “save” the planet through abortion and population control and many others–and makes many excellent, practical points about how people can promote an approach to environmental stewardship that improves the life of the planet while simultaneously improving the lot of the poor.

Something Fishy:  A Curious Absence

That said, as a frequent writer on issues related to sexuality, there was one thing I was seriously disappointed to not find in the document; namely, any reference to the serious problem of water pollution caused by the build-up of contraceptive hormones in the water supply resulting in health problems for both wildlife and, potentially, people.  This is not a small issue, nor is it a fringe “Catholic” issue.

For instance, in March of 2015, The Washington Post published an article titled, Fish Don’t Want Birth Control, but Scientists Say They Get it from Your Pill.  Here’s a snippet.

Your birth control pill is affecting more than just your body. Flushed down toilets, poured down sinks and excreted in urine, a chemical component in the pill wafts into sewage systems and ends up in various waterways where it collects in fairly heavy doses. That’s where fish soak it up.  A recent survey by the U.S. Geological Survey found that fish exposed to a synthetic hormone called 17a-ethinylestradiol, or EE2, produced offspring that struggled to fertilize eggs. The grandchildren of the originally exposed fish suffered a 30 percent decrease in their fertilization rate. The authors mulled the impact of what they discovered and decided it wasn’t good.

The WaPo article echoes many points raised in a 2012  article by the science portal LiveScience titled, Water Pollution Caused by Birth Control Poses Dilemma.  More frightening still, an article appearing around the same time in The Daily Mail cited similar problems in European waterways, and further suggested that artificial hormones in the water supply could be having a negative impact on human male sperm count–which has lowered, on average, by 25% in the last 20 years.

No Easy Answers

 The problem, of course, is that current approaches to water treatment cannot remove these chemicals from our drinking water leading many environmental experts to express potential concerns about human health risks to long term exposure.  Scientific American published a Q&A article that cautiously validated many of these concerns and discussed the challenges of removing artificial reproductive hormones from drinking water.

Additionally, there are no simple–or even affordable–solutions for how water treatment plants could rise to this challenge.  In fact, purifying the water supply of these chemicals could prove to be so expensive that Forbes Magazine ran an article in 2012 arguing that Women on Contraceptive Pill Should Pay $1500 a Year More Tax 

Missed Opportunity

When a pope releases a document, inevitably people in every corner pick it apart for how it did or did not treat their pet issue, and readers might well accuse me of doing exactly this, but I would argue that it is a serious missed opportunity for the Church that a Catholic document on the environment would fail to mention a serious environmental issue that the Church is uniquely–and almost singly–positioned to address.  Catholic social teaching is not a collection of random concepts.  It is a whole, a “seamless garment” if you will.  To have not included this insight–even in passing–about the negative impact artificial contraception is having on the environment is to have missed an important chance to emphasize the coherence of the Church’s moral theology as it applies to both personal and environmental morality.

None of this is, of course, to suggest that Pope Francis is soft on the Church’s stand on contraception.  In fact, he is on record as being a strong defender of the Church’s teachings on this issue and has even praised Pope Paul VI’s promulgation of Humanae Vitae as “courageous.”   Nevertheless, despite the fact that Laudato Si is an excellent and inspiring document overall, it it hard to not to argue that Pope Francis, the Church’s first fisher of men, missed the boat at least on this particular point.

The Truth Will Out

Although this issue did not get a mention in Laudato Si, I would encourage my fellow Catholics to take this opportunity  afforded by the incredible press being generated by this document to highlight yet another reason of why the Church has stood fast in its opposition to the Pill.  The more time passes, the more creation bears witness to the prophetic voice of Humane Vitae.  The Pill is bad medicine.  It is bad for women’s health.  It is bad for relationships.  And it is bad for the environment.   To learn more about how the Catholic vision of love can help you live a more passionate marriage AND empower you to save the planet, check out Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

Preventing Gender Confusion: What’s A Parent To Do?

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Like everyone else, I’ve been thinking a lot about gender issues lately. The Caitlyn Jenner story is everywhere, of course, but it’s difficult to say anything meaningful about that drama because it just seems, to me, like all flash and no substance. Caitlyn isn’t really sharing anything genuinely personal about this journey, and the media can’t stop fawning long enough to ask any interesting questions.

But LaVern Vivio, a Nashville traffic reporter and commercial personality for TheBlaze TV wrote an article that I thought was truly brave, honest, and insightful. More importantly, I think it highlights something we, as Christians, can do to help prevent gender confusion both in our kids and in society itself.

LaVern is a 52 year old mother of 4 wrote penned a piece called, “I wished I had been born a boy.” I encourage you to read the whole article, but here’s a snippet.

I wished I had been born a boy. Probably until I was well into junior high and maybe even high school I was fairly convinced God had simply mixed me up with John Mark, the name my parents had selected if I had been born male. I am over 6 feet tall and very large-framed. I wear a size 13 shoe. My hands are as large as any man my height. I was always told I had a pretty face but because of my height I was able to carry a lot of extra weight without looking fat and the fullness on my frame tended to make me look less pretty and just attractive. Still I never felt pretty or much less feminine. So for many years I wondered. Did God make a mistake? …Back then when a girl like me came along they called me tomboy. For the guys the term was sissy or girlie. I suppose it was probably easier to be a tomboy rather than a girlie or sissy guy, but maybe not. Just like the guys opposite me, I was having trouble finding comfort in what God made me to be.

LaVern eventually made peace with the fact that she is a woman–exactly the woman God wants her to be–but it was not without enduring a lot of hardship, taunting, and pain.

As I read her story, the thing that stood out to me is her tremendous agony from not fitting the feminine stereotype in her looks or her preferences or her demeanor. As one friend puts it, “You’re practically a dude.”

When I hear stories like this, and as a counselor, I hear them fairly frequently, my heart breaks because people like LaVerne are tormented, not because there is something wrong with them, but because there is a lot wrong with the culture we live in and the way our culture defines masculinity and femininity.

Masculinity & Femininity: False Definitions

For the most part, our culture defines masculinity and femininity in functional terms. People tend to think that women are women because they think these ways and do these things and enjoy these preferences. Likewise, men are men because they think these other things and do these other things and enjoy these other preferences. But even if these stereotypes are true for a significant number of men and women, they aren’t true for all men and women–even a lot of men and women.

The Myth of the “Male” and “Female” Brain

For instance, autism researcher, Simon Baron-Cohen, famously developed the theory that autism spectrum disorder was the result of a person having an “extreme male brain.” But this language is misleading. Speaking of a “male brain” or a “female brain” is just a popular (and, to my mind, confusingly unfortunate) way to refer to Baron-Cohen’s actual categories of “Systematizing Brain” versus an “Empathizing Brain.” Statistically, more males have a primarily Systematizing brain type and more females have a primarily Empathizing brain type, but (and I have corresponded with him about this directly) Baron-Cohen, himself, asserts this says little about individuals.  Why? Because a significant number of men (about 30%) have a more Empathizing Brain and about the same percentage of women have a Systematizing Brain. Beyond this, another (roughly) 10% of men and women have brains that are both equally systematizing and empathizing. Furthermore, men who have primarily Empathizing (“female”) brains and women who have primarily Systematizing (“male”) brains are not more likely to be homosexual than the general population.

Unfortunately, I speak with a lot of men and women who feel that there is something wrong with them because they “don’t fit the mold” whether because they have the “wrong” brain types or are more or less empathic than others of their gender, or  happen to be attracted to certain gender atypical pursuits or careers. These cultural, functional, definitions of masculinity and femininity fail them, but they have been led to believe by parents, coaches, teachers, and friends that they are the ones failing the “norm.” Many, many problems related to self-image and sexuality begin with this deeply felt disconnect between “who I am” and how “the world says I should be.”

The Truth About Gender

The Theology of the Body offers a wonderful alternative way of understanding gender differences. Rather than indulging in the functionalist trap that defines male-ness or female-ness by superficial attributes, TOB sees masculinity and femininity as gifts. They simply ARE.

Men ARE men–and manly–because of their male body. They don’t have to do anything to earn their masculinity or “man up” so to speak. There is no “norm” to conform to, except the norm that comes with the male body and the maleness that emanates from that. Likewise, women ARE women, and womanly, because of their female body. Period. The TOB perspective is that people are best served when they stop trying to fit themselves into cultural stereotypes in order to try to “become” more of something they already are. Develop the body and mind God gave you to your fullest capacity and celebrate the respective masculinity/femininity that emerges as the fruit of that effort. Stop worrying about what you’re not and be what your body proves that you already are.

TOB vs. Feminism

In the course of discussing this with a friend of mine, she suggested that, in some ways, TOB and secular feminism had a lot in common. She noted that the secular feminist movement of the 70’s asserted that women can be effective, as effective as men, in the career of their choice–so we shouldn’t call people “mailmen” or “postmen” or “firemen.” That’s true as far as it goes, but there’s an important difference in that secular feminists denied the reality of the body. They said that women could be whatever they wanted because the body didn’t matter.

By contrast, TOB says that women can be anything their body allows them to be and still be feminine just as men can do anything that their body allows them to do and still be masculine. In fact, a woman doing a “man’s job” could be perfectly competent but still approach it in a different and feminine way than a man would. Likewise for the man doing a more traditionally “feminine” profession. That embodied, inescapable difference defines the “feminine/masculine genius.”

Secular feminism and TOB both have functionalism as a common enemy, but while the former destroys the body as a means of combating unjust functionalist limitations, the latter delves more deeply into the mystery of the body to develop a fuller meaning of its multifaceted significance.
The Upshot

The take-away from all this is that people in general–and parents in particular–need to stop defining their own masculinity or femininity (or their children’s) by what they do, how they think, or what they prefer. We need to recognize that masculinity and femininity are free gifts that flow naturally out of the body God gave us. There are many ways to be masculine and they are all perfectly manly just as there are many ways to be feminine and they are all beautiful. Trying to force yourself or your child into a stereotype just leads to alienation, self-doubt, misery and sometimes even serious sexual confusion.

I do not mean to imply that this cultural, functionalist perspective on gender is the cause of things like same sex attraction or gender dysphoria–no one can honestly say what all the factors are that contribute to these phenomena–but I am convinced that the attempt to pigeonhole men and women into superficial, trait and preference-based categories does real damage to a person’s psychological and sexual well-being. Parents, especially, do well to teach their children that whatever they look like, whatever they enjoy, and however they feel, they are exactly as God intended them to be and perfectly masculine or feminine just the way they are.

To learn more about raising children to exhibit a healthy and holy sexuality, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids.

Men & Porn: New Study Finds 4 Reason Porn isn’t “Normal” For Guys

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Pornography is a huge industry.  In fact, it is difficult to wrap one’s head around how big a business pornography is.  According to the Science of Relationships Blog, pornography use generates 13 billion dollars a year, “which is more annual revenue than Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, eBay and Netflix produce combined.“

Although we do know that pornography has negative effects on people, little is known about the specific problems associated with the use of pornography.  A new study addressed this question and found four particular problems associated with the use of pornography.

“To understand the effect of pornography on men’s romantic relationships researchers examined pornography viewing among young men who were in heterosexual relationships. They sampled 373 college-attending men who were involved in relationships of 4 months to just over 7 years in duration. The men were asked to complete a series of questionnaires, including measures of gender role conflict, attachment style, relationship quality, and pornography use. The questions measuring porn viewing asked about frequency, amount of time each week and per sitting, and if porn interfered or negatively impacted daily life.

What did they find? The frequency of men’s pornography viewing was positively associated with gender role conflict, insecure attachment, lower relationship quality, and decreased sexual satisfaction.” READ MORE

What Does This Mean?

The researchers note that their study could not determine whether these problems were caused by porn use or made the use of pornography more likely.  It is probably some combination of both.  For instance, because attachment styles are relatively fixed traits that are established in the first several years of life, it is more likely that anxious or avoidant attachment styles (as opposed to secure attachment) are associated with greater use of porn than it is likely that porn leads to insecure attachment.  At the same time,  there is good reason to believe that pornography use could contribute to gender-role conflict, since other studies have suggested that porn use tends to increase misogyny, and decrease both relationship quality and sexual satisfaction.

Porn Isn’t “Normal”–Even for Men.

Whether subsequent research determines that pornography is the cause or bad fruit of these problems, it is clear that porn use isn’t the sign of a normal, healthy functioning person.  For instance,  many people believe that more men’s use of  pornography is both normal and unavoidable because they are “more visual” and because men “think about sex every 7-15 seconds.”   These oft quoted “facts” are actually both myths (see here and here).   In fact, as I point out in Beyond the Birds and the Bees:  Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids. based on the available research it is much more likely that the reason men are more frequent users of porn is that male children are often more poorly attached than female children due to parent’s fear of giving too much affection to boys less they “sissify” them.  The fact that this study found a lower association between securely attached men and porn use reinforces this conclusion. In other words, degree of porn use is not a normal part of masculine behavior, it suggests that many traits that we popularly associate with “maleness” are actually traits that men and women display if they are poorly attached.

Good Help is Available

Regardless, if you or someone you love is using pornography, don’t accept is as normal.  Address it directly and seek appropriate help. To learn more about how to have a healthy, vital, adult sexuality read, Holy Sex! or, for help raising porn-free kids, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees:  Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids.

For Teens, Religious Involvement Prevents Early Sex But Early Sex Kills Religious Involvement

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Image Shutterstock. Used with Permission.

From The Sexual Health Laboratory

Relatively extensive evidence has established that more religious adolescents tend to delay first sexual intercourse. In a paper that Sara Vasilenko and I published last year, we wanted to examine whether this association, usually assumed to be in this direction (from religiosity to sexual behavior), was actually bidirectional. We used the 100 participants from the University Life Study who transitioned to first intercourse between their first and seven semester in college. Our findings demonstrated that 12 months after transitioning to first intercourse, students attended religious services less frequently and viewed religion as less important than they had prior to first intercourse.

The upshot?  The more religiously engaged your kids are, the more likely it is they will delay first sexual intercourse, BUT, if religious kids do have sex outside of marriage, it tends to kill their desire for religious involvement.  The upshot for parents is two fold;  First, work hard to cultivate rituals like family prayer and worship and carve out regular time for your kids to develop a personal prayer life.  Second, if your kids do end up having sex before marriage, you don’t have to condone their behavior, but make sure to bombard them with your love, forgiveness and guidance and make sure they know that God loves them no matter what they have done.  As the saying goes, the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.  By all means, let’s work hard to give our kids the skills they need to maintain their virtue, but if they fall, let’s remind them that they are loved and welcome in the Church.

For more information on how to raise kids who can make godly choices in all their relationships, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees:  The Catholic Guide to Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids!  You don’t have to go it alone.  Let us help you do the most important work a parent can do; teach your kids how to love rightly and love well.

More Sex Doesn’t Necessarily Increase Couple’s Happiness, New Study Finds

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Despite what many popular authors propose, a new study finds that more sex does not necessarily lead to greater relationship satisfaction. In fact, in the particular study, couples who had more sex at the researchers request experienced a slight decrease in both sexual and general relationship satisfaction.  In the words of the authors of the study…

“The couples instructed to increase sexual frequency did have more sex. However, it did not lead to increased, but instead to a small decrease, in happiness. Looking further, the researchers found that couples instructed to have more sex reported lower sexual desire and a decrease in sexual enjoyment. It wasn’t that actually having more sex led to decreased wanting and liking for sex. Instead, it seemed to be just the fact that they were asked to do it, rather than initiating on their own.”

Emotional Intimacy Drives Satisfaction

On the one hand, it makes sense that couples who are told to do anything would find it less pleasurable than if that activity emerge more naturally from their relationship, but I wonder if more isn’t going on here.  In my book,  Holy Sex! I note other research that ties sexual satisfaction not so much to frequency, but to the degree of emotional intimacy a couple enjoys.  For instance, last week I reported the results of a study showing that couples who experiences high levels of emotional intimacy can manage differences in levels of sexual desire better than couples who have lower levels of emotional intimacy. These couples may not be in the mood for sex, but because they feel emotionally close to their partner, they don’t mind extending themselves–at first–for their partner’s sake, but then they end up enjoying themselves as well.   Researchers refer to this positive relationship quality as “sexual communal strength.” That is, the ability to be sexually generous, even when one isn’t in the mood, without feeling taken advantage of and even being able to enjoy the experience despite not starting out in the same place.  Sexual communal strength is directly related to the degree of emotional and spiritual intimacy a couple enjoys.

Use = Shame & Shutting Down

I wonder if what this study shows isn’t the opposite.  Couples who have lower levels of emotional intimacy will often feel resentful about increased sexual intimacy.  From the perspective of the theology of the body, couples in this situation often intuit that they are not so much experiencing  more a loving act as they are feeling like they are being used as an object of gratification.  Because we were not made by God to be treated as objects, we naturally rebel against being treated that way–even when we don’t consciously realize we’re doing it.   Couples with lower emotional intimacy tend to think of sex as scratching an itch–something they do if they feel the urge for it.  There isn’t anything wrong with this as far as it goes–even St. Augustine acknowledged this function of sex as being appropriate to marriage.  Even so, the more lovers think of sex as scratching an itch, the more they both tend to see themselves as things being used to scratch each other’s itch rather than persons being invited into a deeper, more intimate relationship with one another.  The more we feel used the more we experience a sense of shame that makes us shut down and withdraw so that we can protect ourselves from being treated as objects.  Sometimes this happens consciously, sometimes not, but humans almost universally have a powerfully negative reaction to even the perception that they are being used and they automatically close up in an effort to protect their sense of dignity as persons.

The Take-Away

I think it would have been interesting if researchers in this most recent study had controlled for emotional intimacy.  Regardless, the take-away for readers of this blog is that more sex doesn’t necessarily equal a better relationship.  If you want both better sex and greater relationship satisfaction, you have to cultivate emotional intimacy by making regular time to work, play, talk, and pray together every day so that you can build up the shared body of experiences that lead to deeper levels of intimacy, shared connection, and mutual understanding and respect.

For more information on how you can have a more passionate, intimate, affirming sexual relationship in your marriage, check out Holy Sex!  The Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.