A textbook case

...Next column...

...A Christian ethic of sexual integrity must value embodiment and erotic desire as much as reasoned will...

...What is the difference, for instance, between lust (wicked) and love's erotic desire (God's good gift...

...Needless to say the numerous lifelike nude drawings of various sexual techniques and the biological information and diagrams are miles more sophisticated and thorough than the short shrift given to any moral, religious, or emotional dimension of human sexuality, i.e., "A person who is in accord with social customs and practices is usually considered moral or ethical...

...it cannot rise to the occasion...

...Sexual happiness can manifest itself in an outpouring of creative energy in caring for one's own biological children or caring for others...

...Authors who will defend infanticide in the name of cultural relativism will not scruple to highlight and applaud a single study in 1984 which found 50 percent of older people reporting extramarital relations, half of them starting after fifty years of age...

...Chastity, vowed celibacy, and fidelity are other resources in the Catholic treasury that need to be newly burnished and re-presented...

...We'll see each other through everything that comes, until death do us part...

...All feelings of guilt, sexguilt, and shame must be rooted out: the only universally wrong sexual act with any ethical validity is rape or sexual coercion...

...Successful religious vowed to celibacy and single Christians also manage to mother, father, and befriend the persons and communities in their lives...

...Did God create sex and say "That's good...

...Pornography, renamed erotica, is defended...

...Unfortunately this rescue operation may not happen unless we in the church develop and work toward a more coherent, fleshed-out Christian sexual vision...

...No wonder that these textbooks, while trying valiantly to be nonjudgmental, must present pages upon pages devoted to our society's growing sexual "problems": divorce, adolescent pregnancy, sexual dysfunctions, sexually transmitted diseases, rape, incest, child sexual abuse, pedophilias, and other paraphilias on the "sexual continuum...

...In the same way sexuality can be directly procreative whenever it is a possible and morally responsible option, but when it isn't, there are other important ideals of procreative fraitfulness to be lived...

...For now I'll end with the ever-reliable pious hope...

...This trip through the secular sexologists' looking glass induced the thought (with apologies to Hopkins): There lives the dreariest staleness of superficial shallow things...

...From mortal sin to therapy in one generation...

...If with Vatican IF s new interpretations we now grant that the ends of sexuality are both unity and procreation, how should these ends be interpreted, and how interrelated...

...On opening the book my eye lit on a reference to prostitutes as "sex workers," and I could predict what would follow...

...Can Catholics present an alternative vision of sexuality and help this floundering culture...

...Yes, these well-meaning sexologists see their-mission in life as liberating the repressed from their sexual inhibitions— in the interests of free, mature, secular humanist values...

...Well, you get the picture...

...more space...

...The Benedictine theologian 4. Sebastian Moore bemoans "the intellectual and spiritual poverty of the Catholic tradition on sexuality," and blames our condition on the serious chronic infection of stoicism and neo-Platonism picked up by the church in the fourth century...

...Getting ourselves together is no easy task...

...Stoicism, a socially transmitted disease of the spirit...

...Indeed, "The older persons who had adulterous relationships reported an energetic, optimistic, 'let's-enjoy-life' attitude...

...Having children is God's greatest blessing, but generativity is a name we give to the ways that persons nurture others in the community and mentor the next generation...

...I see the Christian ideal of sexuality as one that seeks to integrate into love all the dimensions of the person— body, mind, will, emotion, along with what some neurophysiologists inelegantly call "the lust system...

...Here the crucial question comes to the fore of whether those Christians who desire to live as a sexually committed homosexual or lesbian couple must be asked to live as though they are vowed celibates or single persons without partners...

...The erotic spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...

...So, to begin anew, again...

...This then means that in some societies "infanticide" can be seen as "a meaningful, necessary traditional action, a moral behavior...

...Masturbation, or sex for one, is extolled as safe and so readily available for single or marital sexual pleasuring...

...inside the church I hope and believe that new voices are being heard and helping a renewed vision of Christian sexuality to be born—a homebirth this time, with midwives, and families in attendance...

...Last week I substituted in a class on human sexuality and began my preparation with the newly published college sex text (which shall remain nameless...

...Moore claims that centuries of celibate rule and further inroads from the Enlightenment, have damaged Christian thinking on sexuality...

...Can we not on reflection come to discern a deeper, more personal understanding of unity and procreation...

...and abortion rights championed...

...The necessary Christian unity of heart and mind is split, desiring and knowing are conceived of as separate and disconnected...

...A healing of this Catholic disconnectedness in regard to sexuality is imperative, since the Roman Catholic church is "the only world-wide and world-old institution that is committed to changing the world" (a nice phrase, that, if a bit chauvinistic...

...Much needs to be thought and said about this controversial question, but I have no...

...premarital and extramarital sex praised...

...Ironically in our hectic overworked lives, we can suffer a great deal from serious problems in arousing, cultivating, and continuing to feel sexual desire...

...5...

...At least the authors do caution their student readers, "These games should not be played with strangers or new acquaintances...

...In one novel "advance," that surprised even me, mutually consenting S & M practices of bondage, pain infliction, whipping, spanking, leashing, master-slave domination, etc., are presented with approval, compared to playing cowboys and Indians...

...As other theologians are constantly reminding us, we Christians are engaged in the endlessness of interpreting God's symbolic self-communication...

...Obviously the sexual signs of the times reveal that a monumental challenge awaits the church...

...Unity rightly includes the exclusive committed pairbonding of intimacy, friendship, equality, and long-term fidelity...

...or didn't she...

...Catholics also can never forget the power of evil and sin in the world, so questions about sexual sin aren't about to wither away...

...But must personal unity and faithful mutual commitment be exclusively reserved for heterosexual couples...

...That's for outside...

...Surely the general shambles we observe in the current secular sexual scene can be influenced by Christian evangelical efforts to proclaim and live a gospel vision of love and sexuality...

...it should be taught, encouraged, and prescribed...

...All Catholics are bound to answer in the affirmative, but the implication of this gospel "yes" to the goodness of created human sexuality and procreation needs articulation and development...

...But erotic embodiment comes in many individual varieties and I doubt that we can have a Christworthy sexual ethic that discriminates along lines of gender or sexual orientation...