Tag: SEX

Ding ding! Your wife is ready. Sex Ed at the Fishers, part II

I’ve recently started using Marquette, and haven’t yet formed the habit of putting the monitor away in the morning. (I haven’t yet formed the habit of putting anythingaway, to be honest, but that’s a separate problem.) This means that the kids keep finding it and going, “oooOOOOOoooo, what’s THIS?” Because yeah, the new style monitor kinda looks familiar:

 

monitors

 

It’s confusing, Bill. We’re all confused.

Nevertheless, as parents, we believe in Always Answering Questions, in as much detail as seems appropriate for the time and place, and for the age of the kid who wants to know. It’s much more valuable to answer a spontaneous question than to give unsolicited information.

So when my son, who is ten, wanted to know what this machine does, I told him, “Well, you know a woman’s body changes throughout the month, and she can’t make a baby just any time. Sometimes her body isn’t ready to make a baby. So this machine helps her figure out if her body is ready right now, or not.”

So he says, “Oh, it’s like when you preheat the oven, and it goes ‘ding ding ding!’ when it’s time to put the cake in?”

And I said, ” . . . Yes.”

O mother, what is it to be a man? Sex ed at the Fishers

Newberry_County,_South_Carolina._Clean_seed_being_bagged_after_going_through_two_cleaning_machines_._._._-_NARA_-_522795

On the way home from a Scooby Doo birthday party, my punky little daughter suddenly says, “Mama, how do wimmin get preg-a-nent?”

She is kid #7, and I honestly can’t remember how much she already knows, so I start vague: “Oh, well, when a man and a woman love each other very much [shut up, that’s a fine way to start this conversation!], one way they show each other that they love each other is they can put their bodies together in a very special way, and if the timing is just right, then the man can start to make a baby grow inside the woman.”

She says, “Okay. But how do they come together?”

I said, “Well, you know how [OH GOSH I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW] people have private parts on their bodies? And you know how a man’s private parts are different from a woman’s private parts? Well, they are different because they are made to fit together. Like a lock and a key. Does that make sense?”

Her: “Yyyyyes. . . . ”

Me: “So, it’s a very good thing if they love each other and they are married to each other, and they decide to make their private parts fit together in a nice way. And a thing that is almost like a seed comes out of the man’s body, and finds a spot inside the woman’s body. It’s almost like she’s a garden, and she lets him plant a seed in her garden to grow a baby. Isn’t that nice? Does that answer your question?”

Her: “Yeah. So, basically, a man is, like, a seed bag.”

Sorry, men. I tried. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard a man called!

At Synod, Sex-Obsessed Catholic Church Finally Talks About Sex, Finally

It is stunning that the Bishops are talking about sex! As long as you are the kind of person who wakes up stunned to see the sun rise, stunned to find that you have feet at the end of your legs, stunned to discover that the floor under those feet is still made out of wood, just like it has been for decades and decades.

Read the rest at the Register. 

PIC John Paul II waving

Don’t be a sex sponge.

Most women bloggers have a loyal reader and commenter who can be described as “Issues Guy.”  Like a dog has fleas, he’s got issues with women — and man, do they bite.

My Issues Guy put himself right in the middle of this post on idolatry, in a tangential combox conversation which turned out to be far more interesting than the post itself  (even though the post itself had “foreskin” in the title!). Issues Guy described his perfect potential wife and marriage thus:

The Plan
Find a woman who:
•wants to/is willing to have sex all the time
•wants to be 100% submissive in a way that feels natural
•wants to/is willing to have all the kids I can give her

It’s a simple three-point plan. Not sure how hard it would be to execute.

In return I will:
•treat her like a middle school girl (which women seem to like no matter what they may say) alternating with treating her like an adult which they admittedly also seem to like.
•work till I black out if necessary
•let her read to me

It’s a perfect plan.

Ouchie, the issues!  A married man tried to correct him, saying,

 Your description of marriage as a contract with its focus on sexual gratification of the man exposes a deep seated fear of intimacy and completely misses the root of our Church Tradition … So you will be physically faithful to one woman. Big shit. So was Hitler.

[…]

As a sacramental vocation, I have experienced that marriage helps me to be a better person ONLY when I am actively engaged in all aspects of our lives. When I slack off and choose to only live my vows by “working until I blackout” it is a sham. And when in such denial, my heart has been clouded from receiving love from any source.

Issues Man responded:

Sex as the foundation of marriage isn’t an error, it’s natural law. That’s why sex is considered the consummation of the sacrament and why people of the same sex can’t marry each other.

Really this whole controversy boils down to a wife’s duty to have sex with her husband.

A few people tried to respond to him, but here is the reply that really lit up my female brain:

The expectation that someone should be available “all the time” speaks to little to no understanding of how important sex really is.

Ding ding! Issues Guy thought that, because he wants and needs sex all the time, he alone understands how important it is; but in fact, it shows how unimportant he imagines sex to be. It shows how little he understands it.

Imagine if someone said, “Most people settle for three-minute pop songs, but I am different. I appreciate the beauty of Beethoven. Therefore, I will put the fourth movement of his ninth symphony on repeat, and will listen to it over and over again at top volume for the rest of my life.”

That would be weird, right? Someone who wants that is someone who maybe started out actually loving music, but his natural desire for its beauty and depth has turned into . . . something else. Something that ruins Beethoven.

Or imagine a child who is presented with a chocolate cake for his first birthday. He’s so excited that, while he does manage to get some of it into his mouth, he also smears it in his hair, squishes it between his fingers, slathers it all over his skin and clothes.

PIC baby massacring cake

 

 

You wouldn’t look at a kid like this and say, “Wow, here is a true gourmet! Unlike the rest of us, who eat three meals a day, he truly understands how important food is.” No, you’d say, “Ha, he doesn’t know any better. Someone get a towel.”

Why is this? Well, when something is profound, we don’t enjoy it best when we wallow in it. We’re not sponges, just an undifferentiated blob of strung-together holes designed for soaking. Someone who soaks, someone who wallows — this is not someone who understands. This is someone who has traded understanding for consumption.

It is the same with sex.  The “want/need/have-to-have/gimme-more-now-now-now” model of sexuality is a sad and poor and foolish one. Yes, we have needs — but we are more than the sum of our needs. We are not made to wallow. When we understand that something is important, we use some discernment, some restraint, or at very least some careful timing.

Now, these analogies — music, food — are useful to explain what is grotesque about the “want/need/must-not-be-denied” attitude . . . but only up to a point. It is true that there is such a thing as too much Beethoven or too much chocolate cake, and that people who yearn for nonstop saturation don’t truly love what they say they love.

But that’s not the only problem, when we’re talking about sex. It’s not just that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. It’s that sex doesn’t mean anything at all when it’s not an expression of a relationship.

Food and music have some element of this need for relationships. It’s nicer when we enoy music together, and it’s a happier day when we can share a feast with someone else. But if we do enjoy these things alone — if we are carried out of ourselves, out and away from the crowded concert hall on a solitary musical wave,  or if we close our eyes in bliss as we taste a spoonful of something exquisite, something we do not have to share?

PIC woman tasting spoon

 

 

This is fine. This is great. This is normal, and nice, and good.

But sex is different. Sex is only meaningful because it is part of a relationship. This is true of sex every single time, no matter who you are, what your circumstances, what your  needs, what your wants, what your desires, what your issues. Sex is about two people, always. “You give it to me” is not a relationship. If you’re thinking of sex as something that you do and the other person must let you do, then you are not really thinking about sex. You’re thinking about holes that need filling. You are being a hole that needs filling. You are being a sponge.

PIC flabby sponge

 

The comments I quoted above came about as a tangent to the central conversation — but come to think about it, they’re right on target. I said that idolatry is when we

replace God with something smaller and easier to manage — and devote your life to serving that, instead.

And there we are. Sex is not small, and it is not easy to manage. It is a vast ocean. One way that we can make it manageable is, paradoxically, to wallow in it — to become an undifferentiated, undifferentiating mass of saturated holes. It is easier this way. Sponges don’t care about tides, or storms, or seasons, or night or day. Some of them don’t even need another sponge to reproduce. They just witlessly bud, and add to themselves more holes to be filled.

Do not, o thou man, be a sponge. Be better. Struggle, suffer, give yourself over to a world of thirst and desire, conflict and deep joy.

Struggle, learn, suffer, love, and be better than a sponge.

 

******

You know that Extraordinary Bishops’ Synod on the Family coming up in October? The Patheos Catholic Channel will be posting a rolling symposium covering all sorts of topics relevant to the Synod. I’m tagging this post #synod and #symposium because it’s about sex, and sex is relevant to everything! Right? Yes?
Anyway, many of my fellow bloggers, many of whom are capable of thinking of things other than sex, are posting clear, insightful, entertaining posts. The Catholic Patheos Synod Symposium Landing Page is already full of great posts, and is being updated regularly. You may not be familiar with some of the fine writers who contribute to the Patheos Catholic Channel. Browse around! We’re an amazingly varied bunch.

Life is too short for bad sex with a good husband.

This is the greatest letter I’ve gotten in a million years. It’s from MightyMighty atLetters To Us. I’ve bolded the best lines. She mentions Greg Popcak’s excellent bookHoly Sex, which I’ve been meaning to review for a long time; and also references theReal Catholic Love and Sex blog, which is full of good and honest discussions. Here’s the letter:

I don’t want to be a freaky fan girl, but would like to take a sec to tell you how awesome your book is. I read it during a loooooong period of abstinence after our 3rd was born. It was sort of funny the way it worked out. I was reading a book about how sex is good and not a joke on women & reading similar things on realCatholicloveandsex.com [now apparently defunct – leads to porn site!]. All while waiting for some clear signs of fertility to start showing up so that we could chart. By the time it happened at 11 months postpartum, I was actually enthusiastic about sex for the first time since before our first was born.

Normally my interest is completely tied to what’s going on with me physically, but thanks to your book, I’ve realized how that’s not being very loving–it lowers sex into something that is just about scratching an itch. If it’s really about love, it is worth making the effort to be together throughout whatever parts of the month are open to the couple. My husband has now read your book (he wanted to understand the huge change in attitude) and he is working on making some similar changes himself. We’re both pretty guilty of first asking, “Am I in the mood?” instead of asking what our spouse/marriage needs in this moment. I pointed out, “We don’t do that about other things that are good for us, like exercising or paying the bills or eating. Maybe we ought to stop acting like being together is as optional as watching Netflix together.”

I feel like reading Popcak’s “Holy Sex” helped me start shedding some of the prudery I had about sex being a little bit frivolous/selfish and your book helped me shed the rest of it + the poisoning lies the culture teaches about sex. (Men are animals, women are the gatekeepers, sex is mostly about getting pleasure, God sorta hates women for setting them up for either 20 pregnancies or no sex when their hormones are cooperating, etc.) At some point I thought, “Life is too short for bad sex with a good husband. I am going to get to middle and old age and really regret spending the healthiest years of my life this way, just like I already regret spending my teens and twenties dressing like a frump.”

My dad died at 61 last year and my mom just said last week, “I really regret not lavishing more affection on your father. He shouldn’t have had to coax me. I should have been more….[hand gesture indicating va-va-voom]! He deserved that!” I was shocked, but glad to see that it’s really never too late to get a healthier view on sex.

 

PIC dancing peasant couple

In another letter, she says:

 

It was very helpful to read your (semi-sarcastic) comments about developing some skill in bed. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has put minimal effort into any session that I was participating in out of duty/charity. I find that putting in the same effort as I do when I’m all gung-ho (when I’d honestly rather just read in bed) takes the session (is there a better word??) from kind-of-degrading-to-both-of-us-because-I-feel-used-and-he-feels-judged to just as good as when I was up for it. For whatever reason, I needed permission to stop acting like a prude and start trusting that my husband wouldn’t be scandalized by me being enthusiastic.

I now realize that acting like sex is dirty if it’s too enthusiastic gives power to the smutty culture that reduces sex to “consensual pleasure.” God made sex awesome and me participating in it fully is good, not dirty. What’s dirty is when two married people feel smug for having sex without having given each other their all, including the trust needed to let go, unconditional acceptance for each other’s everything, and the effort to really be generous with one another, not just their fertility. Good job! You ate a protein bar at a 5 star restaurant! You went to Italy and never left the hotel! Good job, you’re Catholic and you still managed to separate love from sex!

 

 So smart. Thanks, MightyMighty!

And that’s exactly why I wrote my book.

Okay, so I’ve been trying not to grouse publicly about it every time someone says boo to me. This is not that!

I came across a review that thought the first two third of my book (“NFP and your spiritual life” and “NFP and the rest of the world”) were good, but he really didn’t like the third part (“NFP in the trenches”).  He’s an NFP teacher, and thinks that maybe we need to talk about intimate things, but only in an intimate setting:  literally, person to person. His review got a comment:

I, too, have taught & used NFP for a long, long time and see or been told all sorts of things. In short, this is difficult ground to cover and perhaps this book has sold out too much to the sexual comfort levels of our current culture.

And I says to myself, I says, Well, that’s exactly why I wrote my book.  This person teaches NFP, and she thinks that sex should be uncomfortable. For way too many people, that is the message they’re getting about sexuality and their faith: don’t get comfortable! Don’t be honest. And God forbid you should be a product of “our current culture.”

But what if you are a product of our current culture? What are you supposed to do? When people are already wounded, it’s not very helpful to say, “What a shame there are wounds.” We need someone to lift the bandage.

Listen, I know this book is not for everybody. I may have a monstrous ego, but I never imagined I was writing The Definitive Compendium of Ideas that are Perfectly Suited for All Conceivable Audiences.  I know there are plenty of people who don’t want or don’t need to get really specific or frank about sexual matters. The cover was supposed to serve as a warning: Attention, squeamish people! Nakedness inside! If the cover freaks you out, you should probably pass on what’s inside.

But there are an awful lot of people who are hearing nothing but, “Sex is beautiful. Sex is meaningful. Sex is profound” and they want to believe it and they want to live it, but they are having a hard time figuring out how it applies to their actual specific naked bodies.  Many people read about covenants and veils and sacredness, and end up thinking either (a) this doesn’t apply to me. There must be something wrong with me or (b) this doesn’t apply to me. There must be something wrong with the Church.

So, that third section of my book, where I get pretty specific? It’s not supposed to answer all your questions about sex. It’s to help you and your spouse ask and answer those questions together — and to let you know that it’s okay to talk about these things. Yeah, I can live with that kind of “selling out.”

*****

(DISCLAIMER: I didn’t link to the review, because I’m not trying to heap shame on anyone’s head, or encourage any kind of comment duel. I love getting reviews, good or bad, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t criticize me! I just thought the remarks I quoted were especially telling, and highlighted something important.)

Try this one weird trick for ending the war on women

You know what would cut through 99% of this crap, where we find ourselves arguing about whether or not saying, “Yes, I want to have sex with you” counts as sufficient consent, and whether or not “bystander intervention training” is sexist, and who’s waging a war on whom, and who’s winning?  Try following this simple rule:

If you are not married, assume there is never consent; and if you are married, treat your spouse like a person, not a thing.

I know I know I know. I know all the things, about marital rape and patriarchy and women’s sexual autonomy and the microaggression inherent in chivalry and bias against dads in family court and alllllll the things.

I also know there will be a neverending fountain of confusion and recrimination as long as we treat sex like something that can just happen between anyone at any time, and if we just figure out the right new rules, then no one gets hurt.

We already have figured out the rules. It’s called abstaining before marriage, getting married, having children if you can, and working hard at staying married.   Trying to figure out sex in any other context besides heterosexual marriage is like trying to grow tomatoes in a post-tomato cage era.  Congratulations, you’re free! And now you’re going to fall over and die.

Progesterone cream (prescription and OTC) improved my Creighton NFP charting of cycles and now NFP is tolerable instead of intolerable

This is my story of how progesterone cream made NFP tolerable, instead of intolerable.

The following post is purely in the interest of public service, and is not especially entertaining, amusing, or edifying (hence the Google-friendly title).  I am not offering medical advice! I am just telling my story, in hopes that it will encourage other women to talk to their doctors, too.  I wish I had done it a lot sooner, because now my cycles became intelligible, and NFP became endurable.

This post is all medical, and not for the squeamish.  I will be using the words “cervix,” “mucus,” and “period.”

Background

PIC Lasciate ongi speranze voi ch’entrate

We use the Creighton Model of NFP.  I do not seem to be able to take my (bizarrely low) temperature consistently, and I am too technophobic and mistrustful to try a monitor.   Creighton was a good choice for us because you can use it while breastfeeding.  But still, it was pretty awful for many years.  If Creighton is “an authentic language of a women’s health and fertility,” then my charts were clearly saying, “Wha?  Hasenpfeffer.  I think!  Potrzebie!  Huh?” and occasionally, “Ow.”  In other words, I never really knew what was going on, except that we did not have a lot of days available for sex.  Some months, we had a grand total of one day (and I would be deep in the throes of PMS, so, super sexy with all the crying and screaming and paranoia).  This was no good.

My Fertility Care Practitioner knew I was frustrated and kept on encouraging me to call this NFP-only doctor she knows, but I was sure it would just be a waste of time and money, because nothing will help, I’m doomed to suffer, etc.

The problem before progesterone cream

My main problem was continuous mucus.

  • I never had dry days, even when my cycles were fully established and regular after night-weaning.
  • There was just never a very strong distinction between peak-type (more fertile) and non-peak-type (less fertile) mucus, and that made charting almost useless, and a source of constant anxiety.
  • To accommodate these ambiguities, I got yellow stamps, but the “is this essentially the same?” question hit me right in one of my weakest spots:  I’m a compulsive second-guesser, especially when I’m tired, and the strain was enormous.  We had so, so, so few available days, and I was never sure that they were actually okay to use.  And saying “end of the day on alternate days when you’re — well, do you think you’re fertile?  Trust yourself!” — well, that ain’t sexy talk.

Also, I could never do the seminal fluid elimination properly, no matter what ridiculous contortions I tried or how much water we both drank; so even once we were post-peak, there was always some uncertainty about what I was seeing.

So finally I went for a check-up.  The doctor expected that I would have a cervical eversion from eight vaginal deliveries in 11 years, which can cause  chronic irritation of the cervix, causing superfluous and confusing mucus.  They can do simple treatment right in the office.  But no, it turns out my cervix is (inexplicably) fine.  So he gave me a prescription for progesterone cream, but I didn’t fill it for several months, because nothing will help, I’m doomed to suffer, etc.

 

Benefits

So I finally filled the Rx, and within a month of starting to use a dab of cream for a week or so per month, I started having cycles like in the manual.

  • The longer I used the cream, the more dry days I saw.
  • The peak-type (more fertile) mucus is more abundant, and very distinct from non-peak-type.
  • And most importantly, we now we have what seems like a luxuriously long post-peak phase.  We can even have a fight post-peak, and still have time to make up and have sex again!  It’s pretty sweet.

There are more available days pre-peak, too, but since most unexpected pregnancies seem to come from pre-peak conception, we are pretty conservative.

Seminal fluid is easy to eliminate, and even if I don’t do it, it’s very distinct from any cervical mucus.

I’ll say it again: my cycles now look like the ones in the manual.

Drawbacks

  • When I’m using the cream, my cycles shortened from a typical 29-30 days, to 26-27 days.  My practitioner says that that is unrelated to the progesterone cream, but it sure is an amazing coincidence, because I never in my life had a cycle shorter than 28 days until I started using the cream; and now I rarely have a cycle longer than 26 days.
  • My period is more “efficient,” which means it takes 5-6 days, but most of it happens over two extremely heavy flow days.  They are no more painful than usual, but much more messy; but it is kind of nice to get it over with all at once, instead of having a gradual build-up and gradual wind-down that goes on and on.
  • You can only use the progesterone cream if you are certain that you have already ovulated; otherwise, it may prevent ovulation.  So if you suspect a double or split peak, you can end up waiting and waiting for the actual peak day to come, and then it turns out you just get your period anyway (and then your next cycle might not be as spiffy, because you haven’t had the benefit of the progesterone cream from the previous cycle).  Obviously, that’s not a drawback of the progesterone cream itself, but could happen any time – – it’s just something that adds a slight layer of uncertainty, because you’re not just waiting to see what happens in the cycle, but also waiting to see if you should use the cream.

Details

I rubbed the prescription cream into my inner wrist, inner elbow (is there a name for that part?) or abdomen once a day, starting on day P+3 and continuing until the end of the cycle.  It hasn’t caused any type of rash or irritation, or dizziness or nausea.

In order to know exactly how much progesterone you’re getting, you need a prescription, and you need to get it at a compounding pharmacy.  The only local one here does not accept insurance, and the cream costs $40 for two pre-filled syringes, which last me nearly three months.

However, after several months, I decided to try an over-the-counter version of progesterone cream called Emerita Pro-Gest, and it works exactly the same for me.  It’s much cheaper and I just order it from Amazon.  I use it in the same way at the same part of the cycle, but twice a day (morning and night).

However, I am probably going to go back to the prescription kind, because I want to make sure I’m getting the right dose if/when we go for another baby.
For goodness sake . . . 

Please, please, please, do not try progesterone cream without talking to a doctor first!  Strange cycles can be caused by any number of things, some of them quite serious. Progesterone cream is a hormone, and just because it’s sold OTC doesn’t mean it’s safe or appropriate for everyone!

Many people use progesterone cream to alleviate PMS symptoms. It hasn’t helped me with that at all.  However, at least my cycles are intelligible enough that we can say, “Yep, it’s PMS” and we know I’ll be back in my right mind in 48 hours.
But you may not be doomed to suffer

If your cycle looks anything like mine did, maybe you should ask your doctor about progesterone cream.  It couldn’t hoit!  It does make some people feel terrible, and it doesn’t work for some people.  Some people are allergic to it, and some people, as I said, have serious conditions that won’t be helped by progesterone, so talk to your doctor talk to your doctor talk to your doctor.  You are much more likely to be taken seriously if you talk to a doctor who understands NFP.  One More Soul has a directory of NFP-only practices.

I wish I had emphasized this more in my book:  there are lots of kinds of NFP, and there are often things you can do to make your cycles more manageable.  So don’t be a fatalist like I was! Look into your options, and make the investment of time, effort, and money to improve things, if you possibly can.  Marriages are not meant to be sexless.  NFP is hard, but sometimes it’s harder than it needs to be.

But for goodness sake, please, seriously, talk to your doctor. 

 

Sex is about lovers, not about sex

People need to hear this more.  Will Duquette (are you reading Will Duquette?  You should be!) says

It is true that the first stages of Eros are like shooting the rapids on a river: exciting and scary, and great fun, especially if you’re an adrenalin junky. But mature Eros is that like that same river, downstream: wide and deep, flowing strongly, deeply peaceful but in no way static or stagnant.

Oh, yes: and sometimes there’s sex involved, and it gets better over time, especially when you get over the need for thrills. No, really. The sex is supposed to be about the two of you, not about the sex, and it’s difficult to get there if you’re focussed on the thrills.

Read the rest (it’s short!).  Lots to ponder here.

 

Theology of the Body reading recommendations?

A reader writes:

 I’ve got a Catholic friend who is sorely in need of some good reading materials on the main concepts in Theology of the Body. She buys into very secular views of contraception, abortion, marriage, and sex in general, and has admitted a total lack of education regarding the Catholic teaching on the subjects, as well as a (reluctant) interest in obtaining said education.

I’m looking for something that’s intelligent, readable, down to earth, doesn’t assume that you already agree with the Church teaching, and hits all the main points without an angry polemical vibe. I checked out some stuff by Christopher West, but didn’t like it too much.
Any suggestions, smarties?  If you have something to recommend, it would be very helpful if you could say a few things about why you liked it, or what kind of audience it would be appropriate for.
Thanks!