50 Shades of pain: sterile sex and the problem with porn

I've seen dozens of articles about 50 Shades floating around the internet the past week or so, and I've read a handful of them. One or two are worth reading, this piece and this piece in particular.

The thing that has me scratching my head over the whole situation, the fact that a trilogy of pornographic novels have been adapted to a reportedly dismally-cast and middlingly-entertaining big screen production, is how we got here in the first place.

Not whether it's wrong or weird or nasty to plan to take your spouse on a hot date to the movies on Valentine's day to see Anastasia get spanked by Christian (though it is assuredly all of those things), but how it is that we have arrived at this destination, en masse, as a culture.

Let's look at the numbers; these books have sold 100 million copies since their release in 2011. That's some kind of record, and whatever else we can take from those numbers, we can presume that there's definitely an audience for the stuff. And in the pornographic culture we live in, it has become perfectly acceptable to identify oneself as a paying member of that audience and synch up the Kindle for a little smut to ease the long layover or kill the time in carline.

Because you see, the overwhelming majority of that audience is female.

I'm sure plenty of guys have read 50 Shades too, but it wasn't written for them. Romance literature (if abuse and domination can be so categorized) is the centerfold pull-out of the female demographic. It's printed porn, spelled out in characters and punctuation marks instead of screen shots and video clips.

And there's a growing market for smut of the feminine persuasion, because yes, it has become more socially acceptable to raise one's hand and identify oneself as a woman who consumes porn, but also because, I think, there are a lot of sexually-unhappy ladies out there.

So why is that? Aren't we all liberated and unshackled from the fear of pregnancy and the stigma of unmarried sex? Isn't everyone entitled to access anything they could ever have dreamt of, in terms of the erotic, now that all bets are off and all taboos have been discarded?

And yet what we're longing for, apparently, is something so "exciting" that in polite circles and legal terms, it is actually defined as abuse and battery?

Which leads me back to the title of this piece.

I have a pet theory about sex in the current cultural climate, and it goes like this: when a couple removes all of the mystery, all of the suspense, and all of the "riskiness" from sex, perhaps it becomes intolerably boring.

Maybe your interest in your partner fades, over time, because sex becomes merely another option in a long list of activities which can be pursued after the dishes are done.

Obviously my husband and I are in a unique and temporary season of marriage, during which time it is actually possible, when everything is functioning properly, for us to get pregnant.

On paper, that means that every time we decide to have sex, unless we're already currently pregnant, we first have to discern whether or not we're disposed to receive another child into the mix. Because that is always a possibility. When the answer to that question is "not right now," we still have to enter into the act prepared that the outcome might be another diaper-wearer, even when all our calculations and observations tell us otherwise.

Translation: even when we're in an NFP "safe zone," scientifically-identified as a period of infertility, there's still always a chance that we're wrong. I might have missed an observation or miscalculated a date. Or, since I'm not God, it could happen anyway, despite our best efforts otherwise. Because I'm not the one in control of my fertility, ultimately.

I didn't design me, and, short of a hysterectomy, I cannot 100% guarantee that I can suppress my fertility.

(An aside, that's why "surprise" babies in contracepting couples always strike me as such an odd concept. I mean, sure, you were using condoms or taking the Pill, but did you really think that if you did the thing that makes babies, there was zero chance you might end up making one?)

Honestly, this does add a certain level of excitement/fear/wonder at the unknown to the mix.

I'm not saying it's comparable to the, uh, thrill, I guess? of being tied up and hit, but frankly, I don't have the time to entertain thoughts of spicing things up with whips and chains. Nor the inclination.

I wonder if couples who can have all the sex they want - as much sex as they can physically stomach, kind of like the Golden Corral of the bedroom - thanks to contraception, aren't getting a little bored?

Is that why Christian Grey is a welcome figure in the imagination of a woman who is already being used, on some level, by her partner?

Is that why a man feels comfortable taking his girlfriend to a movie where a young woman is physically and psychologically abused by an older guy, because it's a little thrilling to control her like that?

Maybe there's no real correlation, but I do think it's worth considering that porn and contraception influence each other, even if only because they are both simultaneously so prevalent.

But sex doesn't need to be increasingly dangerous and forbidden in order to be satisfying. There isn't some kind of pleasure threshold that only riskier and kinkier behavior can satiate; indeed, the further we drift from the Christian ideal of sex as a total gift of self, the more dissatisfied (and sexually dysfunctional) we become as a civilization.

Because at the end of the day and in the dark of the night, what we do with our bodies and to the bodies of the ones we love matters. It matters very much. And a relationship that purports to be loving but that trades in the currency of use abuse is anything but romantic.

   

The modesty wars

I've been rolling this one around in my skull today in between bouts of toddler WWF-style throw downs. I don't know why they have to bite each other, but I guess if it's important to them, I want to be supportive.

Yeah.

So I have this pretty, funny, sort of insecure little college girl in mind when I write this. And she is smart and beautiful, and she seems to kind of know it, but she also seems to want to trade almost exclusively on her looks. So that makes me think maybe she's not as sure as she'd like to seem. Does that make sense?

So I want to talk to her. But not directly, because I'm not sure how she'd receive it. Even from someone who loves her.

I have to be 100% honest that one million blog years ago I'm pretty sure I wrote a post called Modest is Hottest. And I'm almost positive it was farcical. But just in case, I'm still hanging my head in virtual shame.

Here are two things to keep in mind when discussing modesty:

1. Modest is not hottest. I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

2. Girls are not responsible for how guys perceive them. But we are responsible for putting on pants before leaving the house/appearing on Facebook.

So those seem to be the two hottest (har har) points of contention in the matter. Firstly, that practicing modesty is in some way competitive with dressing provocatively and therefore, cap sleeves are bringing sexy back; and second, that women are emphatically not responsible for Creepy McCreeperton leering at them in the checkout line but we are allowed to wear underpants outside of the locker room.

It's a tad confusing to navigate, as a woman. As a human.

What if being modest has more to do with how one perceives (and values, and presents) herself (or himself) than about trying to repackage turtlenecks as provocative?

And what if girls (I'm speaking mostly to girls not because it's a feminine issue per se, but because I've got the chromosomes to go there. And so I go.) were absolved from striving to compete on a sexual level, every waking moment of the day.

I think our culture sends a confusing, schizophrenic message to women, inviting us to be simultaneously powerful and provocative and simpering and slutty and empowered and utterly on display. Because equal rights!

So a lot of girls buy into this idea, believing that they've got some serious capital to trade in, namely, their boobs, etc., and that it is their natural born right to flaunt it because they've got it, and nobody can tell them otherwise. Because sexism!

It's kind of ironic that female empowerment has to synch up with public nudity, though. Because you know who is really not coming out on top in that equation?

Yeah, the naked person.

Even the most confidant, empowered, enlightened, thresholded, whatever-ed woman of the 21st century doesn't deserve to be put on public display and openly ogled. Even if she is the one doing the displaying.

Does that sound crazy? To say that just because you can do something with your body doesn't mean that you ought to?

Even if a woman is a willing, eager participant in presenting herself as a sexual object to be consumed (and pornography is the ultimate example of this), she is still participating in the degradation and depersonalization of a human being. And that always gravely wrong. Even when it takes the form of self harm.

But maybe there's a better way, where we as women decide that looking decently beautiful and approachable shouldn't require a compromise with our dignity, nor should it involved ankle-length demin? And that maybe situations or people that demand otherwise aren't worth our time?

It's not empowering to shake your sexy kitten bottom at a costume party. Even if you are 22 and your butt is at its pinnacle of perfection (which, I can assure you, it is).

You are not empowered by being naked in public. In fact, nobody is empowered by that.

You are being exploited, even if it is self exploitation. And your sisters, and your friends, and your mom, and your future daughters are all the poorer for it.

Conversely, you do not have to drape thyself in a denim hijab hybrid. There's a middle ground out there, and it's waiting for you at J Crew. Or, you know, somewhere else that carries clothing which is equally attractive and more reasonably priced.

I just want you to know, if you're reading this and feeling judged, feel, instead, looked after.

Beloved.

Feel the weight of your dignity as a human person, and as a beautiful and powerful woman. Feel the immense responsibility you have to demand the same level of respect of yourself that you would ask from anyone else. You are worth it. You are worth more than kitty ears and a push up bra in public. And it sounds so trite. But it's true.

But you have to believe it for yourself, too. And believe that other people deserve to see more of you than is possible when they're seeing all of you.

And seriously, no cap sleeves.

Linking up anyway because it's MY party and I'll tangent if I want to.
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A little porn never hurt anybody

I escaped from momdom for a couple hours this afternoon and found myself with a hour left on the baby-sitter-meter and nary an errand or appointment to occupy my remaining 60 minutes of freedom.

I have a deep seated weakness for the pedicure chair. Maybe it's because I went into labor for the first time while seated in one. Or maybe I just like polished toes. But whichever the case may be, I found myself cozied up with a stack of Good Housekeeping magazines and a truly hideous shade of mauve that I swore up and down to myself was stone-cold Autumn in a bottle, but looks fairly corpse-like on my feet. C'est la pedi.

As I flipped through my extremely age-appropriate choice of magazines and relaxed into the pummeling of a massage chair set to "drunken kidney punches" I came upon a strange interview with Jennifer Garner, aka Mrs. Ben Affleck.

She had the weirdest reaction to one of the interviewer's questions about pornography.

Just for reference, she has a new movie coming out about the internet, and her A-list husband reportedly flashed some serious skin in his latest blockbuster, so I was curious to see her answer.

It was ... odd.

Basically she started by saying that she was afraid for the day her daughters might find something scary online, and that she really needed to be mindful, as a parent, of what they were exposed to. Okay, so far, so good.

But then...then she said that pornography between two adults was probably fine, and that there was "probably a time and a place for porn" if two people are on the same page and mature. Or something. But still, not for her daughters. Not now, anyway.

I can understand a mother's heart wanting to protect her children from harm. What I can't understand is ever not wanting that.

The truth is, there's no such, this as "a little bit of porn between two consenting adults," because first of all, the camera man makes three. And even with selfie-style contemporary amateur porn, the inevitable internet makes three...million.

Part of what makes porn so destructive is the intrusive nature of making something so intensely private as sex, public, and not only public, but actually intended and designed to be consumed by an other, an outsider, an observer.

Porn degrades sex into a transactional exchange, into an open invitation to use a human person as a tool, to consume them as a product. 

Everyone involved, from the "actors" on the set to the producers behind the product to the consumer on the other side of the computer screen is participating in the use and abuse of a human person.

There's no such thing as just a little bit of porn. And there's no acceptable age at which it becomes "healthy" or "normal" to consume porn, or more accurately, to be consumed by it.

Because even if two consenting adults were to sit down with a completely digitally-acted movie and use it as a means to introduce a level of erotic excitement into their own sex life, it's still an utterly self-centered means to arousal. When you're watching porn with your partner, you're not experiencing any kind of intimacy with them as you both get excited by the person on the screen in front of you.

It might be titilating and it might lead to sex in real life, but at what cost? You just used another person's body (either actual or CGI, it really doesn't matter) to bring yourself to sexual arousal so that you can, essentially, dump your feelings (and then some) into an available receptacle in the form of your partner.

Self, self, self.

But that's not what sex was made for. Sex was designed to draw us to the other, to invite our small and selfish little hearts to open wide enough to let another person inside, and to pursue their happiness above our own, seeking to outdo one another in love.

That's part of why St. John Paul II was so (and scandalously so, for his time) insistent that mutual climax be the goal of sexual union between spouses, so that husband and wife were continually seeking the good of the other, constantly trying to outdo each other in love.

Porn seeks the opposite. It wants immediate self gratification.

Forget delayed gratification, porn says 'give me what I'm owed, and if you can't deliver it, I'll just click over to the next option.'

And even if it's used alone, in the privacy of one's own bedroom, with nary another flesh and blood participant to be found, it's still deeply damaging. To the person consuming it, to the person performing it, to the spouse or boyfriend or daughter on the other side of the closed door, perhaps unaware but not unharmed by the transaction taking place on your screen.

There's never a time or a place for it, and there's no relationship on the planet that's better off because of it.

The reason that a little porn never hurt anyone, is that there's no such thing as a little porn. It's a dark, insidious, addictive,  and destructive force that feeds on human love. And God knows we've got too little of that to go around these days, anyway.

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Hey Pope Francis, it's the 21st century, what's up with contraception?

One of the most difficult Catholic teachings to accept - for believers and non believers alike - is the Church's position on contraception.

I imagine (actually no, it's not imagined. I get these questions all the time) that people are confused primarily about the motives behind the teaching, all while simultaneously reeling in disbelief that anyone could - or would - live without birth control in the modern world.

First, let's start with a couple reasons why the Church doesn't forbid contraception.

It's not because:

- The Pope is attempting to raise a standing army of believers to vanquish the Islamic state

- Catholic women are being imprisoned by the productivity of their own uteruses and prevented by perpetual morning sickness from running for office or owning small businesses

- The Church doesn't want sex to be enjoyable

- Screw the environment, let's have a crusade

Whether or not you agree with the Church's teaching on this matter, know that it has NOTHING to do with the above reasons, promise. And you're not being particularly funny or original when you insist otherwise at a cocktail party or in the com box. 

Now how about some of the reasons why Catholics are forbidden from using contraception?

- Most forms of hormonal contraception are abortifacient (capable of causing abortion) in addition to being contraceptive

- The introduction of contraception into the marital relationship opens a pathway for mutual use of the other and makes truly selfless love really, really hard ... and unlikely.

- Contraception is fundamentally anti-woman and anti-child. It says, in effect, that the female body is broken/in need of suppressing/better off poisoned than functional, and that the child is disposable.

- It makes a woman "on" 24/7. And if you're available for sex 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you better be ready to perform ladies, or else he's gonna look elsewhere to have his "needs" met.

This last point is worth expanding on, because in the oft-maligned and eerily prescient bombshell encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned about 3 very specific things which would result from the introduction of widespread contraception:

1. A decline in the moral standards of the young leading to greater marital infidelity in entire generations (more premarital sex, more promiscuity, more teen pregnancy, more divorce.)

2. A lowering of respect for women as men see them more and more as tools to to use to serve their own desires. (more spousal abuse, more domestic violence, rise in sex trafficking and sex slavery)

3. Contraception will become a tool in the hands of amoral or immoral states seeking to control populations and repress entire classes. (Aid dollars tied to contraception and sterilization campaigns, "benevolent" foreign governments seeking to sterilize poor, indigenous populations "for their own good,"Western-style contraceptive campaigns undermining traditional values in non-Western countries)

So basically, check, check, check.

Every single thing the Church warned about has happened. 

And every single time the culture tries to fix the above issues by calling for "better access to women's healthcare (aka suppressing or mutilating the female body), better access to condoms and birth control for poor, indigenous populations who just don't know any better and who there really should be fewer of, anyway (aka eugenics), and younger and more aggressive introductions to the Pill for adolescent girls, the problems get worse.

You can't fix all the things contraception has helped to bring about with more contraception. 

But there's good news, too. Really good news, I promise.

But you're going to have to come back later this week because I'm not even joking, a certain 2-year-old just projectile vomited all over the couch. Biological/spiritual warfare or hilarious irony? You be the judge. 

Click here to read the rest of the series.

I've made a mistake. Now what?

One thing I'm realizing in writing my way through the month of October, unpacking the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage, is how many people out there have found themselves in the oh-so-familiar position of begin on the wrong side of those teachings.

In other words, having sinned.

First off the good news: YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE WHO EVER INHABITED THE PLANET, the Blessed Mother excluded.

Including me.

Oh, how very much I belong in this camp. The camp of regret and heartache and anger and remorse and resentment toward God and a Church that would ask me to not do the thing which I had just done, because it would hurt me. And then it did hurt me. And so I was doubly mad.

So where does that leave someone who has sinned?

Well, hopefully, in line for confession.

Honestly, it's that simple. And it's that difficult.

The practice of reconciliation is essential for the health and wellbeing of any successful relationship. How much more essential is it to our relationship with God? And how much more effective?

Catholics go to confession to repair the relationship between the Creator and the creature. We go to admit (and this takes humility) "I screwed up. I did the thing you warned me against. And I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again. But You have to help me."

And you know what God says, every time?

I forgive you.

Read the account of the prodigal son in Luke's gospel and you'll get a perfect, simple and profound explanation of the Sacrament of Confession.

But, but, you might be thinking...my sin is too great. God can't handle the magnitude of my screw up.

Yes, He can. The same way He's handled it for every other sinner and saint (often one and the same) who've roamed this earth. There's nothing He can't handle.

God can handle abortion.

God can handle a sexual homosexual relationship.

God can handle an extramarital affair.

God can handle prostitution.

God can handle vasectomies and tubal ligations.

God can handle an IUD.

God can handle the Morning After pill.

God can handle sex trafficking.

God can handle a pornography addiction.

God can handle abuse.

God can handle divorce.

God can handle murder.

And God can handle you.

There's nothing you've done He can't (and won't) forgive, if you are willing to come to Him and ask for it. And that's the entire premise of the Gospel right there, isn't it.

He died for you. And He rose again for you. And He founded His Church to help carry you to Him. And He entrusted the Church with His laws, with His best plan for your life. And every time you stray from that plan, He's ready to welcome you back.

Every time.

So if you've had an abortion, do not despair.

If you've cheated on your spouse, do not give up and walk away.

If you're addicted to pornography and want so badly to believe the cultural lie that it's harmless and healthy and completely normal...listen to the small, still voice in the back of your mind that's telling you differently. And come to Jesus. He longs to rescue us from our sins.

The reason the Church teaches anything about anything at all is out of love. That includes in a particularly powerful way Her teachings about sex and marriage.

The "rules" and the "restrictions" are all there to protect us, and to call us back into relationship with God when we fall short.

And we all do. All.of.us.

That doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Pornography reaching epidemic proportions doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Birth control being practiced both in the pews and by the culture at large doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Abortion on demand available in most places and for any reason doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Homosexual relationships being recognized as marriages in 31 out of 50 states in the US doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

And the idea that you did x or y or z or even all three together and you might as well just accept yourself as "that kind of person" and walk away from Jesus because He doesn't want you and He doesn't accept you and His Church sure as hell doesn't want you around...

That's dead wrong.

The Church is your home. Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is your savior.

And if you've screwed up a hundred times, He is all the more your savior.

Sometimes the more a soul has suffered, the more a soul is capable of loving. And the more profound the conversion to holiness. Think of St. Paul. Think of St. Augustine.

It's never too late.

I hope you'll read everything I've written so far this month with that in mind, and everything else I'm going to write for the remainder of the month.

"Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground." -G.K. Chesterton

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50 Shades of Scando

Hat tip to Grace for coining the cheeky phrase, for it is what echoed through my tired little brain on all 4 legs of last week's flights from Hades.

For not only was our 'wee hot man' (so dubbed by our charming Scottish co-worker) an utterly and unrepentant insomniac for 99% of our air travels, but every.single.woman. seated within a 50 mile radius on every one of our flights was reading some iteration of the infamous erotica (thriller? tome? epic?) ... and I started to feel like the one student who picked up the wrong course outline back in September and was on a different reading list.

Confession: I have no idea the premise of the "50 Shades" series, other than a very vague impression of something involving repressive sexual tension and a male protagonist who doesn't like to be touched. (So I guess it's Twilight for the over 40 set?)  So, don't be surprised if I veer from this post to consult the google for more info on what the heezy these books are about and why they're so hot right now.

But I'll take a stab at it.

In a culture like our sex-saturated and Puritanically-rooted modern day America, it doesn't take a far stretch of the imagination to see why perfectly reasonable and moderately well-adjusted adults might be enticed to purchase, read, and verbally vomit enthralled enthusiasm for some poorly-written British soft porn in literary form.

Thank you, Facebook.

But more to the point, thank you, twisted and repressed 'liberation sexuality,' which somehow simultaneously renders millions of men impotent, millions of women anorgasmic, and millions of readers eager to lap up juicy details of some frigid old dude spanking his handcuffed younger flame. And we swoon over this?

Truth is, our sexual identity as a culture is so profoundly broken that it makes perfectly good sense that '50 Shades' would A. Sell spectacularly well and B. Induce ironic conversations on sex and intimacy between strangers that they are otherwise incapable of having with their actual sexual partners in real life.

Go figure.

When pornography invades a relationship or, at a broader level, a cultural ethos, and becomes perfectly acceptable as the new normal, real live intimacy dies. We spend so much time and energy as a culture talking about sex and how to improve it, how to deepen ones physical enjoyment, connect more deeply on an emotional level with one's partner(s, achieve multiple orgasms and get a body like Katy Perry's in order to win the affections of the most perfect man, that we don't actually have much time to enjoy authentic intimacy. Quite frankly, most of us have no idea what the hell that actually is.

When perfect strangers can titter over pages of sex scenes between fictional characters while passing the time between airport layovers, but they are incapable of having satisfying sex with their spouses or - worse - are unable to hang on to spouses, then Houston, we have a problem.

The scariest run-in I've had with Christian Grey to date was in a little snack and magazine store in the Charlotte airport (where I was secretly hoping to run into Emily Maynard, but I digress) where a mother(?), step mom(?), guardian-esque figure of authority(?) was waiting in line with a booty-short-clad teenage girl who apparently studied dictation under the auspicious tutelage of Lauren Conrad ala "The Hills."

I turned my eavesdropping ears in their direction at the first mention of '50.' After all, I'd sat beside no fewer than 14 women all reading the book during my travels that week (and spent an unfortunate 3.25 hours beside one woman who was on the final installment of the trilogy and was actually absent-mindedly running her fingers along her cleavage area while sighing occasionally as she flipped the pages. So.Very.Awkward.

So I tuned in to the mother and child reunion only to hear a super depressing back and forth where Mom (or whomever) was schooling daughter on the finer qualities of the tales.

Mom: Oh you have to read these...your dad has them on his Kindle, (um, he does? WTF?) you should ask him to borrow it when he's done.

Girl: Omgawd everyone is like obsessed with Christian. Teeheehee...all my girlfriends want to find a guy like him!

Mom: Well it isn't hard to see why...seriously you have got to read the books!

Girl: It's like all over Facebook how hot they are...everyone is obsessed with them...all my girlfriends are like in love.

Mom: OMG you HAVE to read them. Let's get your dad to give you the Kindle for the next leg of the flight.

Girl: (pointing to shelf) Holy sh*t there's the new (Tucker Max) book 'A$$holes Finish First' ... mom you have to read that it's sooooo funny.

End scene.

And end Western Civilization, if the above exchange is any indication of how we're doing in the culture and morals department.

I managed not to vomit or confront the conversing duo, but only thanks to extreme exhaustion and the heat emanating from the tiny man strapped Ergo-style to my chest. But their words stayed with me. And they are troubling. And I think, an indicator of the real fallout from our pornified, sexually 'progressive' and permissive culture.

What we're witnessing here, people, is the death of intimacy. Ironically and irrefutably manifested in a cultural obsession with pornography. But what we're missing here is the point: no amount of titillation or exposure or oversharing can ever - ever - replace the deeply satisfying interpersonal communion we were created for. And the more we seek to expose and consume in the name of sexual satisfaction, the further we move from the truth of it, and from any measure of real happiness in that arena.

I've been meditating on this quote from Pope Benedict (you know, that repressive old man in Rome) recently and I think it fits perfectly the topic at hand:

"The world promises you comfort. But you were not made for comfort...you were made for greatness."

True, no?

When Yo Mama is Yo Pimp...

... then where else can you go but down?

Demand Your Dignity

LOVE this.