Michael J. Healy

Katie,
I think this was a very well thought out response.  I would add one thing.  I still think prudishness is a much wider problem in two respects in the modern world, not just for the religiously minded.
1) I think many people living profligate sexual life-styles are nonetheless afflicted with a false understanding of sex going back to prudish, puritan, or Manichean misunderstandings.  They feel there is something wrong with the latter but don’t know how to overcome the “wrongness” or negativity about sex and the body without a materialistic, naturalistic, or hedonistic response.  They may also not be satisfied with their “answers” but they know nothing else, so for a Catholic or Christian speaker on sex to attack prudish misunderstandings is an indispensable first step to get “moderns” to listen.
2) Secondly, I think many people today live in an excessive fear of being called a prude or a puritan—with the implication that they are nothing but immature, repressed, moralistic, goody-two-shoes “sissies” if they can’t be “naturalists” about sex.  Here again it is important as a necessary first step in order to begin a serious discussion (which will eventually get around to the nature of the human person, happiness, love, and morality) to convince people you are not advocating a return to prudishness and repression about sexuality. 

Thus the problem of prudishness is not limited to the religiously committed; it involves the masses who desperately need to be led back to wisdom, happiness, and faith.  And when you consider that the great apostasy from the Church (dissent from Humanae VItae) was really over free sex and the great evil of our time (free abortion) is really over free sex, well then it really is a challenge to meet people where they are and begin to get them to turn around.  So many have become so mindlessly convinced (in a “pseudo-obvious” way) that the Church is just wrong and prudish, that you have to start by showing you are not or they will not listen to one word you have to say—and they certainly will not discuss anything with you.

Bill, Scott, and Katie,
Several points:
1) The Regensburg address was top-notch and the key was the idea that the human mind can actually know some metaphysical and moral truths about reality and ultimately even about God.  Thus all is not reversible, even by an omnipotent God—remembering that St. Thomas says that nothing that implies contradiction lies under the omnipotence of God.  Now I think the key with Islam is to try to uncover or recover some sort of natural law and natural knowledge tradition.  I think there is such a thing but only as a precarious minority tradition.  One approach might be to ask Muslims exactly what they mean with their devotion to the 99 Names of Allah, which JPII described (in Crossing the Threshold of Hope) as some of the beautiful names of God in the history of the human race.  Are each of these names just an “appearance” God chooses to give to us, but which could all be reversed?  Doesn’t this drain out the very reason for the devotion to the 99 names?  Furthermore, though the anthropology is different, certain universal statements (like UN statements on human rights) have, at least officially, been accepted by some Muslim nations.  Also, thoughtful Muslims in the West and at some centers in the Muslim world have argued for recognition of basic human rights.  So all this has to be affirmed and advanced.  Moreover, despite the theoretical problems of grounding human rights in Islam, I think most of the billion Muslims on the street implicitly acknowledge respect for others and for human rights.  Without a clear rational grounding, of course, such an average person might be more easily radicalized, so more has to be done to explain the foundation for basic human rights in reality and in the Islamic tradition.  Daunting task, but necessary.
2) Personally I think that JPII probably was spontaneous in his kiss of the Koran, but I think he would do it again today as an affirmation of the good to be respected in Islam having priority over the errors or evils that were exemplified in 9/11.
3) I agree that in evaluating this gesture, we must be aware of the limits of Papal authority and example; sometimes Catholics put too much stock in every single thing a Pope says and does.  We must remember that Paul “withstood Peter to his face.”  However, this gesture was a good one in my opinion, despite possible misunderstandings.  If the Pope can show such respect for the Islamic Holy Book, perhaps his example will encourage a similar response of respect on the part of Muslims and be a starting point for further interest in Christianity.
4) Granted that Muslims at the moment would seem little interested in the view that their Book points toward Christ for its fulfillment, if some justification could be unfolded for this perspective from within the Koran, then perhaps at least Muslims would not have maintain current law (or family custom) in many places saying that conversions to Christianity are punishable by death.  Even with that law, conversions are taking place.  Without it, they might increase exponentially.

No, I wouldn’t be disappointed at all in some sort of separation and warning for certain topics.  That would simply seem to be prudent.

Lauretta,
This is a tremendous witness to the need for straight talk about these matters and the real challenge of meeting people where they are, if we are ever to get them interested at all and ready to look deeper.  This is where Christopher West is a real master whom we can learn from, even if others may be more careful and refined.  Thanks for sharing.

The opening statement makes good points.

My problem with the “censorship” is that it doesn’t seem to have to do with the explicitness per se.  Dr. Seifert described Max Scheler’s rather graphic comparisons of animal sex vs. human sexual relations.  Dr. Fedoryka used very powerful descriptions in discussing what he called the sneak attack from the rear.  As long as aesthetic disgust and moral condemnation were the sole atmosphere of such discussion, all was well.  Dr. Seifert even professed how proud he was to have Dr. Fedoryka for a friend.

Then Janet Smith asked for some attempt to understand why the moral theologians writing for seminarians in the 50’s took the position they did: that certain acts should be regarded as morally dangerous and cautioned against but without universal condemnation due to differences in individual human beings, circumstances, and motivations.  I tried to answer that request by asking three questions that didn’t seem to fit under Scheler’s or Damian’s descriptions and which seemed to illustrate perhaps why the old manuals took the position they did.  In other words, my three questions, regardless of personal belief, did not follow the paradigm for absolute disgust and condemnation.

Then suddenly the site had to be closed down.  Is this the way philosophical discussion and give-and-take in trying to understand reality—and trying to understand why eminent orthodox moral theologians writing for seminarians took the positions they did—are supposed to take place?

Are these discussions not supposed to take place at all?  Are the answers to be predetermined, otherwise no discussion?  Are these discussions to be limited to only advanced theology for seminarians?  Are the married couples and lay people who have to make these decisions not supposed be educated truthfully in this area?

I am disappointed in the shut-down.

Certainly each sex has some natural “matter” to deal with that is normally somewhat different.  But I just mean: 1) that the man’s challenge of ordering his more immediately arousing desires is no more daunting than the woman’s challenge of being more open to allowing hers to be aroused; and 2) the idea that the male’s “powerful urges” and “demands for release” create some special obligation on the woman to acquiesce is real poppycock.  Any guy who uses such an argument just needs to grow up!

Excellent post Lauretta. Thank you for your openness in sharing your concrete experience.

However, it might be apropos to repeat here what I said in the comment string under my original article on West—that a genuine intellectual understanding of and even healthy emotional sensitivity to the sexual sphere based in purity, proper modesty, and true bashfulness can also be combined (in the same person, on another level) with prudishness or false disgust with the sexual sphere.  We can be complicated, inconsistent, and contradictory creatures.  Thus an emphasis on freeing people from latent or residual prudishness can still be valuable even among those who understand and respond in a healthy manner to false approaches to sexuality.  The one thing (presence of healthy responses on one level) does not exclude the other (prudish responses to certain aspects of the sexual sphere on another level).  To quote myself (modestly, I hope):

Finally, let me just say that perhaps some of West’s critics skip too lightly over the continued problem, handicap, and hindrance to happiness that lies in on-going guilt and fear about the body and sex, coming from prudishness and puritanism.  Sometimes when people “see through” a certain problem in their own lives, it creates a tendency to downplay how difficult that problem may still be in the lives of others—or in the lives of the many.  Despite my deep imbibing of Von Hildebrand, Wojtyla, Pieper, etc. on sex and love, some of my initial reactions in the sexual sphere are still “touched” by the Manichean split of spirit good-body bad, love good-sex bad, which was the “form” under which I spent most of my teenage years, the “form” under which I first came into the sexual sphere.  Most of us could use more than a little “liberation” on the emotional level from such hang-ups, even those who can give inspiring talks overcoming the “split.”

The goal of unchaining Christian husbands and wives from prudishness or false fear or disgust with the sexual sphere might lead to much greater happiness among couples, i.e. if their actual love-making could become much more free and uninhibited, precisely in their affirmation of one another as persons through the body.

Legitimate.

Katie, I suppose we are talking past one another, so let me try to meet you better in terms of your particular points.  Certainly bad teaching, misunderstanding conjugal rights, will seriously harm marriages.  But it is also bad teaching to think the marital debt is not a very serious matter—I know you don’t dispute this. 

I think the husband’s problem in trying to “force” the matter one way or another is utter stupidity and imprudence; this is no way to get one’s spouse ready to make love.  Even physically the woman will be unable to relax, unable to be naturally brought along to receptivity and openness, such that the act may even then be painful.  Thus even if the husband gets his wish, this only makes matters worse and cannot be what he really wants.  Thus they have to sit down and talk about it and try to mutually understand, as in the case you mention in your update.  Here I would say that any husband with a modicum of respect and sensitivity should be willing to wait until some of these things are worked through.  However, if the projected wait is open-ended with the implication that it may be for quite a long time or until the wife feels fully convinced that the husband’s “got it” finally, then this may be experienced by the husband as judgmental, rejecting, and hopeless.  Therefore, if a husband’s approach on a given day is obtuse and a complete turn-off, discuss it all, but with the idea that very soon thereafter—like tomorrow perhaps—we will prepare ourselves for the romantic feast and renew the days of exciting courtship and wooing.  There’s not a man alive (if he has any sense at all) that would not gladly trade cold sex tonight for full romantic encounter—anticipated tonight and all day tomorrow and then consummated tomorrow night.  But then it really has to happen tomorrow night and not be continually delayed.  So it seems to me saying “No” on a given day can be fully justified and prudent, where the “Yes” would really end up hurting both parties and their relationship; but I think under guidance of the scenario give above.

In response to your numbered points:

1. The reason I laid out the alternatives so starkly is not that they are the only alternatives but that I think we are always somewhere along the continuum between these two extremes (or fundamental options) and tending in the one direction or the other.  I’m reminded of a poster I used to have on my wall at college (before rediscovering Christ).  With accompanying “horror” picture, it said “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil—For I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.”  I thought it was funny at the time, but it is really the attitude of the devil—vs. Christ.  I think we are always somewhere along these kinds of continua and pointing toward one or the other goal.
2. Yes.
3. Note that the teaching of St. Thomas here holds also for the husband in relation to the wife—the marital debt is a perfectly mutual and equal right.  I have really given the rights to my body (and all that should inform this level from above, conjugal love in Christ, as Josef elaborates, but still also literally the right to my body) to Maria.  If she were terribly ill, even with a contagious disease, and even after discussing it between us, she desperately wanted me to make love to her for her own peace of mind, validation, reassurance, etc., do I have the right to say “No?”  Personally, I don’t think so.  I should answer the call and put myself in God’s hands as far as the rest of it goes (i.e., my own health, etc.).  I am not my own, but belong to God and to Maria.
4. Concerning your additional comment in the new reply, I cannot speak for all men, but personally I have always been deeply offended by this talk that male sexuality is urgent and demanding—as if I can’t control myself and just have to give in to my instinctual urges.  This may have been true at age 15, but should certainly not be true a mature Christian husband, so I just say that’s a bunch of crock!  As far as who could physically overpower the other, I suppose it depends on the individual persons in question, but it has nothing essential to do with conjugal rights.  No one has the right to force the other, even if one has the power.