Via Get Religion, a story about Protestants in Austin who have decided not to use artificial contraception, but rather to rely on Natural Family Planning. Excerpt:
Phaedra Taylor abstained from sex until marriage. But she began researching birth control methods before she was even engaged, and by the time she married David Taylor, she was already charting her fertility.Taylor, a fresh-faced 28-year-old who would blend in easily with South Austin bohemians, ruled out taking birth control pills after reading a book that claimed the pill could, in some cases, make the uterus uninhabitable after conception occurred. She viewed that as abortion, which she opposes.
"I just wasn't willing to risk it," she said.
Taylor wanted her faith to guide her sexual and reproductive decisions after marriage. Natural family planning felt like the best way to honor God, she said.
The Taylors are one of several couples at Hope Chapel -- a nondenominational church where David Taylor, 36, was the arts minister for 12 years -- who practice natural family planning. Christian scholars say they may reflect a growing trend among non-Catholic Christians who are increasingly seeking out natural alternatives to artificial contraception.
Mollie at GR, who praised this story for being informative and balanced, writes:
For how sex-obsessed our culture is, it's surprising how little we talk about the spiritual side effects of procreation and contraception. The way we view our bodies and the manner in which we approach sex are some of the most profound theological questions we face in our daily lives, and yet it doesn't seem to make it into mainstream media much.
I would suggest that's because it's not an issue for most MSM reporters. My guess is that they don't see that there's anything theological about it. And if the thought occurred to them, it would be, "God blesses whatever I choose to do with my body, and anybody who says otherwise is some kind of right-wing nut."
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Clare Krishan: Sexuality without birth is no sexuality!
My aunt had six miscarriages and never had children of her own, much to her lifelong sorrow. If she were still alive, I'd tell her your definition of sexuality. It would have consoled her immensely, I'm sure.
But, Clare, my definition of climax is orgasm for the male and multiple orgasms for the female. If you think otherwise, you may be depriving yourself of the greatest bodily ecstasy the Good Lord granted us. You may doubt that or even consider it blasphemous, but what then would you say is the teleological function of the clitoris? If not pleasure, then is it not as useless as the vermiform appendix? And even if this "mere release of sexual tension" falls short of the transcendent spritual orgasm of Bernini's Estasi di Santa Teresa, how many of us mortals will share that bliss this side of the grave?
As a not entirely irrelevant obiter dictum may I opine that the Church will eventually change its "teaching" on human sexuality to acknowledge its material as well as spiritual elements. At present, the Holy See is mired in a quasi-Ptolemaic view of sexuality, a view which had baleful consequences for the Church's credibility when pontificating on the transcendent divine harmony of the cosmic spheres. Eppur si muove.
Roland I'm sorry but it seems that we're ships in the night - you're missing my point entirely - (Rod it seems BeliefNet ate my post linking to the Shivanandam work on "adequate anthropology" at Amazon?) Saint Theresa mothered many a born-again soul forming an abiding bond be the the spiritual father of the discalced reform St John of the Cross, and I'm convinced her ecstasy was more piercingly transcendent than serial philanderer and dead-beat dad Bernini could ever envisage 'penetration' in his mind's eye!
May I propose that the experience of clitoris' physionomy is the exclusive perogative of those spouses blessed to have recourse to the sensations relayed to the mind via intact pelvic nerves (paraplegics and stroke victims may not, and certain primitive -- including Islamic -- societies deliberately mutilate their wives and daughters to deny them this God-given experience of Eros) and thus as a blogger I will demure debating this with you
Your Aunt's miscarriages were births - sadly God in his mysterious ways did not foresee that they be live births, her sexuality was not debased. Those who elect to kill the quickening life in the womb do violence to the sexuality of both the mother-to-be and the father-to-be, they reduce the body to an instrument - a tool to be applied to attain a selfish end, a mere "means" in other words. Those of us who ascribe to standards of human dignity that include incarnational divinity demand we never use our bodies as means - they are too precious for that.
Clare, I think you are right about the ships in the night. You navigate the briny furrows of the purple main with an accurate chart, perched in the crow's nest of the Barque of Peter, undaunted in the face of roiling tempests, while I, cowering in an unseaworthy coracle, cast my old salt's seasoned eye upon the flotsam of fallen mankind, and hope for Him that trod upon the turbid tides and soothed the swollen seas.
Despite our different bearings, perhaps we seek the same haven. May She whose Dormition and Assumption we celebrate today and who dwells now in the Age to Come, see us both safely to that haven.
Rombald: Re: the "greenies" paying attention to NFP, IIRC one of the earliest books on NFP was written by Margaret Nofziger, one of the leaders of The Farm commune back in the early 1970s. It was called "A Cooperative Method of Natural Birth Control" and basically covered the "symptothermal" method. Shortly after, Barbara Seaman's 1974/1975 (can't remember) "Doctor's Case Against the Pill" came out, and many "natural food"/natural living hippie types drop-kicked the Pill. Many switched to diaphragms (condoms were not really in widespread use by many then.)
Clare: Sexuality without birth is no sexuality!
Thanks, Clare, I'll treasure that all through my menopause.
Re: Catholic teaching about birth control. Humanae Vitae clearly says that the Church's teaching on birth control (as part of the "natural law") is supposed to apply to *everyone*, not just Catholics. From a religious standpoint, it seems that it would make more sense to not try and justify it - rather, to simply say, "OK, you're Catholic, this is just one of the "rules" for being Catholic. No BC, period."
As far as natural family planning goes, it has a lot to recommend it; however, a lot of people would probably be much happier with it if they were comfortable with other means of sexual expression during fertile times. Using barriers *can* interfere with fertility signs, unless you also use temperature. I think the sexual frustration many couples feel with NFP is probably not healthy or desirable in marriage.
Clare: Sexuality without birth is no sexuality!
Thanks, Clare, I'll treasure that all through my menopause.
Heh...
Late to the game here, but...
Unrepentant, happily married contraceptive couple here.
Frankly, I loved my time on chemical BC. I loved the low flow 2.5-3 day periods, the lack of cramps, the freedom to participate in the public arena/outdoors activities w/o the hassles and restrictions imposed by 6 day periods, the ability to plan when we would have our three sons, the freedom to engage with the BH wholeheartedly and without fear, and also the freedom to develop my career without fear.
I hear a lot of talk about how the contraceptive mentality means that husbands and wives are not truly giving of themselves, that it means that couples "do not want ALL of one another." I can happily admit that...No, back in the uberfertile days, I did not in fact want ALL of my husband ALL the time. This has to do with the essentially onesided consequences of my Better Half giving me his ALL, a reality that invariably gets lost in the discussion.
So while I am all in favor of folks using whatever means best suit their beliefs and circumstances, please spare those of us who are going strong 30 years in...the bizarre and insulting charge that our "contraceptive mentality" has denied us true intimacy. Or at least acknowledge that the charge is an opinion, and not a fact.
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