The Pope on the Infertile Period

"Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love."

The Pope tells us that sexual intercourse between a husband and wife is STRICTLY for the purpose of reproduction and taking responsibility for a family. HOWEVER, there is a way around this law, and that is the infertile period. If a husband and wife wish to express their mutual love in an intimate way, they have to do so during the woman's period. The infertile period is like a form of NATURAL birth control, and therefore can be taken advantage of. This is explaining the difference between natural birth control, and unnatural birth control. The husband and wife are rightly using this natural birth control as much as they want if the conception of another child is undesirable, for example, for economic reasons. Doing so, proves true and authentic love between the couple.

I believe that in order for a husband and a wife to be able to become one with another and bring out the perfections in one another (as the Pope says rightful husbands and wives should), sexual intercourse is a way of doing this. Sexual intercourse is believed as a way for a man and woman to become closer to each other than ever before and to profess their love for one another. In order for a husband and a wife to grow, sexual intercourse will need to come into play before they should be allowed to have children. Husbands and wives will need to grow to be responsible parents before their first child is conceived. I believe sexual intercourse SHOULD be permitted to a man and woman if they are rightfully married, for terms of intimacy and true love, not just for reproduction purposes. If man and woman only participate in sexual intercourse for the means of reproduction, they may not have the bond that a couple needs to be in true, authentic love and it would be more casual and less meaningful, therefore resulting in less growth for the couple and over time, distance will occur.

Sexual intercourse is natural, and appealing to men and women alike. We see sex everywhere, whether it be music, clothing, advertisements, artwork, landscapes, buildings, or even food for God's sake. Sex takes our 5 senses into mind using forms of scents, tastes, touch, sounds, and sights to control what we are attracted to and what 'turn us on,' ultimately. Our bodies read what is sexual and what is not at all sexual without us even knowing it. Our bodies construct our ultimate fantasies and what we desire and long for in terms of intimacy. We grow and adapt when we read the media around us and our sexual wants and needs begin to change to the point where we want more, more, more exciting and new ways to achieve satisfaction. Each and every culture has different forms of ways to achieve sexual satisfaction and different traditional sexual practices, making each culture sexually different, eve though sexual intercourse gives all of us the same enjoyment. Bordo explains to us that women go to high extents to be sexually attractive to males, by means of bulimia and anorexia, so that they are the woman the man chooses in the end. Sexuality is a competition between women and the man will go for the most attractive, and child-bearing looking woman. There are tests conducted by prestigious schools, such as Harvard, to tell us what our bodies like and are appealed to. Those that we don't appeal to are a turn off and we look at them as appalling. Leppert reads the female nude as more sexual a character in our famous artworks than a traditional, non-sexual, icon as we thought these paintings were to supposed to be. Orgies are depicted, Adam and Eve are reconstructed, ALL in terms of our sexual desires and sights in terms of our intimacies. History has shown that sex is, and always will be, a major contributor in the construction of our cultures and medias. Church's and religions all alike deny sex and look down upon it, for we were not created to possess satisfaction, we were created for reproductive purposes and that sex is the ultimate temptation. But in reality, SEX IS EVERYWHERE, and all we have to do is take it in and enjoy it, for it is a natural occurrence.