One of the good things about having the odd troll turn up in the combox is that they give me ideas to blog about. Here’s one: “The Catholic Church’s teachings on sex shackle women to their fertility.”

This is one confused person. He doesn’t seem to understand that sexuality itself is shackled to fertility. That’s what sex is for: making babies. The biology is real simple: that organ goes in there to inseminate the woman so she becomes pregnant. It is obvious that this is what those organs are for just as it’s obvious that a mouth is for eating food and a rectum is for expelling waste. An ear is for hearing and a nose is for smelling.

The choice is obvious: sexual activity is either for recreation of procreation. If it is for procreation, then all the rest of the Catholic stuff follows. If it is for the reproduction of children, then the children need to be born into a secure and happy home. The most secure and happy home is one in which a man and woman live together in a permanent and indissoluble bond of love. It’s all one package.

However, if sexual activity is for recreation not procreation, then the secularists are right and anything goes. If sexual activity is simply a fun past time then you might as well play games with anyone, anywhere and what’s wrong with that? If sexual activity is for recreation then there is no reason why there should be any limits between consenting persons–and that is precisely where our society is headed. Did a Hollywood director shrug and say incest is okay? If sex is no more than a game of tennis–pretty much fun if you have a good partner–then anything goes. If sex has no meaning other than a pleasurable physical spasm, then there is no reason for sexual morality.

The problem is that people know deep down that it does have more meaning. That’s why they’re dis-satisfied with promiscuity. That’s why they go with the same person and enter a ‘relationship’.  That’s why they have broken hearts when the affair ends. They know that sexual activity is supposed to be fruitful.  They know that it is supposed to bring about new life and new love and take the person into a relationship that will be fulfilling and eternal.

Does the Catholic church’s teaching on sexuality “shackle women to fertility”? Yes it does, because it insists that sexuality and procreation are naturally linked, and they cannot be un-linked without doing violence to both fertility and sexuality. Are women so ‘shackled’? Yes, but so are men for the Catholic Church teaches that a man’s sexuality is also linked with fertility. He is supposed to be a Father and a husband. He is no more permitted to separate his sexuality from fertility and responsibility than a woman is.

Does the Catholic Church shackle anyone’s sexuality to their fertility? No. Everyone has free choice. A woman or a man doesn’t have to have their sexuality shackled to anything. They can be totally and utterly free to be their own person and not be troubled by babies and marriage and all those other ‘shackles’ normal people call a ‘family.’

A Catholic who does not want to be shackled to these things can be celibate and therefore totally and utterly free.