I know a guy who starts most meetings with a bad joke. Thankfully he has stopped telling the one about the Pope but his latest is about putting a wedding ring on the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico so it stops "Putting out."
So if a woman stops "Putting out" after she gets married, then it stands to reason that she started "Putting out" before marriage. I really have to wonder if a woman who stops wanting sex after marriage might not have felt so negative about it had she not had sex before marriage. And it seems to me that the men who complain about a lack of sex after marriage might not be so upset about the perceived injustice had they not thought that sex was their right before they got married.
An acquaintance of mine told me that he "Burned with passion" (1 Corinthian 7:9) too much to remain celibate. The obvious implication is that he was not created for celibacy and this very well might be so; maybe his vocation is to marriage and not to the generous single life. But while a man remains unmarried - burning with passion or otherwise - he is called to self control. Personal holiness is a vocation to which all men are called.
This man has been brought up and has maintained himself in a religion which teaches that personal holiness is not possible let alone asked of us. His religion teaches that we are all sinners - and this much is true - but it also teaches that nothing can change that fact and personally, I find that rather sad. He has been taught that baptism doesn't really do anything, there is no way for him to be objectively pleasing to God. Since his religion denies the efficacy of oral confession to a priest acting in the person of Christ, it has no way of assuring him of his forgiveness with any real certainty. The net result is that it simply never occurs to this man to ask God to make him holy. It never occurs to this man to get on his knees and say, "God, please make me a saint."
Did I mention that his religion denies the existence of saints?
Even if it did occur to this man to ask God to help him become a holy, virtuous person, his religion has no way of helping him achieve this other than what are essentially Bible based self-help groups. This man's religion teaches that Jesus Christ is not physically present and so he is unable to receive the most perfect assistance which the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ render. A validly ordained successor to the twelve apostles has never laid his hand on him, anointed him with oil and called down the Holy Spirit to dwell in him. He never calls on the great men and women of history who have risen to heroic virtue to pray for him. He shuns his Blessed Mother as nothing more than an incubator for Jesus' physical body.
And so I really don't blame this man for his lack of self control. I really don't blame the guy who tells the bad jokes either, nor the married men who complain about their lack of a sex life. I feel especially sorry for the women.
They have all been told the first half of the story, the part about being sinners. The second part of the story - the part where nothing clean will ever enter heaven and where God instructs us to "Be holy" - has been heavily edited by the censors to the point where it now reads, "God's mercy is guaranteed".
The third part of the story - the part where God gives us the means necessary to achieve personal holiness and to live lives of virtue - has been totally ripped out.
-Tim-
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