Sex and marriage

I've been scratching my head all day over this article that appeared in the New York Times, misleadingly (and presumably click-baiting-ly) entitled, "How Should Christians Have Sex?"  Upon seeing the headline, my immediate reaction was, "Er, just like everyone else?"

But the article, it turns out, isn't about how to do the famous deed, but rather when.

It helps to understand that the word "Christian", in the headline and throughout the article, is used, not in the way we Catholics use the word (i.e. "those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord" or "those who are baptized", or "those whose ethnic or cultural heritage is Christian"), but rather in the way that Evangelicals have co-opted the term - something along the lines of, "Christians of the Evangelical persuasion".

The author, Katelyn Beaty, is from the generation of Evangelical young people who were subjected to church pressure to make "purity pledges":

A majority of adults who came of age in evangelical churches in the 1990s and 2000s were exposed to “purity culture,” a term for teachings that stressed sexual abstinence before marriage. We had our own rituals, such as “purity balls,” and our own merchandise, such as “purity rings.” I had a “Wait for Me Journal” that I kept as a college freshman; created by a prominent Christian pop singer, the journal was designed to hold letters to my future husband. It held out the promise that if I remained pure, then God would reward good behavior with a husband — surely before I turned 30 so that we could have lots of children.

Beaty, who is now in her 30s, has become disillusioned regarding the purity movement:

The effects of purity culture are well documented, in books like Linda Kay Klein’s “Pure” and in #exvangelical online communities. Rather than emphasize the gift of sex within marriage, purity culture typically led with the shame of having sex outside of it. One piece of youth-group folklore was a “game” in which a cup would be passed around a circle. At each turn, someone would spit in the cup, until the last person had a cup full of spit. “Would you want to drink this?” the youth pastor intoned. “No. And that’s how others will see you if you sleep around.” Young women, who were expected to manage men’s lust as well as their own, fared the worst.

If your initial reaction to this sort of thing is to roll your eyes and think, "Thank goodness I was never subjected to that stuff," I'd urge you to suspend your disdain and continue reading to the end.  Because Beaty has written what strikes me as a risky and authentic outlook from someone to whom a life of promiscuity does not appeal, and whose church formation hasn't fully prepared her for the world.  Like a lot of people, she'd like to fall in love and get married.  She seems to be struggling over formulating and articulating the principles that guide her intuition.  She glances at the principle of consent that guides much discussion of sex on college campuses:

To be sure, consent is a nonnegotiable baseline, one that Christian communities overlook. (I never once heard about consent in youth group.) But two people can consent to something that’s nonetheless damaging or selfish. Consent crucially protects against sexual assault and other forms of coercion. But it doesn’t necessarily protect against people using one another in quieter ways. I long for more robust categories of right and wrong besides consent — a baseline, but only that — and more than a general reminder not to be a jerk.

In this passage and in one or two others, Beaty seems to be reaching, perhaps unconsciously, for a view of marriage that harmonizes with a traditional Catholic view:

part of me wishes that the fairy tale of purity culture had come true. While I hate the effects that purity culture had on young women like me, I still find the traditional Christian vision for married sex radical, daunting and extremely compelling — and one I still want to uphold, even if I fumble along the way.

It's possible that, as someone whose background is Evangelical, Beauty may not have the sacramental vocabulary on the tip of her tongue that we Catholics may have at the ready.

But on the other hand, most Catholic passages I run across regarding marital sex read as though they were written by a lawyer, or by someone who has never actually been married.  Consider this paragraph from the Catechism:

1621 In the Latin Rite the celebration of marriage between two Catholic faithful normally takes place during Holy Mass, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal mystery of Christ.¹²⁰In the Eucharist the memorial of the New Covenant is realized, the New Covenant in which Christ has united himself for ever to the Church, his beloved bride for whom he gave himself up.¹²¹ It is therefore fitting that the spouses should seal their consent to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives by uniting it to the offering of Christ for his Church made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice, and by receiving the Eucharist so that, communicating in the same Body and the same Blood of Christ, they may form but "one body" in Christ.¹²²

Beautiful in a way, and no doubt true for many.  But how compelling is that particular vision for someone not already immersed in Catholic sacramentality?

And then there is the rather florid language of the Exhortation Before Marriage, which I believe is of pre-Vatican II vintage, and which is popular in some conservative Catholic circles:

Truly, then, these words [the marriage vows] are most serious. It is a beautiful tribute to your undoubted faith in each other, that recognizing their full import, you are, nevertheless, so willing and ready to pronounce them. And because these words involve such solemn obligations, it is most fitting that you rest the security of your wedded life upon the great principle of self-sacrifice. And so you begin your married life by the voluntary and complete surrender of your individual lives in the interest of that deeper and wider life which you are to have in common. Henceforth you will belong entirely to each other; you will be one in mind, one in heart, and one in affections. And whatever sacrifices you may hereafter be required to make to preserve this mutual life, always make them generously. Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy, and perfect love can make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love. And when love is perfect, the sacrifice is complete. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, and the Son so loved us that he gave himself for our salvation. ” Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Surrender, self-sacrifice (including difficult and irksome sacrifice) ... is this passage about marriage, or marital sex?  Both?  Pregnancy?  All of the above?  Where's the romance?  Where's the toe-curling pleasure?  Where's the adventure and satisfaction of building a life together?  I'm not sure the fullness of marriage and marital sex have been articulated yet by the Catholic Church, either.