Is sex outside of.........

[bodidley]

What's wrong with "bastards?"

God loves bastards. Take King Solomon as an example.

...

[Prime Minister Kongming]

What's wrong with "bastards?"

God loves bastards. Take King Solomon as an example.

...

im a bastard how dare you

[WeiWenDi]

Split from this thread. An abbreviated review here:

As I said many times, my Catholic background was still important as if stressed upon me the need to love others, compassion and empathy etc however I wasn't comfortable with some things;

1) The ideas of Sex being for procreation, we are not in danger of dying out as a species and in fact, our planet is uh, getting very over populated in many areas so Sex being for procreation alone seemed quite unnecessary!! Why should a person be forced to bring someone into the world, even if they are struggling to get by, just because they want some intimacy with their spouses!! Hell, I even heard of a priest condemning a woman who almost died having both her children and being told anymore will kill her, for using contraception!!
2) This idea of "Even if you are homosexual, it is ok, God loves you, I will pray for you while also mentally judging and condemning you for daring to get close to the person you love" Yes I know people don't say that but that's what it essentially means, unless you're heterosexual and married live a chaste lonely life while people quietly and loudly in cases, judge and insult and condemn from the sidelines!! I won't get into how healthy Sex is if practiced safely and cleanly without harming others!!
3) The inequality of how me are priests but women must hide in Convents and cover their heads and such if they want to take Holy Orders!! Also getting marriage advice and family advice from someone who has never given birth, who has never spent endless nights getting up to feed babies while trying to hold down a 9-5 job, just struck me as odd!! They can try to empathize but in the end, won't know what its like!! Priests and parents/spouses live very different lives!!

2.) I haven't had problems of being personally judgemental of gay people since high school freshman year, and I do hope I can stay that way. But then, who wasn't a total idiot in high school?

My Church does teach that homosexual acts are 'a vicious distortion of the God-created human nature', so I am not at liberty to say otherwise. But I am not a priest, and it isn't my business to do any judging or condemning of people who are struggling or who are in a bad place or relationship. God knows I have enough baggage of my own.

But I do sadly have experience enough to say that personally, sex outside of a committed relationship, preferably marriage, is not emotionally healthy for anybody involved. The few sexual relationships I was in before my marriage were all total emotional wrecks, and the one partner I had who I came off respecting afterward was the one who insisted on not going further than making out. I'm not going to comment on what other people for what they do in private, but don't try telling me sex outside of marriage is 'healthy'. It's really not.

This is entirely subjective, as each relationship, brief or long, is different, very different!! Each person enters into a relationship with a desire and expectations of their own and it takes two people to make a relationship work for its specific purpose!!

Myself, for example, have had many different types of relationships that all came to their conclusions in many different ways, some were train-wrecks and some were fine and mutual!!

One of the relationships was a wreck because he wanted me to be a trophy, to be by his side so he could say "This is my woman" which in his mind included spending our weekend in his country house mainly so that he didn't have to see me talking to other people, including other men!! Of course it was put to me as "alone" and "romantic" time so it took a while, when we eventually did go out, for me to see the jealousy and insecurity and decided to get out of dodge despite all the plans we made which we quite a few but I will not be controlled!! I am a naturally talkative person, I enjoy being around people so it wouldn't make sense for me to be with someone who was going to punch something or someone every time he felt jealous!!

This is of course, simply one example of why certain relationships will undoubtedly become train wrecks, it had nothing to do with our sex life and all to do with the issues he had outside the bedroom!! I have also had sexually relationships that were simply for sex, I'm not ashamed of it, I am not a dirty person and have always been safe and careful!! I consider these relationships very successful, one lasted over two years and the two of us were very comfortable with one another!! We both got what we wanted out of it without the illusion on either side that feelings might develop!! I actually sent him a video game as an apology when my naive friend got involved and asked him if he fancied me as if we were still in a school playground and didn't meet up with him for a month after incase any miscommunications happened!! I wasn't running around sleeping with everyone I could get my hands on, but when I was single I still didn't miss out on the bonds and intimacy that I enjoyed!! In a way, we were both committed to what our relationship was, and that was purely bedroom enjoyment and relaxation, there were no messages or lying in bed thinking of one another and there was no jealousy or giddiness!!

Unsuccessful relationships happen when people enter them under false pretensions or against better judgments and such!! If someone just wants sex then they should stay away from people they know have feelings for them!! If someone has feelings for someone else and they know they can never be with them then they should stay away from them!! Train-wrecks only happen if one half or both participants of the relationship allows them to happen!! People should be honest about what they want, what the expect and what they don't like other wise yes, things will crumble and people will get hurt!! Communication is one of the biggest factors in a successful relationship!!

[...]

Heh, each to their own, clearly you needed something more than just sex and that's fine!! Stability clearly works for you and that is also fine!!

But there have been scientific investigation into the benefits that Sex can have on people both physically, emotionally and mentally!! You can find information on this all over the Internet about the benefits of sex and I don't particularly see why those benefits should be left solely for those who are married!! Why should someone be denied the stress relief benefits sex can provide you with just because they haven't met the person they want to spend the rest of their life with?? Because Train-wrecks?? Well those happen in marriages as well but I think as long as someone is being safe and responsible, why not??

My point is, every person is different and thus every relationship is different and people should be happy and allowed to do what makes them happy so long as they aren't hurting others!! Broken hearts don't really count here as those will happen and they happen in marriages as well!!

I have seen healthy non-marriage relations. Obviously didn't work for you and I'm sorry about that but people can have healthy relationships without marrying (would still recommend marriage)

It isn't healthy or unhealthy in itself, with all it carries sex is, in the end, merely an action.
Many are perfectly capable of enjoing it without commited feelings, many aren't.
Whether it is healthily enjoyed or not has to do with the persona of the involved people, not with the act itself.

Hmm... have to disagree in part here. Sex outside marriage is certainly more likely to produce a destructive result because it is a potentially emotionally engaging action with possible physical consequences introduced into an immature relationship. That necessarily creates greater risk than what would be the case in an established relationship (signing a piece of paper and corresponding legal parameters not required).

But it can also be just as (or even more) enriching depending on the emotional maturity (and other flavors of maturity) of those involved. And it can contribute in other ways not necessarily endorsed by religious views—emotional health, enjoyment, pleasure. And I'd add that it can also be enriching in the context of developing emotional maturity for a committed relationship. It can apply in even base levels. Having that experience with some emotional maturity can help a person to focus more on other aspects of a relationship when deciding marriage is appropriate.

But, hey, YMMV. Another person is abandoned financially destitute and pregnant.

~~~

Okay, so, a lot to reply to here.

First, the personal bit - at least the pieces I'm comfortable sharing here. Not that any of them are a very big secret, but even so I'm still sort of dealing with the consequences of them at the moment, so it's still a bit sensitive.

The first sexual relationship I was in, I think I may have described elsewhere on this forum; but it could essentially be summarised as abusive, or at the very least controlling.

Long story short, it was very clearly a HUGE mistake for me to have gotten involved in the first place. But the reasons that I did so were the reasons that any other teenager with too many hormones and not enough common sense gets into such a situation. I was insecure and lonely, in an environment where I was seeing my classmates 'hook up' and basically feeling peer-pressured into the same. And I personally wouldn't wish what I went through on any other young man or young woman.

The second sexual relationship I was in was incredibly short-lived - basically two trysts, with a bit of messaging back and forth - with a former student of mine. At that time, at the back of my mind I was still pretty deeply neurotic that I couldn't give her what she told me she needed from me. When we broke up, at first I thought she took it pretty well - or maybe I just wish she did - but in retrospect I think I hurt her pretty badly, and I still deeply regret the way I treated her.

So yes, communication is incredibly important. Honesty is incredibly important. But I have very deep doubts about people being honest with themselves or even knowing what it is they want when they want sex. And the way in which our culture relates sex to consumption produces some highly skewed priorities and some highly destructive behaviour in people. The use of sex as an advertising tool, as a stand-in for all the non-material benefits implied by a sexual relationship (including intimacy most importantly, but also happiness, health, maturity and self-realisation) and cultivating sexual insecurity in people, is something which deeply troubles me.

Because sex isn't the same thing as intimacy. And regardless of what the 'experts' say (such 'experts' usually featuring themselves in tabloids and being from the same class which produces marketers and PR consultants) it doesn't always make people happier, it doesn't always make people healthier and it certainly doesn't make people more mature. Sex is a very good thing, but modern society puts so much weight on sex that it strains actual sexual relationships beyond what is healthy. Christopher Lasch (who, as a follower of Sigmund Freud, is very far from trivialising or underrating sex!) understood this perfectly:

The mass production of luxury items now extends aristocratic habits to the masses. The apparatus of mass promotion attacks ideologies based on the postponement of gratification; it allies itself with sexual "revolution"; it sides or seems to side with women against male oppression and with the young against the authority of their elders... It emancipates women and children from patriarchal authority, however, only to subject them to the new paternalism of the advertising industry, the industrial corporation, and the state.

...

In a simpler time, advertising merely called attention to the product and extolled its advantages. Now it manufactures a product of its own: the consumer, perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored. Advertising serves not so much to advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life. It "educates" the masses into an unappeasable appetite not only for goods but for new experiences and personal fulfilment. It upholds consumption as the answer to the age-old discontents of loneliness, sickness, weariness, lack of sexual satisfaction; at the same time it creates new forms of discontent peculiar to the modern age.

So I would partially agree with Aygor on this: whether or not the sex is healthy depends on the people involved in it. (Sex clearly isn't 'just an action', though, unless other actions are treated with the same sort of weight.) But the better question is: exactly what sorts of people are we producing, in this cult of consumption that uses sex to market everything to us? Are these people the same sorts which James seems to think are capable of enjoying sex outside of marriage, or taking from it the lessons which he seems to think it can impart?

I think these are the sorts of questions that we should be asking.

[SunXia]

And regardless of what the 'experts' say (such 'experts' usually featuring themselves in tabloids and being from the same class which produces marketers and PR consultants) it doesn't always make people happier, it doesn't always make people healthier and it certainly doesn't make people more mature.

Well I have had abusive relationships as well, the are incredibly destructive and can affect one for a long time, there is no doubt on that. And of course Sex doesn't always make someone happier because relationships always depend on what you want from them.

My point is, every person is different and thus every relationship is different

It always depends on what you want out of sex or what you do get from it. If you want emotional depth then the best thing is to have a committed relationship. However, some people enjoy the brief feeling of intimacy things like sex gives them, may not feel emotionally deep compared to a marriage and such but there is that brief illusion as not every person has been able to find the person they want for the rest of their lives.

But a person can use it for a variety of different feelings that have nothing to do with emotion and as long as they are responsible then I don't see the harm as not everyone wants a lasting relationship or marriage.

The sex is sold by the media and advertisers is a totally different ball park honestly, that I could rant about all day if I am honest, I'm not a fan of Public Displays of Affection or whatever, there's a time and a place!!

[Dong Zhou]

What's YMMV?

I would actually agree with a lot of the problems you identify WWD with modern attitudes to sex. I disagree with the idea that only those who think sex is the be all and end are the ones happy with life outside marriage but otherwise (apart from Christopher Lasch seems to have forgotten to add "or the adverts lied their heads off"), I agree with what your saying.

[James]

Long story short, it was very clearly a HUGE mistake for me to have gotten involved in the first place. But the reasons that I did so were the reasons that any other teenager with too many hormones and not enough common sense gets into such a situation. I was insecure and lonely, in an environment where I was seeing my classmates 'hook up' and basically feeling peer-pressured into the same. And I personally wouldn't wish what I went through on any other young man or young woman.

This is probably a very common scenario. And even if it's not a matter of peer pressure, it's a matter of us responding to the changes in our bodies and our 'lizard brain' directives. Thing is, I wonder how much this changes for people as they grow older. Certainly the situation improves on average as people mature and accumulate more experiences, but a big part of those experiences is learning from past mistakes. A person who hasn't had the experiences you have had won't have those experiences to draw from informing decisions in a future long-lived relationship.

So yes, communication is incredibly important. Honesty is incredibly important. But I have very deep doubts about people being honest with themselves or even knowing what it is they want when they want sex. And the way in which our culture relates sex to consumption produces some highly skewed priorities and some highly destructive behaviour in people. The use of sex as an advertising tool, as a stand-in for all the non-material benefits implied by a sexual relationship (including intimacy most importantly, but also happiness, health, maturity and self-realisation) and cultivating sexual insecurity in people, is something which deeply troubles me.

[...] Because sex isn't the same thing as intimacy. And regardless of what the 'experts' say (such 'experts' usually featuring themselves in tabloids and being from the same class which produces marketers and PR consultants) it doesn't always make people happier, it doesn't always make people healthier and it certainly doesn't make people more mature. Sex is a very good thing, but modern society puts so much weight on sex that it strains actual sexual relationships beyond what is healthy. Christopher Lasch (who, as a follower of Sigmund Freud, is very far from trivialising or underrating sex!) understood this perfectly:

Agreed. Except the argument you're attributing to 'experts' seems more an argument attributed to the personalities behind entertainment marketing rather than actual experts, which likely wouldn't make those arguments. Their argument would instead be that sex can be a healthy and fulfilling thing. Not that it always is. More to the point, 'experts' typically wouldn't feature themselves in tabloids.

[...] In a simpler time, advertising merely called attention to the product and extolled its advantages. Now it manufactures a product of its own: the consumer, perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored. Advertising serves not so much to advertise products as to promote consumption as a way of life. It "educates" the masses into an unappeasable appetite not only for goods but for new experiences and personal fulfilment. It upholds consumption as the answer to the age-old discontents of loneliness, sickness, weariness, lack of sexual satisfaction; at the same time it creates new forms of discontent peculiar to the modern age.

The later part of this argument is wrong, as anyone who has studied advertising history should well know. The greater inclusion of sex in advertising was largely born by changes in society but it was long implied (especially in an particularly misogynistic manner) and it especially misses the mark on advertising based on extolling a product's virtues. Well, I guess it's spot on if the 'virtues' of a given product really don't need to be accurate, such as in advertising an elixir or the benefits of smoking to your breath or teeth.

That said, sex is playing a gradually greater role in advertising as society has become more open about sexuality. I don't agree with it in the sense that it is destructive to society—it does terrible damage to a person's ability to recognize what 'healthy' or 'pretty' are—but at the same time I am comfortable with society being more open and accepting of sexuality. I would level the same claim of concern against Walt Disney and his notion of what a princess looks like, or Barbie.

So I would partially agree with Aygor on this: whether or not the sex is healthy depends on the people involved in it. (Sex clearly isn't 'just an action', though, unless other actions are treated with the same sort of weight.) But the better question is: exactly what sorts of people are we producing, in this cult of consumption that uses sex to market everything to us? Are these people the same sorts which James seems to think are capable of enjoying sex outside of marriage, or taking from it the lessons which he seems to think it can impart?

I think these are the sorts of questions that we should be asking.

We have far, far more numerous societal problems at play right now than simply the role advertising is playing in society. Personally, I think efforts on the part of parents to prevent their children from understanding the changes in their body or knowing how to act on them responsibly does more harm to those individual children than advertising. Although parents are also in a very important position to counter-act some of the harm that advertising can do in what is watched, read, and discussed at home. And many of these problems have existed for a time—the primary thing that has changed is our ability to communicate about issues which impact large portions of the nation (see also, the internet) and cultural changes that have made it far more acceptable to discuss these subjects.

Sex is, fundamentally, a means of expressing and sharing in intimacy. So is kissing, albeit on a lesser scale in terms of emotional investment and potential consequences. The extent to which that is a good or bad thing depends entirely on the emotional maturity of the involved parties (regardless of how they might label their relationship).

Sex can be other things. It can be a thing that exists simply for pleasure. Even that not need be a bad thing, though religious interpretation would typically disagree strongly with this notion. And even here, regardless of how much we may frown upon it or be concerned about the potential consequences, it remains governed by the emotional maturity of those involved.

What's YMMV?

Your Milage May Vary. As in, "I got this speaker on clearance for $10 at my local Costco, but it might not be in stock at yours." Or, "Wanda and I had a wonderful, intimate relationship while dating and it was extremely fulfilling—we've been together ever since and are now happily married with a white picket fence and 3.5 children. But that Harley—I'm sorry she threatened to leave you for child support after she became pregnant if you didn't marry her."

[WeiWenDi]

Well I have had abusive relationships as well, the are incredibly destructive and can affect one for a long time, there is no doubt on that. And of course Sex doesn't always make someone happier because relationships always depend on what you want from them.

Well, that's one big part of my point right there.

The follow-up from it, though, is that healthy relationships are never about 'what I want from them', really. Healthy relationships are never about 'me', about what 'I want'. The two healthy relationships I've been in were the ones that were about 'we', and about who 'we are' and can be. Sex is the same way. It's amazing when done for the right reasons with the right person. But it can also be incredibly destructive, in the long term, if it's done for the wrong reasons.

Also, marriage isn't a cure-all. It clearly isn't when it's done for the wrong reasons, and it clearly isn't considering the way we Americans do it (where half of all marriages end in divorce). But there are two valid ways of being sexual: the golden rule is monastic celibacy (sublimating all one's sexual urges into devotion and love of God); the silver rule is marriage (giving oneself without reserve to another person, in the creative and procreative image of the Holy Trinity).

This is probably a very common scenario. And even if it's not a matter of peer pressure, it's a matter of us responding to the changes in our bodies and our 'lizard brain' directives. Thing is, I wonder how much this changes for people as they grow older. Certainly the situation improves on average as people mature and accumulate more experiences, but a big part of those experiences is learning from past mistakes. A person who hasn't had the experiences you have had won't have those experiences to draw from informing decisions in a future long-lived relationship.

All true, I suppose. But for me personally the costs of said mistakes and experiences has been relatively high. I realise that it might very well have been far higher, and I'm quite grateful that I 'got off easy', as it were. But those experiences did lead me to find that there is a remarkable amount of wisdom in the teachings of the Church that sex is something best left until marriage, a relationship sacramentally oriented to long-term trust, security and shared biological and social interests.

Agreed. Except the argument you're attributing to 'experts' seems more an argument attributed to the personalities behind entertainment marketing rather than actual experts, which likely wouldn't make those arguments. Their argument would instead be that sex can be a healthy and fulfilling thing. Not that it always is. More to the point, 'experts' typically wouldn't feature themselves in tabloids.

MDs, self-styled or otherwise, do feature prominently in the 'men's health' and 'women's health' magazines which are often found in supermarket register fronts. They may not be 'experts' in the strict sense of the word, but that is how they present themselves and that is how they are clearly meant to be taken by the reading public.

The later part of this argument is wrong, as anyone who has studied advertising history should well know. The greater inclusion of sex in advertising was largely born by changes in society but it was long implied (especially in an particularly misogynistic manner) and it especially misses the mark on advertising based on extolling a product's virtues. Well, I guess it's spot on if the 'virtues' of a given product really don't need to be accurate, such as in advertising an elixir or the benefits of smoking to your breath or teeth.

That said, sex is playing a gradually greater role in advertising as society has become more open about sexuality. I don't agree with it in the sense that it is destructive to society—it does terrible damage to a person's ability to recognize what 'healthy' or 'pretty' are—but at the same time I am comfortable with society being more open and accepting of sexuality. I would level the same claim of concern against Walt Disney and his notion of what a princess looks like, or Barbie.

Well, for one thing, that's not a particularly fair reading of Lasch's argument at all - and here I just presented his jeremiastic conclusion. Lasch does have a penchant for reading the past with a certain degree of sympathy; I wouldn't say nostalgia, because if you read his actual books he does make careful note of the benefits modernity has brought, but merely questions the cost at which they have come. He has also done quite a bit more study into this subject, having been an academic historian when he was still alive, than either you or I have, so I tend to defer to his expertise on the matter.

More broadly, though, I think his general message is right. The change in advertising has been gradual and it has been subtle, but it is noticeable. You're right that it has always been tethered to insinuating itself into some particular need whether real or imagined, but what Lasch is reacting to is the technique with which advertising now does so, not particular examples of where it has or hasn't succeeded. Marketing has grown more and more adept at creating and then exploiting these psychological insecurities.

Also, I don't think you can have it both ways the way you seem to want.

For a capitalist society like ours to be 'more open to and accepting of sexuality' in an uncritical way, means for precisely those drives and urges - formerly kept to the bedroom - to be placed in the eye of the market to be bilked for profit. That leads precisely to size-2 models in their underwear pouting and posing on billboards and magazine covers, which in turn drives the popular perceptions of body image, which in turn drives the demand for Disney princesses and Barbie dolls. The unattainable ideal is created for men to lust after, and for women to envy; the ideal in turn spurs consumer behaviour to chase after it. How is that not exactly what Lasch describes above?

We have far, far more numerous societal problems at play right now than simply the role advertising is playing in society. Personally, I think efforts on the part of parents to prevent their children from understanding the changes in their body or knowing how to act on them responsibly does more harm to those individual children than advertising.

Huh?

I agree that there are incredibly creepy and irresponsible parents out there, particularly in America and particularly in the Bible Belt. But I don't think that the vast bulk of parents - even the conservative ones - would say that they are trying to prevent children from understanding sex. I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of their position. I think instead they would claim that they are trying to contextualise sex within a moral framework that includes other aspects of adulthood.

Sex is, fundamentally, a means of expressing and sharing in intimacy. So is kissing, albeit on a lesser scale in terms of emotional investment and potential consequences. The extent to which that is a good or bad thing depends entirely on the emotional maturity of the involved parties (regardless of how they might label their relationship).

Sex can be other things. It can be a thing that exists simply for pleasure. Even that not need be a bad thing, though religious interpretation would typically disagree strongly with this notion.

There seems to be an attributional error in your logic here.

Something that is 'fundamentally' - that is, at its essence and basis - one thing, by definition cannot be anything else. So you are saying first that sex is at its essence and basis a means of expressing and sharing in intimacy, and then saying later that it... doesn't have to be?

And yes, personally I would say sex that exists simply for pleasure is a bad thing. Again, from my second experience: I wasn't religious at the time; I was in a neurotic, self-doubting stage in my life. You would probably say that I was too immature; no doubt that was the case - but certainly I was more mature than she was and ought to have known better. And I still felt distinctly like I had done something morally, ethically wrong, that I had done something wrong to her, regardless of how attractive or how good or how enthusiastic she was about the whole thing.

[SunXia]

The follow-up from it, though, is that healthy relationships are never about 'what I want from them', really. Healthy relationships are never about 'me', about what 'I want'. The two healthy relationships I've been in were the ones that were about 'we', and about who 'we are' and can be.

Well I should have stated this but I was really talking in "You" as in plural you (or you as in people in general) since as I said many days ago now, relationships should be based on honesty and communication, otherwise it becomes destructive and such. You, singular, should be honest with the other person so that you, plural, can decide if both want that type of relationship and such.

Sex is the same way. It's amazing when done for the right reasons with the right person. But it can also be incredibly destructive, in the long term, if it's done for the wrong reasons.

But "right" and "wrong" here are incredibly subjective as sex does not always have to be about love and stability and security and other things. If both participants want each other but don't have have deep feelings for each other I don't see how that becomes destructive unless one of the participants in inherently unstable mentally or emotionally.

You may think that is "wrong" but like I said, its subjective. Not everyone wants marriage, not everyone wants to be in a long-term relationship, etc etc. If you meet a like minded person and have a mature discussion on the matter, you can have quite a healthy mature relationship that is not based on "I love you".

There is not one type of relationship and thus there its not as simple as "right" or "wrong" so as long as both of you are honest about what you both want then it should be grand and not train wrecked.

[WeiWenDi]

Well I should have stated this but I was really talking in "You" as in plural you (or you as in people in general) since as I said many days ago now, relationships should be based on honesty and communication, otherwise it becomes destructive and such. You, singular, should be honest with the other person so that you, plural, can decide if both want that type of relationship and such.

This, I agree with completely.

But "right" and "wrong" here are incredibly subjective as sex does not always have to be about love and stability and security and other things.

This, I don't agree with at all. And what's more, I don't think you agree with it either.

Clearly there are objective 'right' and 'wrong' when it comes to sex - not subjective at all. Rape is wrong. Spousal abuse (or any kind of abuse within a sexual relationship) is wrong. Human trafficking is wrong. Sexual use of children is wrong. Incest is wrong. Prostitution is wrong. I would even say (though this is certainly controversial nowadays) that divorce for any other reason than infidelity or abuse is wrong.

It's also clear that 'consent' is not an adequate marker of 'right' and 'wrong' when it comes to sex. Prostitution can be considered 'consenting', since taken in an analysis absent all considerations of relative power and social status, it is transactional in an exactly analogous way to the 'consent' model (and many sexual libertarians can and do say so outright). Incest can be 'consenting' between two adults. Even some kinds of spousal abuse can be considered 'consenting', particularly if the abused spouse is afraid or too emotionally entangled to leave or deny consent. That doesn't make any of the above right.

What is absent from all of the above is exactly love, or at least love rightly considered. Sex without love is exploitation. It's exploitation of another person's body, for one's own selfish pleasure or reproductive faculties, no matter what other kind of discussion takes place.

[Shozuhn]

I agree with much of Wei Wen Di's statements.

Sometimes it would feel really, really good to punch my boss right in the middle of her face. But I don't, because I'm not a wild animal. Sometimes one must avoid what will feel good in order to eliminate the potential negative consequences. I mean, if the risk of disease wasn't bad enough; to potentially bring a child into a situation where there isn't a loving family environment within which to raise the child is just wrong.
I guess at it's heart, for me, sex without love just wouldn't feel right at all. Not only can too much potentially go wrong, (heartbreak, disease, pregnancy, exc...) but for me... I'd feel very disappointed in myself if I couldn't over come a basic animal instinct.
Or maybe I'm just old fashion... but I wanna be loved.