Masturbation was commonly regarded in the past as a sin of “self-abuse.” But it makes sense to ask why or how a person “abuses him/herself” by masturbating. To answer this question it is most important to realize that our bodies are definitely not tools or instruments that we, human “persons,” use in order to do different things, among them to give us pleasurable experiences. Such a dualistic understanding of human persons and their bodies is widely accepted in secular culture and has influenced many, including some Christians. This understanding sharply differentiates between the “person,” i.e., the subject of experiences, and the “person’s” “body,” which of itself is part of the world of nature over which the “person” has dominion. 

The title of this article was suggested by a paper given in Spanish by Reynaldo Rivera called “Is it necessary to educate the heart?” at the First International Meeting on the Education of Adolescents on Affectivity and Sexuality held in May, 2006 in Mexico City. Rivera—and all the participants at this meeting—insisted that it is more important to educate the “hearts” of adolescents about their feelings and sexuality than it is to teach them the “facts of life.” [1]  Moreover, didn’t Jesus tell his disciples, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good” (Lk 7:43)?

In May, 2010 my article, “The Social Costs of Pornography” was posted on  http://culture-of-life.org//content/view/639/103 . It summarized a 61 page booklet, The Social Costs of Pornography: Findings and Recommendations published that year by the Witherspoon Institute.. Later in 2010 the Witherspoon Institute published a book of over 260 pages entitled The Social Costs of Pornography: A Reader, with a Foreword by Jean Bethke Elshstain and an Introduction by James R. Stoner and Donna M. Hughes.

This article will present some of the extensive evidence provided by the Reader of current scientific studies to show that use of pornography causes terrible harms to millions of people today. Because of the Internet and other new technologies those harms now affect more and more people who can access “hardcore” porn instantly from around the world.

In the most important and obvious sense there is certainly sex in Heaven simply because there are human beings in Heaven. As we have seen, sexuality, like race and unlike clothes, is an essential aspect of our identity, spiritual as well as physical. Even if sex were not spiritual, there would be sex in Heaven because of the resurrection of the body. The body is not a mistake to be unmade or a prison cell to be freed from, but a divine work of arto designed to show forth the soul as the soul is to show forth God, in splendor and glory and overflow of generous superfluity.

But is there sexual intercourse in Heaven? If we have bodily sex organs, what do we use them for there?

Not baby-making. Earth is the breeding colony; Heaven is the homeland.

Not marriage. Christ's words to the Sadducees are quite clear about that. It is in regard to marriage that we are "like the angels". (Note that it is not said that we are like the angels in any other ways, such as lacking physical bodies.)

Third Principle: Sex Is Spiritual

That does not mean "vaguely pious, ethereal, and idealistic". "Spiritual" means "a matter of the spirit", or soul, or psyche, not just the body. Sex is between the ears before it's between the legs. We have sexual souls.

For some strange reason people are shocked at the notion of sexual souls. They not only disagree; the idea seems utterly crude, superstitious, repugnant, and incredible to them. Why? We can answer this question only by first answering the opposite one: why is the idea reasonable, enlightened, and even necessary?

The idea is the only alternative to either materialism or dualism. If you are a materialist, there is simply no soul for sex to be a quality of If you are a dualist, if you split body and soul completely, if you see a person as a ghost in a machine, then one half of the person can be totally different from the other: the body can be sexual without the soul being sexual. The machine is sexed, the ghost is not. (This is almost the exact opposite of the truth: ghosts, having once been persons, have sexual identity from their personalities, their souls. Machines do not.)

Butterflies, blushing, giddiness, throbbing heart, are all symptoms of…..(drum roll)  yes, those bothersome, endearing, often dangerous yet exciting experiences we so commonly call “love.”   But can and should this sudden onset of attraction be worthy of the title of love?  What’s more, is it necessary to romantic marital love or is it something to be discarded as mere play of the emotions, a stoicly held distraction from virtuous love?

Surely, all of us can remember an instance, likely in our youth, where someone struck us with Cupid’s arrows.  Maybe it was the “bad boy” who came to land in our circle.  He was tall, lean, broad–shouldered, rugged and a fitting candidate for Michelangelo’s model of David.   Shameless as it may sound, many of us must admit that our ‘David’ made us tingle all over and left us acutely aware of his every flinch. 

“The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations” is a booklet, edited by Mary Eberstadt and Mary Ann Layden and published last year by the Witherspoon Institute. The booklet summarizes a consultation of 54 scholars held in Princeton, N.J. in December 2008 sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute and co-sponsored by the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. A sampling of participating scholars includes Hadley Arkes of Amherst University, Gerard V. Bradley of Notre Dame University’s Law School, J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas, Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Foundation, Jean Bethke Elshrain of the University of Chicago, John Finnis of Oxford University, Robert George of Princeton University, William Hurlbut, M.D., of Stanford University Medical School, Mary Ann Layden of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychiatry, Margarita Mooney of the University of North Carolina, David Novak of the University of Toronto, Roger Scruton of Oxford University, Gladys Sweeney of the Institute for the Psychological Studies, and W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia.

Dr.s Richard P. Fitzgibbons, M.D. & Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. explain the early signs of Gender Identity Disorder, the sources of the disorder and counsel parents on strategies that can be counterproductive as well as strategies and therapies that are helpful and effective. 

My recent Zenit pieces on marital consummation precipitated a delicate question related to the satisfaction of spouses—particularly wives—in marital conjugal relations.  I offer here some general thoughts on the question.  This essay’s content may not be appropriate for children to read.

The “conventional wisdom” prevalent in the United States, European Nations, and the United Nations is that the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS in Africa (or anywhere, for that matter) is to practice “safe sex,” that is, to make use of condoms and other prophylactic devises. The Catholic Church is regularly criticized for its failure to urge the use of condoms and “safe sex” in Africa and is blamed for the AIDS “epidemic” in sub-Sahara Africa.

In 1960 the Food and Drug Administration approved the oral contraceptive known as “The Pill.” To celebrate the Pill’s 50th birthday Elaine Tyler May, Regents Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Minnesota, has published America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation (New York: Basic Books, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2010, 214 pp.).

“The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations” is a booklet, edited by Mary Eberstadt and Mary Ann Layden and published last year by the Witherspoon Institute. The booklet summarizes a consultation of 54 scholars held in Princeton, N.J. in December 2008 sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute and co-sponsored by the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. A sampling of participating scholars includes Hadley Arkes of Amherst University, Gerard V. Bradley of Notre Dame University’s Law School, J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas, Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Foundation, Jean Bethke Elshrain of the University of Chicago, John Finnis of Oxford University, Robert George of Princeton University, William Hurlbut, M.D., of Stanford University Medical School, Mary Ann Layden of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychiatry, Margarita Mooney of the University of North Carolina, David Novak of the University of Toronto, Roger Scruton of Oxford University, Gladys Sweeney of the Institute for the Psychological Studies, and W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia.

Andrew Koppelman and others say “It certainly does!”
Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, and others claim that contraception definitely prevents abortion. This April (2010) Koppelman posted a commentary, “How the Religious Right Promotes Abortion,” [1] that was immediately attacked byspokespersons of the “Religious Right” (e.g., Michael New of the Witherspoon Institute). Koppelman judges it to be “astoundingly stupid and tragic” to argue over this. Continuing, he said, “One of the rare areas of common ground between opponents and supporters of abortion rights is that neither side thinks that unintended pregnancy is a good thing.  We should be able to come together on measures that would actually reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancy, and thus, inevitably, reduce the abortion rate.  That might even help the anti-abortion cause in the long run, because it would reduce the number of American women who have had abortions…. Yet instead, we are having this silly argument.  It is dispiriting.”

The April 10, 2010 bulletin of iMAPP Marriage News [1] highlighted this issue. It focused on the Witherspoon Foundation’s recent conference and book, The Social Costs of Pornography.[2]

After summing up Marriage News’s report of the Witherspoon Foundation’s conference and book on the social costs of pornography, I will present the masterful analysis of pornography and “pornovision” offered by a prominent philosopher/theologian during the last quarter of the 20th century, namely, Karol Wojtyla, better known as Pope John Paul II.

Duke University Champions
Most Americans know that Duke University’s Men’s basketball team is the 2010 champion of college basketball. But few know that Dr. Monique Chireau, a Duke University expert in obstetrics and gynecology, is a champion of abstinence only programs as the way to help teenage girls forbear having sex, whether allegedly “safe” or “less unsafe,” and as a result avoid getting pregnant and at the same time avoid contracting an STD or sexually transmitted disease.

1.    Ms. O’Leary, can you begin by helping us understand what is meant by feminism, and whether there are particular distinctions among feminists that are important to recognize?

It is important to distinguish liberal feminism from radical feminism and these from the search for authentic womanhood based on the truth about the human person.

If you were looking for another indicator of the cultural malaise to which our young are subjected today, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) delivered last week.   At the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference in Chicago, March 11th, they issued results of a nationally representative survey which found that slightly more that one in four (26%), or 3.2 million, teenage girls between ages 14 and 19 have contracted a sexually transmitted disease (STD).  Among those infected, about 15% had more than one disease.  Some groups had about twice the national average – nearly half of young African American women or adolescents in the survey had an STD.