Psychology Today interview about "crying over spilled semen"

I find the below article very interesting from a natural law perspective. Women who have sexual relations without a condom are happier and less suicidal than woman who are celibate or use condoms.

As a sex addict and a Catholic I think that contraception is morally evil and that it is bad for a sex addict to use. It removes total giving, total acceptance and consequences from sexuality. When I have to make a decision to have relations in the fertile time or only in the infertile time I am taking responsibility and thinking outside of my gratification. This is a blessing for a sex addict in recovery. It brings me to know that sex is indeed optional and when I embrace it I grow.

It appears that a woman who is having sex with her spouse (a truly committed stable relationship and not just living together) would be the happiest if she accepts sex the way it is designed. No putting anything into the middle of it. This recognizes the unitive (mutual self-giving) and procreative design (mutual self-donation) of the marital act.

It also shows how the woman who has sex without a condom doesn't become as depressed when she ends one relationship, hmmmmm, accepting sex is more bonding?

Link below.

Under the Mercy,

MS

nfp sexaholic sexaholism natural+family+planning addiction+recovery condoms psychological+effects+sex sex semen depression

This link is from Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20021002-000009.html

Click the link above (or copy-and-paste into your internet browser)
to see the full article of:

Title: Crying Over Spilled Semen

Summary: Why women who don't use condoms feel happier.

Journal 20071017

Sexual Emotions.

These are not emotions in the truest sense of the word emotion but are desires that can be triggers. In some way they are things that are out of control that sex addicts try to meet or find in lusting.

One of the hardest things about being a sex addict is that the ultimate expression of my addiction is something that is built into every human being. We are made as sexual creatures. Sex itself isn't the problem but misplaced driving forces behind it are the problem.

If I were an alcoholic I would be addicted to alcohol but the consumption of alcohol isn't coded into the very fact of humanity. Sexuality is coded into my very being. It is a strong power that God has given to us so that we can share our very being. It is so strong that it is designed to bring out new life in this world.

The "sexual emotions" are things that I mistake for true intimacy. Sexual intercourse, the marriage act, should be a fruit of intimacy (caring/giving/loving) my wife but I feel that at times my yearning is from these "sexual emotions". Maybe it would be better to call them sexualised desires, for that is what they really are. Emotionally, I have a need to be accepted, loved and wanted and that is a hard thing for me to deal with right now when my wife is sexually unavailable to me by her choice. I have assented to that choice intellectually but I also know that I desire her.

Earlier, I posted about my fear of having lust removed from my being. I wonder in some ways if what I was and still am holding onto is in some ways me wanting to retain my lust in a small way. I want my wife to desire to be with me, I want to feel accepted and loved by her. I wonder if that is in some ways lust. I already know the answer to that question. It is just another form of lust.

I am not saying that it is bad to be comforted by being accepted or to feel loved. What I am saying is that I have to surrender that feeling, that need so that it doesn't drive me. Otherwise, I will just end up lusting after the next fix.

My wife tld me the other night to stop pressuring her for sex. I didn't think I was doing that but now I see that I was. I wasn't telling her that I was struggling or needed her to keep from acting out but I asked her to make love with me. I was trying to have my desire to be loved, wanted or accepted fed.

I hate being abstinate with my wife when it is a choice and not for a "good reason" but I know that it is a good thing for me. It has given me a chance to dig deeper than I ever have before, it is boiling to the surface all the different ways that I have acted and the 'modes' of my addiction. I now know, by trusting in God, that I will not lose desire for my wife by the removal of lust from my being.

All of this is scary but it is making my life deeper and richer. I am understanding more about myself all the time. Eah step seems like it will kill or distort me but it is making me what I truly want. It is making me more and more who I am supposed to be.

I am grateful for my wife. I am grateful for the meeting I attended tonight and eceryone that was in attendance. K used the phrase "sexual emotions" in passing but God spoke it in my heart and it revealed something to me. God bless you. If you are reading this please say a prayer for me and please say one for my wife. Let us both find healing in ourselves and together.

Under the mercy.




sexaholic, sex addiction, abstinance, emotions, desire, lust

My fear about ridding myself of lust.

One thing that I want in my life is the removal of lust from my being. I struggle to surrender that to God and work to lessen its control over me every day. Lust is my vice that I struggle with. My fear is that in trying to remove the impulse of that vice I am afraid of what may happen.

Most people as a knee jerk answer will say that purity is the coresponding virtue that I need to develop to fight lust and its ill effects. Purity just seems to have such negative connotations for me or from how I hear it described. Purity seems so very dispassionate in my heart. My mind knows better but my heart doesn't.

An important item of note is that my wife and I are practicing continence (no sex) right now, by choice as we are healing the damage in our relationship. The physical expression of my desire for her is muted, and while I do not wish to lust after her at times I want nothing more than lust filled sex with her. Don't get me wrong, at times I have very pure motives of desire, self-donation and the want of union with the other half of me. The times that I most lust after my wife is when things are tense or stressful and these also happen to be during times that if we were being sexually active currently, it would be logistically impossible.

The problem that this lust for my wife creates a time where I am vulnerable or feel very weak in my ability to deal with lust if it should present itself at the store, on the way to work or wherever I may be. However, with God's mercy these times pass.

Returning back to my fear that with the removal of lust via suppression of sexual desire by promoting 'purity' I will end up with no desire for my wife. I feel that purity is a quality of my actions but not a way of life. I have started to think that the best way for me to fight and conquer lust is to promote a virtue that will combat all of my being a 'love-cripple'. I believe that the answer is practicing intimacy as a virtue.

Intimacy is the appropriate sharing of my being with others in all aspects of my life and in a special way with my wife. It is a gift of me to another person that they can receive or reject as they will. Lust is me taking from something for my own personal gratification. Intimacy is receiving another as gift but more importantly giving myself without demanding or expecting anything in return. Today I pray to God for the gift to worthily and freely offer myself to my wife.

Under the Mercy