PROCEDIMIENTO ADMINISTRATIVO

¾ Say a prayer before the lesson.

Falsehood: People, especially men, have specific, genital, sexual needs.

This falsehood is the primary subject of my book, Sexual Wisdom. I shall refer to it here as there as the “Needs Misconception.” I believe this is the most important faleshood about sexuality today and the most common attitude behind most types of sexual abuse. We will greatly limit our discussion of it in this course but teens should be familiar with the general idea.

The Needs Misconception asserts that men need to climax, need to fulfill fantasies, or need to have sex frequently, or in certain positions. It is the lie that is most often used to justify sexual misbehavior. For example, a patient complains that her boyfriend demands that they have sex every day. She doesn’t want to, but he says that he “needs” to. She agrees to sex every day because of his

“needs,” but she feels used for doing so: those who accept this falsehood justify premarital and extramarital sex because one has

“needs.” They even justify sex with a prostitute if it is to fulfill a

“need.”

To understand this falsehood better, let us point out the difference between a need and a desire. For example, we need food and sleep. If

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we do not get enough of either of them, something bad happens: we get sick and die. Also, there are certain things that chil-dren need for them to develop normally. If a child is not nurtured and given loving attention something bad happens: he develops emotional problems.

Children need loving attention.

The difference between a need and a desire is that if one is deprived of a need something bad happens. But if one is deprived of a desire one may be unhappy or frustrated but not hurt. For example, if a woman strongly desires chocolate covered raisins and cannot have them, she may be frustrated, but she will get over it. Nothing truly bad happens.

The fact is that there are no specific sexual needs. There are no health or emotional problems from not having sex. In fact, sexual abstinence (not having sex) is used to treat some sexual problems.

Not having sex helps some people overcome sexual problems. The worst effects of not having sex are frustration and “wet dreams” (a natural event). Wet dreams usually don’t happen to men who have sex regularly, but they are not associated with any physical, mental or spiritual problem.

Many celibates (priests, monks, nuns, widows, and widowers) are very holy, loving, “together,” people. Clearly, many people who are not sexually active are not lacking anything fundamental to their being. Nothing bad happens to them from being abstinent.

We all have sexual desires that can be particularly strong when we are bored, lonely, depressed or otherwise off our game, but there is no such thing as a specific genital sexual need.

It is important to clarify that people do have general sexual needs.

An example of this is what is referred to as the “marital debt.”

Spouses do owe each other sexual intercourse at regular intervals.

They also have an obligation to kiss, hug, caress and hold hands regularly both inside and outside the bedroom. Part of the marriage vow means that each will ensure that the other is not sexual starved and that they will meet the general sexual needs of the other.

The Needs Misconception, based on the idea that people have specific sexual needs, causes serious trouble in three ways:

1) The idea that people need sex introduces inequality and an imbalance into relationships and is the most common cause of

the abuse of sex in society today. It gives men unwarranted power and control over women, as in our earlier example of the girlfriend who had sex with her boyfriend because he thought needed to. Or consider a man who feels that he

“needs” sex in a particular position. His wife doesn’t “want”

to, but his is a “need” and hers is only a “want.” How can a woman deny her spouse something that he needs?

Imagine two people at a table on which sits a delicious-looking chocolate-fudge brownie. Now imagine the same situation, except that the brownie has been replaced by a stalk of broccoli. Since the first case involves an intense pleasure, it is likely to lead to one person taking advantage of the other.

How desirable and convenient it would be if one person can convince the other that he or she has a need for that brownie, so as to get more than one's fair share. It would be even better to convince oneself of this need, in order to avoid feeling guilty for being selfish about the brownie. This is what happens with sex. When one person is convinced that he has a need the other person gets taken advantage of.

A good Christian man told me that he can not go longer than one month without having sex with his wife. But what if his wife wishes to go a bit longer than a month without sex?

What if she wants to wait one more week (due to illness, fatigue, or other unusual circumstances)? Is it rape if he demands sex with her? He said that it can’t be rape if it’s his own wife!! He is wrong!

2) The Needs Misconception misdirects people from the most basic goal of sex. The goal of sex should be to bring spouses closer together—to enrich or enhance a relationship—whether through holding hands, having intercourse or showing affect-tion in other ways. But when one person is perceived as having a need, the goal becomes fulfilling that need. If fulfilling the need conflicts with the spouse’s wishes the result is abuse, most commonly of the woman.

There are five main reasons people have sex.

1. To unite the couple in love: to bring the couple together

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spiritually, emotionally and physically. To bind the couple to each other and to God.

2. To procreate (to make babies), if it is in God’s plan.

3. To feel good: to enjoy physical pleasure and to bring physical pleasure to one’s spouse.

4. To reduce stress (climaxing does temporarily reduce stress).

5. To satisfy sexual desire: to keep one’s spouse from thinking about having sex with others. Each spouse should learn how often the other spouse wants to have sex and how often is good for both of them. That is part of what the “I do” of the wedding vow means.

The most important of these reasons is to join together in love, to enrich, to validate a relationship^*. Love, and thereby

* From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993): (Numbers refer to paragraph numbers.)

1643. “Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter—

appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values”

2332. Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul.

It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

2360. Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion.

Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

From the Pontifical Council for the Family’s The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family (1995):

11. Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God saw as being

“very good,” when he created the human person in his image and likeness, and “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open

holiness, is the most important aspect of any part of our lives, including sexuality. All sex must be within a moral, loving context. By maintaining love as the most important priority of our sex lives we unite ourselves to God’s will and we abandon ourselves to Him.

The primary goal of each sexual interaction is to express love, not to fulfill a need. When sex is focused on fulfilling a need, it steers the relationship in an unholy, unhealthy direction.

3) The Needs Misconception is the reason why many people, especially men, have addictive attitudes about sex. The “need”

for sex is like the alcoholic’s “need” for a drink. Male sexual addiction has always existed, but it is now far more accepted than ever. People now tend to accept that “Boys will be boys,”

that “Men cannot control themselves,” or that “Men are animals.”

As with other addictions, the idea that one “needs” sex is enslaving. It enslaves us to our passions. With it, true sexual freedom is impossible. As with other addictions, many men feel trapped by their desires, in this case for lust. A popular radio talk show host told his listeners one day that he has two heads, one above his waist and one below it. He said that the one above his waist can’t control the one below. What a sad statement for this confused and unhappy man to make in front of his many listeners: announcing to the world that he is a slave to lust. Unfortunately, this idea is now very common.

The Needs Misconception makes sex a god to which one goes to fulfill one’s most basic needs. With it, sex, not God, takes center stage in one’s life. That is why so many men, in particular, are lost in sexual darkness. They are trying to meet what they wrongly think is a basic need. Since the “need”

must be met, all else becomes secondary. They are overcome with the thought of fulfilling their “need,” whether through pornography, sex with a prostitute or a stranger, risking STDs

to others, sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation and acceptance, love as giving and receiving.

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or “unwanted” pregnancies, otherwise abusing or neglecting a loved one, or even through rape.

Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Needs Misconception during World Youth Day 2008. Referring to the “other god” of possessive love he said:

Authentic love is obviously something good. Without it, life would hardly be worth living. It fulfills our deepest need, and when we love, we become most fully ourselves, most fully human. But how easily it can be made into a false god! People often think they are being loving when actually they are being possessive or manipulative. People sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs rather than as persons to be loved and cherished. How easy it is to be deceived by the many voices in our society that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality, without regard for modesty, self-respect or the moral values that bring quality to human relationships! This is worship of a false god. Instead of bringing life, it brings death.

Some say that all sin is based on lies. This Needs Misconception is the lie that leads to much sexual sin. It is no coincidence that the Needs Misconception directly conflicts with Christian mentality, which is to try to meet the genuine needs of others, not one’s own false needs.

The Needs Misconception is an old idea (which can be found in writings that are over 1000 years old) but it has been given a great boost in the last few decades. During this time the Sexual Revolution has supported contraceptives, pornography, masturbation, promis-cuity, prostitution, and homosexuality. Each of these in its own way supports the idea that men have specific sexual needs that must be met, and are geared toward the fulfillment of these contrived needs.

Hence the Needs Misconception is expressed more boldly, frequently and passionately the further we get into this revolution. The great irony is that the Sexual Revolution gave us just the opposite of what it promised. It promised sexual freedom, but delivered sexual enslavement to so-called “needs.”