I appreciate your take on this topic, though I, personally, felt the comments were completely missing the point made by the women on the podcast. Ultimately, this is a lot of finger pointing like in the garden of Eden. "It's the man's fault" or "it's the woman's fault"...this won't create thriving marriages!! Solid prayer lives (individually and as a couple) and good communication would solve these issues. (Along with assuming that your spouse always desires what's best for you, rather than assuming they are evil as you mentioned in this post.)
I think you have to take the context into account here though. Lila was interviewing a woman who had six kids in seven years with an NFP failure already who had developed serious health problems after delivering multiple 10+ pound babies. The Mom was saying she and her husband abstained for six months after her sixth because of the previous NFP failure. The Mom talked about how hard this was for both of them and how much they love physical intimacy and that it was made harder by people asking how she was satisfying her husband if they were abstaining. That’s why Lila said sex isn’t a *need*.
I can appreciate why it’s frustrating for men to hear this or feel like their sexuality is maligned everywhere, but that’s really not what Lila was doing. Many women feel pressure and fear around postpartum sex because of this cultural messaging (and sometimes religious messaging) that their husbands will “get it from somewhere else” if they don’t do enough, soon enough. I have a nurse friend said this is a common problem she sees OFTEN and that women physically suffer because they think they can’t say no. That’s really tough to deal with if you’re recovering from many pregnancies close together and raising a lot of little kids already.
I think the way Lila discusses this makes more sense from the female perspective because I think it’s hard for men to understand how young girls are when our culture starts telling them they need to be sexually available at all times to “keep” a man. Just as a woman can’t understand the male sex drive, a man can’t understand how vulnerable a woman is when she has just given birth.
"It's not about need in any utilitarian sense, but about desire for the beloved. This desire reflects something higher and more beautiful than mere biological drive or pleasure-seeking."
I get what the author of this piece is saying here, but you raise a very important point. The outcomes of sex and our natural bodily hormones are a very different experience for a wife as opposed to a husband. I get "desire for the beloved" but many husbands forget "desire for the beloved's good." Sometimes that means a lot of sacrifice of his desire for the sexual act to honor what is best for his wife in terms of her physical well-being.
Pregnancy, labor, delivery, and nursing is a long, physically demanding process for the wife for each child she bears. However, many husbands still pressure their wife for sex long before her body is recovered. Also without regard for her lack of regular sleep and the demands of nursing. Her body internally is always working hard to produce milk which takes a lot of energy, even if it looks like she appears to just sit there relaxing while the baby nurses. To love your wife for her sake is to really take the time to understand what is happening inside her body, not just what you see on the outside. Peri-menopause and menopause are also physically rough for women. Everything might look fine from the outside but inside is a cascade of physical changes (not just hot flashes) that the husband should make room for despite his desire.
Christ laid down His life for His Bride, the Church. Husbands should be looking beyond their desire for their wife and take into account what is good for her sake. It means respecting the physical make-up of their wives as God made them. It means considering the potential of what they are asking of her with each sex act.
A principle of the Cross is that to love is to suffer. Wives are intimately acquainted with this fact due to their biology. Men suffer differently in that they have to sacrifice the consummation of their constant biological desire out of deference to their wife's biology and what would be good for her. Women carry the bigger burden of the sexual act. Men's burden is to look beyond himself to consider deeply and ask himself 'How is my wife is today?" He should observe her and listen to her talk about her day. If she seems tired, distressed, mentions needing a break, mentions bodily symptoms that are bothering her, then he should make the determination on his own to not request sex for her sake. He shouldn't give her the additional burden of gatekeeping which causes feelings of unnecessary guilt about her own bodily processes. She longs for her husband to notice and care for her without having to give and justify a "not tonight."
I think many men go into marriage very excited about having access to what they think will be unlimited amounts of sex and are not prepared for the reality of the amount of sacrifice of their desires that will be required of them. It's the full nature of the reality of our sexuality, men's and women's together, as God made it. Suffering is a big part of loving. When we fight that reality instead of surrending to it we increase the suffering all the more.
Exactly this! Before I converted to Catholicism, I saw so many people and resources outright say “men need sex” as a way to basically tell women that they either have sex or their husbands will find satisfaction elsewhere. They describe it as a physical need and discuss it in ways that imply men truly have little control over it. “Men don’t need sex” isn’t a response from women who simply aren’t being clear with their words, it’s a response to people who are literally saying “men need sex!” The men saying “well obviously we all know men don’t need sex like they need water” are missing the vast amount of people who very heavily imply, if not outright state, that men need sex in an uncontrollable way.
There's a lot we don't need. Why are we in a race to achieve the absolute bare minimum to technically not die? "What's the least I can do and still technically meet my partners needs?" Is a hell of a way to build a marriage.
This is a great piece. Also I think you're right with the implicit point that perhaps what people are really triggered about is the political imbalance of women telling men how to feel VS men telling women how to feel.
Ironically, that male-female societal conflict itself represents a macrocosm of the destructive, "you go first" micro-level male-female relationship dynamic.
When people argue whether men “need” sex, they often slip into materialist categories: survival vs. pleasure.
But in the older vision of the world, "yearning" was not just animal drive but a meeting of heaven and earth - meaning embodied in matter.
Adam "knowing" Eve isn’t just a polite way to avoid saying what really happened.
It’s because the act itself IS knowing. The sexual union is a fusion of meaning and matter, where physical connection becomes the revelation of purpose.
Brilliant work, deeply insightful for both men and women. Nice to see the theology of the body applied to a real-world issue, as it can and should be.
Thanks! I almost wrote a book on this topic but I don’t think it was fleshed out enough. Maybe one day haha
Sounds interesting! I actually wrote an article related to this topic for Missio Dei which you might enjoy: https://www.missiodeicatholic.org/p/the-gift-of-shame-rediscovering-dignity?r=yrfw6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I appreciate your take on this topic, though I, personally, felt the comments were completely missing the point made by the women on the podcast. Ultimately, this is a lot of finger pointing like in the garden of Eden. "It's the man's fault" or "it's the woman's fault"...this won't create thriving marriages!! Solid prayer lives (individually and as a couple) and good communication would solve these issues. (Along with assuming that your spouse always desires what's best for you, rather than assuming they are evil as you mentioned in this post.)
I agree the comments were being unfair. But I get why they were so emotionally charged
I think you have to take the context into account here though. Lila was interviewing a woman who had six kids in seven years with an NFP failure already who had developed serious health problems after delivering multiple 10+ pound babies. The Mom was saying she and her husband abstained for six months after her sixth because of the previous NFP failure. The Mom talked about how hard this was for both of them and how much they love physical intimacy and that it was made harder by people asking how she was satisfying her husband if they were abstaining. That’s why Lila said sex isn’t a *need*.
I can appreciate why it’s frustrating for men to hear this or feel like their sexuality is maligned everywhere, but that’s really not what Lila was doing. Many women feel pressure and fear around postpartum sex because of this cultural messaging (and sometimes religious messaging) that their husbands will “get it from somewhere else” if they don’t do enough, soon enough. I have a nurse friend said this is a common problem she sees OFTEN and that women physically suffer because they think they can’t say no. That’s really tough to deal with if you’re recovering from many pregnancies close together and raising a lot of little kids already.
I think the way Lila discusses this makes more sense from the female perspective because I think it’s hard for men to understand how young girls are when our culture starts telling them they need to be sexually available at all times to “keep” a man. Just as a woman can’t understand the male sex drive, a man can’t understand how vulnerable a woman is when she has just given birth.
"It's not about need in any utilitarian sense, but about desire for the beloved. This desire reflects something higher and more beautiful than mere biological drive or pleasure-seeking."
I get what the author of this piece is saying here, but you raise a very important point. The outcomes of sex and our natural bodily hormones are a very different experience for a wife as opposed to a husband. I get "desire for the beloved" but many husbands forget "desire for the beloved's good." Sometimes that means a lot of sacrifice of his desire for the sexual act to honor what is best for his wife in terms of her physical well-being.
Pregnancy, labor, delivery, and nursing is a long, physically demanding process for the wife for each child she bears. However, many husbands still pressure their wife for sex long before her body is recovered. Also without regard for her lack of regular sleep and the demands of nursing. Her body internally is always working hard to produce milk which takes a lot of energy, even if it looks like she appears to just sit there relaxing while the baby nurses. To love your wife for her sake is to really take the time to understand what is happening inside her body, not just what you see on the outside. Peri-menopause and menopause are also physically rough for women. Everything might look fine from the outside but inside is a cascade of physical changes (not just hot flashes) that the husband should make room for despite his desire.
Christ laid down His life for His Bride, the Church. Husbands should be looking beyond their desire for their wife and take into account what is good for her sake. It means respecting the physical make-up of their wives as God made them. It means considering the potential of what they are asking of her with each sex act.
A principle of the Cross is that to love is to suffer. Wives are intimately acquainted with this fact due to their biology. Men suffer differently in that they have to sacrifice the consummation of their constant biological desire out of deference to their wife's biology and what would be good for her. Women carry the bigger burden of the sexual act. Men's burden is to look beyond himself to consider deeply and ask himself 'How is my wife is today?" He should observe her and listen to her talk about her day. If she seems tired, distressed, mentions needing a break, mentions bodily symptoms that are bothering her, then he should make the determination on his own to not request sex for her sake. He shouldn't give her the additional burden of gatekeeping which causes feelings of unnecessary guilt about her own bodily processes. She longs for her husband to notice and care for her without having to give and justify a "not tonight."
I think many men go into marriage very excited about having access to what they think will be unlimited amounts of sex and are not prepared for the reality of the amount of sacrifice of their desires that will be required of them. It's the full nature of the reality of our sexuality, men's and women's together, as God made it. Suffering is a big part of loving. When we fight that reality instead of surrending to it we increase the suffering all the more.
Exactly this! Before I converted to Catholicism, I saw so many people and resources outright say “men need sex” as a way to basically tell women that they either have sex or their husbands will find satisfaction elsewhere. They describe it as a physical need and discuss it in ways that imply men truly have little control over it. “Men don’t need sex” isn’t a response from women who simply aren’t being clear with their words, it’s a response to people who are literally saying “men need sex!” The men saying “well obviously we all know men don’t need sex like they need water” are missing the vast amount of people who very heavily imply, if not outright state, that men need sex in an uncontrollable way.
There's a lot we don't need. Why are we in a race to achieve the absolute bare minimum to technically not die? "What's the least I can do and still technically meet my partners needs?" Is a hell of a way to build a marriage.
This is a great piece. Also I think you're right with the implicit point that perhaps what people are really triggered about is the political imbalance of women telling men how to feel VS men telling women how to feel.
Ironically, that male-female societal conflict itself represents a macrocosm of the destructive, "you go first" micro-level male-female relationship dynamic.
Earned yourself a subscriber. Brilliant
When people argue whether men “need” sex, they often slip into materialist categories: survival vs. pleasure.
But in the older vision of the world, "yearning" was not just animal drive but a meeting of heaven and earth - meaning embodied in matter.
Adam "knowing" Eve isn’t just a polite way to avoid saying what really happened.
It’s because the act itself IS knowing. The sexual union is a fusion of meaning and matter, where physical connection becomes the revelation of purpose.
Excellent!
This take doesn’t address the obvious opposite that women also like & need sex. Like if a man has sex, by extension, a woman is also having sex