A Few Thoughts on NFP

Sometimes you run across an argument which strikes you as wrong in such a way as to crystallize and clarify your thinking on a topic. Such a case, for me, was running into this debate from last week at InsideCatholic on the topic, "Is NFP Misogynous?"

The "yes it is" argument contained the following key elements:

Assuming any methodized sexual intercourse devised to avoid pregnancy by an otherwise open-to-life-marital-couple can actually "work," who bears responsibility for the method? I seriously question whether NFP, for many, isn't a misogynous practice -- imposing upon women an undue share of the physical and emotional burden of the theologically questionable quest of planning pregnancy.

First, we must be real. Modern NFP practices demand daily bodily measurements of women, not men.... A woman most desires sexual intimacy when she is at her most fertile.... This is also the moment when we are most likely to conceive a child. It's the moment NFP-practicing women measure and chart and predict as "fertility awareness," a "maybe-child" zone. For NFP-practicing women avoiding pregnancy, it is the moment they must say "no" to both themselves and their spouses....

I don't buy it. It sounds like a scheme to impose on women who wish to time pregnancies an almost penal practice of self-measurement, self-control, and self-denial, while requiring, at a minimum, a sort of suffering acquiescence from a spouse whose interest in the chart becomes rather strategic....

NFP needs to go the same way as the rhythm method -- which did not "work" and was, more importantly, female unfriendly. In its place, perhaps we all need to suck it up and admit what the theology asks of us: Have sex whenever you both want to... and expect a baby every time. Otherwise, don't copulate. That's a fair burden on both spouses.

The woman presenting the "no it isn't" view did a perfectly decent job of presenting the standard arguments for NFP, but I'd like to dig into one aspect in particular, especially given that by the sixth comment on the article we already see a theology student trying to argue that the "planning" involved in Natural Family Planning is really no different than the use of barrier methods of contraception since it involves "the intention of having sex without baby" and is thus "using one's intellect to create a tool which limits the possibility of procreation".

I'd like to start from a point of biological realism. The bodily organs which are used in this very pleasant thing we call sex are part of the reproductive system, which means than whenever we have sex we are performing an action which is at a biological level meant to be reproductive, in the sense that our bodies would not have this capacity were it not for the fact their function is reproductive in nature. (Interesting side note: think of all the most pleasurable things the human body can do and ask yourself, how does each one of these relate to a basic element of human survival. Generally speaking, the greater the physical pleasure, the greater the relation to survival.)

Within the overall structure of intercourse, a normal, healthy man is capable of begetting children any time he has sex. However, women (like females of virtually all other mammals) are only biologically able to conceive a few days out of the month. (Both of these reproductive strategies make a lot of sense for the individual and the species as a whole at the evolutionary level, but I don't think it's necessary to go into all that here.) Even at the "right time", a woman may or may not conceive as the result of having intercourse. Conditions have to be right for the sperm to reach the egg, the egg has to be healthy, and the sperm has to successfully implant. What this boils down to is that while the probability of getting pregnant from any one random act of intercourse is perhaps 1-10% depending on the people involved, having sex frequently will almost invariably result in pregnancy unless there is a health/age problem involved.

Other creatures, our non-rational brethren in the animal kingdom, do not worry about when they should not reproduce. Driven by instincts and natural compulsions, they mate when it is their season, have as many offspring as they can, and hope (if one may apply that word to the unthinking) that those offspring will thrive. If there are not enough resources to go around, the young, weak, and old die off. We humans see this kind of suffering as something to be avoided, and so human societies in all times and places have striven not to outgrow their resources -- using methods ranging from self denial to slaughter.

From a Catholic point of view, human life is sacred and thus abortion and infanticide are completely unacceptable as means of population control; and the sexual faculties have a moral integrity resulting from their relation to the creation of new human beings and so the sex act should not be modified (as with birth control) to remove its inherent fertility. Thus, for Catholics, the answer to the need not to have more children than one can provide for is to have sex less. Because sex has a clear and inherent reproductive aspect, which we consider it wrong to try to circumvent artificially, if you want to not get pregnant you will have to avoid having sex at least some of the time.

Now, this is where the question of whether Natural Family Planning (NFP) as practiced by modern Catholic couples is "natural" comes in. The woman's body gives certain signs of when it is likely to be fertile. These signs are rather less obvious than those of many of our fellow mammals. Female chips, for instance, have a large pink swelling around their genital area when they become fertile, such that one can tell if she is fertile from quite some distance away.

Signs of human female fertility are much more subtle. (The evolutionary reason for this would make a very interesting inquiry, I can think of a few very interesting reasons.) However they are now pretty well understood and easily learned.

So, what are the options for the Catholic couple who are seeking to remain true to the Church's understanding of human sexuality and the human person and also seeking to avoid having more children then they can raise and support?

Ms. Campbell advises, "Have sex whenever you both want to... and expect a baby every time. Otherwise, don't copulate. That's a fair burden on both spouses."

The thing is (leaving aside the dangerous problem of trying to figure out what is "fair" for both spouses in some sort of power politics sense) that this is in a sense not actually all that natural. We are not made such that sex results in a baby "every time". Sex is somewhat likely to result in a baby perhaps 30% of the time, and highly likely to do so only about 10% of the time at best. Since unlike a lot of our fellow creatures, our sex drives are not only "on" when we're fertile, the rest of the time sex serves to strengthen and deepen the bond between a couple who are going to have a lot of work and difficulty together raising children. So if you only, ever have sex when you absolutely expect to have a baby, you're actually using sex in a more minimal fashion than we're physically designed for.

If they know anything at all about their biology (from experience if nothing else) a couple is going to know they won't get pregnant every time. And knowing this, the drive is strong to say, "Surely this time is okay." Though husbands should try hard to be sensitive to the greater difficulties that pregnancy means for their wives than for them, this line of thinking is naturally going to appeal more to the man than to the woman. Desires for "fairness" aside, pregnancy is naturally going to effect the woman more directly than the man.

Given that we have the understanding of female fertility signs available to us quite easily in the modern world, it is going to cause significantly less stress without couples to use that knowledge to actually know "we might get pregnant now" versus "we almost certainly won't get pregnant now" rather than relying the more more amorphous "chances are decent we won't get pregnant this one time" or the inaccurate "we shouldn't have sex unless we're absolutely sure we want to get pregnant."

NFP works within the natural structure of what sex is -- a natural act which has both unitive and procreative elements. It encompasses self denial in that it accepts that if you want to avoid pregnancy for a while you are going to have to forgo having sex, but it provides system and achievability to that self denial by telling a couple when it is that they need to forgo sex. If you need to avoid having another child for the next year or two, you may end up having to avoid having sex nearly half the time. However, that is much more achievable and healthy for a couple than attempting to avoid it entirely for those same years -- and the differentials of fear and desire that would result from such an attempt.

It Could Happen To Anyone

Here's something light for your Friday. We all knew what sort of guy French president Nicholas Sarkozy is, but few realized that our own president has similar aesthetic sensibilities.

Some are loudly mocking Obama for this. I'd say give the guy a break.

The king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions:

Presidents are a lower species than kings, but the principle applies. And we must recall that the wisdom of the American people has given us a president who hasn't yet had the years of practice in checking out passing babes without allowing it to be obvious to the camera. Give it some time, and when his senses kick in with human conditions as the element shows to him, he'll gaze upon it with the same cool aplomb as Sarkozy.

Lamentations of the Father

This has, of course, made the rounds numerous times (in fact I think I've posted it before), but unlike other forwards, it gets funnier each time I see it. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I say the same damn things all day long.

UPDATE: Hear Ian Frazier read this piece on The Prairie Home Companion -- scroll down to 28:48)

'Lamentations of the Father'
by Ian Frazier

Laws of Forbidden Places

Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room. Of quiescently frozen dessert and of all frozen after-meal treats you may eat, but absolutely not in the living room.

Of the juices and other beverages, yea, even of those in sippy-cups, you may drink, but not in the living room, neither may you carry such therein. Indeed, when you reach the place where the living room carpet begins, of any food or beverage there you may not eat, neither may you drink. But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

Laws When at Table

And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as it were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination unto me. Yea, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke.

Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you shall be sent away.

When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck: for you shall be sent away.

When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister hath done the same to you.

Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is.

And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that,that is why.

Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.

Laws Pertaining to Dessert

For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert.

But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert.

But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert; and if you eat the peas, yet leave the potatoes uneaten, you shall not have dessert, no, not even a small portion thereof.

And if you try to deceive by moving the potatoes or peas around with a fork, that it may appear you have eaten what you have not, you will fall into iniquity. And I will know, and you shall have no dessert.

On Screaming

Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time. If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault.

Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat it myself, yet shall not surely die.

Concerning Face and Hands

Cast your countenance upward to the light, and lift your eyes to the hills, that I may more easily wash you off. For the stains are upon you; even to the very back of your head, there is rice thereon.

And in the breast pocket of your garment, and upon the tie of your shoe, rice and other fragments are distributed in a manner wonderful to see.

Only hold yourself still; hold still, I say. Give each finger in its turn for my examination thereof, and also each thumb. Lo, how iniquitous they appear. What I do is as it must be; and you shall not go hence until I have done.

Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances

Bite not, lest you be also bitten again. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of the bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, not against any building; nor eat sand.

Leave the cat alone, for what has the cat done, that you should so afflict it with tape? And hum not the humming in your nose as I read, nor stand between the light and the book. Indeed, you shall drive me to madness. Nor forget what I said about the tape.

H/T to an email from Mrs. Big Tex.

Fractured Fairy Tales: Cinderella

Courtesy of Rocky and Bullwinkle comes my favorite version of Cinderella:



(Cinderella starts at 5:00, but you'll enjoy The Frog Prince as well, so you might as well see the whole thing.)

I particularly love the prince and Frobisher and the "royal sock".

Prince: My fortune runs to six figures!
Frobisher: Yes, sire, but they're all zeros.

When Not To Do Good

It struck me recently that one of the things I have a great deal of trouble with is distinguishing between, "X would be a good thing to do" and "I should do X". There are a great many things which it would be virtuous for one to do. However, one cannot do them all. And this is where I run into trouble.

With sufficient time and determination, one can take on nearly any responsibility and do it justice. But if you take on too many, some or all suffer. Sometimes the distinction is obvious, but often less so.

One considers, of course, all the difficulties and inconveniences that might come with a a new responsibility -- but with enough sermons on the topic of sacrificial giving in one's head it is not always easy to determine the difference between, "This would be really hard, but a good thing to do," and "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!"

Some of my Protestant friends at work have the tendency to say about nearly any topic, "I just prayed about it, and God told me that I should do X." I'm never sure whether this basically comes down to saying, "I prayed about it for a while and I thought that X might be a good idea," or if they've got a direct line to the Almighty that I'm missing.

God and I, I often feel, are not on quite such confidential terms as some others seem to be. There's a bit in Terry Gilliam's movie Time Bandits where the time traveling dwarves tell Kevin that they work for the Supreme Being.

Kevin: You mean God?
Fidgit: Well, we don't know Him that well. We only work for Him.

I often feel rather the same way. God knows me much better than I know Him. And if our struggles through life are, from that perspective, rather more like the bumblings of the time bandits than Dante's sedate wanderings in the gloomy wood -- well, I wouldn't be surprised.

Which leaves one to wade through decision-making as best one can.

Orphan Openings: Apocalypse Edition

For nearly twenty years, Chris Mortimer had been predicting that civilization would collapse, and so it was a with a certain grim satisfaction that he watched as it did -- after a fashion. When the peak oil theory surprised even its own firmest proponents by being true beyond their wildest dreams, Chris watched the rioting crowds after the collapse of the Saudi monarchy, the Russian federation and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, and wondered how much longer television would be broadcasting.

When gas prices jumped from $3 to $20/gallon over the course of a month, and the electric company announced that it would only be providing power from 10am to 4pm, he got his hand-cranking grain mill and solar oven out of the spare bedroom and took inventory of the canned goods and bottled water. He was prepared. They were not. Survival of the fittest.

Somewhere along the way, however, the event he had long anticipated deviated from the mental script he had crafted for it. Where he had pictured a need for rugged individualists who knew how to hunt and gather and perhaps eventually farm and ranch, others with skills he had despised were, maddeningly, well equipped to thrive in the new world.

Most maddening of all was that his boss, whom he had at first envisioned begging at his door for canned goods and solar battery chargers, had turned a penchant for "networking" into a trading empire that encompassed control of key aqueducts, solar trading schooners, and the southern overland trade route to California. That this short, nervous-looking man who doubtless did not know three different ways of starting a fire without matches could, in this new world, say grandly to people, "Would you step into my office? I have air conditioning," made Chris feel as if the collapse of civilization was simply not all it was cracked up to be.

The Dangers of Hobby Catholicism

More years ago than it would be legal for me to confess, I fell in love with beer brewing as a result of reading the charmingly entitled An Essay on Brewing, Vintage and Distillation, Together With Selected Remedies for Hangover Melancholia: Or, How to Make Boozeby John Festus Adams. Adams opens with an extended discussion of what sort of hobby book this will not be, recounting his experience with a book on growing mushrooms. Written by the Brit who Took Food Seriously, it eventually became clear to Adams while reading this book that the author did not actually expect him to be able to master this most occult of gardening hobbies. It took skill. It took patience. It took a ton of fresh horse manure which simply be be obtained fresh (preferably from a ladies' riding academy) and in the quantity of about half a ton. And it must be composted for six months -- no more and no less. It must be turned every four weeks -- not three weeks and certainly not five. And if you weren't prepared to do all these things Right, there was really no point in doing it at all, because your mushrooms, if they even grew, would be No Good At All.

This, Adams promised, was not the sort of book he was setting out to write. His book was a book about brewing for those who actually wanted to brew. And it was based on the theory that they would brew, and the resulting beer would be pretty good when they did.

All of which is a somewhat self-indulgent introduction (though I do recommend Adams' book for the sheer joy of reading it, even if you have no intention of brewing) to a rather basic point: It is the inevitable danger of being deeply absorbed in some topic that one begins to draw lines in the sand and say, "If you don't do X, Y and Z in my favorite way, you are clearly not serious about this and should get out." And yet for those of us who make reading, talking and writing about the Catholic Church a hobby of sorts, this presents a serious danger. Those of us who are "Catholic geeks" need always to recall that however much the more abstruse corners of Catholic history or theology may fascinate us, that Catholicism is not a hobby or field of study -- the exclusive territory of those with sufficient levels of detailed knowledge and experience. Rather, the Church is the Body of Christ on earth, and the source of the sacraments which are channels of grace to those of us in the Church Militant.

The Church is no stranger to intellectualism and knowledge, and there is much benefit to knowing the Church's teachings and history in detail. And yet, knowledge itself is not our end as Catholics. In the simple yet powerful words I was made to learn as a child, "God made us to know, love and serve Him, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven." The rest is all details. Important details, to be sure, to the extent that they help us to love and follow our faith. I'm sure that all of us know many people (often members of our own family) who were easily lead away from the Church because they never really knew and understood it.

And yet a little work around the parish is easily enough to lead one to the humbling conclusion that the people who show up to daily mass at 7:30 every morning and fill the adoration hours in the middle of the night are people with much stronger faith, even if many of them have never cracked open an encyclical. This is certainly not to say (as one determinedly unorthodox old fellow on RCIA team used to assert to my constant annoyance) that, "All knowledge is for not." But I, at least, often find myself in need of a reminder that knowledge is not all there is. At the deepest level, Catholicism is something we believe and live, not just something we read about.