Ménage à Trois

In the midst of the news that the Supreme Court of the United States has drafted an opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, it has become apparent that sexual education has become hollow and distorted. The voices that would seek the death of their unborn children claim a right to do so if they feel they are not ready for a family, did not intend to have a child, or are in a situation where a child would place a burden on their lives. In hearing these, and many other excuses, it is obvious that the purpose of sex has become disordered and the sexual act has become perverted. As a society, we must recognize sex is made up of and serves three core attributes and purposes; it is reproductive, unitive, and pleasurable. And it must be kept within this order for peace. To divorce any of these from the rest or to disorder them would only bring pain and death.

The primary and ultimate ends of sex is procreation.¹ It is the joining of the two, that is man and woman, to become one flesh that they can transmit human life.² Through the sacrament of matrimony, the souls are made into one, and through the sexual union, the bodies mirror this joining, and a new life is made. In so doing, the spouses accept God’s invitation to follow His first commandment, “be fruitful and multiply,” and become co-creators with God. To help them face the challenges of life and the particular challenges of parenthood, sex also strengthens the bonds of love between the couple, to help them remain together.

When a couple professes their vows of matrimony to each other, they say,

“I, ___, take you___, to be my wife/husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”³ In front of the altar and with an appropriate minister, they make these vows with their words and enter into a covenant. Within a reasonable amount of time afterwards, they will put these words into action and say these vows again, but with their bodies. As the wife literally receives her husband into herself, and the husband literally gives of himself to his wife, they are living the first part of their consent to take each other as husband and wife.⁴ Every time they come together after this, and many priests will encourage couples to do this as often as they can, they are renewing their marital vows to each other and breathing new life into their marriage.⁵ Their bond will grow stronger as they work together to nurture it. This reason for this is ultimately for the good of the family. The husband and wife work together for the good of each other, and for the good of any children they conceive. This way they can provide an ideal environment to raise their children. While this can sometimes take a lot of work, to encourage this union to keep taking place, and to help the couple bond, sex is pleasurable.

Sex feels good. If it didn’t, there probably would not be any desire to engage in it, and eventually the human race might die off as less and less people reproduce. Any person who has had an unpleasurable experience can attest to the fact that such an experience might make them want to avoid having sex in the future. With this in mind then, each person must recognize the need to care for their partner and make the experience pleasurable for them as best as they can.⁶ However, the couple must maintain the dignity of the human personhood of each other, and remember the primary and secondary purposes of their sexual union. At the core of the sexual act must be love. Love for the spouse, and love for God. To bring disorder to sex, would pervert what God has made and ordained to be good.

Sex was designed to bring life and love into the world.⁷ To alter that design and pervert sex will only bring pain and eventually death. To place pleasure at the forefront of sex and to be the primary reason a person wants sex, would violate the inherent human dignity of their partner. In seeking in only one’s pleasure, a person turns other people into objects for their own gratification.⁸ In completing the sexual act with other person, they have broken down that person into a mere object. In completing the sexual act alone, they have renounced their need for the rest of mankind and have taken a procreative act and perverted it. It can no longer be used for its intended design and no new life can come forth from it. This then leads to the abuse of other people as they become enslaved to an industry of greed and selfish gratification.

While it is good that a couple grow in their love, union, and bond through sex, it cannot be used to fix all of their problems that might arise from interpersonal conflict. The idea of “make-up sex,” that is the idea that sex will fix a problem after a conflict and make the relationship better is false. Couples must be honest and have conversations together in charity, and work together to address conflicts as they arise. To simply ignore the problem and have sex will only allow the wounds to fester and soon the relationship will begin to rot and die. Love will disappear and resentment will take hold instead.

While the primary purpose of sex is the procreation of the human race, it can not be the only reason to have sex. The least of the evils here is simple irresponsibility, but the greater evil that should be feared is the degradation of the dignity of the human person, so that they simply become creatures to be bred like livestock. What then would be man’s purpose? Man’s primary purpose is to know and love God.⁹ He is able to do this because God created man for man’s own sake, that he might come to know his Creator.¹⁰ All other creatures were created for man so man could come to know and love God and offer all creation back to Him.¹¹ If man were to remove God from creation and become master of himself, he has divorced himself from God and God’s love, and would only seek to serve himself. When man seeks to place himself as God, he could then dictate who among his fellows is worthy of life and who is not. When this happens, nobody is equal and those deemed to be “less” can be killed since their lives are viewed as worthless.

But what happens when one of the three components of sex is divorced from the other two? When the procreative is divorced from sex, sex becomes self-seeking and the human life is deemed to be worthless. When the unitive is divorced, families may have many kids but only one parent, which would create a life of hardship for the children. When the pleasurable is divorced, sex can become repressed, transactional and a burden. In any of these situations, the dignity of the human person could be destroyed. Therefore, sex must be kept whole and in the proper order.

Sex is a core component of the human experience. It is a chance for a couple to come together and experience God and His creation first hand. It is ultimately good, but comes with a great responsibility. It must be entered into with love and through prayer, and always with its core components of reproduction, union, and pleasure together. To defend life, we must first recognize where life comes from and restore the proper order to sex and its place in society. Sex itself is not an ends to a means, but a means to an end, which is new life.

Footnotes

1. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1995), sec. 1652
2. Catholic Church, Catechism, 372
3. Catholic Church, Catechism, 1627
4. “Gaudium et Spes.” n.d. Servizio Internet Vaticano. Accessed May 10, 2022. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html. sec. 48; 50
5. Gaudium et Spes 49
6. Gaudium et Spes 49
7. Gaudium et Spess 50
8. Catholic Church, Catechism, 2352; 2354; 2355
9. Catholic Church, Catechism, 356
10. Gaudium et Spes 24 § 3
11. Catholic Church, Catechism, 358