[metmom]

All honest sex is procreational, in the sense that even when you have intercourse and it is not (naturally) fertile, it still builds the pleasure-bond, the couple-bond, which helps make the couple happy and satisfied enough to stay together --- and this is important to the stability of their marital fidelity and the thriving of their children.

You are contradicting yourself.

Because not all sex IS procreational.

Therefore you condemn couples where the woman had a hysterectomy or where the woman is past menopause.

I have seen enough on these kinds of threads to know how condemned sex for the pleasure of it is, and that condemns by default, all who have sex for the pleasure knowing that they can no longer have children.

There was a thread some time back about a Catholic couple, who agreed to live in a platonic, sexless marriage, and they were championed for it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I wrote: "All honest sex is procreational, in the sense that even when you have intercourse and it is not (naturally) fertile, it still builds the pleasure-bond, the couple-bond, which helps make the couple happy and satisfied enough to stay together --- and this is important to the stability of their marital fidelity and the thriving of their children."

You wrote: "You are contradicting yourself...Because not all sex IS procreation.

You perhaps read what I wrote too hastily. I said that all honest sex is procreational, "IN THE SENSE THAT...."

The phrase "IN THE SENSE THAT" explains that even if sex does not cause a pregnancy each and every time (!!), even when it is naturally infertile, it still supports the marital bond and, thus, the happiness and satisfaction of procreative couple.

Please note key words: "naturally," "couple-bond," "marital fidelity."

"Couple-bond" "marital fidelity," "marital stability" and "procreation" are goods of the husband and wife's sexual union.

Even when fertility is "naturally" absent, the other goods still exist and are 100% legitimate to the married couple, in that they support the marriage.

The whole thing is procreative, as long as you aren't actually acting to sabotage it (via directly acting AGAINST the life-giving, pleasure-giving, or bond-building nature of marital act.)

Cooperating with the design of normal, natural sexuality is good.

Picking apart and sabotaging the design --- treating the design as if it were a disease, to be "treated" by drugs, devices, and surgery--- hormonally suppressed, poisoned, blocked, or cut off --- is bad.

Surely you can see that cooperating with the periodicity of fertility honors the God-built design, and suppressing the design, doesn't.

I think the problem here, is that some people really don't consider that natural, normal sex is designed by God and that design is both intelligent and providential.

The periodic, coming-and-going nature of fertility in the healthy, normal wife is a feature, not a glitch.

[Elsie]

There was a thread some time back about a Catholic couple, who agreed to live in a platonic, sexless marriage, and they were championed for it.

There is a cult (maybe that word is a bit strong) that embraces the idea of a Jewish couple. One that lived in a platonic, sexless marriage; claiming that is such a holy and ideal state to be in.