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I think you're right.

Looking to get one past the goalie on a safe day is trying to avoid pregnancy, joyfully or otherwise, to my way of thinking. What I've never fully understood though, is why or when the change concerning contraception occured in the Church.

Before Vatican II, wasn't the thinking that it was sinful to divest sex from procreation, therby leaving the aspect of its joy singularly attached to the possibilty that that joy could bring life? Didn't they consider NFP the beginning of the acceptance of any type of contraception at all? And wasn't the thinking that sex, for the sake of the joy of it alone, comitted it predominatly to the physical realm? Thereby sabotaging the Spirituality of it, which was the primary force and motivation encouraging each member of the marriage to treat one another's body as if it were their own?

While I can't say with absolute certainty, if I had to bet on the percentage of Catholics who think NOTHING of using contraception, natural or not, it's got to be way up there.

Another thing that struck me lately concerning this issue, is that it would seem God's design without a doubt. For doesn't the avoidance of all methods of contraception naturally provide for the exponential increase in the number of Faithful? Because isn't it inarguable, as the New Oxford Review asserted 10 or more years ago, that the future [of the Church] belongs to the fertile?

As it turns out, the Vatican did change its position on the purpose of sex, allowing it to be used for pleasure of a married couple, but left the caveat that, regardless of the possibility of pregnancy (i.e. post-menopausal women, infertile, or practicing NFP) the sex "deed" must be life-giving. They very precisely state (see my post #129, ref. Catholic position) what that "life-giving" means. Bottom line is: the act or the "deed" requires certain physiological functions to take place in the male which are not always possible and leave some questions in my mind, even if there is no possibility whatsoever of a new life taking place. That, to me, is a convoluted way of beating around the bush.

However, the Church in the East and the West considered sex an evil consequence of man's Fall from God. Under social and other changes, the Church as a whole changed its teachings to accommodate the "times." There is nothing in our Lord's teachings that even resembles the attitudes the Church developed toward sex. Church teachings about sex therefore cannot be defended as part of the Tradition other than the tradition of men.