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Dear Prolifeconservative,

"BUT you go and get extremely ugly.....WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"

My own reading of Tax-chick's post was that it was a relatively restrained reply to this piece of hyperbole:

"It's worthy for what, abstaining 48 hours.........sexual appetite under control for what.....48 hours!"

Having direct knowledge of NFP, as well as the knowledge of others who practice it, this doesn't quite ring true. Our minimum periods of abstinence have been longer.

"And then it's carry on your wild passion for the next 28 days."

LOL. For folks with that much energy, drive, passion, etc., it's tough for me not to say, "Go get 'em!" ;-)

However, I don't actually know anyone (least of all myself) for whom this is true.

"And then, the process is repeated. 'Hold the line, honey, we are fertile, we only have to wait another 18 hours and then we're good to go.'"

That's a weird distortion of how folks who practice NFP relate to each other, from my own experiences, and the reports of others whom I know. It's also insulting.

"That is the practical application for the majority of Catholic couples."

You mean, of the sadly too-small number who reject artificial contraception.

"I suppose I'm just a hard-headed obstinate individual who has problems with NFP."

Do you have problems with NFP or with the Church's ban on artificial contraception?

"I've heard all the flowery and beautiful Church definitions and explanations for NFP but when it's true applications are used in the bedroom, a couple has engaged in the sex act WITHOUT the probality of conception."

LOL. I know more than one person who would dispute that "WITHOUT the probability of conception."

Of course, a lot of the folks who use NFP from time to time that I know are folks either with bunches of kids (five, seven, nine, 10, even more), or wish they'd had more (you don't always get what you want). These are families who were not trying to use NFP to limit to one or two children. In fact, although NFP is pretty effective, it's not so darn effective that over the course of 20 years or so of fertile married life, one might not wind up being "open to the possibility of conception" in a very practical sense a few times.

"And I'd say they make up for the 'abstained period' to which the Church addresses."

Well, in Church life, feasts often follow fasts. We aren't puritans.

"As a matter of fact, I'd say that 'appetite' you speak of is mitigated by a couple who engages passionately up to that small window where they can't engage in sex."

Perhaps. But then again, we have Mardi Gras, as well. In my own parish, our Knights of Columbus Council, under the approving watch of our pastor, has a pretty good blow out Pancake Dinner the night before Ash Wednesday.

"They know the froth off their sex drives leading up to that window!"

See, the problem is that in expressing your frustration, you're imputing a lot of stuff that has a negative tone to those who practice NFP. Perhaps Tax-chick is offended because she uses NFP to space births (and if she is, she's got a whole bunch of kids to show she's not using it to avoid a large family) and doesn't really see herself in your broad-brush generalizations.

"I'm just trying to get people to think about the practical application of NFP. And you can't tell me the way I've described the NFP application above isn't the way most Catholics go about it."

Well, perhaps if you did it without painting folks with such impugned motives, folks might take a bit less objection.

I will note that you have totally ignored the simple analogy between dieting/bulimia and NFP/artificial contraception demonstrating why the means of NFP might be moral and artificial contraception might be immoral.

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