Psalm 130: "I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me"
Two bright readers and commentators brought my attention to this article which I highly recommend.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/document.php?n=999
Now, the Theology of the Body proponents and those who less inclined to be so enthusiastic the latter group which includes priests, seminarians and laity, do not see eye to eye on ToB
I have had misgivings on Christopher West's approach and even some seminarians I have spoken with were highly embarrassed at a presentation he gave and they had to attend several years ago.
Why all the details? Why the emphasis in our over-sexed culture on sex in marriage? I think most of us needed, before marriage, a course on how to love without sex, by the way, owing to illnesses, absences, real-life constraints and so on. If one needs to be taught the beauty of sex, and how sex is part of God's loving plan in a marriage, Houston, we have a problem.
The article I have linked is highly interesting and breaks away from this preoccupation with sex,
Now, one of the problems with the entire conversation revolves around the type of people who are most interested in Theology of the Body and in my limited experience, those are either fallen away Catholics who were promiscuous before re-conversion, or Protestants, who contracepted before becoming Catholics.
It is as if the local Church has felt the need to dumb down the real deal on marriage and sex to meet the demands of a certain group of people who DO NOT YET KNOW HOW TO THINK LIKE CATHOLICS.
What do I mean?
The name of the game in marriage is self-sacrifice NOT gratification of all desires.
The ancient religious perspective of marriage as one way to heaven which admits to varying levels of physical and emotional relationship is much healthier and more realistic than an emphasis on the sexual act.
Married couples have to learn many ways of loving in order to have a successful marriage and things can happen early on in a marriage which interferes with the ordinary sexual activities of a married couple.
The emphasis must be on what I covered in the review of the Pope's encyclical last year--the stages of love, not merely on one expression.
UPDATES FROM A READER:
FROM NEW SISTER.
There are two excellent books by both Drs. Von Hildebrand
"The Privilege of Being a Woman" by Dr. Alice VH, and
"In Defense of Purity" by Dr. Deitrich VH.
[the latter was out of print last I checked and selling for hundreds of dollars on Amazon …I need to find my copy!]