Word: thoughtful
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...alienate students of the faith. Although the Catechism cites a statement from Pope Pius XII that “spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit” through intercourse, the role of sexual pleasure in marriage has been hotly contested throughout the history of Catholic thought. The solution could therefore be less to emphasize the gravity of the sexual act than to ensure that students understand that they are meant to redirect their sexual energy towards a productive end rather than repressing it completely...
Indeed, this is a prominent stream of thought in traditional Jewish philosophy. As Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits argues in his essay “A Jewish Sexual Ethics,” while many Christian denominations advocate a repression of sensual desire, Judaism humanizes sexuality by framing its pleasure as a mitzvah if it is experienced in the proper context. Although procreation is paramount and pre-marital sex is strictly forbidden in Orthodox Judaism, physical gratification itself is viewed as anything but corrosive. On the contrary, the Talmud records that it was common practice for Torah scholars to have sex their wives...
Sexual desire, in other words, can become a vehicle for consecration if it is acted upon in the proper place and context, and Catholic ethicists ought to emphasize this aspect of their thought if they seek to promote abstinence in a relevant fashion. When one directs his energy towards something meaningful, whether he utilizes intercourse or, in the case of Purim, beer and wine, the spiritual heights he experiences can only be exalted. As long as, to cite Rabbi Isserles, he is doing it for the sake of Heaven...
Benjamin S. Bernard, a Yale junior and board member of Yale’s LGBT Cooperative, also said he thought that the outcome was impressive...
...believe that white-male conservatives are hypocrites for limiting women's abortion rights? Why, we have Mr. McLuhan right here: Palin - a woman! - says that when she was pregnant with Trig, she had the fleeting thought that she could have an abortion but didn't. Disagree with her foreign policy? Her son Track went to Iraq! Reject her claim that health-reform "death panels" will cull special-needs children? She's worried about her own special-needs child! With Palin, the political is always intensely personal. She styles herself as someone who has given bodily to her beliefs, and that...