From Catholic sexual ethics to biology to foreplay to positions, Catholic Intimacy’s articles are a reference point for all your Catholic sexual queries.
Articles
Overcoming Sexual Performance Anxiety
Sexual performance anxiety is a common but often misunderstood issue that affects both men and women. It can emerge at any age, regardless of relationship length or past sexual experience. Even couples who have enjoyed a satisfying sexual life for years may suddenly find themselves struggling with feelings of pressure, self-doubt, or fear related to intimacy.
Understanding Kinks, Fetishes, and Paraphilic Disorders: A Guide for Catholic Married Couples
Catholic married couples are called to embrace intimacy as a sacred bond that deepens their union and reflects God’s life-giving love. Within this beautiful and unique space, questions about expressions of sexuality often arise. Exploring topics like kink, fetish, and paraphilic disorder through a Catholic lens can help couples understand their place within God’s design for marital intimacy. In this post, we’ll define these terms, provide examples, and consider how they align (or don’t align) with Catholic teaching.
Hard Truths for Men About Women's Experience of Sex
All the men who have come to men for coaching have done so for the same reason: there is something wrong with their sex life. Almost universally, they felt they were failing to meet their wife’s needs. Some already had an idea of what was the cause and were right, some were pretty far off base. But they knew that something was wrong. If you are in this boat, I empathize with you and I pray that I or someone else helps you and your wife. There are some things you should know.
Porn Sex vs. Marital Intercourse
For anyone who has seen pornography and marital intercourse, this should be pretty obvious: porn sex is nothing like marital intercourse. Unfortunately, pornography is everywhere these days and it is practically impossible to make it to adulthood without seeing some of it. Thus, I feel that it is necessary to bring this up for those who may be confused, especially those young men and women who are hoping to be married one day. Feel free to share this article with them.
Other Than the Ideal: Obstacles to Marital Intimacy
While this online forum is not intended to meet every need for everybody, it is intended to be a safe space that provides some resources for those who need it.
Pride
In my experience working with families, I’ve seen pride be the root of a lot of arguments that were unnecessary. Both parties believe they know best or can do best, and it starts an argument about who is right and who is wrong. Afterwards, we typically don’t even remember what we were so angry about, because the actual thing didn’t matter all that much- our pride did. And it can become really easy to lose sight of the fact that you are both on the same team. You are both working towards the same goal- the good of the family. You just have different perspectives and viewpoints of the right way to bring good to the family.
The Importance of Novelty
Think about when you’re sick and you haven’t left the house or a specific room for days and you start to feel stir crazy. This is your mental health telling you it needs a squash or a pumpkin to keep up engagement.
Decompression & Reconnection
Is the difficulty of your day hindering your relationship with your spouse? Are you often zoned out, gone to play video games, or distracted? Let’s talk about two scenarios people might fall into and what you can do about it to build intimacy with your spouse.
Spoons and Scales: Tools for more than just the kitchen
Every person brings their own experience, beliefs, and perspectives to the table for every single interaction. These expectations drive emotions and can either create or destroy intimacy, depending on how they’re handled.
Three Hour Conversations
When was the last time you and your beloved had a three hour conversation? And I don’t mean three hours of smalltalk over the course of a date night. I mean a heart-to-heart, one-on-one dialogue. This website is the fruit of one such conversation. Moving to Saint Louis from Nashville was the fruit of another. Our marriage was the fruit of another. Our first date came of yet another.