Sacred Intimacy: Rediscovering God's Design for Marriage

Catholic sex and marriage coach, and moral theologian, Dr. Sarah Bartel shares her insights on marital intimacy from a Catholic perspective, explaining how sex is a physical renewal of our marriage vows and addressing common misconceptions that prevent couples from experiencing true intimacy.

• The Catholic understanding of sex as "body language" that renews our marriage vows
• Why there's no moral obligation for wives to always say "Yes" to sex all the time
• Distinction between spontaneous and responsive desire in men and women
• How socialization affects our comfort with sexual desire
• Common barriers to fulfillment including past trauma, pain, and negative messaging
• Using Scripture, especially Song of Songs, to develop a healthier view of sexuality within marriage
• Understanding Catholic teaching on responsible parenthood and Natural Family Planning
• The importance of open communication
• Creating emotional connection as the foundation for physical and emotional intimacy

Dr. Bartel's "My Delight" program offers Catholic women a safe community to ask questions anonymously and develop practical skills for greater intimacy. Learn more at https//canafeast.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Marital Intimacy
• 9:24 Dr. Sarah Bartel's "My Delight" Program
• 15:44 God's Design for Sexuality in Marriage
• 24:01 When It's Okay to Say "No"
• 32:30 Healing Past Wounds and Emotional Baggage
• 39:18 Catholic Teaching on Sex and Marriage

Transcript

Sheila Nonato: 0:00

The Marriage at Cana, according to the Gospel of St John. On the third day there was a marriage at Cana, in Galilee, and the Mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the marriage with his disciples. When the wine failed, the Mother of Jesus said to Him, "have no wine. And Jesus said to her O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants Do whatever he tells you To certain Christ.

Sheila Nonato: 0:42

This week we will be looking at the important topic of marital intimacy. And what does Jesus say? What does the Bible say? What does the Catholic Church say about the sanctity of sex within marriage? Let's have a listen to this week's episode with Dr Sarah Bartel.

Sheila Nonato: 1:02

Intro: Hello and Welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast. This is your host, Sheila Nonato. I'm a stay-at-home mom and a freelance Catholic journalist, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the inspiration of Our Lady. I strive to tell stories that inspire, illuminate and enrich the lives of Catholic women, to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints.

Co-host: 1:25

Please join us every week on the Veil and Armour podcast, where stories come alive through a journalist's lens and mother's heart.

Sheila Nonato: 1:32

Welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast, Sisters in Christ. My family and I have just recently returned from Steubenville, Ohio, at a blessed event: the Catholic Creators Conference, and I can't wait to share more with you in the next coming episodes. Today, we're going to look at a very important aspect of the married life as part of our exploration of holiness in everyday life. As we look at the divorce rate in the United States and Canada, they have been on the decline for younger couples in recent years. Yet longer marriages have seen divorce rates increase. According to Divorce. com, among the top reasons for divorce have been: lack of affection and lack of emotional and or physical intimacy. I spoke with Dr Sarah Bartel, a Catholic sex and marriage coach for Catholic brides. Please join me in this very important conversation. Thank you and God bless.

Sheila Nonato: 2:34

The Interview: Welcome to

Sheila Nonato: 2:35

the Veil and Armour podcast. Hello, Sisters in Christ. Last week we touched upon hell. More about that later. Now(Link to the video " we're going to be talking about experiencing heaven in marriage and since this is a mature topic, I would advise those listening to please wear your earbuds or headphones if you are around your kids. I'm honored to welcome Dr Sarah Bartel.

Sheila Nonato: 2:55

Dr. Sarah Bartel is a moral theologian, and a Catholic sex and marriage coach. She is the host of the "y Delight podcast for Catholic women. She is the host of the my Delight podcast for Catholic women. Together with her husband, nathan, she has served thousands of Catholic couples through their canafeastcom online ministry, which includes their Abundant Marriage course and a little way of marriage workshop. Her newest course, my Delight, is a groundbreaking program designed to undo knots of shame, ignorance and isolation to help engaged and married women learn how to develop holy, healthy intimacy with their husbands.

Sheila Nonato: 3:29

She's a mom of five based near Seattle Washington, where she loves hiking, reading Jane Austen, feeding her kids salmon and heading off on adventures. Sarah earned a BA in Humanities and Catholic Culture and an MA in Religious Studies from Gonzaga University, and she completed her PhD in Moral Theology from the Catholic University of America. Dr Bartel draws upon magisterial documents and the Catholic moral tradition to bring clear, faithful and practical answers about what is and isn't allowed in the bedroom and other important issues and marital intimacy. May we start off with a prayer, Dr. Bartel.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 4:09

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we glorify you and praise you and thank you. Thank you for creating us in love and for love. Thank you for your beautiful plan for man, woman, marriage and sexuality, for your beautiful plan for man, woman, marriage and sexuality, for your beautiful plan for family life. And we just pray that you'll bless our conversation, that your Holy Spirit will work through our words and thoughts to draw out what will be most helpful, most inspirational, most educational and insightful and healing for all the beautiful women listening. That you will shine your light, Lord, on what needs to be most held out to help us all understand better how to celebrate our sacramental marriages in the marital embrace in a way that really glorifies you and that honors your design for women as well as men, to thrive in this area. And, Lord, we pray for all those who've experienced frustration, hurt, pain, for all those who feel like they're broken, that you will give them comfort and guidance and, especially, just reassurance that they're not alone and that there are answers and there's help for all these struggles in this inner sanctuary of marriage and the marriage bed and the marital embrace. And we just love you, Lord, and glorify you, and we just pray that every Catholic marriage will be a true, authentic reflection of the love of the Trinity, that there will be open hearts and open sharing, and we just pray for especially the much needed gift of emotional intelligence and emotional connection in marriage as the foundation for all of this.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 6:00

Mother Mary, please pray for all the women involved in this podcast, all those listening, for Sheila and for our conversation to be a little bit of an echo of your encounter with Elizabeth at the visitation that, as you, two beautiful women, rejoiced in praise and magnifying the Lord for the great things that he has done for you in your fertility, in your feminine genius, that we women also will be able to have an encounter and a connection that magnifies the Lord as we reflect on the great and good things he has done in making us women and using us to be bearers of God's love and of his plan for life into the world. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sheila Nonato: 7:06

Thank you so much for that beautiful prayer. So you started the podcast, I believe it's in January, Is that correct? How is it going?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 7:16

Well, it's been a lot of fun. Yes, I have been interested in this new medium for me. I've been teaching my class "y Delight for a couple of years online, so that's new for me to have this, this format of hosting a podcast, to have conversations with me. Then I ran out of those episodes and did a solo episode for the first time last week and it went a lot better than I thought it would. But I've been getting wonderful feedback from both my own students and those on our emails who aren't part of my program, saying you know that this or that topic that I've touched on has been helpful for them.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 8:00

And, yeah, I'm praying for God's guidance to help me choose future topics. There's some that I know I need to address, sheila, and I just need to really, you know, ask God's gift of courage, because I want to be well prepared to talk about, for example, the marital debt, this idea of marital debt. I want to have my ducks in a row and research ready too, because there are a lot of misunderstandings out there around this topic. And, yeah, I want to be able to provide something free online where people can turn to and get some clear guidance that is accurate and true for that, but yeah, it's been fun, thank you.

Sheila Nonato: 8:38

Awesome and I believe it was on social media. I saw that it was very popular. There are thousands of downloads. Is this correct?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 8:48

Yeah, that's right. It do have thousands of download, point yeah.

Sheila Nonato: 8:53

That's amazing.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 8:54

That is amazing.

Sheila Nonato: 8:56

And you also have created handouts for better marital intimacy and one of the tips is prayer and preparation. And I was just reading the Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, which are, you know, love poems, and they're talking about the bride and the groom. And in marriage the union is also in, I guess, the Catholic tradition, it's seen as a covenant where the man, the bride and the groom become one and there's. So there's this Christian view of sex, of marriage, and then sex in popular culture is vastly different, so there's sort of a dichotomy. How do we bridge that dichotomy? As Christian women, as Catholic women, how do you have a healthy view of sex and in marriage?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 9:51

In a Christian view we can also distinguish between Christian and Catholic Christian. But I would say probably a lot of Protestant Christians see sex as something Godly, you know, in marriage. But when we look at our Catholic worldview, our Catholic teachings and moral vision about sexuality, there is so much richness there. This is not just something we do, it is something we say, it's the body language of the marriage vows, it's how we repeat our I do and affirm it to each other over the course of our married life to each other. So it's such that the vows that you say at the altar I, you know, with my husband, "I, sarah, take you, nathan, to be my husband, you know all the days of my life, all the days of my life then that is something that you repeat physically each time you come together. And in having sex and marriage you're saying I give my whole self to you, I take all of you and you know, and our love is open to God using it as a means of creating life as well. So then it's not just me and my husband, it's me, my husband and God as well, and it's a personal, free, mutual gift of self that's total, faithful, fruitful and free. There's a lot to unpack in there, but it's so much more than just a fun thing to do and I would say also to counter some false messages that are even very present in the Christian world that it's.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 11:27

There's this false idea that sex is a thing that a wife must do for her husband because he has needs, and that is a distortion of God's real. You know the meaning God really put in it. God gave sex for women just as much as for men. Men and women both have needs and preferences, but sex isn't a need. No one ever died for lack of sex and it's not something that we are just obliged to do for each other. It's something that we're called to express and to say in freedom. So we always have our freedom to accept or decline initiations and you know, and to be mature and to recognize the real person there. You know and what they're going through. So there's yeah, there's a lot there, but it's rich and beautiful and there's always something new to learn in this area.

Sheila Nonato: 12:20

So would that be? One of the common questions that women have is can I say "no, and how do I say no in a loving way?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 12:29

Yes, a connection and you know, desire to be close that you should be building in your marriage together. Yeah, and so how to do that lovingly? That's really important. Because you want to say, yes, I want to be connected with you. Yes, I see that you're interested and that you love me and desire me. That's really important, because you want to say, yes, I want to be connected with you. Yes, I see that you're interested and that you love me and desire me. That's lovely.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 12:49

And so you could say something like, "oh, thank you, I love you too. I want to be close to you. I will be able to do that after a good night's sleep or after we repair better from our last fight. You know I'm still feeling really hurt our last fight. You know I'm still feeling really hurt. So the way to decline lovingly is to say what it would take to get to a yes and propose you know how you can be connected now and then how you can express that fuller connection later. Be like, oh, I would really love to just nuggle with you now and you know if you can help me. You know, take a nap or whatever it is. You need help with right. You know, take a nap or whatever it is you need help with, right? You know, take the kids tomorrow night and give them their bath so I can take a rest and pull myself together a little bit.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 13:32

Then you know, I would love to, to connect with you and marital embrace, you know, tomorrow night or next weekend or whatever, yeah,

Sheila Nonato: 13:40

And so just to go back, so when it's OK to say maybe not yet, instead of "o I'd say a mom is tired or, you know, has been breastfeeding pretty much all day, or headache, you know, I mean that people make jokes about that, but migraines are real. But health issues, because in the Bible it says the man is the head of the household, but it's a sort of a mutual loving give and take, life-giving relationship, self-giving relationship. And so you're saying because there are probably some women who will, as you were saying, think that you have to always say yes, so when your health is, you know, as an issue, you're tired, it's okay to say no. Is that what you're saying, or not?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 14:37

Yes, exactly, it is okay to say, "no, just make sure they know you love them so it doesn't feel like such a personal rejection. Or, you know, propose what would be great for you, like, oh, could we please plan it for this weekend? Or, you know, whatever would be a more ideal situation. But yeah, there is. You have to take into account your well-being and the church talks about that as well in Humanae Vitae, pope, st Pope Paul VI's document from 1968, where he reaffirms the Church's consistent stance against artificial birth control. And there he says one of the problems that would arise if birth control were to become mainstream, which now it has. But he says then a man would forget the reverence due to a woman and would see her more as an object for the satisfaction of his pleasure and not as his beloved wife whom he should surround with care and affection. And when we're in an "obligation sex lifestyle where you think you always have to say yes, that actually is not good for men either. It encourages them to feel entitled and it doesn't teach them how to surround their wife with care and reverence and affection, and it doesn't teach them how women really work, which is that you know, we have all these different factors that affect us. That's part of how God made us to be and you know, and really the care that is needed for our sexuality to flourish.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 16:14

Sometimes it's more rest, it's lower frequency of lovemaking but a longer session per time we make love to honor a woman's longer, slower arousal curve and it's also making sure that emotional connection is really strong and in place there as well, so that she feels like we're making love as a people, you're not just using my body, like we're making love as a people. You're not just using my body, yeah, but it's always.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 16:44

There's no moral obligation on wives in Catholic marriage to always say, "y\es. That is a common misunderstanding. It's really present in some evangelical or, you know, some Christian, protestant Christian circles and then also in some really traditionalist Catholic communities, um, some Latin mass communities that, um, their priests will teach that you have to have a serious, a grave reason to say no and you can only say no in in cases of like, if the husband's drunk or it would be a danger to your life if you were to get pregnant. That's actually not rooted in any official Catholic teaching. Um, the Catholic teachings on sex that we have in our church since the real renaissance and flowering and growth of Catholic sexual ethics and theology of marriage that we've seen in the last hundred years. All these documents emphasize mutuality.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 17:32

And whenever they talk about sexual pleasure and the goodness of sex, they don't say just for the man, this applies to man and woman both. And how sexual pleasure and the goodness of sex they don't say just for the man, this applies to man and woman both. And how sexual pleasure usually works for women is we need a lot more care and that's just part of God's plan. So yeah, so I just want any wife out there who thinks they can never say no. Someone taught you that, but it's not actually Catholic Church teaching. So please free yourself from that sense of pressure because it actually is harmful. And Sheila Gregoire, who is a Protestant Christian author on sex, she has done surveys where she finds that in these communities in the Protestant world, where women think they can never say no or their husbands will be tempted to sin if they say "no to sex, these women are at much higher risk for developing pain during intercourse vaginismus from all that pressure. So it's not how God set this up to actually work.

Sheila Nonato: 18:38

Yeah, so a God-centered view of sexuality is sacred, it's mutual, it's a total gift of self. So it's not about control. Right, you have to have that freedom and, as you're saying, the consent. So, given that some of men's love language is the physical touch and there's that famous book, the five love love languages, how do we women, how can we speak this language if there is sort of there's sort of a disparity, is that correct on on who we view sex? Or or or maybe dispel that myth for me absolutely.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 19:15

Let's start with love languages. The author of love languages specified that when he's talking about physical touch, he doesn't mean sex, okay. So if you have a husband or a wife whose top love language is physical touch, that isn't supposed to mean like that. We shouldn't read this to mean that, okay. Well then you know they need a lot more sex. What we need to do is broaden our repertoire of physical touch that communicates affection and connection, and there's so many kinds of touch that we can give and share, such as, you know, like touching a forearm hand around the waist, shoulder rub, you know, a pat on the back as you go by, maybe a little pat on the bum if you want to be playful sitting next to each other on the couch. These are all wonderful ways to give and receive touch, a nice hug, and they don't need to be overtly sexual. They don't need to mean like, oh, just because I gave you this touch, this means that we're on for sex tonight. You know some women are afraid to give their husband physical touch, because then they think their husband will interpret that to mean an initiation for love making. You know as soon as possible, and if that's the case, you just need to have a loving conversation and say, hey, I want to be free to touch you. I'll let you know, you know clearly some other way if this is an initiation or an invitation. But I'm afraid to touch you now because I think that now I'm committed to making love, you know if I don't have the energy to. But yeah, increasing our repertoire of touch is really important. And then I think the other part of your question about, I think basically is do I understand right? Is it just like, do men desire sex more than women? Yeah, is that the case? Well, that's a really interesting question and it's hard to get real good studies on that. And then even the information that we have it's interesting to try to analyze. You know from what the numbers do show. Where is this coming from? So some studies of younger men and women, like college age, show that men and women have equal amounts of spontaneous sexual desire.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 21:31

So spontaneous libido is when, just sort of out of the blue, you just think having sex, that sounds great, that would be fine. You kind of have the idea of sex before you're even physically aroused, and then, but responsive. So that's one type of libido. Another type of libido is a responsive libido where, after you and your husband are, you know, cuddling and kissing and getting a little touchy and maybe even starting foreplay a bit, then arousal kicks in and then you respond and you get the idea that like, oh, absolutely, having sex sounds really good. Now I'm into it and I'm interested. And I just want to affirm and encourage all the women out there If that is how your libido works, that does not mean you're low libido. That just means you have a responsive libido and many men also have more responsive libidos than spontaneous. So one study I saw about men and women a little later on in marriage suggested that maybe up to 20% of women are the higher spontaneous libido spouse and again, our studies are pretty limited. So that would suggest maybe 80% of men have the higher spontaneous libido.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 22:44

I think we need to do a lot more studies on this. But also, if that is the case, where does this come from? And I think a big part of where it could come from is that as we're socialized growing up boys, teenagers that as we're socialized growing up boys, teenagers, young men they're really affirmed and told well, boys will be boys. Oh yeah, that's so masculine and virile to desire sex and to like women and to want to have sex, whereas women, as we become teenagers, young women, even as girls, we get the idea that to be a good woman, good women don't want sex. "That's only what bad women do. Only bad women want sex. Only bad women would you know, get aroused and have you know desire.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 23:28

And so I think that a lot of women are raised to really distance themselves from the natural desire that God gave them. A healthy way for both men and women to be raised would be to say yes, god made you capable of sexual desire and the right place for that is marriage. We're going to orient that to the expression of authentic sexual love in marriage. But you're healthy and good and this is normal to experience desire. Healthy and good and this is normal to experience desire.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 24:01

But we just need to orient it to the proper place and learn how to manage ourselves and integrate this into our whole personhood, not distance ourselves from it, not glorify it, but, just like all our other experiences, like with hunger, just because you're hungry and you're out in public doesn't mean you can just take any food. You see right, you have to wait for the proper time and the food that is your food and eat in the you know. And even then, when you have your food, you shouldn't eat it in a greedy manner and be disregarding of the people around you. When we like, the best way to dine, to have a meal, is with the people we love, with good manners, you know, with great conversation. Make the you know, make the food an event, not just like cram it in you know way. We connect, share, communicate, we prepare for it. There's some care around it. We're respectful and considerate of each other, just like when we have a nice meal together at the table.

Sheila Nonato: 25:06

So I imagine, as you were mentioning all of these sort of issues, that Christian women, Catholic women, have some challenges navigating this. Maybe it's difficult to talk to a priest, right? Maybe their mothers were not comfortable talking about this, or the schools even were not well-equipped to teach theology of the body, and I think this is where your program can fill that gap. So can you tell us what is "my Delight?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 25:34

Yeah, "y Delight is a three-month group course online where I take women through an experience of really getting to understand what might be holding them back from feeling as free and connected and creative and delighted in their lovemaking with their husbands as God wants them to be. So I have lessons I've recorded and a workbook to really help you do some deep reflection, as well as weekly group calls where women get to ask their questions anonymously and then I answer them for the whole group and everybody gets to hear the answer without knowing who asked the question. So you get a chance, in a safe community of like-minded Catholic women, to really ask all those questions you never knew who to ask before and some of the calls have themes. This week we're right towards the end of Lent and this is when I help women have healing experiences. So we talk about past wounds, regrets, baggage, bad messages, bad experiences and then bring them to the Lord for healing, which is so appropriate to do as we get ready to accompany Jesus through his passion, death and resurrection with the Triduum. Get ready to accompany Jesus through his passion, death and resurrection. With the triduum, we can bring all the pain and the baggage and the frustration and the tears right to the cross and have him, take them up with him and then transform them with his love.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 27:09

But then on other calls, you know I'll teach specific skills or take women through other reflection exercises and little hands-on experiences, like with fruit, that help you learn more mindfulness, which you can then take to being really aware of your senses and mindful in your time with your husband in lovemaking, because a lot of women find it really hard to be present mentally. They'll kind of dissociate, check out mentally, and it's easy for us to do because we have brains that are better equipped for associative thinking. You know we zip our thoughts between the two hemispheres of our brain a lot more easily than men do. That means that you could be in the middle of making love and start running through your grocery list or meal planning for the next day, which isn't really ideal. It takes certain mental discipline to focus on. Oh, you know, this is us together. Now I'm here, I'll leave all my worries outside the bedroom door mentally and, you know, really have a conversation with words with my husband so we can both be mentally and spiritually and physically present to the experience.

Sheila Nonato: 28:20

So when you mentioned baggage, so are you referring to sort of trauma from the past, maybe even pornography, past hurts. What are women? What are the common themes that women are dealing with? That is sort of a barrier to fully speaking this language of love for their husband.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 28:42

Yeah, and there is growth and healing available, you know, in whatever struggles or troubles you're experiencing now, in lovemaking. Yeah.

Sheila Nonato: 28:55

And so how do you help the women? Do they sort of help each other? How do they help? How do you help them to heal after all of these trauma?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 29:04

Yeah, they do help each other. I'm not a therapist my doctorate is in Catholic moral theology but I have been through a lot of therapy myself. So I do bring the women through an exercise that my therapist brought me through myself. So I do bring the women through an exercise that my therapist brought me through where we kind of go back to our younger version of ourself and give her love and support and tenderness and grace and we, you know, imagine Jesus there in that moment, with younger you as well. And then I also just point to lots of different resources.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 29:33

You know we spend some time taking time to remember what the baggage might be, because a lot of times women have just stuffed it and haven't take, you know, haven't acknowledged it for decades possibly. So we take time to let it come out. And then I point women to healing prayer. Maybe this is something that you would do well to take to a therapist and get therapy for. And then I'll give some DIY ideas for women to go and continue the healing as well Spending time in adoration, in confession. If it's a past sin that you haven't confessed yet, absolutely take that to confession and then know that Jesus really does forgive you and he forgets. You know he isn't thinking about that anymore, but journaling can be really helpful as well. So yeah, I just mentioned lots of different avenues for healing, as well as the exercise I lead women on in the call.

Sheila Nonato: 30:30

And what are other common issues that women are facing?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 30:36

One of the most common is thinking that they're low libido because there's a desire difference with their husband. Their husband has higher spontaneous desire than they do, and so they feel like there's something wrong with me, I'm broken, because I just I'm not, you know, not as interested as he is. And so with that, I'd like to remind women that just because there's a desired difference, which there is in most marriages one way or another, that does not mean that you are low libido. It just means that there's a difference in your spontaneous libidos and frequency preference, and that's something you two can manage together. I think that's a really common one women feeling pressure to have sex as often as their husband would desire it. But there's also plenty of instances of women having higher spontaneous desire and their husband's not that interested, and then they feel like what's wrong with me? Aren't I beautiful? Doesn't he love me? You know, is there something else? And this is also just an opportunity for education and understanding that both men and women have things that get us interested and in the mood and things that dampen our libido stress, mental health, you know, depression, anxiety, really strict upbringing where you felt like you could never do anything right. That can really be something that could result in a man as an adult feeling much more hesitant about initiating lovemaking if you have super critical parents. Yeah, so those are some common issues Pain during intercourse and I always like to remind women they can find help with pelvic floor physical therapy as well but also our mindset about sex and the practices we do.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 32:32

You know how we manage our relationship and our mind and our conversations. That can be a big difficulty. With orgasm or inability to experience orgasm is another common problem. And then, interestingly, there are also plenty of women who are orgasming just fine, but they don't like sex because they don't feel that emotional connection with their husband. They feel like it's just this physical, mechanical thing and we don't feel really close with each other. So that's another issue.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 33:10

And then a lot of women struggle with just feeling like sex is dirty and yucky and you know they just feel icky about it. So that's something I try to help with as well. When we just talk about God's plan and every part of our body is good, and you know, when we think about eating, you could think about eating them the same way too. You know you chew and our mouths make saliva and then we have to do the dishes afterwards and wipe stuff off the plates and you know, but most of us don't think of as eating, as icky. Right, we've developed these positive associations around eating and it's possible also for women to retrain how they think about lovemaking and form positive associations and beliefs around it as well.

Sheila Nonato: 34:01

So this negative sort of association or experience, I guess, with sex, is that related to again, like we're going back to sort of porn and the OnlyFans kind of culture and body image? Are they sort of feeling self-conscious or just having an unhealthy mindset about, about sex?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 34:23

It could well be from porn culture or just thinking like well, you know, the only women who are sexy are women in porn, or women who are objectifying themselves, and I'm a good woman and so I don't do stuff like that, you know. So that could be really. That could be part of it. A lot of it could come from "purity culture as well, where there's a lot of emphasis placed on the woman, the girl, the teenager, young woman being the one to hold the boundaries, on saving sex for marriage, on pushing back her boyfriend's advances and on not experiencing desire herself. And it's so hard for so many women to flip the switch from thinking of sex as just sinful and bad all the time through growing up to then on your wedding day, all of a sudden it's what you do and it's good. It's hard to kind of navigate, you know crossing into that threshold. So you know, or if we were raised and our parents always said like, oh, you know you're dirty down there, or that's yucky right. Or not having you know proper names for your private parts, you pick up that sense that like, ooh, there's something offensive about my body or my body's yucky right. So it can be lots of different factors that go into. You know, feeling icky about sex, but again, sheila, what you started off the conversation with, with talking about the song of songs, I think you can go to the scripture and read the Song of Songs and see how the bride and the bridegroom there are both very in touch with the beauty of sexuality, both the bride and the bridegroom.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 36:09

Their words are both very sexy and erotic and glorifying God, but also honouring and respecting each other and not squeamish about.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 36:23

You know, there is poetic language and imagery there. The body parts aren't named explicitly, but they're definitely suggested, and the actions of lovemaking are definitely suggested there. If you know how to interpret metaphor, you will see them really clearly, and then you can see oh right, here in the Bible, here is a woman who is, you know, is unafraid to be sexy and sexual and invite her beloved into an embrace, and she actually uses her voice in the Song of Songs more than the bridegroom does himself. She has more words there than he does. Who's really surprised, though you know, that the woman has more words than the man. But that can be a really healing experience is to prayerfully, with Jesus, read through the Song of Songs and realize oh, god gives me permission and, you know, affirms the goodness of sexuality. And it's not yucky, it's actually really beautiful it's. You know, it's mankind that has distorted it and made it into this objectifying thing, but in its original goodness it's beautiful beautiful.

Sheila Nonato: 37:40

So it's okay to feel pleasure and joy with your husband, because it's what God had intended and what God had made for both men and women, and it is Holy and life-giving. And I'm also curious. So in the Catholic teaching, sex is also, there's a sort of a fruitful end to it children. So can you have sex without the intention of children, or is that not allowed? Can you help us?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 38:09

Well, the Church has given us such clear, good teaching in Humanae Vitae and then that's reemphasized, reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that having sex is good and these are noble and worthy actions between husband and wife. And the pleasure? That Catechism? I believe it's paragraph 2361. I'll have to go back and check, but there is a in the section on sexuality in the Catechism. It does say that the Creator Himself endowed the generative function with pleasure and spouses do nothing wrong in seeking this pleasure. And it says spouses, not just men or women alone, but like together, husband and wife. Both this pleasure is for both of them, or women alone, but like together, husband and wife. Both this pleasure is for both of them. And also, exercising responsible parenthood can mean generously welcoming all the children. You know that being open to raising a large family and responsible parenthood could also mean discerning that now is not the best time for us to welcome a new child because of health or psychological or economic or social reasons.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 39:24

The C hurch leaves it quite broad. If you read Humanae Vitae you know there's lots of different kinds of reasons that are suggested where husband and wife might discern it's best to wait on having kids and it's okay for them to still have sex in those times, just as long as they don't do anything before, during or after making love to purposely block fertility, because sex has the procreative and unitive functions intrinsically integrated. They are, you know, the structure of making love in a way that's life-giving, is the way also that is fully unitive for husband and wife. If the husband's climax is inside the wife and during their embrace, that is, you know, a complete, total self-gift for both of them. That is the kind of action that could result in a child. But you could also, you know, do that and make love using natural family planning to observe the wife's signs of fertility and infertility and choose to make love when the wife isn't fertile during her cycle.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 40:36

That is still, you know, renewal. It's good because renewing your marriage bond and increasing, you know, your gratitude and affection and closeness to each other or it should be ideally. But you can make love without having the express purpose of trying to conceive a child during that time and it's totally okay to use of trying to conceive a child during that time and it's totally okay to use natural family planning as a means to space children..

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 40:58

And a great way to think about this is think of if you want $100. There's lots of good reasons for wanting $100. Maybe you want to pay kids sports registration fees, or you need some new clothes or whatever. Totally fine to want $100. You could get $100 in a bad way. You could take someone else's money or rob a bank right, or earn money in some fat way where you're tricking people right. That would be an illicit way, an immoral way to get $100. But you could also, each time you go to the grocery store, buy cheaper items for what you need and, you know, save money until you've saved up $100. You could purposely, you know, not buy some new thing that you don't really need, but it would just be kind of a nice to have you refrain from buying it until you've saved up $100. That's more like using natural family planning, because natural family planning is just refraining from making love during the fertile period. So I hope that's helpful for some people.

Sheila Nonato: 42:03

Okay, so yeah, just to be clear. So contraception, we're not talking about contraception, we're talking about natural family planning and it's all within sort of the guidelines of what the church has given us. Is there like, I don't know, is there a? I don't know? Is there like a minimum and a maximum amount of yeah, how many times can you make love? I don't know, is there such a thing?

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 42:29

Yeah, well, great, a lot of people are wondering about that and before I answer that, I just want to follow up to the discussion about artificial contraception.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 42:38

Yes, of course People think well, the pull-out method. If the husband, you know, just pulls out before his pregnancy, then there's nothing artificial about that. We're not using a device or a pill or anything. That is doing something purposely, you know. That actually is contraception, also Pretty ineffective. But that's the list. So just keep an individual being oh, it's natural, so it's okay, it's not okay. So frequency and minimum or maximum times couples are totally free to decide what works best for them in their marriage.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 43:16

The only minimum we have is that if you want to have grounds for annulment if you've never made love ever, then that marriage hasn't been consummated and so you can apply for an annulment on the grounds that marriage has never been consummated. So I guess if we look at that, then we'll say, okay, minimum, at least once, right, ever in your marriage. But couples are really free. There are some couples who feel both really great about making love once or twice a year, like on their anniversary or birthday, or quarterly, every two or three months. They're on the other end of the spectrum. A Catholic coach that I know said that one time she was coaching a client of hers who was having a real struggle because in her marriage with her husband. They had to go down from having sex three times a day to just once a day. Can you imagine? I know I feel like I might need an ice pack just thinking about that, but for them once a day was a really reduced frequency. So the Church, Rome, has not spoken. You know there is no guidance or you know minimum or maximum anywhere.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 44:27

What Sheila Gregoire, who is, as I mentioned she's this Protestant Christian author in her informal surveys these are not peer-reviewed double-blind studies or you know, they're not like sociological science, but just more informal studies she has found that the couples who report that they feel really happy and close and good in their marriages are also often the couples that are making love at least once a week. And I would say look at that on an average over the course of a month, because with Natural Family Planning, or kid illnesses or travel or whatnot, you know, maybe let's shoot for about four times a month, but you get to decide. I've talked to other couples, another wife that I know in a Catholic business women's group that I'm in, and she said she and her husband, you know it's once a month and that is great for both of them and you know they're really busy, they're business owners, they have, you know, an active family, so once a month is what's working for them. And then, you know, I also hear from women in marriages where it's like four or five times a week.

Dr. Sarah Bartel: 45:30

You really get to decide, but I think either way, it's important to talk with your husband and each of you share, like ideally, what would my ideal frequency be if I just sat down and thought about it? Would it be every other week? Would it be once a week? Would it be, you know, two or three times a month? Would it be five times a week? You share your number, ask him to share his, and then a really nice, mature, loving way to go forward would be, then, to meet in the middle somewhere and make a plan for scheduling and, you know, or having as a goal to make love at the frequency that's somewhere in the middle between both of your preference.

Sheila Nonato: 46:12

And when you mentioned communication, good communication is essential in any relationship. Do women in your program, do some of them have sort of difficulty in initiating or mentioning you know? Do they wait for their husband? Is this a frustration for husbands that the women wait? How do we sort of bridge the gap? If it is, thank you for joining us.

Sheila Nonato: 46:34

Outro: Join us next time when Dr. Sarah Bertal answers this question of how to improve communication in marriage for a happy, holy and lasting marriage. Thank you and God bless. Thank you for listening to the Veil and Armour podcast.

Co-host: 47:01

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