“Was It Good for You?”: Recasting Catholic Sexual Ethics in Light of Women’s Sexual Pain Disorders

Abstract

Over the past one hundred years, Catholic sexual ethics has become more hospitable to sexual bonding as a good that is distinct from procreation. However, our increasing knowledge of women’s sexual pain disorders highlights ongoing problems with official Catholic sexual ethics. This essay argues that the Catholic Church still reproduces gendered social scripts that unwittingly encourage heterosexual women to ignore their sexual pain and continue to engage desperately in intercourse, out of an exacerbated concern to satisfy male partners. These are tactics that only prolong and deepen women’s sexual suffering. Further, insights about the various options for women’s healing from sexual pain concretely suggest more liberative sexual scripts: the importance of women’s non‐obligatory, embodied desire and the need to reject intercourse as the compulsory norm for all sexual activity. Ultimately, women’s experiences of having sexual pain and healing from it lead to revisions in Catholic sexual ethics at a fundamental level.

Both Familiar and New: Reimagining Catholic Sexual Ethics

“…These scripts function as a type of social sin because they construct a vision of human sexuality that precludes the possibility of mutually pleasurable sex. For women who experience sexual pain, their partners, even when attempting to be respectful, commit a certain violence against them by encouraging them to “embrace gendered scripts that normalize and reinforce their sexual pain” (Antus , 630).…”

“…While Antus does not use the language of interruption explicitly, her attempt to uncover “covert androcentrism” by drawing attention to “an entirely unexplored area in Catholic sexual ethics” is precisely the sort of interruption that both McCabe and Traina call for (, 613). Moreover, women with sexual pain disorders experience them as interruptions to a script where women’s sexual pleasure is always tied to certain obligations implied by heteronormative sexual practices.…”

“…Moreover, women with sexual pain disorders experience them as interruptions to a script where women’s sexual pleasure is always tied to certain obligations implied by heteronormative sexual practices. According to Antus, this script is based on two fundamental claims: (a) that intercourse is the only good and acceptable form of sex, and (b) that “sexual self‐discipline for the sake of the other” is the proper attitude to bring to the sexual act (,615). For women who experience sexual pain disorders, adhering to this script causes them more physical and psychic damage.…”

“…Antus’s implication is that a full‐throated solidarity goes beyond the listening and the understanding. It requires breaking free from “implicit androcentrism” (Antus , 630).…”

A Feminist Catholic Response to the Social Sin of Rape Culture

“…As Elizabeth Antus () has highlighted, Catholic teaching on marriage, gender, and sexuality fails to do justice to the full, agential personhood of women, but instead frames them as objects to be acted upon for the sake of procreation. Further exploration of these issues, including how the church’s teaching may inadvertently participate in upholding rape culture, remains necessary.…”