Query:

If one of the purposes of the sexual powers is procreation, doesn’t it follow that lifelong abstinence is contrary to natural law?

Reply:

Good question, but the answer is no, not by a mile.  Consider an analogy.  Eating a meal is good, but one doesn’t have to eat all the time.  For example, you might fast to lose weight or to spend more time in contemplation of God.  What natural law requires is not that you be constantly having dinner, but that when you do enjoy it, you do so in a way that doesn’t drag its nutritional purpose through the mud.  For example, it would be wrong (and by the way disgusting) to eat until the bursting point, then purge in order to eat some more.

In the same way, the sexual union of the husband and wife is good, but one doesn’t have to make love all the time – or even marry at all, since sexual intercourse isn’t necessary for life, as eating is, and as good as marriage is, it isn’t the highest thing.  For example, you might vow a lifelong fast from sexual intimacy for the sake of the consecrated religious life.  What natural law does require is that if you do practice sexual intercourse, you do so in a way that respects its inbuilt procreative and unitive meanings. For example, it would be wrong to use artificial contraceptives (which is like purging during dinner), or to make the act of intercourse an exercise of cruelty.

“As far as cannibalism goes, Jeffrey Dahmer, man, he was out of money and had to eat, man.   I don't know -- it's really grotesque and stretching the wire -- but he did what he had to do.  I don't agree with him, but I don't know, man.”  --  Student in Daytona Beach, Florida, quoted by R.C. Sproul

“Since we nowadays think that all a man needs for acquisition of truth is to exert his brain more or less vigorously, and since we consider an ascetic approach to knowledge hardly sensible, we have lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowledge of truth to the condition of purity.  Thomas says that unchastity's first-born daughter is blindness of the spirit.  Only he who wants nothing for himself, who is not subjectively "interested," can know the truth.  On the other hand, an impure selfishly corrupted will to pleasure destroys both resoluteness of spirit and the ability of the psyche to listen in silent attention to the language of reality.”  --  Josef Pieper, The Silence of St. Thomas

Later during the same breakfast.

“The country is very divided,” one of the women in the group remarked.  "When I get together with my women friends, if the topic of marriage comes up, and I mention our view of marriage as mutual self-giving and sharing of lives, then even if they are only a little Left, they roll their eyes as though I were telling fairy tales.”

She went on, “If the conversation goes on long enough, it inevitably turns to men-bashing.”

A group of us were having breakfast together.  My friend, who runs a small business, was telling a story.

“So I asked my tax attorney, ‘Can  I do this?’

“He answered, ‘It depends on how aggressive you want me to be.’

“‘What do you mean, how aggressive I want you to be?’ I said.  ‘I just want to know the rule.’

“‘You don’t understand,’ he told me.  ‘There are so many rules that there is no rule.  It’s all judgment.’”

Another friend broke in.  “Where I come from, in Eastern Europe,” she said, “that’s how the Communists used to run things.  There were so many rules that anyone they wanted to put away could be accused of something."

She added, "Usually two or three things.”