Human Beings and Sexual Desire

The Human Person and Sexual Desire Human beings have a natural tendency to violate the natural laws of the universe, such as destroying rainforests or spilling oil into the ocean. Our treatment of sexual activity is similar in regards to us violating the purpose of sexual activity, which is reproduction. When God created the earth, God’s purpose was for humans to “be fruitful and multiply”. Nowhere in there did God say anything about engaging in sex for the purpose of pleasure. However, human beings have been careless with God’s plan. This violation of God’s plan is one of the reasons why Pope Paul VI wrote his Encyclical Letter Humane Vitae. Pope Paul VI mentioned his fear “that world population is increasing more rapidly than available resources, with the consequence of growing distress for so many families and developing countries” (Pope Paul VI 8-9). The reason for the increase in population is because men and women, married or not, are engaging in sexual intercourse and having children left and right without regards to it, only regards to sexual pleasure. When a man and woman marry, they enter into a covenant, and married love is “fully human… total… faithful… and fruitful” (12-13). If the man and woman want, their conjugal love can produce offspring, but they may realize that with certain “physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood” may make having children under these conditions difficult and parents must “avoid a new birth for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period” (13-14). The Pope went on to mention how birth control is the most effective way to prevent over population and unwanted pregnancies, but not in the form of contraceptives, abortion, or “direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman” (16-17). The Pope, however, states that if it is necessary to space births, “deriving from the physical or psychological conditions of husband or wife, or from

Cited: Pope Paul VI. Humanae Vitae: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness. Trans. Reverand Marc Calegari, S. J. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998. Print. Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. Trans. Joan Riviere, Ed. James Strachey. New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 1960. Print.