Porn and the Sacred Heart by one Patrick Sill – in Godspy.

Beautifully written, from the heart and soul (and loins), true and that profoundly Christian mystery of pain and hope.  This marvelous passage is not directly related to the main point, but it might entice you to go read the whole thing, if you’re so inclined.

For all of it: my Catholicism, our daughter, the baptism, and to some degree the celibacy—I can only blame my wife. And God. Years ago, when we had barely thought of marriage, she took me to a rural orphanage in Honduras, run by a toothless Franciscan. There, a humble tabernacle in a cement block chapel sent chills through my spine. I found a prayer of “Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament” in an old book, next to a dusty kneeler. My calloused evangelical heart was made raw by the possibility that the real presence of my Lord was silently waiting for me to notice him. I made sure I was alone, and read the words, holding their sweetness as long as I could. Quietly, I said, “I know you’re in there, Jesus,” and let my fingers ghost across the front of the tabernacle. Then I left before anyone saw my embarrassment for falling in love with a wafer locked up in a golden box.

One commentor at Godsbody (not to be confused with Godspy!) said it was "weirdly incomplete" – well, I’d imagine because it’s written in an incomplete moment.

Also from Godpsy what Gandhi believed about marriage, sex and birth control:

Once, in a debate with a birth control advocate, his opponent asked Gandhi whether he would advocate artificial birth control in specific cases where the health of the mother might be at risk. His reply? “No. One exception will lead to another till it finally becomes general.” Instead, Gandhi recommends that in these rare situations couples live apart if they are truly incapable of continence—a situation he was not ever willing to concede lightly. This statement was typical of Gandhi’s approach to these hard cases. “A wise judge will not give the wrong decision in the face of a hard case. He will allow himself to appear to have hardened his heart, because he knows that truest mercy lies in not making a bad law.”

Gandhi argued that the long-term implications of a contraceptive mentality posed a grave danger to society by disordering mankind’s understanding of the sexual act. He feared that men and women would become “mental and moral wrecks” if they embraced contraception. He saw the great danger to sexual purity within a society where sex was separated from its reproductive purpose.

Gandhi served as a spiritual director for many young men and women in India whom he advised personally, often through letters. Based on this experience, he stated: “Artificial methods [of contraception] are like putting a premium on vice. They make man and woman reckless,” and “birth controllers turn vice into virtue. When sexual indulgence is regarded a virtue, it will be the undoing of man.”