(Across the transom.  Details obscured to maintain the sender’s anonymity.)

Hi Ann,

I am an under-40 married woman who came upon your blog because of my devout aunt who mentions you often. I also consider myself and my husband devout Catholics, fans of Latin Mass, not fans of the current papacy, etc. However, we were not as “Catholic” as we originally thought and I know that now thanks to your blog post “That Doesn’t Go There.”

My husband and I have been engaging in certain acts as part of the marital embrace all throughout our married life that I now know to be forbidden, serious sins thanks to your post. I was one of those people who searched online for an answer and found that “you can do pretty much anything as long as you finish in the vagina,” so that is what we have been doing. However, I never found myself to truly enjoy any of these acts and for quite some time had a nagging sensation that perhaps we shouldn’t be engaging in them (I know you call that my God-given grace shining through). I was shocked to see your blog post which was a definite sign from God to what I had been debating internally for quite some time. When it came time to tell my husband we could no longer engage in these acts, I was nervous. When I first told him, he was immediately taken aback but shortly afterward completely understanding. Since then we have had two loving and sin free marital embraces that have been completely blissful and much more satisfying than anything we had done before.

So I just wanted to reach out and let you know that you are making a difference to many and thanks to you the soul of myself and my husband have a better chance of reaching the Beatific Vision. I have never felt happier and more in love with my husband and my Faith. I feel as though a large weight has been lifted off my soul!

God Bless you!!

Most of the feedback I have received to “That Doesn’t Go There” has been negative, with some of it downright irate and spiteful  – not surprising given the intense demonic entanglement in the sins of the flesh.  However, I have heard from two priests who both said that certain forms of sodomy now considered “harmless” and even “necessary” for the wife’s pleasure, are rampant, even amongst Trad Catholics, and even Trads have been scandalized by Theology of the Body and Christopher West’s oeuvre.  But perhaps even more directly, the saturation of our culture by pornography has desensitized people to unnatural acts by gradualism.  It is precisely because people now know what it is that faggots do to each other that they have convinced themselves that sodomitical penetrations between man and wife are morally licit “by comparison”.  They aren’t.

Thanks be to God at least one couple has been able to see the Truth of Christ and return to chastity in their marriage.  And, as always, we must remember that sometimes these ideas get planted like seeds in people’s hearts and minds, and that it might takes years or decades for them to bloom.  But the initial effort MUST be made.  The initial seed MUST be planted.  Someone HAS TO SAY IT. And then we turn it all over to the Blessed Mother, the Queen of Heaven, and trust in her intercession with her Son, Our Lord, per the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.  EVERY. DAY.

Also, for any others struggling with these issues, remember that the First Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary is Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden, the fruit of which is SORROW FOR SIN.  The Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary is the Scourging of Our Lord at the Pillar.  The fruit of this Mystery is PURITY.

I hope this all helps, as always.

UPDATE

Here’s another one, across the transom-

Here’s a different sort of hashtag “me too”:

I read your latest post about the woman who thanked you for enlightening her in the post “that doesn’t go there”. I feel exactly the same. My husband & I have been engaging in things we didn’t realize were sinful. I also kept searching for a definitive answer & kept getting the “just as long as you finish in the vagina” garbage. Thanks to you, I know the truth. Also thanks to you, I left my N.O. parish this week and joined our local Latin Mass parish.

Be assured of my prayers for you,
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